News flash: Gruntle caught a rat!!

Amazingly the dog of his own decision caught and bit a fairly decent sized rat while we were sitting outside trying to cool down after a Perth's summer day. We congratulated him with a chunk of chicken frame and lots of praise.
I saw him whoosh past me and grab the rat. He bundled it up a bit, then it ran but got trapped by a bag of potting mix. Gruntle quickly lunged again and caught it again, quickly killing it.

Hmmm, this blog has little bits of gruesomeness in it, sorry folks. Sheesh, dead rats, dead 'roo's.
Well, you know, lief n death, they go together.

On a brighter note..
I have finally succumbed to rescuing a sad looking rose that would have been ditched otherwise. It is called Sir Donald Bradman, is a beautiful dark red and has many petals. It also has an excellent fragrance. Beautiful. I intend to experiment on it in terms of organically dealing with pests and diseases.
Roses are actually quite waterwise plants and they thrive on a fair amount of neglect as long as they are pruned regularly and have plenty of sun. They don't need much water and non-climbing varieties don't become weedy.
It's okay though, I am not going to become a collector of silly exotics..just the tough ones.

Public tree planting.

One of my favourite eucalypts is Eucalyptus macrocarpa, also called "mottlecah" or 'the rose of the west'. It is a West Australian tree from a little north of Perth. I have snuck one onto the verge near my house so I will be able to see it from the front window.
It's very drought hardy once established and needs hot dry summers to grow successfully, so I think it will be happy where I put it. The leaves have a silvery powder on the leaves which helps them deflect heat in their desert habitat.
The flowers are very big and red, sometimes pink. It will be interesting to see how much bigger it gets by the end of winter.
I had been thinking of planting something there for a while, as it is an exposed area that could do with some brightening up; plus I figure that if there's room for a small tree then put in a small tree!
Mottlecah is also not a visual block or able to hide bad-guys as the mallee habit and leaf arrangement makes it easy to see through. They also rarely get very tall as they sprawl. Being a mallee also means if the plant needs to lose a limb that is in the way it can grow new ones from the lignotuber.

More little local plants in the front garden.

After clearing a bit of rampant Rhagodia baccata out of the way, I put in two little local fellers from APACE nursery. One is Enchylaena tomentosa, a grey furry-looking groundcover plant with red berries that are quite tasty (though very small).
The other is a type of Calothamnus, another local, though probably from slightly further inland. It should be tough enough to survive out there, though.
Once it grows I can get rid of the stupidly big and ever-growing Tithonia diversifolia, which I'm a bit over cutting back all the time. It does have great sunflower size daisies in winter, but it takes a fair bit of pruning to keep it small enough for its spot.

Getting into planting some natives.

On this fine Monday (kind of my Sunday), I have planted a few more bird-attracting plants, which also happen to be pretty and drought hardy once established.
These were a dwarf Banksia, a rescued, broken Grevillea Winpara Gem, a Dryandra nivea and some mystery low-growing Grevillea that I'm hoping will handle coastal conditions out the front.
Finally the pepino dulce plant has been put in too.
There has been a bit of rain recently, so the ground isn't bone dry, which is great. The other grevilleas that that have been in for a month or so are all looking good. Some have even started to flower.
It's a great time to be planting. The soil is still warm and there's a bit of sun, but the rain has been as well, with, hopefully more to come.

Waterwise gardener training.

Yesterday I did the professional Waterwise training at the Water Corporation building in Leederville.
I am pleased to say I actually did learn a few things, some of which were really reminders of why I prefer organic gardening in the first place.

One piece of news that I was glad to hear is that soluble chemical fertilisers are being taken off the market in coming years. These are the sort of products that quickly leach through our degraded sands and get into the river or the aquifer.
A rather shocking thing to learn though, is that in some areas around Perth, there is enough fertiliser in the bore water to feed everything, and in some areas there is even a toxic amount of nitrogen. All these excess nutrients leach quickly through the sand into the water table.

While there is more and more bore use the aquifer is getting less fresh water recharge from rain fall. What rain does fall is often diverted from roads and paving into the sea, instead of soaking into the ground.

Having the correct (chunky) mulch and groundcover plants will allow rain to soak into the ground, where it can sustain your garden between showers and help recharge the aquifer.

Planting in summer.

Strictly speaking, it's probably not the best time to plant, being the middle of summer, but it is the time when you really notice areas that need some shade or shelter.

I have finally planted a couple of shrubs to hide the neighbour's window and have thought of a way to plant something else to hide another of their windows.
I used a lavender which will grow tall enough to cover the lower part of their window without cutting out too much light and a little further into the garden is a Westringia fruticosum (native rosemary; apparently the largest form available, so it will be about 1.5 metres in all directions.)

It will also provide nectar for certain insects.

It has been cool and overcast today, not the 40 degrees Celsius Perth summer is known for. It's even rained a little just recently, not enough to make a real difference, but I guess it reduces evaporation for a couple of days, and that helps.
It is handy as it will help a couple of the newly planted shrubs settle in.

Grevillea Coastal Glow - Aussie native plant.

This plant is excellent near the coast. Not many Grevilleas would do so well with the limestone and the ocean winds. This one has stayed fairly short and has spread out instead. It flowers for many months of the year. The honeyeaters love it.