I also bought creeping fig to plant along the fence, but it's so cold and windy today that they'll have to wait. Same with the onion seedlings I was going to plant out, until I heard there's hail in the forecast and decided against it.
Sunday 26 April 2009
autumn in the garden
I also bought creeping fig to plant along the fence, but it's so cold and windy today that they'll have to wait. Same with the onion seedlings I was going to plant out, until I heard there's hail in the forecast and decided against it.
Posted by Alexa at 2:29 pm 1 comments
Labels: autumn colour, ficus, grape vine, violas
Sunday 19 April 2009
i'm knackered
Next weekend I'll dig out some more Kikuyu out of that middle patch. It looks all brown and dirt in the photo but over 3/4 is filled with dead grass. I have some weed mat to put down but I also need to buy some step-stones. In the meantime though I'll reward myself next week by planting the climbers to get them started growing.
Posted by Alexa at 9:14 pm 2 comments
Labels: before and after, big projects
Wednesday 15 April 2009
the pumpkin is dead ... long live the pumpkin
Posted by Alexa at 8:33 pm 2 comments
Tuesday 14 April 2009
new camellias
I bought two camellias called "Paradise Blush" that are supposedly bred for the Australian climate and they're called a "summer survivor" on the tag. The blooms look gorgeous, white with a tinge of pink, but not that it really matters since the possums tend to eat them anyway.
Before
After
Before
After
They're just little things now but hopefully they'll take off. They got a good dose of compost and such when I planted them, and the rest of the row got a feed and a water too.
I also planted out this little tiny applemint plant. I'd bought them as cuttings which meant they didn't have roots so I had them in a little pot for a few weeks. But they'd started to make new leaves which told me they'd taken root, so I planted it out today. It's a type of mint with a mild flavour and its leaves are variagated white and green. It's still tiny but should look lovely when it's grown.
Posted by Alexa at 4:38 pm 0 comments
Labels: before and after, camellia, herbs
Sunday 12 April 2009
i didn't intend to buy plants today...
I'd already planned on planting elephant's ears (colocasia esculenta, aka taro) as one of the plants in that bed. Because there's one of them in the corner near the rhododendrons in constant shade that never gets watered, and it's survived the heat wave. It just died back and re-grew when the weather was nicer. Any plant that can thrive after this summer is worth planting again. It's meant to be a water plant, but turns out it'll also do just fine in the soil, retreating down to it's root when it gets too dry and over the winter when it gets too cold.
I'm pretty happy with that.
Posted by Alexa at 3:25 pm 3 comments
Labels: before and after, colocasia, hellebore
Monday 6 April 2009
sad little maple (part 2)
The good news is, after a bit of consultation with my favourite garden forum I'm told that it should pull through. I sure hope so!
Posted by Alexa at 8:38 pm 3 comments
Labels: before and after, maple
Sunday 5 April 2009
sad little maple
First it got waterlogged in the heavy rains we got last spring, before I realized that two garden beds drained into its corner. So I had to dig it up and put it up in a bit of a raised mound.
Then I got neglectful and let it dry out too much when we had the month or two with almost no rain, and it got even more stressed and even more leaves started to brown.
Then of course we got the stupidly hot weather. More stress, more leaves dying.
But amongst all that the little guy has absolutely fought back. Even before the extreme heat it had started putting out new growth! By the end of the heat wave I thought it was on its way back - it still had about 1/3 of the old leaves, new green leaves coming out at the tips, and lots of fat leaf buds.
I don't think there's anything more I can do now except hope it recovers over the winter. The damn thing better not die, it was freaking expensive.
Posted by Alexa at 12:47 pm 1 comments
Labels: maple
the next big project
It's almost always in the shade so the grass always struggles. At first I thought I'd put some stepping stones but I'm going to go a step further than that. I'm going to dig up the grass, put down some weed mat and stepping stones, then fill in with those white pebbles we have around the back. We have heaps of extra pebbles both from emptying the fish pond and one of my first projects which was digging them out of the raised garden beds.
Posted by Alexa at 12:32 pm 1 comments
Labels: before and after, big projects
Friday 3 April 2009
clivia
And just so you know, this is what they should look like by next summer. Stunning, isn't it?
Posted by Alexa at 6:20 pm 2 comments
Labels: before and after, clivia
lots of rain!
I think yesterday was our last hot day of the autumn. Bring on the rain.
Posted by Alexa at 6:02 pm 0 comments
Labels: weather