Lurgy lurking

I've got The Dreaded Lurgy (MIL had it, then SP had it, then me, D next?). Still, I am pretty robust, generally speaking, and feel vastly better already compared to very early this morning, which I put down to my famous 'stomach of steel.'

The plan for today, before I was struck down and confined to bed for the day, was to pot up the cuttings I took the other day, which are waiting calmly and greenly for me on the kitchen windowsill. I noticed them when I was lying on the floor trying not to be sick, or pass out (my body, at that moment, couldn't seem to make up it's mind. Fortunately, after a few minutes 'resting' on the cold lino, I did neither.)


From left to right I have: Penstemon (magenta flowers as in yesterday's bouquet, see the photo below), then a big pelagonium, then a little ground cover-type pelagonium I have fallen in love with (see here, halfway down, bright fuchsia-coloured flowers, green-grey leaves), then another big pelagonium. Or are they geraniums? Anyway, I don't know exactly what they are but they are all dense, very leafy mounding types, rather than the leggy sort.

I found some pots in the shed, I have a new bag of potting mix, and I've even gone all out and bought a little bag of rooting powder to help them along (after staring blankly at the rooting gels on the shelves in a certain Humongous Hardware Store and wondering if my cuttings were hard wood, soft wood, or medium wood.) As you may have guessed, I'm a propagation newbie. I've tried a few things here and there, but without much success, apart from a furry peppermint geranium which I merely snapped a few bits from the mother plant, poked them in the ground and then forgot about them. Some things need no care or knowledge at all!

So wish me luck, both that I'm up and about tomorrow, and that this bumbling gardener successfully propagates at least one or two plants out of this bunch.

Expo update

So, did I go to the Gardening Australia Expo? I did indeed! And did I buy anything? Oh yes, but I managed to restrain myself to a mere nine plants, all little locals (provenance). Most were only $3 each, and one I got from Trees For Life for a gold coin donation (I am very seriously considering joining them to grow plants for revegetation projects).

In my bag I have:
1 x Sticky Hop Bush (Dodonaea viscosa)
2 x Knobby Club Rush (Isolepis nodosa)
1 x Small fruited Fan Flower (Scaevola albida)
2 x Native pelagonium (Pelagonium australe)
1 x Clasping goodenia (Goodenia amplexans)
1 x Old Man's Beard (Clematis microphylla)
1 x Native lilac (Hardenbergia voliacea)

I must make a special mention of the Clasping Goodenia. It's an odd little plant. It has bright green leaves, quite rough like sandpaper, and pretty yellow flowers which fold downwards when they are open. But the most notable feature of this little plant is the very strong herbal smell, some call it 'spicy'. It's a memory smell for me, it's the Hill's bush in our oven-hot summers; it's watching an echidna trundle through the low, wind-clipped shrubbery by the beach; it's the snap, crackle and pop of eucalyptus pods opening, smoke smudging the horizon, and sun so bright you can hardly see between the trees.