New additions to the garden

You know when you've been sick for what feels like forever, not seriously sick, but  ridden with colds, virus and just rundown, sick of looking at your own four walls, sick of your own uselessness, and just feel like you've got to change something or it's never going to change, I reached that point a couple of weeks ago. Desperately craving normality, I just had to get out of bed, get some fresh air and be surrounded by plants for a while. It may sound crazy, but I just feel better when I'm around plants, it never fails to lift my spirits, to get me inspired and motivated all at once. So I encouraged hubby to take me to the nursery. One of my local favourites is Neilsen's Native nursery. I like their great selection of fruit trees, I love that there are always little birds zooming around their plants, and even last spring, nesting in amongst them. Add to that their amazing selection of native Australian plants which I know almost nothing about and I'm in heaven.

I always get inspired by a visit to a plant nursery, and especially a visit to this one. I see so many plants that I'd like to add to our garden and get ideas I'd like to incorporate. This visit was no exception.

Amongst the things that excited me this time was a large tree house bird feeder. It stood about 6 foot tall, on a fairly solid base, had a little house with doorways sat on a tray to hold feed. It was probably a little over 2 foot square. I've always loved the idea of looking across the garden to a Victorian inspired bird house, and these while not overly ornate, looked really practical. I would have loved one, but at just over $200 for the most basic one they had, it's not really in the budget, plus I'm sure with a little encouragement hubby could build me one that would be a little more solidly constructed and I'd get to decorate it which would be even better.

What I did weaken and buy to add to our garden included two strawberry plants (not that exciting for some, but for me they are one of those plants, you know, the ones you really want to grow when you first think about gardening, but never manage to have any luck with), I've given up counting the number of times I've tried to grow strawberries, but never say never. I read somewhere they are good to plant with asparagus, so that's what I've tried this time.

As well as the strawberries, I bought a thornless blackberry, this was rash on my part. After having had many close escapes in buying or trying things that don't or won't grow in our climate, I normally research each new possibility thoroughly before buying now. Clearly it was my foggy brain that got the better of me this time. With increased clarity and a Google search I know it wasn't a good decision, but now I have it, we'll give it a try. At least I know where it can go in the garden and it would give me another type of berry,

And lastly, a big commitment, well not big yet, but hopefully over the coming years, a Davidson plum. I fell in love with them earlier this year after buying some at the local organic market and making a delicious jam from them. I planted the seeds. Of the six only two came up, one fried during the summer heat when I wasn't keeping watch, the other is still only about three inches high, and has never looked a promising specimen. So for about $23 I now have one that is 3 foot high. After cleaning the pond out, I've planted it out in the bottom garden right near the newly cleaned out pond and bananas.This should give it a little bit of a rainforest feel once everything is back and thriving.

Our new Davidson Plum tree, in the background you can see a blue kids shell sand pit which we've used to plant out the water chestnut corms. It was previously a wicking test garden, but in a bad spot. Now filled with soil and covered with about an inch of water it should be ideal to grow water chestnuts and any water overflow will go into the canoe pond. You can see some clumps of water plants, well mainly their roots near the plums base, I'm hoping that these will help hold water and moisture around the tree to help simulate it's rainforest environment until other plants around it fill out for spring.

I'm excited to welcome this tree. I don't have many Australian natives, especially not food source ones. Do you grow any Australian native fruits or food plants in your garden and what do you do with them?