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.'  

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.

Gardening by moonlight

No, not the kind where you refer to a chart to see what to plant when according to the phases of the moon, but the kind when it's already dark outside, and the Mosquitos are out in their hordes, but it's such a beautiful, balmy, sublime autumn night that you steal half an hour outside to do some planting (raspberries into styrofoam boxes, in this case).

The current moon phase, by the way, is a waxing crescent and supposedly a good time for planting and encourages leaf growth. I only learnt that five minutes ago...

More interesting to me is my SP's current complete fascination with the moon. She tells me she wants to sit on it; bless little toddlers! Always seeing our world in a different way.

Edibles update (long)

I am making up for a slow posting in November by posting nearly every day in December so far... and I have five more rough drafts full of photos waiting in the wings, too!

So, as you know, we recently spent a month away on holidays and left the garden care (IE watering) to someone else. When we got home the garden was overrun with weedy grasses and thistles, and to my horror a couple of my veggie pots looked like this:


Eek! We'd had an early November heatwave, and some plants got frizzled! For the record, that pot of strawberries and the other heatwave casualties have been lathered with love, water, and Seasol and all are showing signs of recovery, thank heavens! And once I got weeding like a madwoman, the rest of the garden didn't look such a shambles.

But, onto the good news: Tomatoes!
Lots and lots of tomatoes are on their way, and the 'dwarf fig tomato' (Diggers) out the front in my rose garden has a few red fruits already (which I have eaten as I did my rounds deadheading all the icebergs).


Pepinos!
I planted my pepino back in March or thereabouts after buying the plant for $2.50 at a market and having never eaten it before and no idea what it tasted like. I have since seen plants in biggish pots selling for $20, but mine has grown to at least four times the size of a $20 version in about 8 months. I got a bargain! I first noticed the flowers in June, so it has been a long wait over winter and spring for ripened fruits, but now there are flowers on the bush again already. It's quite a low scrambling and floppy shrub, about 1m across, and some of the stems are self-layering along the ground. The leaves are dark green and quite lush and tropical looking in our Adelaide garden. Occasionally something will nibble on the leaves but overall it has been pest and disease free.
The fruit are a muddy yellow colour and striped with mauve, and they don't taste too bad. They're not fabulous, not hugely delicious, but they taste quite a lot like honeydew melon and can be picked and eaten straight off the bush after a quick rinse under the garden tap which is always nice. The skins are edible but a little on the tougher side, but easy to peel, and I haven't found any seeds in any of the fruit yet.


I have loads of plants growing in Styrofoam tubs now, thanks to reading about it on KMKG's blog. The plant at the bottom of this tub is some sort of mini melon, but now I can't remember if it's a Minnesota rock melon, or a Tigger melon. The plant above is... I don't know! It looks kinda like basil, but has no scent so I don't think it's a herb at all. I think it's vegetable that I planted but then forgot to label, as with the melon plants. This tub is a clear demonstration that I must remember to label everything more diligently! I will have to wait and see what I'm growing here, it will be a surprise, I just hope it's not a weed which I'm carefully cultivating in a prime position...
Other herbs, however, like this apple mint are doing brilliantly and are rapidly becoming massive. What's the bet I will regret planting this one directly in the ground? It's in my 'difficult' spot, out in the front garden on the dark south side of the house. Over winter this area gets soggy and almost no sunlight, which I'm hoping will help keep this mint in check.


Unlike the poor potted strawberries above, most of the plants I put out in the front garden are doing very well despite getting minimal water. We get a couple of strawberries a day (so still not the overflowing baskets of berries I dream of), the only issue is trying to get the fruit before the millipedes do.


Still out in the front garden, my new Pineapple quince has seven fruits on it, which leaves me with a dilemma: the tree was only planted over winter (though it is about 6 feet tall). Will it be able to support the fruits? Will they get too heavy and make the slim branches snap? Or will they take too much energy from the baby tree? Should I remove them now, or can I leave them to ripen? Still, one way or another, these fuzzy fruits fill me with joy.


Another delicious 'fruit' I am waiting for is my rhubarb. Also planted in the front garden in amongst the roses, this plant is doing brilliantly and it huge with chunky stems one inch across which I'm eagerly waiting to redden so we can eat it.


Ironically, this teeny tiny unhappy rhubarb is planted only 1m away from the enormous one, and came from the same bag of rootstock! It's so small I had to go poking around in the borage to see if it was still there. Why one plant is 20 times the size of it's brother is a mystery, makes me wonder how different the soil must be even so close by.


Along the fence by the rose garden, facing west, is my banana passionfruit. It was one of the first plants I planted when we bought our house. I have childhood memories of eating these passionfruit when I was a child out of a family-friend's backyard. In the last 18 months it has grown enormously but still not a single flower has ever grown on it. Does anyone have any idea how long a passionfruit vine normally takes to flower? I have read that an excess of nitrogen with inhibit flowering (the vines will make leaves instead), but to be honest I'm a bit slack with fertilizing so I don't know if that is an issue or not.


And lastly, a little promise for the future: the raspberries planted all along the above fence. These babies I dug out of MIL's garden over winter. I had perhaps 10 plants all together. A couple have been lost since I planted them out, but most have survived and while they are small I am hopeful that they will be as wonderful as they are in their 'homeland,' here at MIL's. I don't know what variety they are, but I do know they are delicious.


Happy weekend gardening, all!

Next post: a bit of a floral update.

Lime time

Today it's glorious outside, it might even be warmer outside than in the house. I can even venture outside barefoot. It's the kind of day where we've opened every window and door to let the sunshine in. It really feels a lot like Spring already. An early Spring? That would be nice, a good way to balance out the early Winter! SP and I made a bit of a tour of MIL's garden, to see what may be seen out there on this radiant July day.

First up, I looked to see how all my propagation of four weeks ago is going. The raspberries I dug up don't look like much from a distance, in fact you could be forgiven for thinking they'd died, but up close their little green noses are poking out of the stems and soil. Yesterday I dug up half a dozen extras, hoping for a raspberry filled Summer;



The white Japanese windflowers are also doing well, as are most of the correas;



But the jury's still out on the penstemons. They're all looking a bit limp and wan;


We cut a whole heap of coriander, and I mean a heap! I chopped it all down and have frozen it in water to use at our leisure. There's still three times this again in the garden;


We found a splash of unexpected brilliance in the red leaves of a rhubarb;


And a sweet surprise from a ground cover pelegonium - or geranium - which has been hiding in the violets and soursobs, I didn't even know she was there until she showed her blushing face;


And lastly we looked at the lemons and limes.


SP helped me collect some of the 'balls,'


So expensive in the shops, and so abundant in MIL's garden! If there were ever fruit trees that paid for themselves in greens and golds, then citrus are it in our Mediterranean climate.



I hope you're all enjoying your Sundays. xx

Raspberries and windflowers

One of the really good things about staying at a house with a really lovely and full garden is that there is plenty of plants which can be divided and propagated and then taken over to our own garden.

Over the weekend I dug half a dozen Japanese Windflower plants out of the kitchen window patch. They're the white, single anemones and far too beautiful not to try them out at our place.
The roots are surprisingly thick and robust considering how delicate the leaves and stems are.



I've popped the whole lot into a couple of pots and they're staying outside in the rain and semi-shade. Let's hope they do well, I think they look a little seasick, hanging over the edge of the pots like that, thinking, what the hell just happened?


I also helped myself to some of the raspberries. Notice they all have leaves? It never really gets cold enough here for plants to go truely dormant.


Last year at Christmas we ate ourselves silly on the raspberries out of MIL's patch. I did plant some at our place last winter but they were eaten by insects so many times that they struggled and struggled and eventually died. I also have native raspberries planted and they are looking quite good but aren't known for an abundance of fruit. These raspberries have been potted up into a very sexy ice cream container, ready to be shifted later on in winter.


I might take some more over the week, I think, the more I have the more will survive? Right?

My first harvest.

A momentous day today. I have actually picked real, edible vegetables from my garden. I must be doing something right after all!
I rummaged around in the potato pots and found a dozen potatoes easily. They were blanched whole, then tossed in fried garlic and butter: yum!


We picked the biggest of the broad beans, even though I didn't know how to tell if they were ready or not. Shelling them, I discovered the beans were nestled in a luminous white and velvety fur.




I've also been picking snow peas by the dozen and snacking on them as I wander around the garden.


I've also planted out the tomatoes I've had waiting for me while we were away - a Digger's Club heritage mix - they arrived the day before we left and I didn't have time to plant them then. There's also corn seeds in the soil, and three capsicum plants so far: one yellow, one black, and one chocolate coloured version. Yet more beans - this time purple kings and yellow butter beans - have been scattered all over the place. I have a heritage mix of carrot seeds (also Digger's Club) to put in but have had no luck with carrots yet, my carroty efforts so far not yielding even a single green sprout. I got some raspberry runners and Japanese windflowers from my Mother-in-law's beautiful garden. It's probably not really cold enough here for raspberries to fruit ,but they're still pretty plants. Did I ever mention I wrote my honour's thesis on native raspberries (Rubus parvifolius)? I'd like to source some of them for our house too. They're indigenous to this area but not common anymore. The plants look much like introduced raspberries, but they're smaller and quite dainty. The flowers are pink, and in this area the petals do not fold back to look like a traditional flower, but stay clasped together like hands in prayer. My photos are not on this computer, but I have borrowed this one from Greg's Indigenous Landscapes website.