Friday, February 25, 2011

But where's the habitat values?

I decree Cordylines boring and useless for habitat. Trendy gardens that are 'easy' to look after can surely have some life in them instead of rows of Cordylines and frangipanis, neither of which seem to support much life, let alone local birds and insects.
Cordylines don't cope with our WA sun either. Luckily they seem to be falling out of favour as they are being burnt in this ridiculous heatwave. Lots of plants are getting burnt by the constant high temperatures. Watering things extra is not necessarily the way to help them either as then crown rot can happen.

I reckon people should adopt a street tree and help it through this hot season by giving is some wetting agent if it needs it and giving it at least one big long soak to get it through to the end of summer. There are many stressed trees about on verges. Please help them pull through. Surely, this heat will have to finish soon. Please.. make it finish soon. Perth.. the city of hot cranky people.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Back to school.

Uni semester started last week. Neither of my two units had lectopia work successfully, so two lectures out of five didn't get recorded. Of course, they were the lectures I couldn't get to.

Both units are looking to be very interesting, both subjects I'm keen on, so that should help. Straight into assignment panic mode though, with outlines due for both in the next week or so. One is on biochar, doing a 15 minute talk. I could probably already do that without extra research, but I suspect I need some references to back me up. The other, a group project, will be on Environmental Estrogens, with the subject chosen by me and agreed to by the other two in our little group. Group work is not my favourite way to do things, but we shall see how we go.