Shopping spree

Because, why not?! 

She couldn't handle the heat.

Oh, Martine, I shall have to try again with you this year. 

Thirty-five days without rain

Ye Olde Nature Strip - my first experiment in all-native plants (though not all indigenous) - has survived, if not thrived, on no rainwater for over a month, and no supplemental water for the entire summer. Not bad, eh?!

Then and now

Why no blogging? Not so much to talk about in the hot dregs of an Adelaide summer!

The roses are setting up to rebloom. This was Sharifa Asma (David Austin) two days ago...

And here she was today with a makeshift sun-hat for the 41c heat (that's over 100f, for the overseas readers) :)

Behind you can see the cardboard box I popped over Radio Times. I also had buckets and old plastic plant pots over individual new plants, or about-to-bloom plants, and a big sheet of shade cloth over a newly planted section of the front garden. The things we gardeners do to protect our precious plants! Let's just not talk about the water bill...

Santa Rosa and friends

Eating Santa Rosa plums (have loads)

And the Moorpark apricots (not many this year)

Here are the lotus seedlings with their 'coin leaves' in their temporary growing-on home

Small boy in a big garden  

Yellow cherry tomatoes best for throwing, apparently (variety label lost)

Three x new-ish chicken bottoms (actually four, one not in shot)

New pond from the old bath. Sorry about the green, wrong setting on the phone! 

Boo

Big winds; Myoporum batae down :(

Squashed the chicken fence, blocked off the compost bin as well, had to take it apart with secateurs branch by branch to get it out. 

Still, silver linings: a tripod-trellis for the piller rose out the front from the branches? And lots more light and space for the chickens now. 

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. 

Lotus at last

I love my bargain and rescue plants, but I can safely say my new lotus plants are not amongst them. In fact, it was a stretch to spend so much on two plants, but I've wanted my own lotus for so long I decided to go for it (after a lot of dithering). 

I bought two smaller cultivars: the red Bunga Baby, and white Angel Wings. The tubers spent a fortnight or so in two buckets of water, waiting for the new rootlets to appear. 

[Temporary glamorous home in a bucket.]

Then I potted up Bunga Baby into a very swish container: that garden stalwart, a polystyrene box, filled with garden soil, bought compost, seamungus pellets and a dash of blood and bone. I carefully covered it over with a load of all rocks from the garden do all the soil didn't wash out. Then I put it into the pond (giant black plastic tub) and walked away, whereupon while I wasn't watching, the whole lot flipped over and dumped the contents into the bottom of the pond. Oops. I decided to just leave it there, since it was covered pretty well still, and now I had a spare box again. 

Then I repeated the process, with the addition of some Dynamic Lifter I found in the shed, remembered to take some photos this time, and also remembered to keep an eye on the box as it sank into the pond. 

[New rootlets, pinky white.]

[Tubers like great white worms in the soil.] 

Fingers crossed for some flowers this year, or at least masses of lovely leaves. 

And then it rained

Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan: A nod to my growing hosta obsession. 

A restart

So I've realised how long it's been since I last updated this old blog. I can't even blame it in the new baby, since my wee boy is almost nine months old (yes!). Anyway, with a view to brevity (never a strong point of mine), I'm going to try something different, more of a 'photo or three a day 'in a garden theme. What's growing, what's flowering, what we're picking, what's inspiring, a la minute... Sort of. 

To kick us off...

Baby watermelons, quite gooseberry-like with those little spikes and stripes. 

 Love me xx