Summer Song Rose.

A long time ago I fell in rosey-love with pictures of a David Austin rose called 'Summer Song.' When I saw a plant for sale in a nursery this winter, I snapped it up without a second thought. My front garden is full of roses, but I felt this particular rose, with it's colours described as 'burnt orange,' wouldn't blend well with my colour scheme of white, yellows, and pinks, so Summer Song lives in a big black ceramic pot out on my back patio. She's been covered in flower buds for ages, and they have begun to open up before any other rose I have. She's also a bit lopsided, and in a hack-handed attempt to straighten her up the other day by squashing the plant up against a retaining wall I accidentally snapped one of the stems off. So today I brought in the bud that was on the broken stem and I'm enjoying it in a milk jug on my kitchen counter. I can hardly wait until it opens up all the way so I can see it in its lovely entirety.

Front path a masterpiece in recycling.

I haven't shown you any renovation pictures in eons, so will skip a discussion of growing eggplant from seed (or rather, a series of complaints about growing eggplant from seed) to show you our front path instead. It's only halfway through, but taking shape beautifully, and so far we've not spent a single cent on it. Bonus!

It starts here: with the porch. Pity I forgot to take a 'before' photo, but never mind. Why demolish the porch? Because it was broken and cracking, and right up against the old weatherboard, which was rotting. As the porch was peeled away, it became clear that the whole thing was damp and pretty terrible for airflow and general building health, so off it goes. We'll replace it with a little deck, we think. And I'm keeping the old iron scroll work pillars, because I like them.

Under those layers of tan-brown tiles, and rusty red stained concrete, there was sand and rock, and lots and lots of it.

 FIL had a flash of inspiration. A while ago, I'd mentioned just chucking a whole heap of paving sand around the 'pavers' I'd salvaged from when we demolished the back patio and have been using as stepping stones to the front gate. FIL thought he could dig up all the sand from the front porch (since he was going to anyway) and use that instead. Brilliant! The garden edging down the left of the path is old hardwood beams we had (although if they're old ones from our house, or ones the neighbour gave us, I can't remember).

 

Right down the back of  the path, behind FIL in this photo, is our new gate, which D has been building in dribs and drabs over the last few weeks to help make our yard a little more toddler-safe. Our gate is actually our old back door, with a recycled hardwood architrave. I think I'll paint it pillar-box red, or yellow. I like yellow, at the moment. We've put a little trellis to the right-hand side to climb plants up and over this space (I have planted roses, the native 'wisteria' Hardenbergia violacea 'Rosea,' and native clematis, Clematis microphylla). For the gardeners, other plants I have in this space - though barely visible at this stage - include the natives Plectranthus argentatus, Plectranthus  parvifolius, Hibbertia aspera, Guichenotia macrantha, and Goodenia amplexans. I've also got lemon balm and nasturtiums in here. This scrap of garden is probably the most challenging spot I've come across so far: it's quite shady, narrow, and not just dry but actually water-repellent. So far I've added loads of compost, manure, and clay to address the issues faced here.

And just for fun, here's a happy snap of the other half of the front garden which I took tonight at my favourite time of day: when the sun is getting low in the sky and shines though my Poas, which swish and shimmy in the breeze. All those roses are going to explode into flower in just a couple of weeks. Last year this happened in November, but some of the buds are splitting open already so I think they might bloom early this year.

Potting up tomatoes.

I promised ages ago to show you pictures of my seedlings, but as usual I haven't got around to it, so today here is just a selection: perhaps a quarter of what I have been growing. A lot of these are going to family-members vegie gardens, because there is far more here than I need. Last year I had perhaps 10 different tomato varieties and we were inundated with fruit for most of summer and well into autumn; this year I am trying to be more circumspect.
All of the bigger seedlings I'm going to plant directly into the garden. The smaller plants I'm going to pot on and give away. Known varieties here are Amish Paste (the biggest seedlings, prolific and delicious, great for cooking), Black Russian (one of the better known heirloom varieties) and Wild Sweeties (tiny taste bombs). I'm also growing a ten colour heirloom mix, and a currant mix, both from Diggers.
Incidentally, today I'm also going pot on, or plant out a punnet of sage babies, and another of marjoram. Those are the ring-ins in the pictures.
Which varieties of tomatoes are you growing and eating this year?

Sort of, kind of, done...

The backyard garden plan, that is. It's not exactly a fabulous work of art - I always get carried away with colour - but I'm happy with it. I particularly like my 'North' symbol. I've never attempted any kind of hand lettering before, and I think I need to work out the best kind of pen to do it with, but it's not so bad. It's a thoroughly dodgy photo, I couldn't get it lined up properly so opted to not line it up at all :S And now that I've uploaded it, I've realised I still haven't penned in the names of the top plum (actually two plums!), nor the grape I've just planted along the eastern fence by the house. Still, enough self-deprecation, it's not bad, and if it ever ends up on my wall I'll take a proper picture then. By the way, the size of the trees etc is how I see them in about five or more years, not as they are now. Indeed, only about 85% of them are actually planted!

And they're in!

Finally, my little plum trees are out of their pots and in the ground. There are six trees in this space: the first four are planted in pairs (a method where you plant two trees in one space and from then on you treat them as one tree, if that makes sense? It's a space saving/variety increasing method). These plants are D'Agen and Coe's Golden Drop in the first pair, and Santa Rosa and Satsuma in the second pair. The next tree along is a Wickson plum, then lastly is a damson plum. Behind all this, but very small, is one of my favourite Australian natives shrubs: Myoporum bateae, which should cope with the shade from the fence really well. Up the back is also some raspberries (both native raspberries, Rubus parvifolius, and an exotic variety, which I got from MIL's garden). Underneath the plums, along the entire wall, are over forty individual strawberry plants, all taken from runners off my older plants (I seem to produce strawberry runners prolifically, rather than the fruit we'd all prefer!). At the very first part of the wall, beside where the steps will be, I've planted a small David Austin English rose: Sophy's Rose. I've even scattered some seeds about: Yates 'Accent on Blue' seed mix, to help bring the pollinators in. That sounds like a lot, now that I write it out! I can hardly wait to see it all start growing and coming together. Next up we're making my raised vegie beds.

The Great Wall of Adelaide.

Five meters down, only about 40m to go! We are busy packing all the rocks we've dug up back in behind there, and later on (today? In my dreams!) I'll plant my plum trees in the level we've created. A long way down the track the wall will be rendered to attempt to beautify it, but for the time being we are concentrating on the structure only (the 'bones'). Naturally, yesterday when D didn't have a day off the weather was absolutely perfect. Today, when he's home to help its warm, sunny and very, very, very windy. Not half an hour after I was admiring the gorgeous purple and fuchsia flowers on my Japanese snow peas they were swept off their trellis, bending and breaking half way down. Pooh!

Been aPaintin'

Just after 1am and hanging up the brushes and turning off the music for the night (soundtrack: CW Stoneking, Jose Gonzalez, Bobs Dylan and Marley, Royksopp...) First time I've been painting since SP was born over two years ago and I'm painting -what else- the back yard as it looks in ten years time (in my head). It's only half done, and apart from that old mistake of trying to use black in a watercolour, I think it's OK. Must put it all away before morning though, as the thought of a two year old near 'real' paints and paper makes my blood run cold!

Good night, all, and welcome to spring :)