Autumn 2012

Something can come and knock your confidence, but then you look at a plant you grew from seed or a cutting and think, well I did that, so all is good with the world! ;)

Eriostemon verrucosus

It may be Autumn in theory but the wintery blasts are freezing us all.  Woollen hats, jumpers and scarves are being worn in abundance in our very cool dwellings.  Worried about the cold snaps,  my tiny seedlings and cuttings (I have Camelia, Correa 'Dusky Bells', Eriostemon myoporoides, Prostanthera cuneata and a veregated geranium I'm unsure on the species. I also divided my Dianella longifolias) have been placed in shelter on the really cold mornings.  I have made time in the garden again, which has been a lot of fun.  Revamping beds that were tired and limp.  Having a rental property, I don't really want to put in too much work or money into the garden, however as all you budding green thumbs would understand, I can't leave a mess.  The lavenders,paper daisies and geraniums were looking very old and unloved.  So I cut back the geraniums, ripped out the lavenders and paper dasies and planted buddleia, abelia and salvias.  I want the garden to be rich with colour and texture, but it will still be easily maintained.  My son has been enjoying the garden.  He has already enjoyed fistfuls of grass.  (at 8 months) He also wanted to grab the Callistemon branchlets which were flying near my face.  Its been a while, I realise since I've last blogged, and this one is a small entry, but I hope to have a bit more time now.     Have a good Autumn everyone and find a pile of leaves and jump in it (unless there is a gardener near by, because they will probably run after you very annoyed that you've just demolished their pile!)

Summer

Hello,

Its been a long time since I've entered anything. I apologise, but I've had a very good excuse. My son was born seven weeks prem so I've been a bit distracted. Fantastic to say that he is doing really well and piling on the weight and so gorgeous. Summer is here. Wow! I've been enduring it without AC and with a small baby, its been fun. Glad to see that we have had some reprieve throughout the season. Tomorrow is up to 35 again, but its all good. Weirdly, I haven't had much time for the garden. However, I did find a few old potatoes in the back of the cupboard and decided to plant them to see what would happen. Happily, I checked them yesterday and saw that there are quite a few taters growing amongst the parents. Am very excited about that! We also have four tomato plants and a raspberry. All are doing well. I'm feeding them all every few weeks to establish good fruit. This afternoon, I spied a passion fruit on our climber and that's very exciting, as I thought we may only get the flowers this year. Everything else is doing quite well even if I have been a little distracted this season. My crowea is looking superb with many flowers. I also managed to strike a Crowea saligna which I am just over the moon about. My Daphne has tripled its size from last year - amazing what a little rain does. And my one of my budlea's are just going nuts! Am so glad we got rain, so I can look out onto a garden full of healthiness and colour. It will be something nice to look forward to when Will's grown up a bit. That's it for now, as I need my sleep before I am woken for the next feed. Happy, happy summer!

Winter

August in Melbourne. This year's beginning to August has been a warm one. We had one of the warmest mornings ever recorded the other day. Its been a while since we have had the heaters on (more than a few days in Melbourne in the middle of Winter, is a long time!) Of course, these warm days/nights are happening through the weeks and then when the weekends come to us, we're back to the wintry Melbourne days. I saw a beautiful Magnolia tree full in bloom this morning, so I thought I would share a photograph with you. Its amazing this flower. I love the colouring and size of the flowers.

Winter is nearing to the end. And I would have spoken more about it, but I have been having some publishing difficulties of late. I do not know why. So hopefully this will publish.

Winter in the gardening world is fun. One could see that as sarcasm, however, for once, I am not! ;) From the beginning, in June where we're still battling with the rest of the falling leaves, to unpredictable rainfalls and icy dark mornings. There is so much to do, but there is hardly enough time in the day for it all. It should be a time to relax a little. But because of all the rain we've been having, most plants seem to be confused on what they should be doing. Winter, we should be slowing down mowing. However, it did not seem to slow down until early July, way into the middle of the season. We are also inundated with weeds, which is a never ending job. Oxalis (Oxalis sp), winter grass, Common sow thistle(Sonchus oleraceus), fat hen (Chenopodium album) are just a few of the weed species we have to deal with. Winter is also the time for winter pruning. I enjoy rose pruning. They seem to respond well to my kind of torture. A sadistic type pleasure envelopes me as I hack into the old wood of a very old rose. Two-thirds come off spectacularly. Large spindling roses which may not have been pruned for a few seasons and still seem to produce one or two flowers are cut down in size and some of them into a mere stick, yet they still survive and thrive. Pruning fruit trees can be dramatic and very therapeutic also. Especially to trees who may have never been pruned and then are injected with a new lease on life for years to come. So winter is about to leave us and we're about to leap into Spring...bring it on!

Menopausal Mother Earth

Its only March and we have seen a lifetimes worth of natural disasters. In our country alone, we had floods and cyclones. In New Zealand, our not-to-distant cousins, Christchurch was hit by a 6.3 earthquake which was actually an aftershock from its 2010 earthquake. Over 100 people had died and there are still bodies being recovered, a month after the fact. Now, in Japan, an 8.9 quake and tsunami has hit and has devastated the country. An estimated 10,000 people will die. More than 1000 are already dead and 1000s are still being recovered. Not only this devastation. Its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was hit enabling radiation levels high. Today, there is risk of contamination in food and water. Will this be another Chernobyl? Hopefully mother earth will give the world a break after Japan and so we can process the death and destruction that has hit our human shores thus far. 2011 already has its highest death toll and we're only into the third month. We can't mentally cope with any more.

Even more flowers!

I thought it had been some time since I did a flowers blog, so here we are in the beginning of Autumn and I am thinking flowers. Its a fab time of year, leaves turning colours and falling everywhere. So enjoy Autumn this year. Enjoy the colour.