a few flowers at last

Really starting to get some late spring flowers coming in.  The lavender is looking great and the bees are already enjoying it.

I've decided on this summer's annual for the west bed - lobelia this year, a mix of mostly dark blues with a bit of light blue and pink.  They don't look like much now but they should become little thick cushions of colour eventually.

And most excitingly, my Chilean jasmine (mandevilla laxa) is starting to bloom!  I love the crisp, white flowers.  They've got a very delicate scent.

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.

garden a.d.d.

My husband likes to joke that I have garden A.D.D. - as in, I have a very hard time just sitting and relaxing in my garden.   There's invariably something that catches my eye that wants doing, a weed to pull or a seedling to water.  No sooner had I taken photos of the new patio and posted them on this blog, but I was outside enjoying a snack in the sunshine and this time got distracted by the cats being adorable.  They love our new couch as much as we do!

But whilst I was up I also noticed that one of the goldfish was hanging out right on the surface and snapped a rare glimmer of gold.

Then decided I should add some closeup photos of the new annuals I put in.  Here's the red salvia.

And here's a close-up of the impatiens.  Look at all of those flower bud ready to go!

That's enough garden A.D.D. for one day!

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!

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!

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.

february flowers

February's usually such a scorching month that nothing flowers except oleander. But there are a few lovely blooms in the garden at the moment. My plectranthus is still going strong, thickening out and flowering more and more. The drimiopsis below it is also filling out nicely.

I planted some impatiens last week and they are going crazy. I just love that deep red.

And my crepe myrtle has just started to flower! I thought I'd take a close-up picture now and a full-sized picture when most of the flowers are open. I never really noticed how each individual flower looks like it violently exploded!

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.

finishing up the west beds

My goal during the Christmas break was to finish widening the west beds.  This was the last bit to go:

My husband was kind enough to supply some of the hard labour moving the rocks out of the way and into the giant pile of spares.  Although we overloaded my little hand-cart and when it rolled off a step it took a chunk out of one of the wheels. Now it sort of limps along.

Then of course I had to decide what to plant there.  In the long-term, I want the vitex in the large bed to grow wide enough to cast shade in that corner.  But in the short-term, the part closest to the camera is heavily shaded and the part farthest from the camera gets a fair bit of sun, making it hard to figure out what to plant across the two beds.  So I decided on an annual, the short-term solution.  It's called Ageratum "China blue", never grown it before but it looked cute in the picture. 
They're still just little seedlings, of course.

As a reminder, this is what it used to look like.

The geum is already starting to repeat-bloom, and I'm really happy with how everything's turning out so far!