Snail wars - bring out the big guns

The wet winter has been fantastic - but it's the first year I've had serious snail issues in the garden. Succulents, grasses and sedums are soggy at the base and covered in mucky chomp marks. Two crops of seedlings have been wiped out - chillis, silverbeet, lettuce, beetroot and basil razed within days of planting. Beer traps just haven't cut it, and I'm not keen to splash poison pellets around.

Over the last two days it has bucketed down in Melbourne. When we looked outside this evening, the snails were having the time of their slimy lives, crawling up gates and walls like they own the place. I am such a bleeding heart, I hate killing them (I'll occasionally fling one over the fence onto the nature strip and hope it crawls away somewhere else, or gets eaten by a bird where I can't see it - pathetic). But enough is enough. Time to bring out my secret weapon: the kids. Promised 10 cents per snail, they got out there and collected 100 of them, pocketing a cool 5 bucks each. That probably leaves only 900 or so in the garden, I reckon.

New job!

When I'm not mucking about in the garden with a spade or a camera, I do have a day job, and last week I started a new one at the State Library of Victoria.

Now I get to go to work in that brilliant old building every day. (Though it turns out it's actually 23 buildings eccentrically tacked together with slopy corridors and dozens of stairwells). I'm not in a public-facing role, so I thought I'd be squirrelled way in a basement office somewhere, but no! We have daylight! Of course there are still Dilbertesque pods and cubicles, but the ceiling's not half bad...

Michelle's garden

A few weeks ago I was driving along and saw a beautiful garden. I wanted to stop, but the kids were being feral so I left it for another day. Today was the day - I drove past again, and this time I pulled over for a closer look. There I was peering over the fence, and along came Michelle and her daughter Serena, who went to kinder with my son 5 years ago. Turns out I was looking at Michelle's garden - in fact, she'd pointed out her house to me years ago, but back then it had a bare lawn out the front, and I didn't recognise it. The whole garden is only two years old.

This is such an amazing and inspiring garden - Michelle has a real talent! She designed it herself based on feng shui principles, got a landscaper in to do the paths, and planted the whole thing out in one hit. (So much more organised than my piecemeal approach). It has a watering system installed, but it's mostly watered with grey water from the laundry; the plants are also grouped by water requirements, with succulents placed under the water-hungry established tree.

Michelle kindly agreed to let me take and post some photographs, so here they are for your viewing pleasure.

Meanwhile, in the front garden...

Spring is springing in the front garden. I've cut back most of the shaggy French lavender; here they are in mid-October...


...and looking relatively neat and civilised at the end of the month.

I also did a major cut-back of the grevillea and the other pink-flowering native along the front fence. They'd grown very big and twiggy, and it was time for a makeover. I gave them an all-over haircut, stripped away the dense mass of dry twigs around the base, and lo! I find now have more space for planting! I've stuck in a few succulent stalks from elsewhere in the garden, and also transplanted what I think is a gaura (butterfly bush) which had self-seeded on the gravel path, presumably from a neighbour's plant or a dormant seed from the bush that grew nearby several years ago. It seems to be taking to its new home.


One of my favourites in the garden this spring is the Big Red kangaroo paw. I totally love it! The pictures probably don't convey what a brilliant difference this plant (three plants, actually) have made to the garden - a fantastic exclamation mark amongst all the fluffy new growth.



My other favourite right now is the Nigella (love-in-the-mist) which self-seeds in an expanding clump along the path. I really love its misty foliage and weird alien starry flowers. It's so happy this year after halfway decent winter rain.

Spring in the backyard, *starring* Paulownia 'Powton Sapphire Dragon'

I have to admit I'm not really that fussed about big spring flower displays - my aim is to have happy plants in summer and autumn, when we spend a lot of time outside. But there are some plants that just go off like firecrackers in spring, and the paulownia is definitely the star of my back garden right now.

It was planted 5 years ago, at about 30cm tall. It shot up to its current size in 3 years, but pretty much stopped growing in the past couple of very dry years. But it has never browned off, lost leaves or struggled in the heat, even on 40+ degree days in the hot north-west of my garden. Apparently paulownias have tap roots as deep as their height, so it must be finding a bit of moisture somewhere down there. It's also happily survived battering by storms and hot summer winds.

It sets flower buds in autumn, holds these during winter while it loses its leaves, and then bursts into flower at the end of September, putting on a glorious purple display until mid-November.

Here are a few photos from mid and late October.

New growth

One of the pleasures of going away for a few days (or weeks) is coming back to all the changes in the garden. Especially when it's spring, and we've had some rain, and everything is budding and sprouting all over the place.

The lime tree is coming back to life!

Cistus (rock rose)

Corymbia 'Summer Red'

Hebe with new purple growth

Pelargonium - the first buds after cutting this plant to the ground in winter. This was a cutting from my grandmother's garden.

I keep meaning to cut back this climbing rose ... that's three winters I haven't gotten round to it. Too late, it's flowering now...

Climbing rose

Smoke bush - Cotinus 'Grace'

This is an Australian native - wish I could remember what it's called. I first saw it at the Australian Gardens (Royal Botanic Gardens in Cranbourne), and fell in love with the foliage - shiny dark green on top, fuzzy pure white on the reverse. I found it at Kuranga Native Nursery. It's supposed to grow to 1.5m but right now it's a little thing, about 50cm high.

I'm really exciting about this scrappy looking baby - it's Verbena bonariensis. I salvaged a couple of tiny self-seeded plants from my friend's garden path and hopefully they'll shoot up into tall, tough but airy things with clusters of tiny purple flowers. I think they look great sticking up in a mixed bed; here's hoping they'll cope with the afternoon shade in my front garden.

Resurrection of the Boston Ivy after been chargrilled in 46 degree heat in January.

Another pelargonium, this one swiped from a local front fence...

..and here it is with succulents and a French lavender going berserk.

Come home Slither

It's been a traumatic 24 hours. Yesterday my 6-year-old had the honour of bringing home the Stuffed Animal mascot of her class. You know the drill - you wait all year to be the Chosen One, then you get to bring home the Stuffed Animal, take somewhat competitive photos of Stuffed Animal enjoying your family's exciting life (here's Stuffed Animal on a kayak ... at the circus ... going skydiving...) At the end of the week your child documents the Adventures of Stuffed Animal, and Stuffed Animal moves on to the next lucky host.

So, yesterday we got the Stuffed Animal, otherwise known as Slither the Snake. Slither played in the garden. Slither cooked some sausages and mashed some potatoes. Then - big mistake - Slither came for an evening bike ride. The kids rode (I jogged) for a few blocks. We checked to see how Slither was enjoying himself. You know where this is going. We Lost The Stuffed Animal.

Slither's last ride.

We retraced our path with a torch. Mummy did it again after bedtime with a bigger torch. And again at first light. Slither has clearly been found by a lover of furry green snakes and taken to a new home.

This morning we posted signs up and down the street (seriously) and wrote a long and horribly apologetic note about why Slither wasn't going to be flying to Sydney with the teacher this holiday (seriously). I went online to find out whether Slither might have gone to visit his friends in a toy shop and might possibly be encouraged to come back to us for a small fee. (Or even a large fee.) I discovered, not very helpfully, that Slither was made in Shanghai and his brethren can be purchased wholesale in minimum quantities of 2,500.

But it's OK... after a number of desperate emails, we have discovered that Slither will be visiting a certain online toy shop in a couple of weeks. Cue MUCH RELIEF.

If you're reading this Slither... please come home.