Weekend gardener: focus on home turf
Lawns
Sow lawns or repair gaps in old ones. New lawns need to have all weeds removed then the soil worked to a fine tilth, and perhaps a layer of fine top soil spread over the top. Likewise, top soil can be scattered over patches for repair. Dampen areas, then having chosen a seed variety according to your needs and ambitions, scatter evenly. This is best achieved by sowing while walking up and down then across from side to side. Water regularly until the grass is well established.
Turf provides an instant lawn, though similar preparation to the above is needed for successful turf laying.
Lawns may also need scarifying – that is, vigorous raking to minimise thatching. This build-up of old grass, dead moss and so on may prevent water and fertiliser penetration. While special scarifying tools and machines are available, a rake will do the trick. Just be careful not to rake too deeply.
As well, it is a good time to aerate lawns to allow air and water to the grass roots. An ordinary garden fork will do the trick, stabbing it in to make holes about 15cm apart and about 10cm deep – about every three to four years.
Top-dress now with a 2:2:1 mix of garden soil, sand and well-rotted compost.
Ornamentals
When composting tougher, thicker leaves, such as eucalyptus or karaka, a run over with a motor mower or a turn through a mulcher will kickstart the decomposition process.
Ensure new shrubs and trees are kept well-watered until planted. Plunging them in a bucket of water and leaving until the air bubbles stop rising to the top is a good way to ensure water saturation.
Edibles
Remove all fallen fruit from around the bottom of fruit trees, rather than let them sit and rot over winter harbouring pests and diseases.
Plant cabbages and cauliflowers in soil enriched with compost or well-rotted manure.
Sow lettuce and cabbage seeds under cover for planting out in early spring.
Sow broad beans and peas (preferably ones with long cropping periods – check the seed packets for details).
Root-pruning young fruit trees now – while the soil is still warm enough to encourage root growth – should lift production of fruiting spurs, and thus more fruit next season. Lift out of ground and cut back tap roots close to the stem and shorten other roots. Then replant firmly. The Kelly family of red-haired daughters lives at the bottom of the social heap with the ‘roo and dingo shooters. Elderly Lizzie with her pet galah riding on her shoulder ‘‘like an Afghan cameleer on his ship of the desert’’ lurches down the main street to the small town’s book exchange.
Invisible tensions knot them all into a tight tragedy.
Sorensen has pitch-perfect control as she segues from a galah’s-eye view of the world and children’s mystification at adult actions to the beauty of landscapes of dune and samphire flats. Her voice is distinctively Australian, filled with the vernacular – ‘‘Right you are!’’, ‘‘Tell me straight out’’, and ‘‘Shoosh, cocky.’’
It is the small human mysteries that make Sorensen’s novel so immediately appealing. Her vision of 1969 Australia with its walkshorts and wooden salad servers is leavened with desires and needs that are barely formed, let alone clearly articulated.
deftly demonstrates that these unspoken things can make or break a world.
Stylistically, Sorensen can be audacious. Telling part of the story through the eyes and thoughts of a pet galah seems a recipe for disaster, but it becomes an essential and moving component of the novel, giving it a shimmer of wonderment.
Like the televised images of Armstrong on the moon,
is a book that contains worlds. It is filled with the pinks and blues of the Australian coastline. Human passion is careless and sometimes heart-breaking. We are all caged, Sorensen seems to say, and our view of open spaces is both a dream and a trap.