One off the wish list...

Daydreaming on the rattle and rustle of giant bamboo... Don't have the room, of course, I have been eyeing off clumping bamboos for some time but have not been able to stomach the price. So, when I stumbled across some cheap tubes of Fargesia nitida 'Fountain' the other day I decided to take a risk with the wee babies. Including post these average about $10 each. They've already been shifted into some 32cm pots and left in part-shade to grow on. It's likely they'll stay potted up for a long time. I'm hoping they'll produce canes of a useable size eventually (they should grow to 2-4m tall) and I'll never need to buy plastic-bagged bamboo from Bunnos for the garden ever again. Fingers crossed?!

Lately

Wow, don't post for a bit and those photos really pile up!

We've been away on a brief driving holiday to Sydney and back. 

Saw loads on Olearia in full bloom through those endless mallee lands. Naturally I had to pull over and have a good look. 

Stayed in a funky (and very dilapidated) old pub in Ouyen both there and back. Oh, if I had a few spare million to restore it to its former glory... 

If you have an opportunity to visit the Australian Botanic Gardens at Mt Annan, NSW, you really should do so. Free entry, free parking too, glorious flowers; I was in heaven.  

Went to the other botanic gardens in the Blue Mountains too. We only had a spare hour, I so wish I had more time to really explore. 

Came home to launch full steam ahead into spring. 

Put the girls to work doing my neglected weeding (they refuse to pose nicely for a photo). 

They are paying their board with so many eggs I've started selling the odd dozen when I get overwhelmed and can't bear the thought of another quiche (and I'm trying to cut down on the sweet baking). 

Gave the lemon tree a pretty thorough haircut and picked a few lemons. There are so many I might need to pop them at the gate with a 'free' sign. 

And the potato tower that had done so little at my last post has gone 'kaboom'. How fabulous! 

How I love spring xx

St. Cecilia gets a second chance

After three or four years in the front garden, my St. Cecelia (David Austin) rose has done little better than limp along. Today she got the heave ho, but with some last minute magnamity I've potted her up. 

The rootstock has been trying to take over from the day this rose was originally planted, so it's had a rather severe bit of surgery from a pruning saw to try to get rid of the problem. Too much? Will she survive? We shall see. 

Fingers crossed. She's bedded in half general purpose mix, half premium mix (because I ran out of GP mix), and a handful of Seamungous pellets to help the roots along. Hopefully some pot culture and a quieter and cooler position in the garden will do her a world of good, and she'll blossom for me. 

I had my usual assistant today too, though not so sure the beloved, white Moomin appreciated being used as a gardening tool. 

(Off topic: how sad is my lawn in the background?! Come back, warmth and sunshine; we need you!) 

Kokedama part four

Forgot to ever photograph or post this one from at least a month ago. Baby Parlour Palm (scientific binomial forgotten) from Ikea in kokedama ball, blue glass dish also Ikea (finally found a use for it!). I think the palm might actually be growing! He gets watered (soaked) about once a week. Behind is a bargain plant I found a couple of weeks ago, whose name -common or otherwise - completely escapes me, brassy pot from the Salvos. 

This pair lives in my bathroom at the moment. 

Experiments in kokedama part three

Bird's Nest Fern.  

Kokedama part two

Again, not a tutorial, but this is how I made my first hanging kokedama. 

Experiments in kokedama

This is Pinterest meets crafty chick meets gardener meets too many house plants, when the only way to go is up... Or down, in this case. As in attach the plants to the ceiling in my obsession of the week: kokedama, specifically hanging kokedama. 

This is not a tutorial, but a document of my own experiments in the style. If you want to know how to make kokedama a quick whip around a few Google results will give you ample information. However, for the purposes of information, I'm using sphagnum moss, orchid mix potting media, jute twine, one of my clearance orchids, and air-dry clay. No, I'm not mixing the clay through the potting mix as I've read in tutorials (probably not suitable)  but I'm making a sphere of it for the centre to give the kokedama a shape to work to, and to act as a bit of a weight.

So, here goes nothing! 

Growing lotus from seed.

Some time back I bought four lotus seeds from EBay with the intention of growing them into plants (or trying to, anyway). I finally got around to trying this out about a week ago. Following some online instructions, I filed a hole through the seed coat of each seed with sandpaper: these buggers are really hard! Then they were popped into a yogurt container with lukewarm water (filtered water, for what it's worth) and left them on a sunny windowsill, changing the water each day. Overnight the seeds swell up from sultana-sized, to grape sized. About three days later I was very excited to see the first green shoots peeking out. One seed, however, has not sprouted yet, and may not at all. 

I was astounded to see the shoots had grown a full inch taller by the end of the day! 

A day after this the shoots were poking out of the water, and it's time to repot them into fertilised soil and put them into the pond. It's pretty hot outside now, so the plants should love it. 

Score!

Two dollar clearance rose standard #2 turns out to be pink, and a nice clear pink at that. Almost no scent at all though. Is it 'Bonica'?

And, in other news, my boy built me a big A-frame trellis out of old recycled timber we've had lying around since we started renovating this place years ago. It literally took him ten minutes, and already looks like it's been there for years. 

Broadly speaking, the round section of this bed features a 'Crimson Baby' nectarine, under planted (left to right) with Nepeta 'Walkers Low,' chocolate cosmos, common thyme, Salvia nemorosa 'Lubecca' and 'Tanzarin,' Pelargonium sidioides (?) and a dwarf buddleia. 

Along the shed, mostly invisible at this stage, is rose 'Red Pierre' (at front corner), a few French roses including Dan Poncet, Paule Bocuse (both Guillot), heritage roses Devoniensis, White Wings and Gruss an Aachen, and at the far back by the shed is the climbing rose 'Black Boy.' On the new trellis is a grape, but i forget which and it's not had fruit yet anyway. Also jammed in here are another dwarf buddleia, a couple of correas, Goodia medicagiana, native indigo (name escapes me), Salvia petrovskia being completely hopeless, sweet marjoram (pretty but I can't stand the smell), Aquiligia 'Black Barlow' and even a few black hollyhocks. Wow, that's kind of a lot!

THEN, by the water tank, raspberries which fruit prolifically (taken from MIL's garden so variety unknown), 'purple' raspberries, the purple flowered shrub is Alyogyne 'Double Delight,' and it's next to the local Bursaria spinosa. On the tank itself is a banana passionfruit, and the rose 'Summer Song' and just out of shot on the right is a dwarf peach, 'Golden Queen.'  

Pinkie

Soldiering on on the western wall is Pinkie, yet another clearance rose! She is a climber, though I do think she'll take a while to get to any significant height. 

I've tried a number of companion plants as neighbours here, all failed miserably, until I popped in my tried and tested Poa labilliaderi, which though lopsided, is otherwise doing well, especially since it was just a self seeded plant I dug up from the front garden. 

It's yellow!

More Clearance Rack plants doing well, this time it's my $2 mystery rose standards. Both have bushed out and have flower buds, and one has opened to reveal itself to be a lovely yellow. I'm so pleased! I was hoping for a yellow. The rose is still nameless, but will be something pretty common I expect (being from a giant hardware retailer). 

Now, just holding my breath while I wait for the other plant to open it's buds too, though will be another week or so before that happens, I think. 

(Other pot plants here, for those playing at home, are more practical than pretty: 'Fairytale' eggplant, my first try at cucamelons/mouse melons/ mexican sour gherkins, a very sad dragon fruit (not a plant for Adelaide conditions) and blueberry 'Vitality,' which is doing well and had green fruit, which my toddler keeps picking and eating.)

Date-marker

A brief update to remind myself that the new orchids were repotted today. I do not have high hopes for the smallest and finest of the three, it had barely any roots let at all. The previous potting media was very dense and wet after it's time outside, and featured a hearty crop of earthworms! I also learnt a new word: 'Keiki', which refers to the 'orchid baby' I removed from the biggest plant and put into a little pot on its own. 

Here, the largest enjoys a brief soak in a bath of Seasol and 1/2 strength orchid fertiliser. 

TLC

Today I was given three orchids in need of some TLC. Challenge accepted! They came via a relative who is too elderly and frail to care for many plants anymore. 

I can only find a tag on one of these, which reads 'Dendrobium "Victorian Bride Genisis"' [sic]. A quick Google shows me it might be white with a spotty magenta border. I believe the two other orchids to be Dendrobiums as well, I'm hoping I'll turn up more name tags when I repot these little plants tomorrow. 

I am very proud of my orchids, not because they are particularly amazing, unusual, or spectacular, but because all bar one came from the clearance tables of big-box hardware stores, and not one of them has died on me yet. Must do a post on them one day. My 'new' plants stand a good chance of a reasonable recovery. 

More bargains

Home, the buzz and zip of spring, and the lure of the clearance section of the local big box hardware store tempts me to some lovely bargains. Such hope! Such promise! Two x $1.99 standard roses (down from $24.95). What variety? No idea: no tags, but for that price I'll definitely take a risk (I'm hoping for a yellow or buff, but will be content with anything except bright orange). I also found a 'Valley Red' super dwarf peach ($15 at half price). Self-pollinating, and high chill, so it may or may not do well up here, fingers crossed it loves my yard.