Getting a hair cut

My grafted Australian finger lime got a hair cut today, a bit of a nip and tuck if you like. I love the weeping shape of this little tree, but it seems to have a bit of a nutrient deficiency (nitrogen?), probably mostly because it lives in a pot, and I neglected to bump up the feeding for it (whoops, my bad). All those yellow leaves were crying out to be clipped off, and tiny new maroon replacement leaves are beginning to appear... Should have tried for a close up! Alas, a broken camera lens denies me the option.

Before:

After:

Some small progress

Back in May I did a big overhaul of my poorly kaffir lime tree (clickity click). You know what? It hasn't died! I feel I should celebrate but perhaps I should wait a little longer... But so far so good, anyway. I do hope it starts to do really well after this, once the weather warms up a bit. Kaffir lime is a key component of a number of things we like to cook in this house, and it's a little annoying to have to buy the leaves and fruit every time we need it.

 THEN...

*

NOW!

Meanwhile, I have invested in a miniature cherry tree, 'Cherree Black cherry,' (from Flemings). Gosh, it was expensive! But not much room left out there in the old backyard, and cherries are such a treat it will be worth it.

 

The backyard is a swamp thanks to all the rain we've had in the last few days. I can hardly wait for spring; less than a fortnight to go! We're making a brief trip to the snow because snow is all Miss 3.5 has been talking about for the last 6 months, and then when we get home it will be all systems go in the garden again.

Mini update #1 and #2

The idea here is to do a series of quick updates over the next few posts, seeing as I don't seem to be able to get to the old blog very often any more (and I haven't been able to read many others, either, sorry everybody! I have been neglecting you, though not intentionally.)

#1 Renovation update:

While we've been pottering along and things are slowly happening, not much of it has been particularly newsworthy. The big news of the day is that our bathroom bits and bobs should be arriving at the end of the week, and all things being even the plumber is going to visit early next week and we'll have an INDOOR TOILET! (I want to hash-tag that #firstworldproblems...), and if he's really on a roll we might even get, like, running water inside and not need to bring it in in buckets anymore. Actually, I lie, D brought home an empty 20L olive oil cask from work and we've been filling that with water. From time to time we've slept over at the house, but the lack of plumbing is terribly inconvenient so we limit it to once or twice a week.

In slightly more photogenic news, I've tried out some samples of paint on the exterior of the house. I wanted to paint it purple or mauve, so we tried it: everybody hated the lavender tone on sight - including me - and although I quite liked the darker purple I was the only one and well outvoted, so I came to my senses and went off the paint shop to look for what I like to call 'dove grey.' I'm not sure if this qualifies as dove grey - suspect that's a matter of opinion - but is IS very pretty, and no one is looking at me like I have two-heads with this colour, this time. (On a side note: I can hardly wait until I can tackle the landscaping in the backyard and stop ignoring the weeds, though Heaven only knows when that will happen.)



Mini Update #2: Microcitrus: for the gardeners.

Back in August last year I bought myself a Fingerlime (Microcitrus australasica). Recently I finally got around to repotting it in a terracotta pot and he's doing quite well so far. In the last 7 or 8 months he's grown perhaps an inch higher and is lovely and healthy. At that time I also bought my first Australian ground orchid, a greenhood Pterostylis curta). And although I don't have any photos yet, I'm happy to report that it has come out of dormancy after the Summer and resprouted from five bulbs. One fell victim to a snail or slug the moment it poked it's green nose out of the sand, but I whipped the rest away to safety and surrounded the new shoots with a protective ring of snail bait (bad greenie, I know!)