Gardening Perth, WA, Australia

Perth is on sand and although at Otaipango it is sand, in fact most of the Te Aupouri penninsula is a huge sand bank, there are great differences in how to garden and plant natives in these 2 sandy areas.

Firstly the sand here repells water - after 2 days of rain when you dig a hole to plant a plant, only about the top 10mm will be wet, the rest is bone dry. Which means that a hole for a 130mm pot needs to be a creater to get the depth as the sand keeps on falling back in from the sides!

At home it is a case of:

1. Dig hole
2. Put in plant
3. Back fill
4. Water

However, over here it is a different story.

1. Dig hole putting the sand into containers
2. Put the container sand and an equal amount of native mix concentrate into a wheel barrow or something similar
3. Mix the whole lot thoroughly
4. Put in plant
5. Back fill half way with the 50:50 sand / native concerntrate mix
6. Water
7. Back fill the rest of the way
8. With ordinary sand build a raised lip around where the mix ends and the ordinary sand begins
9. Water making sure there are no leaks through the raised lip

10. Lay mulch around the plant

    Repeat 104 times for the 104 plants bought

11. Lay reticulation using 19mm line to pass each plant
12. Put in 4mm feeder lines off the 19mm main line to be positioned over the raised lip of each plant
13. Mulch the whole area now

Below are some of the natives we planted, including Knobby Clubrush Ficinia nodosa which is also a native at home and grows wild, easily transplanted following my planting guide above for home (and yes, I bought some of those). Be interesting to see how those grow with so much attention! LOL

Publicado el junio 29, 2017 02:27 MAÑANA por tangatawhenua