• Daily Life

    Seeding is Believing!

    For me, no flower better symbolizes Australian native plants than a banksia, and even though they have a reputation for being relatively easy to grow and maintain, that hasn’t been my experience in my two years of having an Aussie garden, but I’ve finally got a seed of hope….literally! Banksia seeds I planted in growth pods a couple of months ago and had basically given up on because they appeared unresponsive have started to sprout. Only two seedlings have appeared, but it was unexpected and a great delight. I tried growing heath banksia from seed last year and only one…

  • Daily Life

    All Sorts of Returns

    Kangaeroo.com is back online after a few weeks of being grounded. There were myriad reasons for why nothing got posted. But an old friend from NewsonJapan played an important and much appreciated role in getting the site back on track. Other everyday items making comebacks of sorts include my spare tire, career failure, glorious May weather and, beyond all hope, one of the kangaroo paw in Kangaeroo Corner! I’d given up on ever seeing the much-adored flower making a return, so it was a sheer delight to see it bud again. Less pleasing from a gardening viewpoint was the general…

  • Daily Life

    Minding My Peas, and Queues

    In my Aussie plant grow from seed experiment, desert peas moved outdoors today, with more budding plants queueing to join them. Only three of 12 desert pea seeds germinated, but did so strongly. Nonetheless, having struggled with clumsiness when repotting everlastings last month, I was better prepared this time. By that, I mean Mrs. Kangaeroo stepped up to the plate. She would handle the task of gently shifting the seedlings from humidity pod to pot. As always (except in her choice of men), she was superb. We used a potting mix containing soil for Australian native plants, starter soil from…

  • Daily Life

    Full Seed Ahead!

    Buoyed by the emergence of buds from everlasting daisies on Saturday and given the gift of desperation on late Sunday afternoon following a weekend of sloth, I planted the last of my seeds from Australia. With “budding” success from the humidity pods I have been using, I got enough confidence to try some different things with the seeds that I had left. Most of the seeds I brought back from Australia from my visit last year went into humidity pods last week, and the remainder went in by today: kangaroo paw, desert pea, golden everlastings, native wisteria and heath banksia.…