Africanaussie

I have noticed that lately the asparagus stalks have been getting thicker and stronger.  I dont know if it is because we are heading into the wet season which is when we are supposed to harvest them.  In more temperate climates, the plant dies down in the winter, but here it has continued to grow and produce, but I have left the shoots which is supposed to build up more strength in the roots.  This weekend I cut back all the older shoots that were starting to collapse at the base. These were planted as two year crowns and at the same time I got a packet of seeds for a purple asparagus.  Out of the whole packet only one plant survived.   It looks very spindly, but I will leave it in the pot a while longer before I transplant it into the ground.   The asparagus tops are full of little seeds - I wonder if they will grow?  I put some into a  couple of pots.  They are very slow growing, but since mine are doing so well I...

The lychee tree sprouted these lovely lime green leaves a couple of weeks ago.  Very pretty, I thought, until this week when something attacked them!  Yesterday afternnon we spent all day blowing and mulching up dried shrivelled brown leaves, and I did put them into the compost.  Hope I am not spreading diseases.  I remember this happening last year and we found lots of little catterpillars. Not so many catterpillars this year,so the other option is it could be a  fungus..  Reading up about it online I discovered that the only way to treat either problem is to spray the whole tree. If all it means is that I wont get lychees that is ok and preferable to spraying.   This tree is really too big to harvest the lychees and without covering it with netting there would be none left for us after the birds and bats have their share.  We will just keep looking at it as a lovely shade tree. The thick snake beans just keep producing. And my g...

  I do love how colourful the area around the birdbath has become - maybe a little too wild though - I could see some cutting back was needed soon.  The coleus edging can take over - it started out as one little four inch pot, now is a ground cover in two areas of the garden,    The madevilla vine is also getting quite heavy and the arch had rusted though and was bending.  It  needed some stabilizing and re-inforcing.  I guess it was not designed for such heavy use. I have also noticed that the birds are not visiting the birdbath as often - maybe there is enough water around, but then again maybe they dont like to feel "trapped" inside under the arch.  So I pruned back the cats whiskers around the birbath and moved the birdbath right out from under the arch.  It will be more convenient there anyway as we need to be quite vigilant about cleaning out standing water so that the dengue mosquitoes dont breed.   Once the wet s...