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

Presents!

I love getting plants in the mail, and it's even better when we've been away for a week and they are waiting on the doorstep! (Don't worry, they'd have arrived that day or possibly the day before, and hadn't been languishing by the doormat the entire time.) 

It's a mixed box of goodies this time. I have half a dozen different tomatoes, a couple of varieties of capsicum, two cranberry plants, a 'black raspberry' I couldn't resist getting (having never seen or heard of them before), a white strawberry, and hopefully best of all: a wasabi variety called 'Daruma,' which is supposed to be a bit more tolerant of warmer weather. The wasabi plant is the one at the top left with the gloriously large heart-shaped leaves. 

     

   

We were greeted on our return home by the most amazing spring-like weather: 26c today, with a gentle breeze and fluffy clouds in the sky... Not bad for the last day of winter, hey!? I spent the day ignoring the holiday washing and pottering about in the garden, pulling out weeds and cute baby beets. I suck a bit at growing beetroots, in my opinion, but I still go into raptures over those amazing crimson stems.

 

Happy Spring! 

  

Some small progress

Back in May I did a big overhaul of my poorly kaffir lime tree (clickity click). You know what? It hasn't died! I feel I should celebrate but perhaps I should wait a little longer... But so far so good, anyway. I do hope it starts to do really well after this, once the weather warms up a bit. Kaffir lime is a key component of a number of things we like to cook in this house, and it's a little annoying to have to buy the leaves and fruit every time we need it.

 THEN...

*

NOW!

Meanwhile, I have invested in a miniature cherry tree, 'Cherree Black cherry,' (from Flemings). Gosh, it was expensive! But not much room left out there in the old backyard, and cherries are such a treat it will be worth it.

 

The backyard is a swamp thanks to all the rain we've had in the last few days. I can hardly wait for spring; less than a fortnight to go! We're making a brief trip to the snow because snow is all Miss 3.5 has been talking about for the last 6 months, and then when we get home it will be all systems go in the garden again.

Nature strip update

It has been a whole entire year since I last posted anything about my nature strip project! Click here for a picture of what it looked like last time, and for a complete history try here. To refresh your memory (and mine), this council-owned strip of land is hot, windy, very dry, and the 'soil' is compacted clay and dolomite with a roughly neutral pH (despite the dolomite). Before I got my gardener's hands on it, it was a strip of bare gravel with two trees poking out it it (foreground larger tree is Eucalyptus leucoxylon ssp megalocarpa, the large fruited SA blue gum, and the smaller tree further back is probably a weedy malnourished version of the same).
Well, look at this spot now! Starting to come along well and filling out nicely.

 

When I started I just planted 'native plants,' but after the first round of planting (about three years ago) I've only planted indigenous species in here, and ones I hoped would be suitable (obviously... but I know more now and can choose better!) In this picture there are Poa labilliaderi (most of the grasses), Ficinia nodosa (knobby club rush, bottom right), Acacia myrtifolia (dead centre, still small), Enchalaena tomentosa (left by pole), and Goodenia amplexans (clasping goodenia, at left).

This photo is looking at the same patch from the other direction. At the front-left is a non-indigenous grevillea (name escapes me), at front right is a Myporum parvifolium. Barely visible because it blends in so well, behind the grevillea, is the saltbush Atriplex semibaccata, and behind that is all those mentioned before with a better view of the goodenia (now on the right).

This picture shows the other end of the nature strip. It's a bit more bare because that's where we need to put our waste bins on rubbish days. At the far left is the original Juncus ursitatus (not indigenous), behind that is an indigenous Juncus (sarophus?! C'mon, brain, work!), doing surprisingly well despite the harsh conditions. Also in this picture, but much less obvious, is more Myoporum, Enchaleana, and Ficinia, a couple of eremophilas (cultivars and not indigenous species), a bit of dianella which has been struggling along since the beginning, and a little Calytrix tetragona. And some weeds. Oh yes! I improved the soil and the weeds have certainly taken advantage. Most of them are little thistles and dandelions and easily dealt with. A couple of months ago I also removed the biggest weeds in here: several large clumps of gazanias. 'Oh,' said a neighbour, 'but they grow so well!' Yes, indeed! That's one reason they're a weed!

The one major difference I have found between planting native plants in the nature strip, as opposed to in my front garden (behind the fence) is that the plants are growing far more slowly. This would be from a combination of the difficult growing conditions, and receiving far less water over summer. I only toss a few buckets of water about there when it gets really hot.

 And last but not least, a winter-happy for you :) The indigenous Clematis microphylla growing on my front fence and flowering it's head off. Very pretty!

Stay warm 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.

Anemone de Caen

I think that dreaming about something -literally- is an indication that something is preying on your mind a bit too much. Dreaming about 450 Anemone de Caen bulbs would be an indication that you need to stop procrastinating and plant the poor buggers.

I love anemones of all kinds (oceanic varieties included), seriously love them. I bought these bulbs around 18 months ago. I had a vision of sweeps of blue and white beauties in and around the roses. And then, not long after my bulbs arrived in the post, I lost them. Like, proper lost, turned the house upside down, couldn't imagine where they could have possibly gone. I started to wonder if I'd actually accidentally thrown them out. Then, about two months ago they miraculously turned up in the study. Bingo! Now I could plant them. Except where were they to go? The rose garden vision has changed, or rather, has filled up in the intervening year with other plants (mostly native, which these anemones are not). What to do, what to do? So, the bulbs have been sitting on the kitchen bench for weeks and weeks now, getting pushed aside, while I've been trying to decide what to do (short of listing them on eBay!). In my dream, some of them had flowers already...

So, in they go, and this afternoon at the latest. It's a bit late to be planting them to be honest, but better in the ground than stashed at the back of the laundry cupboard for another year. The plan now goes: whack them in, in random clumps, wherever there happens to be a space.
*

Today's job

After a strained groin muscle and two attempts at spraining my ankle out in the garden in the last fortnight, it has occurred to this heavily-pregnant woman that it might be time to take it a bit easy, before I find myself unable to walk in labour... Time for some non-strenuous work out there.

I found some garlic bulbs in the cupboard, neatly labelled, from last year's harvest. Normally they would have all been eaten months ago but this time, morning sickness put me off using them completely and so I have plenty left to plant (not to make this post entirely about pregnancy and garlic!)

I'm planting Dynamite Purple, Early White American, Cream, Melbourne Market and Australian White (not pictured). I love garlic as a crop: bung it in, and off it goes with almost no maintenance or care required at all. It will do better, however, if kept weed-free and fed.