Happy New Year

Another year has come and gone…

We were fortunate enough to have some of our family visit for the Festive period, it was great to catch up with everyone and the place was a bit hectic for a week or two, but it was well worth it, catching up after many months was an awesome Christmas present in itself! The kids of course make Christmas, and they were in fine form!

Pool Time!

The lounge room looked like a toy factory on Christmas morning and all the kids were well and truly spoilt, of course this scene was prefaced by the annual argument that Karren and I have regarding Santa's salutary generosity. I recall that Santa was not quite so magnanimous when I was a child and my predilection for Christmas was not diminished by this!

Of course boxing day was spent watching the cricket, the next four days of cricket capping off a great end to 2013 with proper cricket equilibrium returning to where it belongs. Apart from the cricket, everyone took the opportunity to cool off in the pool, in fact Pa even had a splash and I can't remember the last time I saw him swim!

A big splash awaits

Another Cannon Ball

Fun and Games

Aside from being pretty busy preparing for Christmas not much of note has happened for us since the last post at the start of Summer, a little more time was spent in the garden and one half of the front is now complete! We added some cardboard to act as a weed mat then topped with 3 cubic metres of Hoop Pine mulch. In my opinion it looks much better! The planting is still a little sparse and we will add more into the garden beds as funds and supply meet.

Looking decidedly better

We transferred a couple of Bromeliads from large pots into the front garden and replaced them with two Yucca.

Two transplanted Bromeliads 

Yucca Elephantipes

A couple more days and the other side will be transformed from this…

Messy and full of weeds

To look more like this…

More plants will come over time

As you can see from the above photos the weed and feed added to the front "lawn" has made its presence felt, amazing how much of the grass wasn't actually grass isn't it!

A few months ago we bought what we thought were Dwarf Purple Fountain Grass or Pennisetum Advena - Rubrum Dwarf, unfortunately it looks as though of the five we purchased (from Bunnings) only one was indeed Rubrum Dwarf and the other four simply Rubrum! Of course we threw away the plant labels so we can't prove that was indeed the case.

Dwarf on the right 

Dwarf on the left

So what I hear you say, well Dwarf supposedly gets to about 60cm high, the standard to nearly 140cm. This extra height takes the seed head above the pool wall and nicely distributes seed heads into the pool as the heads gently sway in the breeze and the aforementioned seed heads are a pain in the freckle to remove!

We headed off to Tamborine to do some bush walks with the kids and soon found out that a large proportion of the QLD population decided to do the exact same thing, busy doesn't begin to describe it. 

Curtis Falls

                  

Still we had an enjoyable morning walking through the rain forest with hundreds of others... At lunch Rosie saw an ad for a reptile and crocodile show so that was next on our list to visit. Furry put on an interesting and educational show that had Rosie enthralled.

First Day of Summer

The first day of summer was as usual spent working in the garden. It was a pleasant enough day in the high 20s, but a little muggy after the rain we had on Saturday and early this morning, we had a very healthy 48mm and the water tank is now full and the weeds are thriving!

Last week we had some work done on the Body Corporate common property, the common property is the bushland around the estate and as a Body Corporate we have to maintain it. Lantana had gone wild and vast tracks of the common property were over run by it. The BCC had given very specific instructions as to how the Lantana was to be removed. A special rubber tracked Bobcat with a large grinder mounted on the front was secured to carry out the Lantana reduction.

Lantana everywhere

Our house is up there somewhere

More Lantana

Jungle like.

A full day was required to do all that was allowed, no Lantana was to be removed by machinery where the slope was greater than 1 in 4 and all basal roots needed to remain intact. At the moment it looks a bit barren, but the Lantana will regrow and we will have to control it further with a frog friendly Glyphosate. I am thinking of contacting LandCare to see if we can get some more trees planted.

Lantana gone - for now.

Hopefully the trees will grow now.

Big difference, dead trees choked by Lantana.

Today we focused on the area under and around the trampoline, I finished off the garden edging, thankfully it is now all completed, all 55 metres of it. Once the edging was complete we hit the weeds with Glyphosate and then mulched the whole lot. We used Hoop Pine mulch, it is ideal for sloping garden beds because it resists being washed away due to its curly bark. The down side is that it is near enough to impossible to shovel. So 5.5 cubic metres of mulch were moved by picking up handfuls and chucking it in the wheel barrow. I can tell you now the skin on your fingers is not tough enough to handle 5.5 cubic metres of mulch! I am currently typing this with my toes so please excuse any spelling mistakes.

Biggest Trampoline ever?

Charlie is happy with the job!

Fountain Grass is thriving.

In the New Year after the weeds have been poisoned a few more times we will start to plant throughout this garden area, more grasses are the favourite to get the nod at this moment in time.

We managed to get a thriving self seeded tomato plant growing in the garden on the west side of the pool, it was producing plenty of fruit, however, we were not able to get any ripened. It was apparent they were being eaten by something, up until this afternoon we did not know what.

Beautiful male King Parrot getting a belly full of Tomato

Not fussed by us at all!

We have a Tomato loving male King Parrot that has taken an obvious liking to our plant. I can only imagine that there will be plenty more self seeded Tomatoes popping up around the area due to this bloke!

Our neighbours saw an Echidna last week so we are keeping our eyes wide open in anticipation of seeing him, here's hoping we have some photos for the next blog update. I am pretty sure he is responsible for a fair percentage of the holes in the lower part of our garden, the Bandicoots did the rest.

We have had some solar panels installed to help reduce our electricity bill and cover the running costs of the pool and the A/C when it infrequently runs. We have  changed the timing of the filter pump and we will be doing all our clothes and dish washing during the day now to get the most out of the power we produce during daylight hours. Our first full quarter bill with the pool was $850 so we look forward to seeing how much smaller the next one will be!

So Christmas is less than four weeks away and we can't wait to catch up with our Families, the girls are super excited about seeing Nan, Pa, Grandma, the cousins, aunt and uncle visiting! They are not at all excited about the Chrissy presents.

Mixed Bag

It has been quite a while since I lasted posted an update, and quite a bit has happened in the meantime.

We had Ant, Jack and her sister Maria visit us almost a month ago now, it was great to catch up! We had a great meal at the Rosa Mexicano Mexican restaurant in Kenmore, then a visit to Australia zoo and before we knew it the weekend was over and they were on a plane back to Ballarat.

At Australia Zoo the girls had their photo taken with a Burmese Python which they thought was pretty cool, but very heavy! Jack had his photo taken with a large Iguana, which he thought was way cooler than a python!

We saw the main show at the Crocoseum, the sheer size of the crocs in the show is scary. They are BIG! The show was largely un changed since our last visit but entertaining and well worth the time to have a look none the less. The zoo itself is excellent.

The Rhinos were a hit in the African Plains area, the Giraffes were spectacular as well. I probably should have had the girls in focus rather than the Rhinos hey??

We then had our first Halloween in Pullenvale Rise Estate and it is a big event, there were hundreds of kids going up and down the street chasing free lollies, there was a wide variety of costumes, some went to a great deal of effort, others not so much! Emily dressed as a Zombie and Rosie as a Cave girl, Karren wore her Cow onesie and looked, well like a Cow, a pizza eating Cow too! Our first Halloween was heaps of fun and next year we might ramp it up a little and the kids might find they have far more to be scared of than a rambunctious Curly Coated Retriever!

Mooooo. You idiot!

Our First Jack o Lantern 

Cave Girl

Zombie Brain Eater!

Last Sunday morning I was up and about just after 5am as you do in Queensland, enjoying the view from our balcony across the valley, when I spotted this cheeky bugger feeding in our front garden.

We have finally had some storms and rain after a pretty dry Winter and Spring, things green up very quickly, especially the weeds. The storms have been plentiful and spectacular, I got a little video of some lightning and a quick panorama of a storm approaching Kenmore.

Here is a short video of some lightning in the area to the North of our place.

We have subscribed to a storm warning alert provided by the Brisbane City Council, alas given the number of alerts we have received that have amounted to nought, I fear the alerts may end up a little like the boy who cried wolf. So far we have had nine warnings and only two storms have hit us directly. I think the key is not to become complacent.

The other morning before work I was setting up the pool robot when I saw some fungi had sprouted overnight in the grass by the pool. It was gone by the afternoon it had dried up and returned whence it came.

It is only 38 days until Christmas, Karren, the girls and I are really looking forward to catching up with our family over the Christmas period. Can't wait!

150 Planted and More to Come

Yesterday and today were again spent in the garden, I really enjoy the time Karren and I spend together in the garden but my muscle and joint aches and pains are really pushing my patience with it. We are close to having the front garden done so I will need to push on...

I counted late yesterday afternoon how many plants we have moved, replanted or bought and planted and the tally came to more than 150. That is a lot of holes to be dug and when you dig that many holes you are bound to put some holes in the irrigation system and I did, hence I have more repair work and moving of existing sprinklers and new irrigation work for new garden beds to be done! The killer yesterday, however was the second last Golden Cane Palm, it was a biggun, over three metres high and  despite digging around as much of the root ball as possible we were only able to move it with the aid of mechanical advantage.

I'm stuffed already!

The root ball measured 900mm in diameter and was over 600mm deep, unfortunately this meant a hole slightly bigger was required.

Ooh that's a big root ball!

Opening up the gaps between the Palms means that a lot more morning sunlight will reach the Cycads, so hopefully they may grow a bit quicker.

Hopeless without the winch!

It was a massive root ball, I would never have moved it without applying 8000lbs of pulling force thanks to Mr Warn. The Hilux was then used to drag it into position adjacent to the orifice for insertion. When it came to digging the hole it was lucky for me we had some rain Friday night and the ground was marginally softer and just that little bit easier to dig. You can see some Agave Attenuata, Song of India and Bromeliads above the hole in the photo below.

Ground still very hard.

You see how far Karren got before she ran out of puff and the hardness of the ground overcame her ability to penetrate with the spade, from here on it was all Mattock and Crowbar. More than an hour later the big Palm was in the ground

Last two Cane Palms planted

Then it was just a case of planting more of the plants we had bought that morning at the Moggill Markets. We have been getting heaps of cheap plants at both Moggill and Rocklea markets, however I am beginning to think it is a false economy, especially when we end up spending mega bucks on breakfast and brunch at the markets, Omelettes, Gozleme, Dumplings, Bratwurst, Bockwurst, Bacon Rolls, Orange juice, Sushi, we have spent nearly as much on lovely food as we have on cheap plants!

Looking West

Planting a Dracaena in this shot, Rhoeo and more Cordyline Rubra and Red Star to follow. I would never have realised just how easy a purpose made hole shovel could make digging holes when planting. It has been one of the best tools I have bought - ever!

View from down the street.

We planted an Asparagaceae called Snake Plant or Mother-in-Laws tongue this afternoon, apparently named thusly because of the leaf sharpness! It was once used to make bow strings...

Mother-in-Laws Tongue

We also planted a Mauritian Hemp plant Urcracea foetida, which was once grown as a commercial fibre crop, is another member of the Agave family. Pretty soon we will be twisting our own rope!

A sad looking Dracaena - Song of India

In the photo below which is looking west north west you can see the Mauritus Hemp in between the hedge and the Cane Palm, hopefully it will grow to fill this gap nicely. From here on we will be planting heaps of ground cover. There is another Mauritius Hemp behind the Palm, they should look great once the fence is removed, it is ugly and superfluous.

Looking down the hill.

This photo is a little disappointing, I am not sure you can even see all the plants in the garden, the weeds stick out like the proverbial dogs though.

Does it look any different?

Looking better?

Now we need a good rainy season to get all the plants established and growing.

One of Karren's favourites a Strelitzia or Bird of Paradise.

Next weekend we will get a welcome reprieve from the garden when we have some guests visit us. Looking forward to catching up with them and giving the aches and pains a chance to abate.