Wednesday, February 20, 2008

A Challenge to the Gardening Blogging Community

Bloomingwriter's blogger, jodi DeLong, issued a challenge to the gardening blogging community to show where they are on the world's stage. Well, here I am in beautiful Busselton, Western Australia.

Busselton is a coastal town 220km south of WA's capital city Perth. With a mere 24,000 residents it's not exactly your bustling metropolis. But it does cater for most things and if we can't get it here, then Bunbury, a short 52kms north, makes up the difference.

For climate and gardening conditions, Busselton is second to none. Even with Austin's 18 garden bloggers they still fall far short of our blog per capita ratio of 1:24000 (Austin's is more like 1:83000) which proves that we are far more into gardening than this US city would let on.

Basically, Busselton is built on a flood plain 2m above sea level. The hills that surround it provide the necessary water for many of our low-lying wetlands and is diverted away from the town through a flood-mitigation program. Much of the water runoff also leeches into the soil and refills our vast Yarragadee Aquifier. This aquifer is the source of all our water consumption.

The town's history was born through the shipping of timber from Geographe Bay. While the bay is a safe harbour it's very shallow and required the building of an almost 2km long jetty. Shipping ceased soon after Cyclone Alby tore through the region in the early 1970's and the jetty has now become a tourist attraction and the source of much contention to who will foot the bill for maintenance.

Chookie from Chookie's Backyard asked about info relating to our founding 'amateur botanist' Georgianna Molloy. While there's much written about this great pioneer you will get a very different story about her from many people who live in Busselton. Whereas she should have been honoured for her gardening work she is reasonably vilified for introducing the arum lily to our moist wetlands. All because she thought they looked wonderful in her English garden back home.

Gardening in Busselton is not as easy as it seems though. Sandy soils that leech nutrients faster than a greyhound on race day and soil alkalinity from the ocean's salt, take their toll. But once the soil's been built up with rich humus there's not a lot that won't grow in this environment. Hot summers reaching into the mid 30's C and mild winters with minimum's still above 0° C ensure gardeners don't give up easily.

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