Thread: What's in your garden?

oh they do have that baby stage.. lol..
But they're like 2mm thick and about 25mm long.. sitting under the leaves, so you easily overlook them.
If you don't mind, just squeezing them would perfectly do the job to protect the plant.
Easiest is to look for a group of brown spots under the leaves.. Those are the eggs.
And spraying those eggs, the soap and molasses should kill them off.

Found one of these today. There sure are some strange creatures in the soil.

It's a hammerhead worm Tunk. I've seen them in our garden as well. They prey on earthworms and should be killed if you value your soil quality... apparently it's best to dissolve them in salt as if you just squash them or cut them up a load of eggs can be released. In my case they go over the wall into the arsehole neighbour's garden.

Oh... and you shouldn't eat them as they release mild toxins when hunting prey.

^^Alienesque little creature. I dug up a blind snake a few years ago and kept it as a pet for a few weeks before releasing it.

Not growing in my garden yet but the Minx brought round red kiwi tonight.

I have just planted avocados and I would like to try kiwi although I think QLD might be too warm for them.

The red ones have a strange creamy taste compared with the green ones.

Eating some healthy fruit earns you the right to indulge in a Chinese egg custard bun.

Strange confections with a distinct taste of egg yolk.

^She is from the other great dragon kingdom...

That is her supernatural ghostly shapeshifting photomorphosis property manifesting itself again I think!

Originally Posted by Mendip

It's a hammerhead worm Tunk. I've seen them in our garden as well. They prey on earthworms and should be killed if you value your soil quality... apparently it's best to dissolve them in salt as if you just squash them or cut them up a load of eggs can be released. In my case they go over the wall into the arsehole neighbour's garden.

Oh... and you shouldn't eat them as they release mild toxins when hunting prey.

The toxin is not so mild, the same thing you find in puffer fish and the blue-ringed octopus. It is just that it has very little of it.

I can't quite make my mind up about these hammerheads. They do eat worms, true, and slugs too. Birds eat worms but I don't mind that, so why is the hammerhead different? I think it is because they are an objectionable life form, covering their prey in toxic slime and absorbing it as a sludge. When they are full their mouth becomes their anus. Charming. They can reproduce sexually and asexually.

A reason not to squash them is that they can regenerate from small pieces. In theory they could live for ever. Spooky.

So I walked out of my front door this morning and what is wriggling across the tile?



Also this morning there was a mantis on the veranda.





It was longer and thinner than ones I have seen here before. There are a lot of different types of mantis in Thailand. I think this one was probably the Chinese mantis (Tenodera sinensis).

Originally Posted by Mendip

In my case they go over the wall into the arsehole neighbour's garden.

Then under the wall and back into your garden?

''What's in your garden?''


What’s in my garden? A lot of Heliconias, that’s what.

In an earlier post, somewhere on TD, I referred to creating a ‘jungle garden’.

That’s not quite right – Tropical garden would have been the right description. Not being the worlds best gardener, and so not really knowing what I was doing, I started buying the big stuff - palms of varying sizes, ornamentals plus coconuts, and dates and bananas.

Then, I needed to start 'filling in'.




H Lady Di .................................................. .................................................H. Psittacorum

With the project started, I began searching for plants to go in that garden. Grasses, leafy foliage and of course, some Heliconias.




Heliconia Psittacorum, in both orange and red outer bract covers (actually, I think the red version has another name too, but I cannot find it!)

Once I started looking, I realised there was a huge assortment of colours, sizes and type, and that’s before even looking at the hybrid variants.



The colours work quite well when placed with other plants, here the dwarf Heliconia in orange is perfectly at home with the purple of the Morning glory behind


Then there are the fancier ones –



................................................H. Bihai, sometimes known as ‘Balisier’

This Heliconia Bihai took forever to start flowering, but now there are 5 bracts forming. They are ALL growing runners to propagate and expand.




.............................................H.Rostrata, or ‘hanging lobster claw’


I collected this Heliconia Rostrata from a neighbour (yes…they did know!) because I haven’t seen it in any garden shop so far. It was in bloom, as you can see, when it was planted but died back soon after. However, new shoots / leaves are now coming so I have this to look forward to again, later this year





H. Marginata ‘Rauliniana’

This was another swap with a neighbour – they got 2 clumps of the H.Psitticorium! This version is a cultivar, a hybrid between the Rostrata and the true Marginata.



............................................

I have 2 other new arrivals but no photos yet as they do not carry flowers. The Heliconia Family was new to me but I have embraced it as a mainstay of the tropical garden I am creating. I hope to get a few more varieties with predominantly yellow or green, to balance up the appearance and for variety. Here’s a few more photos…








They stand out even when surrounded by foliage.

PS…progress is being made but the TD Towers garden still had a VERY long way to go!!

Thanks for looking.

How they manage to grow out from the bricks? And how did they get into the bricks?

Hi Klondyke,

Heliconias DO spread. Its a rhizome-based plant so, of course those rhizomes' grow! They spread in one of two ways - the clump expands, i.e. its still a tight 'mass' or... the clump puts out a runner and expands that way. Both need to be managed - those expansions, particularly the runners will easily pass under any border or wall.

To control them, I simply cut them off with the spade and replant / repot them for swaps or gifts. The Heliconia Psittacorum is a rampant spreader, whereas those fancier ones are relatively slow.

In any case, the tropical garden is not super-formal - I put the paths in just for ease of travelling about but several of the ground cover plants are already encroaching and need to be cut back periodically. If one of the Heliconias decides to put a shoot up in the path, I will deal with it later, and just enjoy the bract when it comes.

I will try to do a proper garden 'update' as it has been requested by a few members and 7 months has gone by since she and I turned our attention to the garden

OMG is it really 7 months!?

Originally Posted by Thai Dhupp

Both need to be managed - those expansions, particularly the runners will easily pass under any border or wall.

To control them, I simply cut them off with the spade and replant / repot them for swaps or gifts. The Heliconia Psittacorum is a rampant spreader, whereas those fancier ones are relatively slow.

Thanks for the scientific knowledge.
Actually, I do not mind their spread, it's a wall of the outdoor shower box at swimming pool. It beautifies somehow an ugly wall...

Visitors

^ We've had several red-necked keelbacks in the garden, but not for a while. My original snake book listed them as harmless but a recent re-print of the same book I have now lists them as dangerous. I believe this is due to some unfortunate recent incidents.

They are rear-fanged, which means they'd have to really chew on you for a while to inject any venom so I can't see them being a big problem to an adult, so long as you pull one off if it bites you.

Still, I'd be shooting the bastard. Family first.

Any birders out there who can help? No photo I am afraid.

This morning there was a bird I have never seen before hunting in the mango tree outside my window.

It was small, about the size of a Blue tit and like a tit it was able to hang upside down. The beak was relatively long, slim and straight. The back was a light olive colour.

The most distinctive feature by far was a bright yellow chest with a broad black stripe that started about the middle of the breast and ran down between the legs.

I'd have thought something so distinctive would be easy to find but I have looked at hundreds of images and not found it yet.

Originally Posted by dirk diggler

Similar DD. Unlike the tits I know the black stripe did not get all the way up to the neck and the yellow was very striking.

These are Great Tits :P

Originally Posted by Shutree

This morning there was a bird I have never seen before hunting in the mango tree outside my window.

It was small, about the size of a Blue tit and like a tit it was able to hang upside down. The beak was relatively long, slim and straight. The back was a light olive colour.

The most distinctive feature by far was a bright yellow chest with a broad black stripe that started about the middle of the breast and ran down between the legs.

My first thought was a sunbird, maybe an olive backed sunbird. They can hang upside down, they have light olive coloured backs and have relatively long slim beaks, but the beaks are not straight, they are slightly curved. They also do not have a broad black stripe from the middle of the breast to down between the legs. They don't usually have black stripes at all but an "eclipse male" bird sometimes has a thin black stripe on its neck and upper breast. Here's an image from wiki.



If it's not that, I don't know what it is. I'd love to see a photo of it if you can get one next time it visits you.

Originally Posted by dirk diggler

These are Great Tits :P

Any excuse to post a great pair of tits:

Here's an example with a longer black streak.



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