Dave Riley's Page

I was outback and the garden was looking so good I thought I'd capture the moment.

As you can see, I'm growing sticks too -- cuts from mulberry bushes. I use the sticks to mark where I plant seedlings and to later deploy them to raise up climbers or ramblers.'Tis an African habit.The red berets are the latest…

An interesting report in the Brisbane Times  raises the conundrum of garden size vs water use as a primary cost factor.

It draws on research by James Ward  and John Symons , published as Optimising…

After a rough Summer, a recent bout of ill health kept me from my garden tasks for weeks. All I could manage was to fill up the terracotta pots I have located in the centre of my mounds with water.

Nowadays the 'mounds' aren't self evident as over time I have been mulching in between them -- but the…

'Tis the best time of the gardening year. This time. The March/April convergence.

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote

    The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

    And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

    Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

    Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth

    Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

    The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

    Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,

    And smale…

No surprise that I also had a rough Summer.

Ran out of mulch. The plants crisped up.Weeds took over. Too hot to toil...

Best consequence was that my clay pots kept the strong rooted mature annual plants alive. Seedlings, on the other hand,died.

Maybe I did get the shade I yearned for but losing my mulch supply line was a tragic disaster.

I have planted many frangipanis among the beds.The mower folk are back dropping off the lawn…