Home maintainance

[robbiegal]

yikes!!

[r9453]

I bought this house two years ago, its on the NSW north coast not far from where AJ lives. As you can probably gather the previous owner was a big fan of palms but not me. I have removed a few but they continue to grow like weeds.

I'm also not keen on the treated timber garden borders. I have two big projects going on, one involves drainage in the garage and the other is not really maintenance its more of an ecky in the back yard.



EDIT: The owners took all the garden ornaments with them.

[robbiegal]

we heaps of palms in Townsville as well
i grew all them from seeds or small seedling and they grew like wildfire
i even used to collected seeds form the botanical gardens and planted them with success

[ausjack]

Drum of round up Rob and keep hitting the suckers when they come up :winkextra:

[JeffH]

This little fellow turned up last night wandering across my driveway. I raced inside, grabbed the camera and back to get some shots. He (she?) just curled up when I approached and wouldn't cooperate for a walking shot with his snout visible.
When he started to try and burrow in the packed driveway I relocated to the edge thinking he would head for the shrubbery. No, just tried to burrow there where the ground is rather hard under the thin soil. He kept trying for a while but, when I checked a little little later he had moved on.

[Robster]

How cool!

[ausjack]

Nice clear pic's Jeff, shame it wouldn't play the game with you.

[robbiegal]

little cutie
i love those little guys and haven't seen one for years
the hubby came across one on his walking track last year and took a short phone video of the little fella

[JeffH]

On the weekend I gave my fruit trees a severe prune -they were just getting to big to manage. I also did some lopping of errant branches on the block. Most of the waste was too big to put through our little mulcher so I thought I might be making several trips to the "waste management station" (aka rubbish tip).
My wife suggested we get a tree removal chap to come and put it through his mulcher (capacity up to 450mm). He quoted a rather high price but promised he would come here after another job when his truck was nearly full and we could have all the chip.

Well...he delivered,

That pile is 7 metres long, average 4.5 metres wide and 1.8 metres peak height. That is definitely a chipload of mulch. Most of it is eucalypt and it smells wonderful.

Now to an important question
With systemic insecticides now banned I fought a losing battle against fruit fly last year. Any proven suggestions for best methods (please no speculation as Google search shows plenty of sites with misinformed guesses and self serving marketing hyperbole)?
I think CERA bait sounds interesting but it is rather expensive.
Various homemade traps last year certainly caught plenty of fly but didn't seem to make any overall  difference -still around 50% infested fruit.

[Unicorn]

Nice pile of mulch Jeff! ( ..... as he eyes off the Falcon)

Some pretties ......

[stevo1962]

A couple of recent photos of some of my palms

[Unicorn]

Beautiful Stevo! :good:

Probably a stupid question, but are they seed pods on the top pic?

[stevo1962]

Beautiful Stevo! :good:

Probably a stupid question, but are they seed pods on the top pic?

Thanks Uni yeah they are seeds .I'll try to grow them
but they are very slow

[robbiegal]

Nice pile of mulch Jeff! ( ..... as he eyes off the Falcon)

Some pretties ......

yeah - I was eyeing off the falcon as well!!

On the weekend I gave my fruit trees a severe prune -they were just getting to big to manage. I also did some lopping of errant branches on the block. Most of the waste was too big to put through our little mulcher so I thought I might be making several trips to the "waste management station" (aka rubbish tip).
My wife suggested we get a tree removal chap to come and put it through his mulcher (capacity up to 450mm). He quoted a rather high price but promised he would come here after another job when his truck was nearly full and we could have all the chip.

Well...he delivered,

That pile is 7 metres long, average 4.5 metres wide and 1.8 metres peak height. That is definitely a chipload of mulch. Most of it is eucalypt and it smells wonderful.

Now to an important question
With systemic insecticides now banned I fought a losing battle against fruit fly last year. Any proven suggestions for best methods (please no speculation as Google search shows plenty of sites with misinformed guesses and self serving marketing hyperbole)?
I think CERA bait sounds interesting but it is rather expensive.
Various homemade traps last year certainly caught plenty of fly but didn't seem to make any overall  difference -still around 50% infested fruit.

nice load of mulch there - get it spread before the fire season - or even sooner - you don't want to set the place alight
here's a green harvest link for the more organic and/or barrier methods for fruit fly (not contraception) ah ha
http://greenharvest.com.au/PestControlOrganic/Information/FruitFlyControl.html

[interest]

Jeff Fenech boxing gloves close up of the blood