Berz and the Bees. A Blog About Gardening.

 After the longest winter since moving to Tasmania, it's starting to feel like Summer (not sure where spring was, just been cold, windy and sad).  The soil is finally warm to the touch and with that comes the Mediterranean climate of dry, dry, dry. I can't complain too much as we have still has some showers, but the wind had been drying it almost immediately. The verdant green is starting to turn outback tan. But the garden is full of blooms and of course, the one part of my yard that I water, the hardy tropical garden is coming into it's own It's the first thing that you are greeted with as you walk into the gate from the driveway. We spend 90% of our time on the patio on in the undercover carport area (in inclement weather) and being surrounded by tropical green feels calm. It reminds be of holidaying in Bali and gives me nostalgia of growing up in sub-tropical Brisbane. Canna lillies, aquilegia, heuchera, hardy ferns, fatsia, native violet, dichondra and aspidistra a...

I am feeling so defeated today.  I failed at a wildflower meadow. Not only did I fail, I failed for years. I've been trying to get the meadow to be a meadow for 3 seasons and today I called it. It doesn't work. Time to move on. These images are what I had hoped to create. An area for bees, bugs and pollinators. An untamed area. A place I could sit and watch the cosmos and cornflowers dance in the breeze, pick them and pop them in a vase to brighten up inside. Let's have a look at my journey. Before pictures: 3 summers ago I laid a covering of black plastic down for a whole summer to smother the weeds and cook the seeds already in the soil. I then hand- tilled the whole area (approx 5m by 10m). I added seeds and seeds and seeds and more seeds. I seeded in spring, in summer in autumn and in winter and in spring again. And what I got was grass. This photo from spring 2024 shows that I had kept much of the grass at bay. but broad leaf weeds were the predominate species, many an...