Winter Wednesday #10

Something good about today? Well, while I was stuck on the side of the road waiting for the RAA (road assistance), it was over 20 degrees, sunny and warm, and I had a book to read while I sat there! And then, what better way to cheer myself up after the depressing news of needing a new alternator, and possibly a new regulator as well, than to go into work and have a bit of retail therapy at staff discount prices?

So, what did I get?

Yet more Lomandras for the other half of my Lomandra border up to the front door (Chewton Grey again, and chosen for looking like I could divide them up to get lots of plants easily).


In tube stock I got Lechenaltia biloba (left black tube), a very little shrub and apparently one of 'WA's best known plants' although until I started working at the nursery I'd never heard of it; there's Kennedia retrorsa with it's fabulously overblown round leaves (right black tube); and Myoporum parvifolium, the fine leafed purple form which I must admit is the only Myoporum I like (green tube). [There's a good set of photos showing some of the many different forms of Myoporum here.]


Then I splashed out and bought a few beauties in bigger pots: On the left, Lechenaultia formosa "Scarlett O' Hara" because I've fallen in love with it's sparkling red flower gems on the fine and wiry stems; at the back is my latest favourite Hardenbergia "Free and Easy," which has flowers which are not quite white and just touched with mauve; and on the right is one of our local lovelies, the everlasting daisy, Chrysocephalum baxteri.


And last but not least, one of those little perks of working in a nursery: chuck outs! In other words, plants that are considered unsaleable which I can take home for a 'donation' and see if they'll grow if given a bit of love and care. Not quite free but close enough!

Far left top and bottom pots are both Kunzea pomifera (little edible Muntries) to add to the one I have already in the front garden, which has been growing quite well and looks lovely and healthy but has never yet had flowers. Top middle pot is some sort of Poa, and apparently a bit of a Nodosa is mixed in there as well, but as a newbie nursery worker they all look the same to me and I've just had to take a co-worker's word for that! Top right is a Doryanthes palmeri, or Spear Lily, and if that thrives and grows to be more than two inches tall it's going to be fabulous, there is no other word for it. And then, the two sad looking plants at the bottom right are purple-flowered Ajuga australis (Austral bugle).


Aaaanndd... not from today, but the first opportunity I've had to take a photo of my front garden in daylight since I finished the first path the other day! If you read regularly you might remember that the pavers are actually chunks of the old green concrete patio we removed for our extension out the back. I've still got a few extra pavers to take away to tidy things up properly, but I'm still questioning whether or not to add an extra part to the path to make a 'Y' shape through the garden. At the moment the path is just an 'S' shape from the front gate to over by the driveway. Almost all the plants - other than the roses - in this part of the garden are groundcovers (and the Hardenbergias were supposed to be groundcovers but it seems they don't know this and love to stand upright and have been mistaken twice already for trees!), and it's my hope that in time the path will get a little bit lost in the planting. By using broken bits of 50 year old concrete, it already looks a bit like it's been there for a long time which I love.


So all in all, not such a bad day despite the broken car (boo!). Pop on over to Hazel's to see what other people are blogging about Winter every Wednesday.

Shed full of wood

This is going to be a bit of a dull post, but I need to put it out there that there is actually building going on. As in wood being placed and then being screwed together, and then more wood and more screws and so on and so forth.
Our shed smells like a hardware store because it is full of wood. Big bits, bigger bits, and then some 'chunky bits; massive bits' according to D.


And one of the best bits is that some of this wood was sort of free. Not free, exactly, but a trade of sorts.
I have whinged about the enormous pine tree out the back before. It's in our neighbour's yard, but right in the corner and since it's at the north end of our block it's impact is enormous. We have been in discussions with the neighbour, N, about removing the tree. N was keen, but then decided to put her house up for sale. The pine tree is a negative for her too as potential buyers have been put off by it, so she's agreed that we can still go ahead and remove it, but we'll pay for it. Which is OK, actually, since we don't plan on going anywhere in the next 20+ years I think it's a good investment.
Anyway, N happens to be a bit of a greenie herself, and at some point in the past she had grand plans for decking around her house and she bought a whole heap of recycled hardwood from a house demolition, but then never got around to doing anything with it. She's given all this beautiful old hardwood to us to use in our house. There's enough to use for all our bearers and plenty left over after that. This wood might be jarrah, and the old nails have already been removed: bonus!
I love that we're reusing this old wood. I love that these worn pieces of suburban history are going into our little cottage. Aren't they cool?


So, there you go, real building! About time, too...

Rambly renovation post

I thought it was about time I did a renovation update... not that there is very much to update you on. Autumn of 2011 in Adelaide was the coldest we'd had in 56 years, and one of the wettest as well. Needless to say, this impacted on how much work could be done since it's all still at an outdoor stage. Nevertheless, there has been some progress and the tank plumbing is very nearly finished! We are having the rain water plumbed into the house so in times of plenty we can use it inside as well as on the garden (the concrete is just there temporarily to stop the pipes floating away before they could be covered).


One day, this will be lawn and garden beds, and what a happy day that will be. Right now, as you walk across it, you get gradually taller as the clay builds up on your shoes.


Speaking of chunks of concrete...


I have had an idea, it's very environmentally friendly, but whether or not it will actually look good remains to be seen. I wanted to put in a path through the front garden rose bed, and I liked our old green-coloured concrete patio, and I thought I might be able to reuse some of the bigger broken pieces to make stepping stones. I especially liked this chunk, which features an engraved arrow (by FIL, for purposes known only to him).


I've been collecting up the remnants of the green slab, and laying them through the garden to see how they look. I think I like it. They're not in place properly yet, of course, I still have to finish dispensing with the gravel (FIL promises me he'll have somewhere to put it out the back very soon, to use in the retaining or something something). Then I'll set them down flush with the soil and plant some creeping, crawling, scrambling little plants around them to soften up the edges. Hmmm. Might work?

Addendum to previous post

Dress photos! As promised :)

So this is how many photos of the divine Miss SP turn out: As a blur moving rapidly out of shot.

But when she can be persuaded to stay still for a nano-second or two, she's super-cute. Suuu. Puur. Cute.  Excuse the top under the dress. It was a little nippy here today. 

I wondered how short the dress was going to end up on my little miss, but it's just about perfect.

And I tied the straps at the back, which works very well for now.

Could be a dress for a first birthday party, which is sneaking up on this Mama much faster than I'd have ever imagined!

Upcycling nostalgia.

[This is my addition to the Weekend Rewind at 'And then there were four' for the 19th of August, 2011. I found it hard to choose a post this time, because I try to recycle/upcycle things quite often and blog about it from time to time, talking about everything from baby dresses, to floor joists, to pavers!

Click here to see some of the other things I've tried to reuse.

Click here to see how this little dress ended up on my girl.]

When I was a teenager I used to wear this cami. I'd never wear something that exposed my stomach like that now, and, in fact, I rarely wore it back then. To be truthful, even if I did want to wear it now I doubt I could get it on: I'm still breastfeeding SP and, well, you know the rest... But I've never been able to get rid of this little top because I loved the fabric too much. It's a crinkled sheer white silk printed with pink and blue roses: lovely!

It even has a fine edging of lace around the top.


So I was feeling creative today (you must catch those bursts of creativity and hold them tight to your chest in your hands) and I realised this top was just a tube with straps. It doesn't have so much as a dart to shape it. I washed it and smoothed it flat and left it to dry while I cut out a lining from some cream-coloured poly I found in my fabric stash. I sewed the poly into a similarly sized tube and sewed it inside.


Then I got shirring, and you know how I like shirring! My machine cooperated and I didn't need to re-thread it or tighten any screws even once! With my old cami I've made SP a pixie dress. I left the straps attached and long, and the dress can be used as a top as she grows.


Tomorrow I'll see if SP will stand still long enough for me to take a picture of her in it.


Happy weekend crafting, everybody xx