Nature strips without lawns

We have BetrixKiddo to thank for this find at forum homeone
Native alternatives for turf. Excellent stuff
http://www.gregsindigenouslandscapes.co ... 0Lawns.htm

Ok folks, Ben Mitchell has his news letter out and is featuring his verge in it. Ben is also having an open garden so for West Aussies in Perth, you can go along and get some ideas. We can absolutely expect the cost of water to go up, so before you opt for plastic grass or a garden full of high maintenance black mulch and grasses have a squiz.
Money raised, as with all open gardens in the open garden scheme, goes to charity.
Click the logo

He will be holding some talks @ 11am and 2pm on Sept 11th and 12th 2010 at the address mentioned in the news letter.


Oh and keep an eye out in the West Australian for a story on his garden

For more ideas on gardens, have a look at this site
http://www.opengarden.org.au/
and take a visit to a few in your area. No better forms of inspiration and donating to worthwhile charities along the way

A question, does anyone know of a ground gover that will stand up to occasionally being driven over? Other than grass.

I would love to do this with our nature strip but do need to drive over it to hook up the trailer that lives up the side of the house.

Second question, how many people have a nature strip with no footpath? What's your solution for the postie? We are thinking of laying a narrow gravel path-- better than bare dirt with motorbike indentations in it.

Good idea Be your posties friend

Ground covers, Grevillea Gin Gin Gem, Myoporum, Kennedias. Might get a bit wobbly if you give the trailer thing a flogging but they will always bounce back fine

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It's catching on. In the next block up the street someone had some weeks ago created a planting, now just this weekend their next door neighbors have started one too. If only the entire street got into it.

Here is a wonderful resource for plants to choose from one of this states best
http://www.sustainableoutdoors.com.au/s ... list-2010/

http://www.apacewa.org.au/
http://friendsofkingspark.com/
http://www.zanthorrea.com/
http://www.zanthorrea.com/info.php
http://www.sustainableoutdoors.com.au/
http://www.sustainableoutdoors.com.au/verge-gardens/
http://www.sustainableoutdoors.com.au/c ... t-gallery/
http://www.sustainableoutdoors.com.au/s ... list-2010/

This is a good resource for those in Tas and Victoria.
Great website design anyway..

http://www.victorianflora.com/

For those worried about the postie.... why?!

There's this thing called a ROAD. Postie shouldn't be driving on the path on a motorbike anyway. It's very annoying having to move a toddler and pushchair, complete with shopping bags onto the nature strip (or road where the nature strip is too heavily planted) so the sodding postie can drive on the footpath!!

Least he can't drive on the footpath outside our house. There isn't one. Plus, our nature strip is a bank so he'd really have to be trying there. Wouldn't put it past them though.

Anyway, to get back OT, we're waiting on the council coming to inspect and possibly remove a wattle tree that has been badly affected by borers (anyone any experience of how long that is likely to take in the Yarra Ranges?). Our nature strip has been in existence for a long time and is a sandy bank covered with plants and grass. We're already planting shrubby things like kangaroo apple, alongside the existing pelargonium, lavendar, proteas, rock rose, green coniferry stuff that smells a bit like juniper and random succulents that are there. However, we plan on also adding lots of native flowers like the wahlenbergias to the area.

I've found the links posted here to be really inspirational and wanted to say thank you

Also, I hope that people are reading the tips on those pages regarding planting your natives and are taking care when choosing them. The temptation is to plant lots of low growing ground cover plants, with the intention of creating a thick mat that will be resistant to weeds and need little care. However, in the very little experience I've had I've discovered that these plants tend to be outcompeted by large weeds. So, if you have a nature strip that is currently weed strewn, then consider planting fast growing shrubs that will fare better. It might mean you need to keep them trimmed to allow a clear view for drivers and pedestrians, but it might be kinder on your back in the long run.

Although natives are often far more drought hardy, this doesn't mean you can ignore them!! They often need extra help to get started in the artificial environment of a nature strip (particularly one on a new estate). Even with our exising strip, because it's sandy and free draining, I've found that digging a much bigger hole than I need and filling it with water several times and letting it drain, then adding a handful of blood and bone, before placing the plant in and backfilling gives a better start.

I'm also watering every couple of days when it doesn't rain, using the Victoria Mint Bush as a good indicator of when the garden needs it

Our hope is that it will become a heavily planted, bush like haven for all the wildlife we are lucky to have. Our bedroom and living area look out onto this area, and we plan on adding a deck to the front of the house there with a patio door replacing our bedroom window, and I cannot wait to dose on my bed and watch everything busy around

You can't beat Myporium as a lawn replacement. It manages most weeds, spreads to 1 meter or more, can be easily propagated by grabbing a big chunk and placing it into the ground. It will grow that easy.

Grow one plant, grab a few handfuls and replace a lawn in a few months and a little watering. After that you will not need to water again.

Although success maybe had applying blood and bone in the hole, it is a practice I suggest to strongly avoid. I guess this covers the practice of any sort of fertilisers in there. Just organic compost, that is all that is needed other than soil amendments like zeolite, bentonite (in snady soils) Rock dust, spongolite and perlite.

To feed plants the most effectively the roots will need to absorb nutrients via moisture. So apply fertilisers to the surface only. Better still is not using them all together and opting for organic composts, choosing mulches whiuch are the slow release fertiliser.

Hi Fu - can I ask why you don't recommend using blood and bone to help plants get a good start?

My understanding is that it's a completely organic processed fertilizer and no more of a 'no' in the garden than Seasol is. By containing insoluble nitrogen, it releases nutrients at a much slower rate than inorganic fertilizers (which I agree wholeheartedly that we avoid!) and gives stressed plants that added boost when initially planted. Something I've found to be important when my newly planted seedlings have a week to take off before being blasted by 40 degree winds!

Mulches are of course the key to the garden (that and molasses as we've all found out here thanks to you Fu ), but when you have a sandy, dry and freedraining soil, in direct sunlight for most of the day and it will take a while for the mulch to start releasing those essential nutrients, blood and bone has been helpful in establishing the new plants.

Would like your input on this Fu as I'm trying very hard to do the best for my garden and want to get it right!

And I would agree with Redman on using Myoporum parvifolium as a lawn replacement, particularly for us with the soil at the left side of our drive and on the nature strip being as described above. The Myoporum parvifolium 'purpurea' is not doing nearly as well as the 'alba' though, even though both have been treated exactly the same. I'm wondering if I got some duff advice at Bunnings (I know, I know...) and should have put it in a different spot?

Because we love to think by putting lots of nutrients in with a plant they like it. That is a human concept. It doesn't happen in nature. When we stick to natural methods of delivering nutrients it all happens just right

Even when we say the plant did well, we mean it grew to our satisfaction. It could have been "It exceeded our expectations!" with a slightly different approach. In some cases it can have short term gain sort of but in the long term prevents plants from developing adequate roots. I'm not talking just blood and bone, I'm talking all things we use.

An exampolpe a mentor told me about an Olive plantation. Now at the bottom of every hole a goat was thrown in. Yeah the trees grew well. However when the time came that the olive grove was to be flattened for housing, they ripped up a few trees and found that a heap of fertiliser (a goat) did stuff all because the roots didn't grow in bulk anywhere near where they had the idea they would.

I guess I digress from your point.

So if we deliver nutrients from the surface and they are transported down with water, the plant grows far better. There are other things along the way that gain from it too. Cut them out and the plants don't grow as well comparatively. from that we then go into the types of nutrients and the comparisons between synthetic chemical fertilisers we have been brainwashed into thinking makes things happen and the far superior fungi, bacteria, organic acids and compounds as well as other micro organisms.

An excellent example of what I mean is this sort of difference...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=havfmMw4GIc

That's cool Fu. I understand that there's nobody sticking some fertilizer in a hole in a natural situation before a plant drops a seed in it or whatever. And I'm more than happy to leave plants to grow as they will, without too much added help from me.

Thanks Fu Munchu, I have finally reached the forum I have heard so much about. In the next couple of weeks I am going to bombard my website with lots of great information and pictures to make it even easier to start your on verge garden with DIY packages. If anyone has any questions they want answered about nature strips without lawn and soil amendments such as bentonite and zeolite ill be here to help.

Thank bloody god for that!!!!!! If you don't do the links to it all, I will

Simon is well recognised in WA Horticulture and Environmental Science for his work in leading sustainable gardening and landscaping practices and also making it accessible to the public to some extent.
He kind of comes from the same mould as myself and Ben Mitchell from Growing Free He has also been a "Great Gardens" Presenter (The free workshops in the link in my signature)

To us, better landscape methods, skills and practices, have much more personal environmental importance. In part to ensure we are sustaining not only our industries into the future but also greatly reducing the environmental effects (including climatic) of most landscapes done. This is desperately needed.

To you guys who may give a stuff about our environmentally friendly and aware practices, it can just mean your new landscape works well right now and into the future. We know that there will be so many more hidden benefits of what that new landscape will evolve into for you. Hopefully it will alter your entire health and lifestyle in a very positive way.

Join the Lawn Reform
http://www.lawnreform.org/