Front Garden

Check out my sweet peas! These are self-sown from some planted in previous years. 

The front garden is looking particularly fabulous right now. I'm so happy to have discovered Dianthus and have been busy planting out all sorts of different varieties; they really have done very well so far. Now they just need to prove themselves over summer, eek! The rose  on the right is Strawberry Hill (a David Austin), going into its second summer now and looking amazing. The blasted heat really did come at the worst time to spoil a great deal of the first flash of roses. 

Pond revamp

Dear Huey, I am not impressed with the weather, please get your act together and save the high temperatures for summer :/ 

Meanwhile, I photographed and then completely neglected to post photos of my pond revamp from perhaps a month ago. I'm shifting the old bath out from behind the retaining wall and reclaiming that as garden. I've invested in a whopping great terracotta pot for the new pond. We painted on some kind of black, tar-like (in appearance, consistency and smell) waterproofing gloop on the interior, and plugged up the hole with concrete (I say 'we', I mean I got D to do it). 

I made a 'basket' from chicken wire for the lotus so that it would fit into the pot, along with a pile of cow manure and some extra soil and water-plant fertiliser tablets. 

My helper 'helped' as usual. The only plants in there are the dormant lotus (please come back, lotus!) and a nearly-dormant water lily. 

We piled a whole heap of broken terracotta (ex-plant pots) on top of the soil to stop it all floating out. Then, filled it up with rainwater, popped in the fish from the old pond, then sat back and waited. The lily has just sent out a few new leaves with this spate of hot weather, so there a plus at least. Mostly however, right now it's growing very un-photogenic algae. 

Early roses

A surprise 'Paul Bocuse' (Guillot)

And, glory be, not one but two flowers on my climbing 'Black Boy' Rose (Alistair Clark) already. Is this not the most perfect colour? 

Lately

Wow, don't post for a bit and those photos really pile up!

We've been away on a brief driving holiday to Sydney and back. 

Saw loads on Olearia in full bloom through those endless mallee lands. Naturally I had to pull over and have a good look. 

Stayed in a funky (and very dilapidated) old pub in Ouyen both there and back. Oh, if I had a few spare million to restore it to its former glory... 

If you have an opportunity to visit the Australian Botanic Gardens at Mt Annan, NSW, you really should do so. Free entry, free parking too, glorious flowers; I was in heaven.  

Went to the other botanic gardens in the Blue Mountains too. We only had a spare hour, I so wish I had more time to really explore. 

Came home to launch full steam ahead into spring. 

Put the girls to work doing my neglected weeding (they refuse to pose nicely for a photo). 

They are paying their board with so many eggs I've started selling the odd dozen when I get overwhelmed and can't bear the thought of another quiche (and I'm trying to cut down on the sweet baking). 

Gave the lemon tree a pretty thorough haircut and picked a few lemons. There are so many I might need to pop them at the gate with a 'free' sign. 

And the potato tower that had done so little at my last post has gone 'kaboom'. How fabulous! 

How I love spring xx

Growing cats in the potato tower

Or something... 

Actually, Jamie at Garden Amateur wrote in his most recent post (Garden Amateur) that his potato bags were sprouting, and so since we happened to plant our spuds on the same day I thought I'd check my potato tower, and Lo! Mine are sprouting too! Not many yet, I only found a couple over the whole thing, but at least I'm finally sure they haven't all just rotted away in there. 

Meanwhile, apples are planted, pears are planted, roses are 1/2 planted. I try not to moan too much, but sometimes it's so hard to get anything done when you have small children for company :/ But we did visit the Mount Lofty Botanic Gardens for the start of the yearly Magnolia bloom, and that was lovely and the kidlets hardly complained at all, despite falling into a bog and a long walk up a very steep hill. 

Fun for the postie

A great week for packages! I got my apples and pears already:

And my roses finally arrived, minus the Abraham Darby, which was a bit of a bugger because it was one of two that I really, really, really particularly wanted (the other being Cornelia), but it did give me a great excuse to go trawling a few of my favourite nurseries to see if I could find one (and I did, woo woo!)

Next update will be plants in the ground. 

It's not easy being green

Not being a house plant in a house with small children. 

But, perhaps I can make the best of a sad situation, and turn one African Violet into seven...