the life and death of sunflowers

I planted two sunflowers this year from two different sources.  They got a lot farther than last year when I didn't get past seedlings, but still only ended up with mixed success.

The smaller of the two grew about four feet high before it started to blossom.  But it only got half-open, then sat here like this until it started to die.  No idea why! 

The other grew almost six feet tall before it started to flower.  It struggled for a while, I think it got tobacco mosaic virus because the leaves were all warped and misshapen.  But finally it flowered!  The bloom itself wasn't as big as I thought it would be but was lovely nonetheless.

Sadly just a few days later we got some bad winds.  I'd staked the sunflowers but stopped about halfway up when I thought they'd be able to hold themselves up.  But alas, it wasn't enough, and one morning I was greeted by this sad sight.

Poor giant sunflower!  I might try growing you again next year because you are so very beautiful, but you're not the easiest things to keep happy!

december update

I've been a bit slack updating what's new in the garden recently.  First up, my little vitex shrub is steadily powering along.  It used to be this small!

Speaking of small, it has a little visitor.  I just love finding praying mantises in the garden!

Not so welcome a visitor was the locust I found in the lawn.  There's a really bad plague of them this year up north in country Victoria, with sporadic sightings throughout the city.  So far I've only seen the one, who tried to escape in the rosemary.

The sunflowers are also powering along, and one of them's forming a flower head.  Unfortunately the new leaves are coming in a bit warped which is worrying.  But on the up side, as you can see, the geraniums are recovering from their combined ordeal of rust and getting the soil under them replaced.

My melons are only coming along slowly, which is disappointing.  The weather's been a bit cool for their liking.  But I also think I had unrealistic expectations for how quickly they'd grow, since last year they were around this size in December too and I was harvesting them in March.

I planted some African blue basil in the bed below them.  Last year I had some near the bird bath and the bees went absolutely nuts for it.  This year I decided it was better to put it next to the melons for pollination.  It's already got some flowers on it, yay!

Speaking of flowers, my qarabali zucchini has already put out a few male flowers even though the plant is still pretty small.  The leaves are going a bit funny as they age, though, I don't know what's going on there.

And finally, I snapped a photo of some of the neighbourhood lorikeets who were having a look into the garden.  I think they periodically stop by to see if the figs are ripe yet.  The breba (early) crop is just starting to look like it's thinking of ripening, the main crop won't be ready until autumn.  This year I put a few cheap mesh bags over some of the fruits to see if I could save a few for myself, we'll see how it goes!

geranium surgery

I started feeling bad for the geraniums on one side of my house.  They got bad rust during the winter which made them lose a lot of leaves.  Then as soon as it warmed up a bit they dried out.  The soil in the bed is awful builder's infill, almost pure sand.  I've tried putting compost on top but sand just makes it disappear.  Between the hot afternoon sun on the house bricks and the dry soil, I was very worried about them surviving the summer.  So I decided to perform a bit of geranium surgery.

I dug each one out partially or completely and dug out four buckets of sandy soil.  As you can see here, even after all that rain patches were still dry.  Some of the sand was compacted down very solid into those clumps.  I replaced the sand with compost from the bin (full of worms!) and a bit more of the manury soil I've got leftover. 

Then the geraniums each got a haircut - all the flowers and buds came off plus a few branches.  Some of them lost a lot of roots and are looking wilty today but they all got a dose of seasol to help them along.  And the weather this week is perfect for their recovery - low 20s and cloudy with drizzle.  My only worry is that the rust will keep eating at them in the wet.

I've also planted a pair of sunflowers in the bed this year, at the base of those two stakes.  I'm hoping they'll cast a bit of shade to give them a bit of shelter this summer.  I'm just hoping my geraniums recover!