The rose garden

Today my mum and I started pruning all the white Iceberg roses out the front and I'll finish that off tomorrow. The roses are...odd. One of those things that should be beautiful, and yet, they aren't. I like roses, in fact, I love them. But if I were going to plant roses, I would not buy twenty-four bush Icebergs and plant them out in a perfect grid in front of the house with black weed mat, bark mulch and absolutely nothing else. It's funereal.

I have already taken steps to add soul to the front garden. I planted bluebells and jonquils at the corners and they are just poking their noses out now. I put a few cyclamen and seaside daisies just under our bedroom window. I 'borrowed' several little nasturtiums out of the nature strip in front of a house down the road, and planted them in a garden bed by the path in the hope they'll spill over the edge. I've added a blue-berry plant in that eastern bed as well. I don't know that Adelaide is really suitable for blueberries, even if we do live in the cooler hills, but it was a pretty plant with vivid orange and red leaves.


A bit further back I planted a banana passionfruit to cover the fence. I'm not certain it's in a perfect spot, it might be a little too shaded, especially now in the cooler months, but if it grows it will be lovely and we can pick and eat the fruit straight off the vine.


Oh, I have such plans for the garden! A lavender hedge along the front fence, seaside daisies tumbling over the edges of the paths, a yellow climbing rose up the corner of the house peeking voyeuristically into our bedroom window. Figs, apricots, mulberries, blood plums... an Eden, in fact.