First spring roses.

Long hiatus...

First roses of a rubbish, freezing cold, ridiculously wet spring. 

Strawberry Hill

Front fence, Strawberry Hill back left (Anthemis, Thyme, Nepeta, Alyssum and Dianthus also in flower)

Bedroom window with Crepuscule finally getting some height. Also Iceberg below, with Erigeron in flower. 

First Crepuscule bloom of season. 

Bonica? $2 standard unlabelled rose rescue. Bumble Bee salvia and Erigeron underneath. 

Golden Celebration. 

First buds on Fairy Moss (with lobelia and alyssum). 

Radio Times and Nettle-leaved campanula. 

Radio Times environmental shot with Apricot tree, Campenula, Californian Poppy, Maireana sp, pink cosmos, lavender, nepeta, cut-leaf coriander. 

Munstead Wood. 

Ever lurid Sophy. 

Black Boy starting to gain some much needed height on shed. 

White Wings, enormous and brief blooms. 

Devoniensis. 

Quick and blurry catalogue

Paul Bocuse (Guillot). Pale peachy pink.

Cramoisi Superieur

More pink than the red I expected. Lots of flowers for such a little plant. 

Graham Thomas (DA) with Poa labilliaderi. 

Jude the Obscure (DA)

Endlessly lovely

Sunny June. Fab singles, aphid magnet. 

Summer Song (DA). Favourite up the back. 

Four, five, six...

Happy phone-snaps with restless babe on my arm...

Yellow Charles Austin (David Austin, bargain buy).

Strawberry Hill (David Austin).

Can't remember, need to look it up! Yellow English beauty (possibly Moulineux, struck myself from a cutting from my mother-in-law's garden, I think. Why do I not record these things better?!)

Things are really hotting up out there, already the front garden has that dry, glazed, over-bright summer look. 

Rose haul 2014

It's like Christmas! Fourteen new beauties here, the only one missing from my original order is 'Mme Berade' as it was out of stock. I'm now tossing up if I should seek further, or replace it with something else (top contenders are 'Lady Hillingdon' or 'Lady Huntingfield'). I've managed to plant all but three of these plants since Saturday, but its not easy with a poor sniffly limpet-baby boy. 

A half-finished corner

A day spent digging, until the weather came in, at least. Doesn't look at all spectacular, and the lawn is a little worse-for-wear (since it's had half a tonne of soil and rocks on it for the past six months), but very happy to have that little white cherry tree (centre) in place at last.

For those playing at home, that assortment of twigs and trees from left to right is (not including the trees right along the fence): the grafted weeping mulberry, dwarf white cherry, thornless lemon (at back), my beloved Moorpark apricot (largest), and the dwarf black cherry (far right).

Underneath so far, and so small most are almost invisible, are a couple of volunteer broad beans, three Salvia leucantha, two Penstemons (I think "blackbird" possibly, cuttings from an unknown variety in my mother-in-law's garden), one surviving peony (forget which), "Munstead Wood" David Austin rose, a prostrate caper, some Gaura from self-sown seedlings transplanted from the front garden, "Sandford" raspberry, and far too many Oxalis pes-caprae (Sour Sobs) that I just can't seem to stamp out. That seems like a lot, now that I make a list, but there is more depth to this area than appears in this 'in-progress' shot. And, let's face it, I tend to over-plant. 

From Saturday, there'll be a couple more plants in here because it's ROSES COLLECTION DAY! Wheee! 

Too too too beautiful

Graham Thomas (David Austin rose)

Seven things I'm proud of.

Please ignore that enormous blank space above. I don't know why it's there, and I can't seem to get rid of it. 

How has it been over a month since I last wrote? Babies: little time thieves... 

In lieu of real blog posts about individual things, here are seven things from the garden which I am proud of. Photos were taken with an iPhone in one hand, and a grumpy baby on the other arm, but in all their daggy (and dodgy) composition they make me happy. My urban backyard is becoming my very own Eden... So, without further ado or waffle, here are my currents joys:

1. My baby fruit trees are in their second year of fruit! Here is my beautiful, not-so-little Moorpark apricot, loading up with fruit due around Christmas, and a representative from my posse of six plum trees, whose fruit should ripen in mid-summer.  

2: We finally have chickens! Introducing our three Isa Brown pullets: Marilyn, Rita, and Audrey. We brought them home around a month ago and are averaging two eggs a day already. 

3: My raspberries! I ate the first two today from this very bush. All the plants I've put in are going bonkers with flowers and fruit. I have seven different cultivars now, in both the garden and in pots, and 'Sandford' here is the first to ripen. Since its not even supposed to flower until November, I am pretty impressed (unless climate change is causing this very early fruiting, in which case I am concerned). 

4a: My roses, because I adore them and everything is just starting to bloom. This pinky-orange fluorescent delight is 'Summer Song,' which I have moved to a cooler position (I hope) on the eastern side of the water tank. It hated it on our hot north-facing patio, so fingers crossed for a happier plant this summer. 

4

4b: More roses! Posing here from front to back are Munstead Wood (a burgundy newcomer to my garden), 'Golden Celebration' (yellow, obviously) and the ever-blooming, pink 'Sophy's Rose.' That last was bought on a whim 18 months ago, and had flowers right through winter until I finally steeled myself and pruned it about a month ago. The violet flowers at the left, by the way, are the Local Lovely, Ajuga australis. 

5: My 'hard to grow' natives: the bluer-than-blue Lechenaultia biloba, and black-fuzz-on-lime-green Macropedia fuliginosa (black kangaroo paw). Honestly, not really that hard to grow. Both need really good drainage (ie put them in a pot), lots of sun, plenty of water, and a quality native potting mix. And an expectation that they will probably not last particularly long is also useful. 

6: The sweet peas, because they are just so pretty. These are 'Matucana,' and doing a valiant job at attempting to cover up the shade cloth I've put all along my west-facing fence. 

7: Last but not least, my lawn! I am very proud of this lawn. It's far from perfect, golfers and cricketers would be appalled, but last autumn I piled loads of gypsum on that patch of compacted clay, spread out some brought in 'loam' (brown sand -ahem-), scattered a mix of lawn seed, watered it diligently until the winter rains were consistant, and lo and behold: it grew! And it didn't even drown in the swamp our backyard becomes in winter. It's daggy at the front, but will be paved there eventually so who cares?! And why is this last photo smaller? Well I have no idea, but never mind. 

Happy Spring, everyone xx

My little mate

I am pleased to announce the arrival of my new gardening companion: Our little boy, Owen. At less than three weeks old, he's already been out in the Ergo (sling), wrapped in a woolen blanket, keeping me company while I prune the roses and my baby plum trees. If Miss Three, Emi, is our SP (Small Person), does this make Owen our 'ESP,' Extra Small Person?

 

 In other news, I've just eaten the last two raspberries off the bush. Raspberries in June? Oh, yes! I am as surprised as you are. And they were delicious :) These are an unnamed variety that I dug out of my Mother-in-law's garden a year ago. I love it when a free plant performs well. I have six other - known - varieties of raspberry scattered throughout the yard as well. If I have my way, we will be overrun with fruit in a few years. I can't think of a nicer fruit to be overrun with, either. The varieties I have should provide fruit for us from December right though to June, if the past six months are anything to go by.

 

Last but not least, another bargain which is proving itself a brilliant performer: A David Austin Rose I bought from an online store in a kind of 'end of season run-out' sale.  It's called Sophy's Rose, and it's proving itself almost impossible to photograph accurately. I appreciate this Hipstamatic snap is especially dodgy and not even in focus, but so far it's been the closest representation of the colour I've managed to get (real-camera photos are even worse, and show it as a hot pink colour). This photo on the David Austin website is a little closer, though my roses seem to glow more than that. Sophy's Rose is a glorious burgundy-wine-red colour, warmer than the red in the lower rose in my picture, but not as pink as the one on the top. 
Furthermore, it's still blooming in June and the plant itself has done wonderfully for one just planted last winter, not showing any signs of the blackspots and yellowing leaves of the roses in my front yard, and even still has a generosity of leaves.