december flowers

My laxa vine is in full bloom!  It's a bit hard to tell from this photo but they're along the top of the fence.  I wish the vine covered the fence a bit more fully, but the flowers look and smell lovely.

My new calla lily has flowered.  It was from a random colour mix and I was hoping it would be a tropical orange, but instead it's the standard yellow.  Actually I think it's a slightly softer shade of yellow than the standard colour, and I like it nonetheless.

Finally, my space race orchid has opened all four flower spikes!  They look so festive at this time of year with my Christmas decorations.

The spikes are a lot shorter than last year, when they were well higher than the foliage.  I wonder if it gets more light in my house than where they were grown.  Next year I'll keep them in a darker part of the house when the spikes are forming and see if that encourages longer spikes.

november on the patio

The patio plants are slowly but surely filling out.  The cannas are starting to put out a few leaves and the annuals are really showing off.

The gingers are putting out lots of sprouts of new growth.  I hope the grow a lot taller than the older foliage.

And I did succumb to temptation and got a calla lily.  It's a lucky dip so I don't actually know what colour it will be.  But I love the speckled leaves.  It'll die down over the winter but I've tucked it into a corner so it won't be a bit gap in the winter.

And one afternoon I had a surprise.  I though there was an ugly bird poo on the new couch, then had a close look and realised it was a moth just trying to blend in.

chilean jasmine and drimiopsis

I've had someone write a comment asking how my Chilean jasmine (mandevilla laxa) is going, so here's an update.  I decided to put in another plant there on the right, it used to be obscured by the fig tree but the fig to a big cutback this winter,  So to give you some perspective, that's what they all looked like last summer, and on the left you can see how far the rest of them have grown over the winter.  They're fairly tidy in that they only want to grow along the wires I've set up for them, but I do wish they'd fill out faster.  I wonder what time of year they flower?

And here's an update on my little drimiopsis maculata.  They're not a common bulb but I saw some growing in the neighbourhood and managed to find some online.  I adore their spotted leaves, and so far the clumps have multiplied quite vigorously.  I panicked about 6 weeks ago when they all dropped their leaves before realising that they have a very short dormancy period just before spring.  These are their brand new spring leaves, which eventually lose their spots.  But at some point they'll also put out lovely spikes of white flowers.

finishing touches on the patio

I'd been slowly collecting plants for the patio but hadn't had the time to put them in ... then accidentally cut my finger in a kitchen incident and was told to keep out of the garden for a week!  Being told I couldn't cook, clean or type was one thing, but not gardening, how sad!

At last, though, I was able to get in there and finish up the plantings.  Along the back wall are two ginger lilies, I hope they grow up nice and tall by the end of the summer as we can see into our neighbour's driveway over that fence!  In front of the yuccas are those new cannas, still settling in.  In front of those are some annuals for quick colour - red salvias and some "sunpatiens": impatiens bred to tolerate the sun.  I really wanted a row of bergenias along the nearest bed but it's the wrong time of year to get them, so I may plant some more annuals there.

Here's a view right down the patio, including the two bangalow palms.  They seem to have adjusted well to life outside.  We had a lot of cloudy days so they were gradually introduced to direct sun, wind, and cool nights.  Their new growth is powering along, I just hope they don't outgrow their pots too quickly!

And just a reminder, here's what we had in this place before this transformation.  Those thick ficus trees and cumquats dominated and boxed in the space and felt a bit bland and formal.  Now when we sit on our couch on a warm, sunny evening I feel like we're living in a little slice of luxury!

cannas, cannas everywhere

I'm really starting to move forward on the new front garden bed.  I've got a birthday party on the 29th so I'm eager to get some plants in before then!

Here's a bit of a "before".  A palm in a pot will go where that cardboard is now (we've filled TWO council bins with cardboard from the furniture and there's still some left!).  At the moment we've just got the yuccas, the pond, and some dichondra at the front.

The plan is to pull out the two shabbiest hedges along the brick and grow some ginger lily.  I also want cannas in front of the yuccas and some bergenias along the bath about to where the pond is.  Finally I'll fill in with some annuals.  Lush, green and a bit tropical!

Cannas aren't in the shops just yet as they seem to wait until they're in bloom and beautiful.  So I ordered some from a canna website.  It also let me be really picky about what I got.  There are hundreds of varieties of cannas in short, medium, tall, with leaves that are green, red, or stripey and flowers that are pink, red, yellow, orange or spotted and either large or small in size.  So much choice!

I ordered five plants and they arrived in the mail yesterday.  So far when I've mail-ordered plants they sure tend to be generous - I count 8 rhizomes here!  Three of them were a bit small so perhaps they thought they should together count as one.

I dug a shallow trench in front of the yuccas, spaced the cannas out (not quite in a straight line, that was on purpose!) and filled them in with some horse manure to enrich the soil. 

Now it's pretty clear they won't be blooming before the party but I hope they at least settle in and put out some leaves for a bit of foliage.  The variety is called "copicana" (no, not tropicana!), about 1.5 metres tall with green leaves and elongated orange blossoms.  Hopefully they'll look like this!

jeepers, creepers

I thought I should report on the front path to our house.  It's not a very inspiring part of the garden, more of a chore to take care of.  It's involved lots of destruction, cutting down plum trees and ornamental plums.  They were pretty, but they constantly just into the narrow path and they were so shaded by the birches they'd go mildewy by the autumn.  So now this is all that's left - three lovely birch trees with camellias at one end and my kaffir lime at the other.

But I'm slowly starting to integrate some plants into the bed.  One annoyance is that blackbirds love kicking the barkdust into the path so I'm planting some creepers to keep the bark in place.  The first thing I planted was some cuttings of Kenilworth ivy.  Remember these?  Back in January they were little threads I'd pinched from a crack in the sidewalk.  Now there are three or four lush clumps already forming little purple flowers (you can't really see them in this photo).

But I also decided to mix it up with some native violets.  They're shade-lovers and look remarkably similar to Kenilworth ivy; if you look closely the leaves are shaped slightly differently.  I had to buy these but split the plant into two before planting it.

In addition to some creepers, I'm slowly planting some taller shade-lovers along the fence.  I've planted some cuttings of plectranthus but so far one died and two aren't thriving very well, we'll see how they go.  But I also bought a little white calla lily.  It's flowering for the first time now.  It's tiny now but one day will be a big, lush clump!

Hopefully one day this walk will be a lush, beautiful welcome walk to our house.

mystery "snowflake" solved

So in my last post I was wondering what was going on with my snowflakes: one of them was looking a bit different.  Now I know why - it's not a snowflake of any sort.  It's an allium, a member of the onion family.  And although it's rather cute, its also a very rampant weed in Australia.  Now that I know what to look for, I see them a lot, mostly on road sides and rail embankments but also in people's gardens.

So I enjoyed the look of the pretty flowers one last time before pulling the whole plant out and throwing it in the bin!  Sorry little allium.

spring flowers

I've got to show off my daffodils. They're all open now, and only the first one open got nibbled. The rest are just perfect and so stunning. I adore them, I'm so glad I ordered them.

I just hope they like their home. At the moment there are four spots with two bulbs each, so as you can see they're just small little tufts. If they're happy there, the bulbs will slowly multiply and one day they'll form thick clumps every spring! I just worried there's not enough sunlight to keep them happy.

Here's a slight bulb mystery. My snowflakes are about finished with blooming but suddenly one of them is putting out these strange large clumps. The picture isn't great but instead of a small clump of 3 or 4 it's a big clump. They also lack the little green spots on the tips of the petals. And the petals flick outward instead of sleek (like this). Even the leaves look a bit thicker and lighter. Is it an odd seedling perhaps? Or a mystery bulb that's only flowered for the first time this year? I'll have to investigate.

There's no mystery about these beauties. I've gone for some classic primroses in the flowerpots around the front door. How can you not love their cheery brightness?

Gotta love spring flowers!

spring in the garden

I think I can cautiously say that the back of winter has been broken.  We're getting more and more sunny days, and quite a few days of 19 or 20 degrees.  Here are a few photos of the garden's celebration of spring.

The hellebore bed has been going great guns all winter but I decided it was worth sharing again.

The geum are starting their spring flush too.  I'm liking this bed - geum and daffs for the spring, lavender and gaura for the summer.

Speaking of daffs - the first of my fancy daffs opened last weekend!  Sadly, something got to the petals before it opened and nibbled one of them off. But I absolutely adore them, I hope they like this spot so they thrive and multiply.

This isn't quite as pretty, it's more a monstrous triffid.  This is my colocasia I transplanted to the corner of the western garden.  It's now probably 5 or more years old, and look at how massive it's become!  That trunk is as big around as a human leg.

It's also putting out heaps of babies.  We'll see how long it can stay in there before it's just too big!

a hint of spring

I've been really unmotivated about the garden this winter.  It's the coldest, wettest winter I can remember since moving to Australia six years ago.  It's hard to be excited about gardening in that weather.  But today was a hint of spring to come - a perfectly sunny day with a high of 18.  How could I stay inside in that weather?

The bees were busy in my rosemary bush.

A few cyclamen plants that survived the deep shade under the fig tree are putting on a lovely show.

And the geum is already starting to put out its spring flush!  I thought it would wait a lot longer.  You can also just see the daffodils springing up behind it.

The hellebore are going crazy, look at this show!

Even Thatcher was enjoying the sunshine in front of a few spring stars.

The multigraft twig is putting out heaps of new shoots, both leaves and flowers.  That's reassuring since the last set of growth in the autumn dropped its leaves and died over winter, possibly because of the cold.  I just hope we don't get a bad cold snap that knocks out this growth too!

Which just reminds us that spring is still a month away. This week will be more sunny warmth but after that is a return to the cold.

what's going on in july?

Winter's a pretty quiet time in the garden, especially this year as I haven't grown many winter veg.  I did get my first harvest of kale the other day though - went into a lovely minestrone.  The snow peas are also starting to produce nicely but no pictures of them.

My Chilean jasmine is hanging in there in the cold.  It doesn't like it - it's dropped a fair few leaves - but it's also putting out fresh growth at the tips so I'm optimistic for the summer.

And finally, the first stirrings of spring are beginning - my fancy daffs are just starting to emerge.  They're still just tiny shoots so I circled it in the picture - not that you can see it anyway!

I do have some major pruning projects happening, and a complete re-do of the patio, but I'll save those for other posts.