My Nice Flowers

Before setting out for a few hours hard labour at La Studio yesterday, I took time to smell the bottlebrush (and Lillypillies and Grevillias). These are all native plants that I put around the home paddock over the years. The good thing about them is that you can plant them and then just ignore them. No need to talk to them or play music to them, they just mind their own business, grow and flower. Time saved by planting these stoic Aussie plants may then be spent lovingly serving the needs of the Responsible Adult - which all good Paddock Workers should do.

 

Free plants

When we moved to the paddock, someone gave me a Clivia. It looked a bit like this.

After a few years, it looked like this. So I started to dig up the new ones and move them around. Now we have about 100.

 If only I could find a lipstick to match.

Wisteria

Every summer, when the Wisteria is growing 3 meters an hour, and when its roots go all the way under the cubby house and throw up shoots the other side I sit on the verandah and plan its total destruction as a menace. But then I know it will look like this for two weeks every spring and so it stays. If you're ever tempted to take one home to your paddock - be warned - it will never cease in its quest to dominate the entire paddock. My tip is to be brutal. Never encourage it with fertiliser and show it the secateurs every week. An occasional flogging may help. 

Des and June's Orchids

Des and June grow and sell Orchids at our local Co-op between June and September each year. The Responsible Adult told me years ago that while she appreciates cut flowers, she does consider them to be a bit wasteful and would much prefer Shiraz and chocolate. From time to time then, I may purchase a flowering plant on the basis that we will get the nice flowers over and over. The problem with this theory, is that while I can usually get the plant to remain alive, they never seem to want to flower again. I've tried the Princely methods - talking to them nicely, talking to them not so nicely, playing Mozart to them as well as Death Metal, but nothing has worked for me.

So it was great when June phoned me last night and I had an opportunity to ask Des for some advice. Pretty simple really - keep them in a well ventilated spot with just a bit of sunlight each day and add slow release fertilser from time to time. I shall try this and report back. If it doesn't work, I may just take them back to Des with the advice that he should make it flower and sell it to me again next year.