A day in my Garden & my Trip to Perth

Hello and welcome back to a beautiful day in my garden. The weather has been amazing over the last couple of months. We've actually had one of the warmest Octobers on record, I believe. It was uncharacteristically warm. Sometimes during October we can still have some coldish nights, but this year it was very very pleasant. Which means that we should now enter the time of the year where my plants that grow out in my garden are actually outperforming the plants that I keep inside. Because the conditions should be much better outside over the next few months. Which means that it is time to bring a few more plants outside. Five months ago? Yeah, five months ago I started taking a few of my precious plants inside to let them overwinter. Because during winter it can be quite cold and wet, which causes a lot of fungal issues. So a few of my most precious ones have overwintered inside. But yeah, it's been a bit cramped inside and I think some of these plants would just have a better time growing out here over the next few months. And then I'm also getting a little bit of space back inside so it doesn't feel so cramped. Because more isn't always more when we're talking about growing indoors. And I want to take you along. I just want to go through my house and select a few plants that I want to put out here. Either on my wall of aeroids or in my greenhouse that's behind you. And then we're trying to fit them in. So yeah, overall let's just have a nice day in my garden. And I just came back from a really fun holiday to Perth and Rottnest Island. I saw some of the cutest little quokkas ever. And I really want to share with you my experience, share a little bit about my trip, show you some amazing photos that I took. And yeah, have a chat to you. So let's go. Hello everybody and welcome back to my YouTube channel. I would like to show you something really cute. Are you being a good boy out here? Hmm? Can you be trusted? So nice having the garden big, huh? How cute is my baby? Anyway, while Bradley is supervising out here, I think we should start browsing through the house and finding any plant that I want to move outside. And then once we established what we're going to put out here, we can see where it might fit best. Hmm? Are you going to help or are you just going to supervise? You're so gorgeous and so well behaved today, huh? So guys, it is actually almost the beginning of November now. I was supposed to do all of this much earlier on in the journey, but I was really busy last month. Not complaining about that. So yeah, I don't know. I feel like I'm a bit behind on my spring prep this year, but I think I can just blame all of it on the delay of the fence, right? I think let's just do that. And I've got this little action camera over here and I want to try something. I want to try just pinning that on here. I have like a little magnet under my shirt and I want to see if this gives you like a cool point of view. Would help if I press record. Yeah, so point of view of me grabbing all the plants. All right, let's go. See what we can find. Oh, this is not working already. Okay, let's try this. Oh, this one. I think it can go into somewhere. Let's pack them all in the middle. Let's go. Shit, I dripped all over the couch. I think this one can stay here. This one can stay here. This one is just not getting enough light there. Variegated Milano. I think they're all stepping. I kind of thought it would be way more. Bottom part of my mangela. Rest in peace. And a whole box full of sad looking anthuriums. Okay, this thing sucked. Sauce, but I tried. A little bit annoying with the harsh sun coming in now, but what can we do is what it is. It was supposed to be overcast. Last week we actually had really, really hot weather. We already had a 39 degree hot day. So I actually wanted to film this video last week, but then I thought maybe let's not put them out when it's 39 degrees the next day. It's maybe a too much of a shock. So over the next few days, you can see that it's going to be rainy, which is good because it's been very dry over the last month. You can see that it's kind of like 13 degrees as a minimum. So that's actually still quite cold. And then 24, 17, 18, 21, 23, 24, and so on. But overall, I feel like it's not too big of a jump for these plants to go out. Maybe a little bit too cold for my liking, but I just don't want to wait any longer. So let's think this through here. It's pretty sunny. I really hope this one isn't going to get too burnt. It looks terrible. Shit, what have I done? Why does it look so bad? Okay, I don't mind this. See if that worked better. Slightly better, huh? I suppose we also just need to give the plants a bit of time to grow into that space and then maybe over time it will get better. I think it looks good. It just needs to fill in a little bit, right? And keep in mind, growing season is only now getting started. Oh my God. You guys look at this cutie. Sorry. Okay, that was very successful. Let's go into the greenhouse. Misting just came on. Put this on the wall. It's a little domestic home. That's going to go to Tim. It's just a propagation where you can see there's a new shoot coming out here. I just want him to put that in his garden and let it climb up the fence. I actually want to go right outside of the greenhouse as a little table display. Put the Variegated Milano in here. It just didn't really have a good time indoors. So I figured let's try and change something because if nothing changes, nothing changes. Guys, this is my Discoria Discala. There's the first shoot coming out now. I had it in my greenhouse because it was just ugly and I wanted to be warm with lots of light, but it's ugly so I can't put it in a spot that I look at all too often. So I put it in the greenhouse. But now that I see the first shoot, I think I should get it used to the conditions that I want it to grow in going forward, which will be indoors. And I should also give this a trellis. So I'll take this out of the greenhouse. Here's my display of crazy rubbish. It's only a few left. I separated out many plants over the years. It's just not looking that good. So I'm hoping it has a good time in the greenhouse. Usually my Anthuriums do have a good time in there. Over here, I've got two more Anthurium stumps. I honestly don't even know what they are. So we need to wait for them to reshoot, hopefully, and then we can see what they actually are. And all of these are crazy rubbish that I separated out, but they're all severely suffered through thrips. So I cut them all back and, you know, I'm just waiting for them to reshoot. Could probably do with a repot, but not today. Maybe I'll try this Alocasia here. Yes, I cut off my Alocasia copra. I'm a little bit nervous, but I think she should be fine. And I think she'll like it here. She doesn't mind too much light. Looks a little bit messy at the moment because I just cut her up. She needs a little bit of time to readjust, but I think it could look really good there in the long run. No risk, no fun. This one goes here. Everything is already back in place. I kind of anticipated to have a little bit more work to do, but that was real quick. I think the main work comes in when I now fill the gaps inside because I'm way more picky with the plants inside. But I also want to give these plants a good start into the growing season and I should really clean the greenhouse and I should provide some nutrients to the plants here as well. So let's do that. And while I do that, I would like to talk to you about my latest trip to Perth. So I went to Perth WA two weeks ago. Now it is Western Australia, WA. It is bloody far away. It's a five hour flight to get there. So while you're still in the same country, it feels like you're so isolated. Perth is I think the most isolated capital city in the world. So yeah, it's very far away from everything else in the world, which is beautiful. I loved it. Now the reason for my visit is because Growth Technology Australia, the nutrients that I've been using ever since I started this hobby, are headquartered over there. And they invited me to have a chat to their head chemist, get to meet them, talk to him, pick his brain. Yeah, because we want to work a little bit closer together going forward. On that night, I'm using the foliage focus and root zone in here. Hang on, got a delivery. How disappointing it wasn't for me, it was for the neighbors. So yeah, I've got their foliage focus and their root zone in here. Now I don't provide enough nutrients in my greenhouse, I have to say. Indoors are much more diligent, but out here, the convenience of just housing things down is usually outweighing my desire to provide nutrients. So I'm going to try and be more diligent with it at least once a month, provide my liquid nutrients. I do have some worm casting in most of these substrates because I know I'm not good with my liquid nutrient provision, but they can grow really fast over the growing season out here. So I think providing them with a little bit more nutrient will really help them realize all the potential that the good conditions are setting. Anyway, so that was the main purpose of my visit over there because I wanted to meet them and it was really, really nice chatting to them. You guys know I'm usually not that scientific about things, you know, like I use a product and if the results speak for themselves, then so be it. And I mean, I've been using Foliage Focus for six years now and I suppose the results speak for themselves. I have great success growing plants. But sometimes it's nice to dig a little bit deeper and especially given so many people are using Foliage Focus on the back of my recommendation, I thought it might be time to actually understand a little bit more about the product rather than just using it. We had some really nerdy conversations about nutrients and chemical reactions and hydroponics and so on. For example, hydroponics. I feel like it's a word that's a bit scary at times, especially when you're new to the hobby. You're like, oh my god, hydroponics. Well, I just want to grow a plant. Hydroponics is basically growing without soil. So growing in my aeroid mix, there's no soil in there. My moss, that's not soil. So basically anything on a moss pole is hydroponics. You don't need to always do semi-hydro with like a water reservoir and lecker or pond or whatever. Yes, that is also hydroponics. But yeah, just growing on moss poles is technically also hydroponics, right? So I never even realized that I do a lot of hydroponics. So it makes sense to use a hydroponic nutrient as well. So I learned a lot about their products and about nutrient provisions in general and how all of the nutrients work and why the product works in the way that it works, why it's designed like that, why it comes as a liquid and so on. So I probably going to put a little video together to sum all of that up and just talk about nutrients overall a little bit, because it's probably one of the most requested topics, but I've never really spoken on it because I feel like I was lacking a little bit of extra knowledge, right? I was just using the product, not necessarily understanding the product. So yeah, I'll work on that. And while I was there, I also asked them if they would like to sponsor a masterclass when I fly to the US. And I spoke about that in a recent Q&A as well. But in that Q&A, I mentioned that I'm not certain yet whether or not the masterclass goes ahead. I can now tell you that it's going to happen. So when I'm in Charleston on the 25th and 26th of April, I will also hold a masterclass, one on Saturday, one on Sunday, and it is free to attend. So if you already are a ticket holder, you can just attend the event. It's first come, first served basis. So I'm not sure how big exactly the venue is where I can hold the masterclass, but the idea is that it's like about an hour of all of my top tips. And if you're there at the time of the event, then you can just join for free. Sponsored by GT Australia. Thank you very much. So yeah, it was really important to me that it is for free for the attendees because you already paid for the ticket. And I am trying, and I would love to create as much value as possible to the ticket holders, right? So you get the most out of the ticket that you bought. So thank you GT for making that happen. Okay. I need more water. I'll be back. Alrighty. I'm back. All right. What else happened? So that was really nice. And it was really nice to finally meet them and have a conversation. It's very nice to see. We're very much like-minded and I really appreciate how they are a small company. They founded in Australia about 40 odd years ago. They do all of their research in-house. Everybody that works there has worked there for many, many decades. So they're like a little chosen family. I just really enjoy working with companies like that and support them. But of course it needs to be mutual as well. So part of my visit to WA was to establish a more professional relationship with them because I love their product. I've been using it for so many years and I've been advertising it for so many years just because I actually use it. And I obviously don't want a gatekeep, but I've never really had a commercial arrangement with them. So it is nice that we are able to combine both, that we can find some sort of commercial arrangement and I can keep working with a company that I really, really believe in and that I can actually comfortably recommend to my audience. Enough of that. That was the work part. After that, my trip to Perth turned a little more fun. I was able to meet Fizzy who is an Australian creator. I've followed her on Instagram ever since I remember having plants. So she's kind of like an OG Australian plant parent. And she invited me to her home. So I was able to see, Mozzie, I was able to see her beautiful house and her doggos. And she also has a really cute business over there where she sells plants. So next time I'm in Perth, I really want to go maybe do a meetup at her place. Maybe do a masterclass over there as well. Maybe go to her house and film a YouTube video. I'm not too sure if that's something that you'd be interested in, but yeah, we got along really well. But this time around I didn't film anything with her. I just wanted to meet her. It was the first time I met her as well. So kind of nice to just meet her as a person rather than rocking up with a camera and be like, hello, welcome back to my YouTube channel. But yeah, it was really nice. You know, when you meet people for the first time, but you just get along so well straight away. Like it just feels like you've known them for ages. And I suppose because we followed each other on Instagram for so long, it feels like we do know each other for ages. But yeah, that was really nice. And that was not planned. She just DM'd me and I was like, oh my God, I fully forgot you live in Perth. Actually forgot I have a lot of friends in Perth. I only realized when I was there. I was like, oh my God, so many people that I know here. I also explored their botanic gardens over there. Western Australia is known for their natives. They're so isolated from the rest of the world. They have very unique plants over there. So lots and lots of Australian natives, lots and lots of Banksias. And I really enjoyed the botanic gardens with their natives over there. I always think of Banksias as like a bush, but they had a lot of Banksias that are kind of crawling and I thought they were so cool. So hopefully the B roll on the side is doing it justice. It was honestly really, really nice. I really enjoyed that. And I would love to go back and actually learn more about them from some experts. But I know that people on my YouTube channel are not really into the natives. Every time I do a tour with native plants, crickets, I suppose most of my audience is in Australia. Maybe for you guys, the Australian natives aren't so relevant. Yeah. Maybe I'll just go and I'll just enjoy the tour instead of filming it next time. See how we go. Close the window here and then we'll provide some nutrients to the wall of aeroids as well. I'm just teasing you. You obviously all want to know about the Quokkas. Day three of my Perth trip was to Rottnest Island. So Rottnest Island is an island just outside of Perth. It's like a 30 minute ferry from the actual harbor. A little bit longer from Perth. Anyway, close. Okay. And I'm really motion sick. I hate boats, but it was very smooth. And then you rock up at Rottnest. And one of the nice thing about Rottnest is that they don't have cars apart from the bloody tourist buses, but basically everybody just gets around on a bike. So had a bank, had a bike rental and the weather was beautiful. The most amazing, stunning day, but not too hot. It was only like 20, 21 degrees or something like that, but the sun has spied. Perth is known to be really, really hot. So we actually got lucky. It was actually colder in Perth than it was in Sydney at that time. And the island, Rottnest Island is well known for Quokkas. And Quokkas are also deemed the happiest animal in the world because it basically looks like they're constantly smiling. And they're very, very tame. On that island, they basically have no natural predators. So they're not scared at all. And they're used to humans. And they obviously take advantage of some humans dropping food and so on, but you are not supposed to touch or feed them. Obviously lots of tourists still do, as always. Humans can't have, can't have nice things. Humans love to destroy it. But yeah, the Quokkas are super, super friendly. And there were so many. My main concern was that I'm going all the way to Rottnest and then I don't end up seeing a Quokka. Let me tell you, that is an irrational fear that nobody has to have. Like they're literally everywhere. They jump on your table. They jump under your table. They jump on you. Like if you have food, they're very friendly, very cheeky, very cute. And if you followed me for a while, you know that I'm all here for any sort of wildlife encounter. If I can have a wildlife encounter, my whole day is so much better. I will put all this, I mean, hopefully editing Jan has put lots and lots of photos on the side to make you jealous. No, honestly, it was so good. If you ever visit Australia, I highly recommend WA for its beautiful beaches. And if you're in WA, you have got to visit Rottnest Island and see the Quokkas. Unless of course you don't like animals, but if you don't like it, then honestly, who are you? That's just weird if you don't like animals. So honestly, that made me so incredibly happy. And then you can do a day trip to Rottnest, but it's very busy during the daytime, right? Because a lot of tourists come for day trips. So I recommend staying a night because when the last ferry leaves around six, things get much quieter. And also the Quokkas are nocturnal. So they come out at sunset. They're around all day for sure. But during sunset, suddenly it turns into a whole infestation, like so many. So cute. And then the island becomes much more peaceful. And yeah, I saw a beautiful sunrise in the morning. I think one day was plenty. It was good. I enjoyed it. And then headed back to Perth. And my old company that I worked for is also a Perth based or my old manager that I worked for was Perth based. And the company's based all over Australia, but my old manager is Perth based. And some of my favorite work colleagues, hi, if you're watching, were all Perth based. So on that Friday, I caught up with them and they took me out drinking and dancing. And it was actually a whole lot of fun. And then Saturday morning, I flew back to Sydney again. So it was a short trip, but action packed and a good variety. There was some nice human interaction and I got to meet new people. I got to meet people in person that I've known for a long time. I've had my wildlife encounter. I had my nature. I definitely had a bit of partying and some drinks and some fun, reconnecting with old friends. So it was perfect. I don't think making a trip longer would have made it any better, right? This way, I kind of just take advantage of every day and try and make the best out of it. So I really, really enjoyed it and I need more water. Yeah. Then I came home and as always, even when I just go away for five days, I am swamped with work afterwards. But it's good. I enjoy feeling busy. I think especially over winter, you know, my plants aren't growing much, so I don't have all too much to do. It's harder to come up with concept ideas for videos because, you know, a lot of my concept ideas are just my plants growing. You know what I mean? There's no crazy concept behind it. It's just me documenting the growth journey. So if there's less growth, there's less journey, there's less content to record. So this time of the year, I'm busy with new growth, repotting, rearranging, setting up my greenhouse again, setting up my garden again, and so on. So even if I just go away for five days, that's, you know, always got a bit of work to catch up on, but I really enjoy being busy. So I think five days was honestly the perfect amount. I also then came back and had to do another workshop straight away the day after. That was kind of not open to public. It was just a private one in a community center. And then yesterday, I had my second big work... Sorry, I'm not looking at you, by the way, but I'm looking at the plants. And then yesterday, I had my second big workshop, the moss pile workshop, which went really well again. So it was so nice to see people attend both workshops as well, the first one and then the second one, because they also build on each other. So that was kind of the intention, but I wasn't sure if people would attend both. So I really, really enjoyed it. I have to say, I really underestimated the logistics of it, right? So for example, yesterday we made moss piles and I went ahead and had to cut all of the mesh and so on, which is not a bad thing, but I mean, I kept the workshop to 20 people because we needed space to make the moss piles. It would be hard to scale that up to more people and making moss piles is also quite expensive. So the resources that go into the workshop were actually also quite expensive. Luckily, I was able to do things in bulk and Jack sponsored the mesh, for example. So that's good, but I definitely think going forward, I will turn it into more of a masterclass. So it's not so hands-on, but more just visually represented. And then I'll leave it to people to make their own moss piles at home. It was good to be there and help people out on the spot. And I suppose that's what the whole purpose was and I enjoy it, but I don't think I can do that all too often. Plus of course, you know, there's only so many people in Sydney that haven't made a moss pile themselves yet who want to attend a moss pile workshop. So I think it would be good for me to broaden that service offering and do it online. But obviously when we do it online, there is no workshop aspect. It's more a masterclass, right? Definitely build up my confidence level so that I feel confident doing it in the US when I'm there early next year. My problem is the two workshops combined was probably four and a half hours. I mean, obviously there was a activity involved as well that would have taken up at least an hour, but I have a lot to say. I can talk guys. So my biggest challenge will be to edit the workshop or to edit the masterclass to only include the most important parts. So I don't take up too much time because when we're in Charleston, nobody wants to listen to me for four hours. We want to go explore the expo and go shopping and see all of the stalls, right? And then maybe if you can give me one hour of your time, that will be appropriate, but definitely don't want to exceed the hour because otherwise I'll just take up too much time. And I also don't just want to be there downloading. I want to mingle with people. So I think I'll keep it to an hour, but that will be my hardest challenge because I like to talk guys. That was just for kind of mainly the moss pods because the moss doesn't have any nutrients and I do want these plants to grow. So they feel that wall. All the other plants will get some worm casting granulates. It's basically worm castings turned into slow release fertilizer. It doesn't really work with the vertical exposure of the moss pods. I would have to incorporate it in the middle of the moss pod. But for all of my other pots, I just sprinkle a little bit on top and I try and do that once a month. But I think the last time I've done it, it's already over a month ago, but you know, they'll just slowly water in when I hoist them down or when it rains and so on. So that is just a easy way for me to provide nutrients, the liquid nutrients in my moss pods are much harder to provide. Oh my God. I really need to clean up these garden beds as well. They're so messy. Alrighty. Quickly cleaning up and then I'll show you everything. Oh, how beautiful is this golden rubinia that came back as well. But let me bring you a bit closer with my phone. Alrighty. This is it. When you first walk out, wall of aeroids is looking lush. Seating area is looking lush. This little area behind the greenhouse is looking dead, but the banana is looking good. That's you guys. And then the greenhouse is looking, I wouldn't say lush, but full. I just need all of these plants to kind of reshoot a little bit and regrow. But hopefully over the next few months and with some more diligent nutrient provision, it will happen. But I think today's main focal point is the wall of aeroids. Now I'm not super, super happy with it just yet. One sec. Masibo Blue has not done anything in so many months now. So pissed off. I think that's a bit better now. Okay. Just moved a few things around. I think it's looking good. See how we go. Yeah. I mean, we're getting new growth on here already. This is nice spring growth and the plant is almost pregnant again. Over here we see lots of new reshoots, new shoots here. This one is already actively growing. This one is trying. Let's see how this one goes out here. It is quite exposed to the elements, already got an insect. Quite exposed to the elements. It's quite large and it's just hanging there. Hopefully won't go flying because it is one of my favorite plants. And then this one, we also need to see, needs to rotate a bit around. There you go. The Jose Bueno. I think it's just going to have a good time here. Maybe it's more greenhouse potential, but I was looking for something that fills that gap at the top over there. And I think it should be just fine. It is growing again. So I'm really happy about that. I'm actually was worried about this one, not surviving winter, but it did. And it's such a nice pop of color. And then here the Monstera deliciosa Brazil form is also growing. So very happy about that. So overall, I think it's looking good, but I suppose the ball needs to grow in a little bit. Then on this side, it's looking good and there's a cute little baby here. But yeah, I'm not doing all too much with the garden beds because yeah, I don't think I'm going to be here for all too long. And then here's my album Syngonium. I thought it's a nice little table display. Guys, it's getting really, really sunny. So you guys will probably overheat in a hot second. So it's time for me to say goodbye. Thank you so much for watching. Like, subscribe, and leave a nice comment. And hopefully I'll see you in my next video. Bye.