>>2959649
Nice. You leaving the circles empty or filling them with other stuff?

>>2959840
Will plant them out with other native Australian plants and grasses

>>2959649
What is it?

>>2959649
Sorry but that looks like a huge mistake and a waste of the space to me.

>>2959649
>Xanthorrhoea
Way to much shade.

>>2960088
We replaced the polycarb sheets above it from cream to clear which let 90% of the light through, they reckon you can grow grass underneath them. I'll keep and eye on whether its getting enough sun or not, but here's the trick: the blackboy isnt planted, its in a pot which Ive placed into a pot that is buried in the mount behind the rocks, that way I can take it out if it needs to get more sun or for any other reason

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>>2960014
Something had to go there, this is what it looked like before, a mishmash of random plants, now it will be cohesive as a native Australian rockery

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>>2960137
Got a few plants, gotta get some more before planting

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>>2960852
Plants in, then next weekend will cover the soil with some crushed granite and its done!

>>2961046
Actually not bad. Are you a host?

>>2961068
Nah its just our backyard, spent the last year doing it up and its almost complete

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>>2961207
Sand in and she's done

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>>2962264
The blackboybis flowering too

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>>2962274
Day 2 of flowering. The honeyeaters have found it

>>2962264
Looks beautiful! Only nitpicking criticism is that the drain looks a bit high.

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>>2962483
You would be correct, I actually just cut it down

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We had a little visitor today

Bussin
Thanks for the pics

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>>2962575
No problems

Day 3 of flowering

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>>2962874
Day 4 and its almost in full bloom

>>2960137
>native Australian rockery
bit racist m8, 5 years in the iso cubes

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>>2962559
>>2963142

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>>2963233
>bit racist m8
Nice
>>2963256
Day 5 and I think this is full bloom

>>2960014
You’re a huge mistake and and a waste of space

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>>2963325
Day 6

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Update

>>2959649
might want to grab the angle grinder and cut in some expansion joints on the corners of your hexagon. might be able to force cracks to follow the current plane instead of going diagonal.
corners are always weaker.

>>2964849
The concrete is like 30 years old with very few cracks

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The new plantscare taking off well

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>>2966246

>>2967067
you planted it all sideways

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>>2967530
Damn I did too

this looks great anon what else are you planting these days?

>>2967540
why did you leave it in the pot in the middle?
though i replied to this but cant see my post now ??????????
the sand and gravel makes it look more natural, nicer imho.
t. gardener

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>>2967640
Only because they really, REALLY hate being transplanted. This one was only plucked from the wild 2 years ago and is still recovering from being potted.

They are highly regulated because they are an Australian native and for many years people were digging them up from anywhere and everywhere and putting them in their gardens at home. Because they only grow about 1cm per year it meant that they were in danger of becoming an endangered species. So now each one has to come with a tag like this one to show authenticity.

Because they grow so slowly it wont out grow the pot its in for many years. When it does get to that stage I'll finally put it in the ground.

Im happy with the sand too, should look good once all the plants grow and fill out the area, should make it look even more natural

>>2967712
They have a license for their houseplants. YANGMI

>>2967718
Such is the nanny state and economic zone formerly known as Australia

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>>2967712
nice

>>2967718
>>2967746
you're right better to just take as much as you want wherever/whenever and have no bag/boat limits on fishing either.

>>2960135
They ones I've seen grow way higher that a typical roof. I guess they were super old.

>>2967901
Super old! Ones that big are likely 1000 years old

>>2959649
not a huge fan of black boys but it looks ok. will you plant too paws around it?

>>2962264
Looks like shit on shit with some diarrhea tossed over.

>>2959649
Looks great in my opinion. Are you planting any crawling plants? Also, thanks for the pictures, I especially like the one with a bird on the flower.

>>2968060
Yes, will plant out more ground covers, just going to let what's there now grow a bit more so I can work out where to put the new stuff

>>2959649
>>2961046
cute idea. i dislike the uniform rock formations but understand the centerpiece presentation.
any verticality or is that it with reaching flowers?

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Thats it for now, the flower spike will start to die out over the next couple of months but will remain on the plant, then in a few years time itll grow another flower spike along side the old one like in this picture

Spent a week on KI this year and learned that one of the first industries on that island was exporting the red gum/resin they harvested from these grass trees. It was used in myriad products from food and clothing (dye) to cosmetics and fireworks. Downside being they had to smash the dried trunks into tiny pieces for the resin to fall out and nearly drove the local population of Xanthorrhoea to extinction. They called them yakka trees back then and it was a punishing, painful and labor intensive job which is where the term "hard yakka" comes from meaning hard work. Saw a few dead/broken grass trees on my walks there, the amount of resin inside is pretty astonishing, there's lots of it. You can still buy the stuff today.

Thanks for reading my blog.

>>2959649
bonza mate

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>>2968191
Fucken nice story mate, thanks for sharing

Happy New Years

>>2968200
Cheers cobba

Very nice OP. If it were mine I'd have gone for a water feature but that's just personal taste. Great work!

>>2970462
We're thinking about adding some wrought iron pieces and maybe a waterfeature of some sort too

>>2959649
stupid nigger

>>2970558
Im an abo, thank you very much

BUMPING FOR BLACKBOY

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>>2967712
>>2966246
are you in SEQ? some of your plants are from climates that are a fair bit more arid and might not do so well. if any of them die and you're looking for plants to replace them with, karawatha forest is a good wild xanthorrhoea habitat to check out for inspiration. native grasses like cymbopogon refractus and themeda triandra should have seeds ready to collect right about now and you can pretty much just throw them at the ground and they'll grow. other things like dianellas you can get from bunnings and other more obscure things you can get from native nurseries like paten park if you're near brisbane
overall very nice rockery. if I had a rockery like that I'd be trying to cultivate things like psilotum nudum (skeleton fork fern, pic related) in it, but not everyone's as mad as me. I like what you've done with incorporating food plants like tomatoes in there

>>2972818
Im in Adelaide so its more of a Mediterranean climate: hot dry summers and cold wet winters. The tomatoes are actually only in there because the neighbours gave them to us and our veggie patch is full

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>>2967913
I got that your black boy has been plucked 2 years ago, would that mean it is 2 years old or older than that? It looks like a healthy boi

>>2973193
Its likely 30 years old. Its 22cm from soil to crown

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UPDATE

>>2959997
grave of an african zulu warrior

>>2968178
I was told you can encourage flowing faster by throwing dirt on top of the tree; the black boy will flower in order to clear the obstruction on top. I've no idea how true that is. My own anecdotal evidence suggests a 50% flowering rate after burning (bushfire mitigation). We have an endless amount of these fuckers on my property, about 100 in close proximity to my house and I've found the most effective way to clear them by hand is with straps and come-alongs to completely remove the whole tree. As a side note, where you've placed it will only look good for about a decade after planting it directly, if it isn't root bound already. The roots are shallow and spread laterally a little bit beyond the live skirt (green leaf strands) so it'll punch those rocks out of formation across time. You can pay it off, but it'll come back to bite you.

Your plants in your rockery look like they are drying out significantly due to a lack of appropriate soil medium and mulch. The medium you have used looks like builders sand which is not adequate; if it is builders sand, it is likely fatty. The roots will eventually branch out as the plants grow beyond the potting mix it came with and will die off or stall as it hits the sand. You can fix this with a few bags of cheap soil worked into the sand, even better would be premium soil which the natives do indeed love. A 50L bag of premium will run you less than $40 from Bunnings. Working it into the soil will take you less than an hour with a common garden trowel. Cover the exposed dirt with about an inch of wood chip mulch after, which natives love as well. The mulch will allow the soil to drain, retain it's moisture, feeds fungal growth and also it also cools down plant roots to mitigate stress from our hot Australian summer days.

You've got a really good idea and a good eye for aesthetics. I think it's the immediate and future practicalities of your creation that need a bit of attention.

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>>2974308
>>2973485
>The roots are shallow and spread laterally a little bit beyond the live skirt (green leaf strands) so it'll punch those rocks out of formation across time. You can pay it off, but it'll come back to bite you.

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>>2974318

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Forgot to add: >>2974319 is a black boy less than a metre tall. The black boy in this photo is less than half a metre tall.

>>2974308
>>2974318
>>2974319
>>2974320
Interesting, thanks for sharing. If and when I decide to plant it I'll widen the top tier where the bucket is sitting so I can make way for the laterally spreading roots. They grow very slowly so even in 10 years it will have only grown 100mm which woupd make it 320mm tall (its current 220mm soil to crown).

The sand, which is not builders sand, is from a quarry in the adelaide hills and is usually used for garden paths and for cactus type gardens, it is closer to a quartzite sand than anything. The sand has only been put on top as a layer thats maybe 20mm thick, underneath is a quality soul from my local sand and metal yard.

Everything is looking a little dry because its been hot as fuck here and I got a bit behind on the watering around Christmas/New Years because we were away for bit and pieces of the holidays.

How come youre just ripping up your blackboys?

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>>2974338
Fire danger mate, ever one go up? One ember turns a blackboy into a powder keg full of a billion embers and I've had a gutful of burning the cunts off. There's plenty far more beautiful examples outside the FDA. If you were further west I'd invite you to take a few, although it's against the law iirc.

Fair enough with your plans and your soil mate, I'm only going off what the eye can see. I think mulch would be a positive thing though.

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>>2974366
And these little fuckers like to bridge the gap between each tree more than a den of blue orb weavers. I do prefer them to blue orbs though.

>>2974366
Well shit, I never knew they were such a fire hazard. Pitty youre not closer because i wouldve taken you up on that offer.