late spring in the garden

Just a few snaps of what's blooming in some of the beds I haven't visited in a while whilst I've been focused on the front yard.  Here's the corner eastern bed near the bird bath.  The salvia is just starting to bloom and it will continue to do so until next winter.  It's also a lot taller and more vigorous this year, even after a decent cut-back.  I've had to tie it against the fence.  It's practically swamping the magnolia tree now.

And here's the back western bed.  It's actually a fairly bland corner at this time of year.  The brunnera's still blooming (just to the right of this photo) but that's about it.  But the hydrangeas are covered in long cones of buds and the vitex has grown so much in two years.  Remember when it arrived in June 2010 it was this big!

I thought I'd also show you a picture of my sad little maple - not so sad these days!  The newest growth is still lovely and bright.  It really seems to love its new home so hopefully it will continue to slowly grow and thrive this summer.

the pretty and the ugly

Took a few photos of this and that around the garden this weekend and things slowly awaken to spring.  This is in the big square raised bed (formerly goldfish pond) that holds a rapidly-growing vitex shrub.  I planted dichondra silver falls two years ago and it's spread beautifully (the light blue, small leaves).  This autumn I noticed some common violets coming up in the back corner of the bed and thought, why not?  They're a bit weedy but they love the shade and they're hardy.  So I let it grow, and got a surprise - it's a white violet!

Also in this corner of the world, the oakleaf hydrangeas are starting to wake up.  I love how they keep their burgundy leaves all winter long, only dropping when the new leaves emerge.  And the first flower heads are already starting to develop!

I've also seen the first flower heads forming on my new daffodils, I can't wait to see how they look!  And my good old clivia have put up their flower heads too (no photos yet though, there's not much to see).  Although our unseasonably warm week is over and it's back to winter temperatures, the plants are still gearing up for spring.

And so are the weeds, if they ever really stopped.  I'm sure every gardener has at least one "ugly corner", that bit they wish would go away, that bit they try not to look at.  This is my ugly corner. 

Ever since last year's flooding I've had a lot harder time keeping the weeds down; the mud and debris from all my neighbours deposited weed seeds between every pebble.  And this part of the garden, next to the compost bin, hot water and clothes line, has never been very pretty.  First I let the self-seeding alyssum go because at least it was something pretty.  But now it's gone crazy and so have all the other weeds.  I don't like letting weeds go nuts, because once they seed they never stop coming.  I really need to spend the time to rip it all up.  Maybe next week...

autumn photos

I'm alive, I promise!

I was on a wonderful holiday in Turkey for two weeks; three weeks and 500 photos later, I'm only halfway through sorting them all!  So I've been neglecting both my garden and this blog.  Here's a bit of an update.

This autumn has been a real stunner in Melbourne, after a wet summer and a cold snap.  Unfortunately I missed the best of it, by the time I got back a lot of trees were just past their prime.  I missed my crepe myrtle's show entirely and after all the effort, missed the best weeks of my white anemones!  But my little maple put on a real show this year, it's the first autumn it's really shown off.

The time last year I was still referring to the poor thing as the "sad little maple" and it looked like this!

Big improvement, isn't it?  The oakleaf hydrangea is also looking very handsome, I reckon there's more red in the mix this year:

Compared to last year (the leaves did lose their green eventually but didn't gain the reddish hue):

I also had a little surprise come out of my giant elephant ear colocasia.  I've seen the flowers on my Amazon Queen colocasia before, but never seen them do this!  I'm not sure if it was just that the species type was more mature than my Amazon Queen or what, but it made a cheerful bright seed pod that looks a bit like an exploding triffid corn cob.

Finally, a quick snap of my lovely little colmanara hybrid orchid.  I took the advice of the grower I bought it from last year; when it finished flowering I put it outside on the porch.  It's grown several new pseudobulbs over the winter, and doesn't seem to mind the cold or the added sunlight from the low winter sun.  It's getting a few black spots that I hope are not mold!  No sign of new flower spikes though.  I wonder if I'll go to the orchid show again this year, and if I'll take home another orchid from this hybrid family.  The whole family seems to have drop-dead gorgeous flowers, and it seems to be pretty easy to care for.  But the real test will be whether I can get it to flower again!

That's all for now.  It's definitely winter now which in the garden is a time for reluctant maintenance in the cold. I've only got a few winter veg to look after this year so it's mostly a matter of raking up the rest of the leaves and getting through some major winter pruning tasks.  So you might not hear much from me for a little while, but I'm still here!

anemones at last

I decided a while back that one of my planned additions to the garden were white anemones (also called Japanese windflowers).  They're just so graceful and charming in the autumn garden after the heat of the summer has passed.  But I didn't realise just how hard that would be to achieve! 

Garden shops tend to sell plants like this when they're in flower so they're more appealing.  So as I saw the anemones flowering in my neighbours' gardens I starting asking about anemones in my local garden shop.  It took them a few weeks before they got them in ... and they were pink.  I've got nothing against pink flowers in general but to me, pink anemones just don't have the magic of the simple, clean white ones.  So I looked around at other garden shops.  Pink.  I checked back at the local.  Still pink.  Bunnings?  Pink.  I had a chat at my local and found out that they'd called every one of their suppliers, and only one had white anemones and they weren't yet big enough to sell!

So with atypical patience I asked them to put down my name and waited for my anemones to grow in some distant nursery somewhere.  Every weekend for about a month I'd stop by, just to check if they were in yet.  At last, just before Easter I got a message on my phone that started with "now don't fall out of your chair, but..."

At last they'd arrived!  As soon as I could I stopped by and sure enough, there were the little baby anemones.  And also some big, beautiful two-year-olds covered with perfect white flowers.  Now usually I'm patient enough to buy the small plant and wait a year for flowers, but not this time.  I'd waited long enough.  They weren't cheap, but they were mine!

Here's the "before" picture of where they went, in the back western bed. 

And here's the after - one on each side of the vitex bed (it's hard to see the one farther from the camera).  I took out a few more tufts of the liriope; it's a tough little plant and a good contrast but boring and worth sacrificing for these beauties.  Next year they'll grow even higher, their flower heads dancing in the breeze.

I'm really starting to be happy with this corner of the garden.  The vitex is growing incredibly quickly and the hydrangeas are powering along slowly but steadily.  The Japanese maple is doing so much better in its new home and the brunnera "jack frost" (just to the side of the nearer anemone) is happy too.  I'm amazed at how big the elephant ear colocasia has grown in that back corner, so it's obvious that the two small ones at the corner of the square bed are going to have to move soon.  And I've let some wild violets take seed behind the vitex to give the dichondra "silver falls" some competition.  The marigolds and ageratum will die down over the winter but they're still going strong for now.

Now I couldn't just let you go with only that distant view of the anemones, could I?  I've been playing with my new smartphone recently and having a ball with a camera program I downloaded that lets you set all kinds of old-fashioned filters on your photos.  So here's a whimsical photo of the anemones to finish on.  I hope it captures for you the beauty that attracted me to these simple, pure, white anemones.

beautiful mona, hydrangeas and bees

My plectranthus Mona lavender has really come into its own!  Just look at all of those flowers.

I've got a little bud vase inside and picked a few.  It made me realise something I hadn't noticed - the "face" of the flowers is beautifully patterned.  You just can't see those details from above.

My oakleaf hydrangeas are also looking lovely.  They put out a second flush of flowers mid-summer and they're starting to colour up beautifully. 

I'm also realising this year the value in having autumn-flowering plants.  I've started to notice so many bees on my salvia, basil, gaura and the last of the lavender.  They probably appreciate this last feast before winter.

january flowers update

It's not just the veggies that have gone crazy, the flowers are also loving this weather.  My gaura's coming into bloom now and is looking great.  I'm a little irked though.  It's hard to tell in this photo but the one on the left is a bit more pink than the one on the right, even though the label was the same.

The geum is starting to repeat-bloom as well.  Such a dainty little flower!

The ageratum is still small but a few of them are starting to flower.  I can't wait to see these guys at full size.

The vitex is huge!  It was this big when I planted it last year:

Now it's this big and growing every day:

The hydrangeas are starting to fade to pink.  Since this photo, they've actually faded to a pretty ugly brown.  But there's another set of flower heads still coming in.

And the sunflowers are still going strong.  They're obviously two different types as the one on the left is still going and the flower head isn't near opening yet.  The geraniums are doing pretty well too considering.

november blooms

OK so it's not November anymore but I took these snaps last week and I've been a bit slack.  The lavender in the west bed is blooming.  It's such a lovely shade of purple, the picture doesn't quite capture the shade.  For some reason I thought it blossomed a bit later, but when I checked, I posted about them blooming one year ago to the day!  I'm pretty sure they'll repeat bloom though, because I didn't clip them back until the autumn.  The gaura is still recovering from the haircut it got at planting time, but it's well on its way.

My oakleaf hydrangeas are thriving too.  Look at these flower spikes!  They're actually weighing down the branches they're so big.  I believe the flowers stay a long time, turning off-white and even pinkish before the end.  I think.

The bird bath corner is filling out well too.  The tequila blue salvia is even bigger than last year, although it is quite floppy and needs staking.  The magnolia is finally starting to sprout from where I chopped the top off last year, and the first beautiful flower has opened.  And now that the parsley's been pulled out the day lilies are actually getting a bit of sun.

I decided to take some cuttings from the salvia, it's meant to be very easy.  They're not dead yet anyway!

I'll probably put them along the fence in the east bed, we'll see how we go.  Oh and these aren't blooms, but I had a great little harvest of
rocket, parsley and radishes the other day.  The radishes obviously got
too much water all at once and two of them split.  At least they split
beautifully at the tip.

a big swap for a little maple

My sad little Japanese maple has now survived two summers in its spot in the corner of the back garden.  The first summer was brutally hot and dry and it barely survived.  This summer was a lot more mild, but it still looked a bit rough by the autumn.  I'm not one for babying my plants and it obviously doesn't like where it lives.  So once it lost its leaves I decided it was time for a change.
This is what the back garden looked like before.  I've pulled out the marigolds and nasturtium for the winter.  One of the statice died a while back, the other was looking shocking so I pulled it out too.  There on the right is a taro plant, a very tough root-based plant that seems to be thriving on neglect.  It's even put out two little babies.

I decided that the maple would prefer the spot where the taro is now.  It's on the south side of a tall fence, sheltered from the hot summer sun.  And it's a higher spot, rather than being completely hidden in that far corner.

This is the corner where the maple lived.  I carefully dug it up, trying not to tear the roots and getting as much of the root ball as possible.  The roots actually looked very healthy, they'd spread out quite a bit in the last year or two.  Very shallow though, as these trees tend to be.  I trimmed off the dead twigs - yes, more dead twigs, it seems to be shrinking rather than growing - and hoped that I didn't need to trim off any viable twigs.  You're generally meant to do that when you transplant, because you always lose some roots and the roots can't support the same amount of foliage.  But since it's still early winter, I'm hoping I can get away with it and rely instead on frequent doses of seaweed solution to nourish the roots. 

Here's the taro in its new home.  It'll get a bit more sun here than it did in its old home and I'm hoping it really takes off.  They can get even bigger than this, so if anything it now has even more room to grow than in its old home.

And there on the right is the maple tree in its new home.  It looks so much taller when it's actually at ground level!  And I discovered that the soil in that corner is pretty much pure sand.  Not a single worm to be seen.  I dug out a fair bit of the sand and instead dug in some more of that super-rich manure/soil mix I still have from months back, chock full of worms.  No fertilizer though, don't want to burn the roots. 

You can't really see in the photo but there's another impromptu new addition.  Where the statice used to be are two baby taro plants.  Full-grown they'll be way too big for those positions, but I reckon they've got a year or two of growing first.  After that I'll find them another home.  And in the long term, the vitex in the main bed will eventually grow to be about two metres tall and spreading, shading a lot of this are (I hope!).  The oakleaf hydrangeas in the narrow beds will start to fill out too.  This part of the garden really is still a young work in progress, which in a way is far more exciting than the established plants at the front.

autumn, continued

What was that I was just saying about spring appearing before autumn ends?  No picture but the day after making that post I found the first of my snowdrops blooming under the fig tree.  A spring flower coming up before autumn has ended.  Although to be fair, that's a good two weeks later than last year when the first snowdrop appeared May 10th.

In any case, here are another few shots of autumn colour.  This is the oakleaf hydrangea that doesn't turn bright red, it turns this dark burgundy colour but the leaves stay on almost all winter long.

My poor little Japanese maple has more colour on it this year than last, when it was almost dead by autumn, but once again it's lost a fair few leaves and some more of the stems are dead.  I think it got some of the powdery mildew going around this corner but it's obvious that even in a good year it's not happy in this spot.  I think I may move it this winter once it's fully dormant.

But look at that shade of yellow-orange!  I hope I can find it a happy home so those colours can really shine next year.

winter plans

I've been thinking hard about two places in the garden that need work.  The first is the big square bed that used to be the fish pond, pictured here.  After filling it in last year I've spent the year growing vegetables in it whilst I decide what to do in the long-term.  Vegetables aren't a good long-term solution because only the bottom left corner gets enough sun, which is an awful waste of the other 3/4 of the bed.

So I've spent over a year considering what to plant instead.  I really wanted to plant a fruit tree of some kind but I just don't think it'll work.  Most are too big - citrus would want more sun - most smaller fruit trees need pollinators.  So then I moved to considering small ornamental trees like a crepe myrtle.  I want something that will grow a few metres and spread out in a pleasant umbrella shape.  I think this part of the garden would appreciate some proper "dappled shade".  It's a funny mix of boiling-hot sun and deep shade with not a lot in between, and the left-hand bed gets a lot more sun than the right-hand bed.  A spreading tree of summer shade will even this out, letting me plant shadier plants on both sides.  I have dreams of Japanese windflowers to replace the Statice some day (as it's a sun-lover), and probably some more hellebore since it seems to be doing pretty well in the other bed.  A small spreading tree would also be a nice compliment to the oakleaf hydrangea, which will read a decent size in time.  Wouldn't want anything too small or it would be dwarfed by the hydrangeas.

But to be honest I'm not crazy about crepe myrtles and again there's a slight concern it wouldn't get enough sun.  Then finally, a wonderful suggestion from the OzGrow forum, a small tree I've never heard of before called Vitex agnus-castus.  Like the crepe myrtle it's a small deciduous shrub or tree, but instead of white or pink flowers it makes long crazy spikes of purple.  Purple suits me much better, and all the other flowers in that corner are either purple or orange/yellow.  Vitex also tolerates shade better than crepe myrtle.  Hopefully it'll look like this.

The other tough spot is behind the house where the camellias used to be.  I've considered a number of option but I think I'll go with Murraya paniculata, also known as mock orange or orange jasmine.  It's a member of the citrus family, tough and not fussy, but I was sold on it when I walked past a hedge in flower.  It has the most heavenly scent of orange blossom you can imagine, it actually stopped me in my tracks.

After a bit of deliberation I decided to save the last two pine bushes even though I really don't particularly like them.  Hedges aren't cheap and leaving them means I can buy two less Murraya than otherwise.

But before I undergo either project I need to top up those beds.  I've learned that soil tends to sink quite a bit after a while so it's important I fill up the beds as much as I can.  Which meant a call to Fulton's garden supplies for a big pile of dirt and another of barkdust.

I only ordered a cubit metre of soil and a half-metre of barkdust but I reckon I got a lot more than I paid for!  Just like last year I now have a big pile of dirt in the driveway.  It's a lovely soil called a "three-way" mix of two soils and horse manure.  It's quite light and friable and full of organic matter which is just the thing for my beds.  I have so much extra I'll probably spread the love into some of the beds with really inorganic "builder's rubble".

I've filled up a fair bit now as you can see, hopefully some of the dirt will settle and I can pile on some more.  I've certainly got plenty of time, winter's the best time to plant deciduous trees. 

Exciting times ahead for this winter!