• Daily Life

    Pushing the Paws Button

    Even by the generally lousy standard of 2024, this morning was a pretty rotten one in some ways, yet even that couldn’t deter gaining pleasure from our kangaroo paw. The flowers have hit peak bloom. They bring me unbridled delight. I’ve still got hope some of the plants we have that are yet to flower will eventually bloom, too. I’m delighted these flowers have grown from seeds I got in my home town. Having been able to share the plants with friends and neighbors has also been wonderful. Some of my friends have grown plants even more magnificent than ours.…

  • Daily Life

    Get Your ‘Thinking’ Paws From Me, A Damned, Dirty Mate!

    One of my great delights over the past few years has become gardening, and unaccustomedly I’ve taken on numerous challenges, including growing plants from seeds, and the kangaroo paws I wanted to bloom and flourish more than any other plant have started to flower. I picked up dozens of different types of seeds when I last visited Australia in September-October 2022. I started growing them in February 2023. I’ve now got about half-a-dozen blooming in the garden, either in pots or planted in the ground. All but one is orange. Many of the seeds germinated and propagated, but of the…

  • Daily Life

    Mini Miracle

    One of the tiniest, daintiest, cutest little creatures I get to deal with has a back story of incredible strength and resilience, having bounced back from the brink of death to literally be thriving. I’m referring to our dwarf wattle, who is blooming brilliantly in what is proving to be a remarkable journey testifying to the power of nature. The wattle, a miniature shrub version of the better-known acacia trees like the golden and silver wattle, was grown from seed that I brought back from Australia. The dwarf wattle seeds initially sprouted extremely well, but I made the mistake of…

  • Daily Life

    Rooted!

    Having experimented with growing Aussie plants from seed last year, this year’s efforts have focused more on growing from cuttings and finally, from this morning, replicating the seed propagation experiment. Turns out that things are rooted, but not the way I had hoped. I started trying to grow cuttings from our extremely successful grevillea about two months ago. Following instructions online and from veterans, I took over a dozen cuttings from branches, added a growth-stimulating hormone powder to the ends, stuck them in pots filled with kanumatsuchi, watered them and covered the pots with plastic. I basically left the two…

  • Daily Life

    Open Up Your Eyes, An Everlasting Bud!

    Kangaeroo’s Aussie seed experiment is moving forward, and today resulted in its first buds. Seedling growth came from an everlasting, a pink, yellow and white flower native to Western Australia. I potted everlasting seeds last weekend in humidity pods. They’ve been growing under lights daily ever since, except for Tuesday night when the power plug short-circuited. I’ve checked the pods daily to see how they are developing, so was delighted to see the little leaves sprout. Might have some stronger seedlings in the works. Once they have grown big enough, I will transplant them into pots and move them into…

  • Daily Life - Unknown Nichigo

    A Seed Of An Idea

    As I touched on over the weekend, I’ve started trying to grow plants from seed and I completed the first round of the process this morning before heading off on my bike. Dwarf wattle seeds that I soaked in boiling water last night were the final group of seeds that can be planted in the winter. I managed to spread the seeds over a tray and put them in the humidity pod. Most of the work was finished yesterday after the ride. The process so far started in September and October of last year (2022) when I collected Australian native…

  • Daily Life

    Craving Procrastination, But Will Procrastinate Tomorrow

    Well, what a bloody awful rabbit hole to fall into. Today was supposed to involved delivering choccies to some cycling associates in Kawasaki. But getting up and about with half an hour or so free before Mrs. Kangaeroo was due to head off to work and hanging out with the dinosaur led to messing about on the computer. Unfortunately, this opened the door to a reacquaintance with Osama, a delightful performer who made his name playing renditions of famous Western tracks mostly from the 1970s in Japanese in a style he calls 直訳ロック (chokuyaku rock, “literal translation rock.”) Didn’t take…

  • Indigenous Strine (Woiwurrung)

    Ending With the Seed of An Idea

    Sometimes, Kangaeroo can come up with the seed of an idea. Thanks to a bit of a search a few months ago, Kangaeroo has got plenty of Aussie native plant seeds to try and grow. Growing them will be a late-winter, early-spring initiative. But preparations are already underway. Will be interesting to see how the Kangaeroo Cove shapes up when the northern spring hits. Related posts: Strine Dictionary Beating Jobsworths with Luck AFL – Modern Australia’s Religion and Failed Proselytizing in Japan There And Back Again: Oz 2022 Powered by YARPP.