Weeds are boring and the media don't seem to be interested

1. There is a glitch in this post and I don't know why paragraph numbers are appearing! So to keep it consistent will now keep it numbered! Very odd. 
2. Well, as one travels around Melbourne, one sees a lot of weeds which are not being dead-headed, pulled out, dealt with by more benign weed-killers etc'. This leads to invasive species encroaching on the plants that were often providing food for birds, and pollination for insects and birds. Effects on bio-diversity are all pretty obvious to the reader, I would think. 
3. Stumbled on this campaign media alert in Tasmania (Tamar Natural Resource Management) where the aim is to make weeds sexy. This is totally apt, as in our busy, multi-tasking lives one isn't going to be so interested in a stray tree or shrub which has popped up in the wrong place. So I though in order to draw attention to weeds, there will need to be something that surprises or intrigues us.  
4. The lack of communication on weeds is a grandiose problem.  The problem is partly a lack of knowledge on the part of members of the public, but also the fact that people lack time to investigate which plants are a menace and which ones aren't. I have tried writing to the local media and they just don't seem to be interested.  So an idea came to me that these weeds need to be tagged in some way. It sprung to mind that there would be stickers or streamers that are visible by day and glow at night (preferably biodegradable ones) or removable pegs which would alert people in cities to their weedy status. The name for the campaign could be Code Name - 'Little Weed' a little bit inspired by the character in the Flower Pot Men children's show for those old enough to remember.  Ironically we need to make the object of our eradication campaign likeable, cute, or a little bit glamorous to draw attention to the fact it needs to be eliminated. I wonder if there are any groups doing this - time to investigate.

My interest in making our environmental campaigns a little bit creative and inventive is discussed on my other website Converse Conserve.com.  We have an Exhibition coming up later in February, as part of the Sustainable Living Festival, which is a topic on the left-hand drop down bar.

It's Blooming Hot! - A Call to Plant

Blooming hell. It is one of those days when you want to utter every expletive under that yellow orb,  called the sun, and more, and that's because of the havoc being wrought by that all mighty self-combusting orb, and the low cloud cover!

Today it was 45 degrees celcius in parts of our state, and we are a hot continent, but this is blooming ridiculous.  It's meant to be only spring. Currently, it's still 36 degrees at the Tullamarine airport. (Okay, keep it nice, Nicolle. We know you can tone the language down.) So here we Melburnians sit, with our air-conditioners buzzing at top speed - hmm .. but not me of course, and as I walked back from my tram  stop, after a scorcher (as we call a hot day in Australia) in the city, I noticed there were not many houses with their air-con on.  It's probably because of the electricity prices soaring over recent years. But, money or  no money,  us greenies were put on this earth to suffer, and never use our ACs (well I rarely use it when my son is at his father's), because I'm such a blooming martyre like so many others.  I'm not a devout - dark green greenie, but there are a couple of green things I do well - I catch public transport, and I don't use my AC.

So out comes the large damp towell which gets draped over the shoulders, and then, if I can track down the spray bottle, out it comes too.

So what do we do? Sit here and complain? Yes, a lot of that.  We aussies, are a bit like our ancestors, the brits, we do so love a good whinge. But there is something else we can do, in addition to whingeing and that is :

- To Plant

Yes, I know you're going to say - but it's too late, it's almost summer, planting a deciduous tree the requisite distance from the house, isnt' going to help me this hot season. No, that's true.  But maybe, it's something we all need to think about with springs turning in to summer, and winters turning in to spring, and so forth.

Over the next day or so, I am going to post up some photos of a house near me, and how they have cleverly kept the lawn on their nature strip and planted fruit trees all around their garden, and along the nature strip as well. It's truly sensational, in every sense of the word.  Their home faces north and west, and this means they cut out a huge amount of the heat island effect, which would  exist if the trees and lawn weren't there. Sensibly, apart from the footpath, and road, which can't be avoided - really, there are no hard surfaces.  I will probably go overboard and photograph a gorgeous Crepe Myrtle and a few others.  All I can say is thank you - to the trees, and thank you to the people who plant them!

There is every reason, given looming 2 degree temperature increases across the globe, to be planting where ever possible.

Watch out for weed trees (cough splutter, as I have a very large desert ash in my midst which gives a lot of shade for which I'm grateful. Well, I never said I was perfect!) Here is a link to some old posts where I went on and on (as we greenies tend to do) about all the benefits of gardens -  but I think worthy of being revisited on a day when November temperatures broke the all time record, in Melbourne!

http://bloomingandbold.blogspot.com.au/search/label/Benefits%20of%20Gardens%20vs%20Outdoor%20Rooms

There are around 20 fruit trees in our midst, including owners yard!

Street Garden - Community Garden - Verge Garden Extraordinaire

Today we will deal with the letter 'W'

UK is facing its most diabolical drought in many decades. Sent a tweet just now on this topic.

Wicker beds are just one way of dealing with drought, as the technique actually encourages a kind of reverse absorption, going against gravity, I believe.  Wicker beds are something to be researched as I personally have never dealt with them so the Sustainable Gardening Australia website is one to look up.

But on another 'w' topic, I got a call from one of the councils about weeds, and they said they are having more difficulty with chilean needle grass, as this one is harder to detect than the one I have been banging on about ad nauseum.  (Us greenies do get a bit nauseatingly repetitive, don't we!)

So just to bore the reader a tad more, the next weed I will raise is the very lofty and weedy Desert ash (Fraxinus angustifolia subsp.angustifolia).  Now I only realised at the beginning of my course a couple of years back that this is a naturalised envrionmental weed.  It pops up all over my area, and it has a habit of popping up just next to a fence, or a house and if it gets tall enough it will start to uproot your house.  Thrice it has popped up in very awkward positions around  my home.  The trouble is it can grow to literally a height of a 3 storey building, it grows really quickly in all the rain we've been having, and it involves so much maintenance.   The one on my boundary with the neighbours is lifting up the concrete path next to the fence.  I am happy my neighbours love it as it gives them tonnes of shade on the north western side. However, for me it's not so lovely.

I will attach a photo when next it is light!  Perhaps one of my next topics will be non-weedy trees, that don't take so much maintenance.

On another note, the thing I really love about summer is the sound of the cicadas, or is it crickets.  Anyway they make a great noise that lulls you off to sleep.

From this ...

To this !