Spring is springing

Flowers! I have flowers!
My lonesome single baby tree (Ornamental Cherry, maybe?) has blossoms in amongst its thorns, so lovely. I'm leaving it right where it is, too.
Those jonquils I mentioned last time are almost open (Erlicheers).


And I blew the budget at the State Flora Nursery, buying 18 plants for the grand sum of $67. They're all Australian natives, and a lot of them are indigenous to my area. All ground covers, to add a bit off green under and around the roses. I think I need about 10 more to finish the area. As tempting as it is to show you all 18 plants, here is just a small sampling...

Fringe Lily:



Correas (I love love love Correas, and this one's semi-local, from SA but Kangaroo Island)


Hardenbergia (local)
Rodanthe (Paper Daisy), fell in love with this one, such a pretty plant. It's got soft green leaves, the flower buds are a glossy purple and the flowers are white. Hoping like mad it does well (partially because it was twice as expensive as any of the others)

In contrast to my baby-plant bargains, we've also spent a small fortune on the first of the fruit trees. We live two minutes walk from the local nursery (dangerous!) so we borrowed one of their trolleys to wheel our new babies home (Brown Turkey Fig, Moorpark Apricot, Thornless lemon [Lisbon?] and a blackcurrent)
The warm air over the weekend inspired me to hang up my Thai prayer bells on the front porch.


There is going to be a 'GIANT PLANT SALE!!!' down the road in one of the reserves next weekend, so I will be heading off, SP on my front, to see if there are any bargains to be had. Hope it's not too cold. Can't wait for spring so we can all start to thaw out.

Before the storm...

There's a storm on the way, but I took advantage of a calm and warmish afternoon to get out into the garden again, SP sitting in her bouncer under the verandah with her Scrunchy Doll. I finally planted the potatoes I bought weeks ago (they're Desirees), four of them in my temporary vegie patch along the fence (it doesn't get enough sun I think, and I'm dreaming of raised beds in 'Ocean' corrugated iron), and two in two big pots which is a bit experimental. The pots are only half-filled with potting mix (and a dash of cow manure) and I'm hoping to be able to top them up as the plants grow, as per old-school 'pototoes in hill' method. After that exciting event, I wandered around in the dying light and took some photos of what's going on out there. It's getting warmer in the days, I think, it just not quite so bitingly cold and it's actually starting to feel like winter won't go on forever. So, here we go!

My snow-peas and broad beans are coming along nicely, and I was thrilled to notice there are going to be flowers soon on the jonquils I planted under the letterbox!

I'm not sure how well bluebells do in 'marshy soil' though, AKA that bit where the water-meter leaks (note to self: call water-people to come and fix it).


I did a spot of shopping at the nursery the other day, bought some Snap-dragons for old-times sake; a memory of my great-grandfather in England showing me how to 'snap' them.

Also bought myself some mints, creeping-thymes, and yet more seaside daisies to further the campaign to pretty-up the front garden. If you look very very very closely, you can see them as a few specks of green in the right-hand corner of the garden bed, near the blinding-white gravel (side note: gosh, we have such a cute front fence!)


But they look much nicer close-up.

(Pyrethrum)



(Creeping Thyme)