summer planting results

A local guru/mystic/con-man has declared that our drought is over as of the 23rd Feb. I chose to believe, and so I had a look at the plantations we planted in early summer. 86% of the acacias, local and non-local species survived. Only one non local species did badly - 2%, so I ignored it in the results. The rest survived, not only the dry but attack by hare, in fact thrived. 60% of banksias, all local species, survived, but they are not putting out new growth. 100% callistemons, none of them local species, survived. 115% of the Correa alba, supposed to be a local species survived. How it comes about that we have more than we planted I don't know but some of them seem to have pupped. Bits of twig dropped by the hare spontaneously developing roots??? Strangers breaking in and planting them in the middle of the night??? I counted incorrectly - more likely, but in my defence I did propagate them and I counted them several times. Only around 10% of various eucalypt types, mostly local species, survived. This does not seem to be a result of the depredations of the hare. Plants not pruned by the animal did not survive any better than than those that were. We will try replacing the eucalypts in our autumn planting. All these plants were planted into very dry soil that had been given one soaking, overnight. The plants themselves were soaked overnight, planted early in the day, and mulched with bark. They have recieved no water since planting.
 
A 'garden' bed of various non local shrubs that we planted at about the same time has lost only one plant - a grevillia. We sprayed the area for weeds, covered the ground with weed mat, and then followed the same planting regime as we had for the 'plantations' and the plants have done brilliantly. They have in some cases doubled in size. The weed mat hasn't exactly prevented weeds from emerging and the whole strip looks lush and green compared to the area surrounding it. Given the extreems this summer I am staggered at the results in this area. I wish I could afford to cover the whole place with weed mat. The soil under this covering is not exactly moist but neither is it so dry it is water repelant, as the rest of the soil seems to be.
 
Margaret Healey
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