Saturday 14 April 2012

Ground cover

Here is one kind of ground cover that's almost grass-free, near the newly planted citrus trees. I did nothing to encourage it other than rather trample the area. Bill Mollison emphasises the importance of changing the ground cover vegetation under fruit trees from grass to leguminous and herbaceous plants. I suspect that the grasses of subtropical eastern Australia are even more of a menace than what we have here, but these are hard enough to get rid of. So I haven't tried to get rid of them other than in the dug areas around trees, and instead just seeing what grows where, and pulling the grass up to use as much (before it sets seed).

On the citrus and avocado terrace, vinagrella was present at the start but has colonised some of the dug areas, particularly where there is some shade. I'm not sure what this plant is, but I understand it's introduced from South Africa. Anyway, it can make a lovely grass-free carpet under citrus trees, usually where there is dew such as in the horta de Soller.