Spring in Port Macquarie Australia

[The Palm Nut]

A few years ago, drought was the talk of the day, and my garden was suffering. Then came the bush fires and I thought I was living on Mars, quite surreal and many towns simply burnt to the ground.

It was impossible to keep up the water in the garden so concentrated on seedlings, water is quite expensive. 

Then came the floods and all of a sudden, I had one meter of water under the house, it was all fresh water with lots of silt in it (parts of the garden received a good 4 inch of top dressing) The rainforest slowed down the river flow. I also had a couple of trailers loads under the house which I put in the garden. Most people were complaining of all that silt, not me!

The house is built for floods, we are three meters above the ground, unfortunately a lot of houses were flooded and not insured, it was tough for these people.

I started my garden over 35 years ago and I would have to say for me, it's the best it's ever been. It's just as I imagined all those years ago. 

This first picture is from under the house, I will add more as time allows. 

[John Eve]

Were your palms under water during the floods? And if so, how long?  And how deep?
I'd like to know how long most palms can survive with their lower trunks in the water.
I'm now planting scores of palms, eventually to be hundreds, and we might be susceptible to occasional, but shallow flooding.
JE

[The Palm Nut]

13 hours ago, John Eve said:

Were your palms under water during the floods? And if so, how long?  And how deep?
I'd like to know how long most palms can survive with their lower trunks in the water.
I'm now planting scores of palms, eventually to be hundreds, and we might be susceptible to occasional, but shallow flooding.
JE

The garden was under water for two days and then as the tide would rise and fall a few hours for a few days. Fresh water floats a top salt water so never had at any stage salt water in the garden.  I live at the river mouth of the Hastings River. 

[The Palm Nut]

 My garden is not your usual home garden, I like to call it my jungle. To the right is the trunk of the Black Bean tree and the left Royal Poinciana.

[The Palm Nut]

Leaf of the Kerriodoxa elegans

[The Palm Nut]

 

Chamaedorea brachypoda 

[The Palm Nut]

Love the Chamaedorea species 

[Tyrone]

Your garden is awesome and an inspiration. Your climate is much better than mine but I’m going for something similar here, but tuned for colder weather. 

We had floods here last year. Most of my property and garden sat under 40cm of water for hours, but the ground remained totally sodden for months. I lost quite a few palms even water lovers too. I lost a lot of pine trees that now need felling. A big job because they’re all 25-30m tall

[The Palm Nut]

2 hours ago, Tyrone said:

Your garden is awesome and an inspiration. Your climate is much better than mine but I’m going for something similar here, but tuned for colder weather. 

We had floods here last year. Most of my property and garden sat under 40cm of water for hours, but the ground remained totally sodden for months. I lost quite a few palms even water lovers too. I lost a lot of pine trees that now need felling. A big job because they’re all 25-30m tall

Thanks Tyrone, I have seen your blank canvas quickly filling up with palms and plants, given time it's going to look awesome. You have the advantage of knowing through trial and error what will do well in your area. You have a head start on many people trying to do what you are doing. I certainly know I spent a lot of time and money on species that didn't have a chance for various reasons. 

I look forward to following your progress!

[The Palm Nut]

Here are two camera shots taken about 30 plus years a part, the beginnings of the first garden. Not much more than a sand pile!

[The Palm Nut]

This what I believe to be a Sabal mauritiiformis though it's been so long since I planted it as a small seedling not a 100% sure. It's at least 15 to 20 years old growing in full shade now and has been for quite some time. It never at any stage looked like its days were number, just didn't want to grow up.

[The Palm Nut]

During the last drought I lost two large tree ferns, they had been planted next to a pond but as time went by, I couldn't keep the water clean for the fish and turned it into a bog of sorts.

In the middle is a Davidson plum which is doing pretty good now with all the rain we have had.

[The Palm Nut]

To the left is my Australian red cedar and it up in the canopy is the golden new leaf growth. 

[Tyrone]

1 hour ago, The Palm Nut said:

Here are two camera shots taken about 30 plus years a part, the beginnings of the first garden. Not much more than a sand pile!

That’s how making paradise is done. 

[Tyrone]

1 hour ago, The Palm Nut said:

This what I believe to be a Sabal mauritiiformis though it's been so long since I planted it as a small seedling not a 100% sure. It's at least 15 to 20 years old growing in full shade now and has been for quite some time. It never at any stage looked like its days were number, just didn't want to grow up.

Definitely Sabal mauritiaformis. I have one in a pot the same size. Just waiting for a protected from wind spot to plant it. I think they need some sun to speed up but with shade at times. Full shade may just slow them down. 

 

Also Im glad the silt you got from the floods was a blessing for you. When you flooded I commented to you on another thread that I wish I had a flooding that brought silt then thought to myself that given the amount of losses people had from the floods and emotional damage that comes from that sort of loss, that my comments were a tad callous. Anyway my place flooded a few months later but much milder thankfully. I can’t imagine what many on the east coast must have gone through these last few years. However I’m glad the silt has made your garden flourish. 

[The Palm Nut]

3 hours ago, Tyrone said:

Definitely Sabal mauritiaformis. I have one in a pot the same size. Just waiting for a protected from wind spot to plant it. I think they need some sun to speed up but with shade at times. Full shade may just slow them down. 

 

Also Im glad the silt you got from the floods was a blessing for you. When you flooded I commented to you on another thread that I wish I had a flooding that brought silt then thought to myself that given the amount of losses people had from the floods and emotional damage that comes from that sort of loss, that my comments were a tad callous. Anyway my place flooded a few months later but much milder thankfully. I can’t imagine what many on the east coast must have gone through these last few years. However I’m glad the silt has made your garden flourish. 

Yea some people were devastated and probably will never recover from the physical and emotional trauma caused by the flooding, and you got to feel for them. Unfortunately, we live in uncertain times with regards to climate. I was fortunate to have a house on stilts well out of harm's way allowing the river to flow under neath. I expect it will happen again and again just not as high as the last one hopefully. Most are minor with a couple moderate in the 38 years we have lived here. This is life by the river.

Sabal mauritiaformis it is!

[The Palm Nut]

Everything that comes from the garden is returned to it. Sometimes I will add some leave mulch to aid in the breaking down process.  

[The Palm Nut]

It also makes for a nice spongy walk through the garden, something I remember doing as a child in Canada walking along forest trails on the west coast of Vancouver Island with towering Douglas-fir and Western red cedar. 

[The Palm Nut]

The trunk of my Dypsis decaryi, that is pretty much all I can see of it. I need a drone to take aerial shots from above. 

[The Palm Nut]

My little Illawarra Plum Pine has finally decided to put on some new growth. It's been in the ground for a few years now so hopefully it will establish well and become a permanent tree of the garden.  

[Tyrone]

I’ve never heard of an Illawarra Plum Pine. The leaf arrangement looks like a sparse Bunya pine. Are they related? 

[KrisKupsch]

Plus a Davidson’s Plum !

[The Palm Nut]

2 hours ago, Tyrone said:

I’ve never heard of an Illawarra Plum Pine. The leaf arrangement looks like a sparse Bunya pine. Are they related? 

I don't believe so. But you are right it does look a bit like a Bunya 

[peachy]

In 2011 when I was flooded, there was no nice silt for me only a foul smelling, very polluted muddy slime that did far more harm than good.  This year the people that bought the old house have been flooded twice, poor buggers ! It's now been 2 years since I moved into this new place and have spent the time amending the 'soil'.  Nothing but clay, sand and builders rubble. However I have started planting now and things are growing at a fantastic rate. As the gardens are very very tiny, I am planning for a display of chamadoreas and other tiny palms, but of course as yet there is no canopy at all.  All the really fast growing native trees that I used in the past are all way too big, so I am being very patient (yes I know it's a miracle) and waiting for the 4 midsize palms I planted to get big enough for a canopy of sorts. I see all the palms I used to have at the old place or new and exciting species on the website but just have to accept that I can't have them.  The sideway between the house and the fence was a wasteland until I had it all covered in with shade sails so it has made a fantastic shade-house.  All the Brisbane nurseries have closed down but I fluke things now and then and they seem to thrive in the shade-house so there is a safe haven for future purchases until my canopy has developed.

[realarch]

Mike, your jungle looks terrific. Many parts of the garden here have the wild jungle look as well. I also have been using the leaf waste as mulch for years and as a result the need for spraying and fertilizing have diminished significantly. The untidy natural look just enhances the wilder parts of the garden.

We do get a tremendous amount of rain, but being on a rather steep slope we don’t experience any flooding whatsoever. Drought also doesn’t factor in the equation either because of the adjacent 4000m mountain peak trapping moisture laden trade winds. 

Enjoyed your post, thanks.

Peachy, Tyrone, good hearing from you too!

Tim

[The Palm Nut]

When I was establishing my garden, I purchased a hammermill mulcher and would use it for the sugar cane I was growing or anything else that wouldn't require a lot of time to put through.

I would also go to the horse racetrack and load the trailer up on horse shit and sawdust, but my wife kept asking why they are so many flies, so couldn't get away with that for very long. 

I also knew a local lawnmowing guy and he would come in with a trailer full of grass clippings now and again.  All free organic compounds I could get my hands-on would-be part of a slow transformation of what little soil I had to start with.

The vary early stages I grew a lot of fast growing plants such as the wattle as the property was pretty much baren and eventually these trees became mulch. 

It certainly was a long process of trial and error in many ways but thats life in general and I guess the best part now is I can walk around my garden and everything I look at is what I planted, though now the birds are taking over that process to a large degree. 

Your garden looks awsome, I have been to Hawaii a couple of times, love the people and climate and thought one day I would love to live there, but life took me in a different direction.

[The Palm Nut]

Here is an Australian frangipani, I have cut it back a few times because it wasn't doing all that well but with all this rain its finally taking off. 

[The Palm Nut]

To the left you can see the epipremnum aureum (devil Ivy) growing on a palm. I love the look of these growing up to the canopy, but they can take over and topple a tree or palm if allowed to grow out of control, I cut all vines about a foot from the ground. Simple but effective and just let the dead and sometimes thick dead vines slowly rot down. 

[The Palm Nut]

One of my Pritchardia hillebrandii

[The Palm Nut]

Caryota obtusa, these really need to be planted out in the open to really appreciate their structure, mine just looks like a tangled mess from ground level.  I have three and the two others are flowering. 

[realarch]

Hey Mike, thanks……..the feeling is mutual. I hope to get back to Australia next year.

My buddy Paul just moved from Brisbane to Cairns, bring on the tropical stuff!

Tim

[The Palm Nut]

On 10/1/2022 at 10:44 AM, realarch said:

Hey Mike, thanks……..the feeling is mutual. I hope to get back to Australia next year.

My buddy Paul just moved from Brisbane to Cairns, bring on the tropical stuff!

Tim

Love Cairns and the gardens (Fosters) great place.

[The Palm Nut]

Just some more pics of the garden. 

[The Palm Nut]

One of my  Beccariophoenix madagascariensis

[The Palm Nut]

In the middle is my Aiphanes aculeata

[The Palm Nut]

I love my Licuala elegans, not in the best of places for it to really be appreciated but when I get a new leaf, I make sure it stands out.

[The Palm Nut]

My clumping Dypsis pembana 

[The Palm Nut]

Can anyone guess how many species of palms in this picture? Left to right.

[The Palm Nut]

Just now, The Palm Nut said:

Can anyone guess how many species of palms in this picture? Left to right.

Forgot to mention, you need to name them.