Sun Lovers

Ive been going through alot of older photos of late and I came across this little gem. I cant recall if I have posted this picture already on the blog back when I started it over a year ago, so if its a repeat, I do apologise.

The plant is a vinca. They can be a little bi-annual plant (an annual plant that can last for 2-3 seasons) if you look after them. They have a bad habit of developing mould in the winter, which is why we typically use them in the Summer annual plantings. If you spot mould, cut the plant back by about 2/3 and spray it with a copper based fungicide. They thrive in rich soil, but will grow in most soils. They seed quite readily and even thought we havent got any beds of vincas in this summers annual beds, we are getting a couple pop up the displays last year. They have an interesting smell to them. Not unpleasant, but dont go expecting the delight of roses.

One thing to watch, they do have a habit of going a bit yellow when nutrients are in short supply. A good dose of organic matter in the form of manure or compost will fix this up. Alternatively, you could just liquid fertilise once a fortnight, they will look quite magnificent.

So Many Myths

I know there is alot of fear surrounding spiders, but most "arachnophobes" I know all tell me that they are ok with Daddy Long Legs Spiders, and let them live side by side with them in their homes and sheds in the suburban environment that these spiders thrive in. They keep them around as they are not harmful to humans and they eat Redbacks and other spiders, so in turn keep the spider populous down. Both of these house wife tales are true, however as they expression goes, there is always a bigger fish. White Tail Spiders have a particularly bad reputation and people are quick to kill them for fear of being bitten (although a White Tail Spider bite is not as bad as urban legends suggest, I still wouldnt recommend playing with one). White Tail Spiders also feed on other spiders, but unlike the Daddy Long Legs they are hunters and seek out their prey. Their favourite food are the Black House Spiders you commonly see around the home, but they will quite happily take what they can get, which included Daddy Long Legs Spiders. So your great plan of keeping Daddy Long Legs to keep the spider populous down is acutally a round-a-bout way of encouraging White Tails into the home. My best suggestion is to sweep away cobwebs and discourage Daddy Long Legs from setting up camp in your home, unless you wish for other spiders to come visiting you as well.

3 Frog Welcome

My phone is currently in being fixed, so Im down to a loan phone from the shop. So the photo quality is terrible, however these guys were too adorable not to share. I actually saw 3 little frogs in 2 days, the third one was just too quick for the potato of a phone that Im currently using. These look like tiny little Motorbike Frogs. One of the most common frogs in the Perth Metro Area. In the hot weather, these were both hiding under leaf litter, in damp and shady areas. I can always remember my Stepfather telling me when I was younger, that a garden with a frog in it is a healthy garden. So the gardens at work must be doing really well to have 3 healthy little frogs jumping around while the weather is still 35-40 degrees.

And You Are?

Somewhere along the way of writing this blog, I picked up a habit of wanting to know what each caterpillar I find turns into. This little guy appeared on the Virginia Creeper next to the bunker. I had intentions of taking weekly photos of him til it pupated, but unfortunately I ended up having some time off work and was unable to see this.

This little guy is an Australian Grapevine Moth. They can be found over most of Australia (not Northern Territory though) and are a pest species both here and in other parts of the world. Like most caterpillars they prefer to feed on plants with soft leaves, such as the Virginia Creeper you see in the photos, Grape Vines, Nasturtiums, Fuchsias, Evening Primrose, etc. They are hungry little buggers, this one alone nearly stripped all the leaves off the Creeper (it is not an overly big creeper yet) and tend to rest on the underside of the plant they are feasting on. This is why I tell people when they are trying to control caterpillars that they have to treat underneath the leaves as best they can. The most successful/eco friendly way of treating these pests is to make sure the product you are using will get in contact with them. So spraying Success or Pyrethium on the underside of the leaves, or dusting Flour on the underside of the damp leaves. Otherwise you are just wasting time and money.

I would never have seen this caterpillar pupate, as when it reaches maturity it goes walk-a-bout for 1-2 days so it can find a hidden away, safe place such as a crack in a fence post to pupate on. It overwinters as the pupa, before emerging  in the spring as a little black and white moth (though they look more like butterflies). Unfortunately I was unable to get any photos of these guys. Butterflies can be skittish little things and seem to think their soul will be stolen if I get a photo of them.

Roots

I believe that public art should reflect the area that it is placed and this is a lovely example of that. This is the fountain in Sanctuary Lakes, along Armadale Road. The fountain depicts a pioneering family planting a tree. The fountain was erected just over 10 years ago to commemorate the City's heritage, as back in the 1800's Armadale and Kelmscott began life as farming and logging communities. Around the base of the fountain are plaques that give details of some of the areas first residents. Lists of family names and family members. Some of the larger plaques contain more information of the families such as where the family emigrated from, businesses they ran and other contributions to the community. I feel it is important to have little 'nods to the past' among its public gardens, parks and spaces. It not only enhances the area, it makes it richer culturally and encourages the locals to learn more about their cities history. It also gives visitors an idea of how Armadale and Kelmscott came about and why the town was successful enough continue to grow and thrive today.

Career Duck

Serious question here. How many wild ducks have you seen that have taken up a successful career in baking? As my voice is the only one I can hear, then Im going to assume that my answer is a unanimous one: wild ducks dont have careers! So it leads me to question why people still think its is a good thing to feed wild ducks bread? 20 years or more ago it was accepted but now we know better. Everyone I speak to knows that it is bad to feed bread to ducks, but not many know why.

Now here is what is going to blow your little mind, there are at least 4 strong reasons why ducks shouldnt eat bread:
Nutrition, ducks are omnivourous and they are not designed to live on bread, which has next to no nutritional value. Bread is full of carbohydrates and not much else. To a duck, this is like living off really bad take away. It just leads to unhealthy, overweight ducks.
Pollution, the ducks in the park get fed so often that the ducks' little tummies are full. So they leave what they dont eat to rot in the bottom of the lake. This in turn causes algae and other bad bacteria to grow and pollute the water way. .
Behaviour, most wild animals will take the easiest source of food. If you are constantly feeding a duck (I see people come to feed the ducks daily, and I once counted 5 different groups of people bringing plastic bags full of bread to the park to feed the ducks) and if the duck is full from all this bread, why would it bother to go foraging for food? This is bad as it upsets the ecosystem, gives pests a chance to flourish. If there are ducklings about then they learn this behaviour and dont properly learn to forage and fend for themselves.
Disease, as corny as it sounds the carb rich diet causes the ducks to poop more. A build up of faeces in any environment is a breeding ground for disease. If any uneaten bread is left on the land to go mouldy, this can harbour aspergillosis, a deadly lung infection that can decimate avian populations

In short, if ducks were meant to eat bread then they would have evolved to be bakers. Simple. So please dont feed them.

Boys and Girls

The primary purpose of a plant to flower is for it to reproduce and form seed. The healthiest and strongest seed is produced when the plant is able to cross pollinate with another plant of the same species that has different chromosomes to itself (ie as distantly related as possible) This way the plant avoid inbreeding and weakening the gene pool. After all, it is pretty useless swapping chromosomes with someone who has an identical set to your own. Plants have evolved different ways to prevent a flower being pollinated by itself and Sheoaks are one of the few species that have become dioecious to combat this. Dioecity means that the male and female reproductive organs are housed in two different bodies. So in the Sheoaks case, you  have male and female trees. During Spring and early Summer, the male trees develop a reddish, feathery growth at the end of their long narrow leaves (as you can see in the photo). These are designed to catch as much wind as possible in order to disperse the pollen. Female trees grow little round, red tufts just above the leaves that try to stick out from the plant in order to catch any pollen floating on the wind. Once pollinated the flowers then develop into small, oval shaped, woody fruits. Once ripe, slits open in the fruits so the seed can spread on the wind and the cycle can begin again.

Prolific

There are some species of plant out there that look quite plain and only have the occasional flower making you wonder why you keep it in the garden, then during spring it becomes a mass of bloom. Most people cite Azaleas for this habit, yet there are several other species that do it too. If given the choice, I would choose something like this Wedding Bush. Azaleas can look beautiful in the right location, however most people I speak to struggle to get them to grow. They are also very shallow rooted and dry out quickly in the Perth summer. The Wedding Bush is alot taller than an Azalea, up to 3x3m, with deep green, soft needle shaped leaves. It is not a dense shrub but it does make a lovely stand alone bush or hedge, especially when it is smothered in these beautiful white flowers through Spring. You only get the occasional flower in Winter leading up to Spring and in early Summer, on the tail end of Spring. It is hardy and quite water wise once it has become established, enjoying full sun to part shade. The plant in this picture doesnt get a great deal of water, it grows underneath a heap of eucalyptus trees and is growing in some fairly solid clay soil, yet is still puts on this magnificent display once a year and throws an occasional flower just to tease us with its beauty.

Maturity

There are some species of plant out there that have different shaped leaves when the plant becomes "mature". One such example is Dizygotheca, a small tree that is typically used for indoor plant displays. When the plant is immature, the leaves are small and narrow, like in the first photo. As the plant becomes more established, the leaves begin to broaden and become more serrated, like in the second photo. When the plant is fully mature and able to reproduce the leaves become quite broad and take on a lighter shade of green. With this species, the juvenile leaves look almost nothing like the mature leaves of the plant. The most interesting part about these plants is that if you prune off the mature foliage it will revert back to the juvenile foliage. So it is quite possible to find a tree with two very different types of leaves growing out of it on different branches.

This is quite a handy plant with indoor plant displays as it can be difficult to find plants that will readily flower indoors, so the use of coloured foliage and textured foliage is used instead. The juvenile leaves of Dizygotheca is ideal for this purpose, as they have a lovely fine, almost delicate, texture to them while having a lovely deep burgundy look about them. They prefer part sun and will tolerate being indoors if they get enough light and the right amount of water (damp, not sopping wet). Dizygotheca will turn into a small tree if given the right conditions. It can be grown out doors and the root room will give it chance to throw some mature leaves, just make sure its not coping full sun and it should grow quite nicely.

Random Questions

Since starting this blog, I occasionally get asked by friends to identify various plants, weeds, bugs, and such. I have managed to teach most of them that if they send me a photo, then I have a better idea what they are on about. This one showed up in my news feed. It is such a fantastic photo to do identification from and Ive had great fun and a challenge researching this plant to give her an answer for what it is. So I thought I would share my friend Lynda's photos with you all.

The photo was taken while on a bush walk, up in the hills East of Perth in Kalamunda. This is actually a bushland weed called, Narrow Leaf Cotton Bush. It was grown as a garden plant for its interesting fruits and escaped into the bush. It originates from Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Mediterranean and has spread over most of Australia, more common in the South West of WA and around Sydney along the East Coast of Australia. It most commonly spreads by its fluffy silky seeds on the wind, but it also grows from a crown so it will send up suckers if the roots are disturbed.  The best method of control is to pull it up, and try to get as much of the roots and crown as possible. You can spray it with Glyphosate, but as it grows about 1-2m in height, you will need to slash it down to a few centimeters then apply the poison. It is best to slash and spray in the winter, before the plant starts setting seed in the August-October. You may have to repeat these applications several times for the eradication of this weed is successful.

Interesting to note that the Narrow Leaf Cotton Bush is toxic to both humans and livestock, however the caterpillars of the Wanderer Butterfly love this plant. They absorb the toxins in the plant and use them to make themselves toxic to predators. Unfortunately they are not a suitable control method for this weed.