Yesterday I had afternoon tea with my first niece, Annie.  She had a scone with cream, and was very delicately dipping her little finger into the cream and then licking it.  After much prompting by her mother, she finally grabbed the big scone and brought it to her little face.  The scone did not all fit in at once though, so not much biting of the scone occurred at first.

Attempt at eating scone

Scone doesn't fit in my mouth!

Then there was an upset Annie, and her scone was no longer there. Where did it go? A quick search for it revealed that her older (canine) sister, Summer, had taken the opportunity of it being dropped on the floor and quickly whisked it outside to eat. Mmmm yummy, thanks Annie!

Summer finishing off Annies scone

This weekend I’ve been removing the tree in our back yard.  It started to die about 6 months ago, and has just continually died with no signs of making a comeback.  We never really liked it a huge amount, so we decided it had to go.

It was all going really well, until I decided to remove the last big root that was about half a metre below ground level.  I was using the crow bar, and suddenly stopped when I saw a piece of white plastic.  This is when I realised, I had introduced a levering bar to a storm water pipe.  The damage was already done, and a couple big holes were there.  The holes were right next to a root that I can’t remove, so it is nearly impossible to dig the dirt and rocks away from the second hole in the pipe that is on the side.  So, I used the jet nozzle of the hose, and jet-blasted the dirt away from the hole.  This gave me just enough room to get a key-hole hacksaw to tidy up the holes I made, such that when I cut out and glue a specifically cut piece of pipe over the holes, there will be a nice flat finish, minimising the need for lots of glue.  I managed to find a pipe connector with the inner diameter the same as the outer diameter of the pipe I damaged, which I have cut into a specific shape to fit into the available space I have, and contact all sides of the pipe.

I’m going to use a ‘Super Strength’ version of Araldite brand glue, that is much more waterproof, but I have to wait for it all to try out, and then clean the mud off of the section of pipe.  Chopping down the tree took one day, removing the stump took half a day, but fixing the pipe will take equivalent of another full day.

Previously I had posted about how I don’t think Windsor Green couch lawn is as drought tolerant as Santa Anna couch lawn. Here is a screen-shot from the website of the company that recommends Windsor Green for it’s drought tolerance. Click on it to enlarge:

The last bits of the Windsor Green are dying off in our Santa Anna couch lawn. Every time we have a heat wave a bit more of the Windsor Green dies. Sometimes it comes back after browning off, but I don’t think it will this time. Click on the photo below to enlarge. Note that the circled areas highlight which parts of the lawn are Windsor Green, as it is hard to tell from the photo. In fact, I actually had to go back outside after taking the photo to work out which was the Windsor Green and which was the Santa Anna. It is hard to tell, but the Windsor Green generally has a bluish tinge to it. This is the same colour as it was when I bought it, so I don’t think it’s turning bluish because of our particular soil. Up close I can tell which is the Windsor Green not only by what colour it is, but because the blades are generally slightly matted together, and dwarf like.

You can see that two of three patches of Windsor Green in the above photo are burning in the heat. The interesting part is this section of lawn gets shade from mid afternoon onwards, so it’s surprising that any lawn here would burn. It is possible that the Windsor Green is being attacked by the Santa Anna, and the heat waves are just the final blow. But, usually when there are several species of lawns they blend together. My overall conclusion is, that regardless of how drought tolerant a “lawn professional” claims Windsor Green to be, it’s not as drought tolerant as Santa Anna in our situation.

I would be interested to hear if anyone has had success with Windsor Green over Santa Anna. Perhaps there is a scenario in which Windsor Green performs better?