mollwollfumble said:
Looks like I’m on my own.
I thought some of you guys used to visit the Gardening Forum?
Warning: Pet Peeves.
First Pet Peeve. It used to be that snobs in this city would only plant non-native trees.
eg. all the elm trees in Melbourne. Because no native insect will go near the elms, the biodiversity in areas planted with elms is exceedingly low. I call it an “Elm Desert”. Cut the bloody Elms down, all of them. Then it turned around so that the snobs in this country would only plant native plants. One result is that travesty called Westgate Park. Both native and introduced plants that had survivied to the start of the park were completely ripped up, and the result is introducted natives from all over the country arranged “artistically” in the style of the garden of a snobbish Emglishman, nothing remotely like how the plants would have appeared in the Australian countriside.
Councils. Spraying herbicide and insecticide all over the place. With the result that native insects and arachnids are all but wiped out, murdered, in parks controlled by these councils. I’ve found from observations that the best sites for native birds within Melbourne are all in areas that have both blackberries and rabbits. Having blackberries and rabbits doesn’t always guarantee the existence of good bush birds, because the council may be spraying insectides, but not having them does always guarantee low biodiversity. Having ivy or similar introduced dense creeper is great for getting an enormous variety of native ants, spiders, wasps, myriapoda etc.
End of Pet Peeves.
I have planted both native and introduced plants in my garden. I planted the bottlebrushes, the cootamundra wattle, the lili pilli, etc. The real problem with native plants is native diseases. Diseases in Australia have adapted to attack native plants. I prefer not to have to contend with plant pests, neither by spraying or by masses of hard work. And don’t try to sell me on co-planting, it’s hard enough to keep one species alive. Hardy plants only.
What I want to achieve is the following. Upper storey and understory. Trees/bushes of the upper story to be no more than 4 metres high (mrs m calls everything over 3 m high “a tall tree” and cuts it down – huh – but only in our yard, she doesn’t mind that the neighbours trees shading our place on all three sides are more than 20 metres high).
The plants in the understorey have to be shade tolerant and drought/flood tolerant. The plants in the upper storey have to have thick foliage above 1 metre from the ground but not lower, to make homes for birds and ringtails. eg. although I like grevilleas, the foliage is never anywhere dense enough for birds or ringtails to nest.
Perhaps surprisingly, frost tolerance is not a big concern. No frost at all this winter.
Cement the lot and buy a tin of green paint.
or
Move away from any city.
Mindset is clearly a problem for you. Obviously gardening is too.
Your biggest problem is the trees on three sides of you, if the only tree free side is facing south. You need light to grow most plants. They need their space.
Look at it this way, you are asking for a landscape garden plan on the internet for free. When landscapers charge thousands to draw up the plan.
If you want help with any garden we need a layout of where things exist and how all this lines up with available light etcetera.
I recall doing a planting plan for a set of home units that were being built.
Got called in by the parks and gardens boss man who had suddenly accrued a pile of boooks about native plants. Apparently one of his apprentices had been to a university and had lent him the books.
The reason, the developer had asked me for the plan but the powers that be didn’t really want to see anything but box hedge and prunus.
One question was why do you expect spotted gums to be in these places? I said, there isn’t a single spotted gum on the plans. He asked well what is E. maculata then?
I said in the species list, that is clearly marked Eremophila maculata. Which he then had to look up.
What about this Acacia lineata then? I said it only grows 1.2m at best. Then he showed that he had read the books, “but it can grow up to 2m across”. I returned with, that’s what secateurs are for. Seriously, with that much concrete around them they’ll be lucky to ever need pruning.
Now there may be a tree called lollipop? No. There are however, trees that can be grafted on standards, thus having no leaves at all up to the point where the grafted top is. Now the top can be weeping or upright or it can be a bushy type which someone keeps clipped to look like a lollippop. I have personally grafted around two of thousand high standard Robinia every year for around forty years. Then another couple of thou each of standard cherries, weeping mulberry etc. It isn’t my style but there are a lot of these out there.
On that note, There are in the marketplace, grafted standard Grevillea and Banksia that I am aware of. Such grafted standards will be difficult to stop birds nesting in.
If you have ringnecks or rosellas and want to encourage them you definitely cannot go past any eremophila, though E. maculata are clear favourites of theirs. I call Eremophila ‘shaking bush’, because there are always birds in them. It isn’t just flower seeking birds but the like of any of the fairy wrens, thornbills and all the little birds do love them too. Eremophila are desert loving(it is in the name). Drought and flood tolerant.
Eucalyptus erythronema also has desert loving in its name and is a small tree with crimson flowers and white trunk. Also a fave of ringnecks. I have two hundred of these at the moment but they are currently less than 5mm tall.
In my time, I’ve always avoided any frost susceptible plant other than summer veg.
If you have a ringtail possum problem then don’t plant any trees.
