Thursday, 7 July 2011
Cape daisy - copper purple
Well.. at last I've snapped a pic of the copper purple thing! It is looking quite nice today. The colours look more washed out in the sun but I haven't touched them up much in this photo. Not too bad.. but a little purple-er would be nice!
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
Loving the new heater!
Wow time gets away from one when one is trying to keep a blog! I thought I'd posted only a few days ago but we've had this heater for 2 weeks now. This is my precious... the Nectre mk2. And right in front of it is where I'm staying today!I like plenty of rain but this getting ridiculous. I had to dig another rose out this morning and put it into a pot. I thought I had built up the bed enough but apparently not! We are going to have to put in quite a lot of drainage. We have a newly built house so our block has been cut out right into the lovely clay soil which acts like a bowl and all the water just sits on it. We have begun ammending the soil with loads of gypsum and we have a bit of top soil but it is going to take a long time to improve. G cannot even get a shovel into the clay we have to use a pickaxe and crowbar. The only comfort was seeing that the rose had actually been growing some nice roots. Above the soil it looks like a miserable single thorny stick while the rest of the roses all have these little pink nodes sprouting out all over assuring me that they are alive and well. I hope it doesn't mind being moved coz it is one of my favourites.. Crown Princess Margareta.
I am on the lookout for geranium 'Rozanne' or similar to plant under the white roses (Summer Memories) out the front. These geraniums are not common in Australian nurseries. We seem to only have pelargoniums which are called geraniums. The nice lady at my favourite nursery said she would try and find some for me if she can. In the meantime we have planted the purple daisies there. There is a quite a bit of space in the front. I do have some 'baby blue eyes' seed which I can try there I suppose. The front looks so much nicer now it has been mulched.
A few more plants recently aquired plants:
Chinese Lanterns - orange & pink, and a dwarf Bella red one.
A few dwarf snapdragons
A couple of pincushion flowers
An osteospermum daisy.. I *think* is yellow.
Convolvulus sabatius
Camellia japonica - Hawaii, Carter's sunburst, C.M. Hovey, & Guilio Nuccio
Mexican orange blossom
And a bunch more purple pansies & some black ones which are very cool.
I keep picking up plants with my spending money instead of going out for coffee and lunches. I think that's fair enough don't you? I'd rather have plants and toast and tea than fancy lunches.
Monday, 20 June 2011
Winter has arrived.
I haven't pulled the camera out for a while. The rose blooms were finished and there wasn't much else to look at. It has been rainy and the mornings are frrrrosty and being the wimp that I am I haven't been outside much. The paths are not made around the yard and the paving isn't done so it is still pretty muddy.
Some of the pansies out the front are flowering well but half of them died for no apparent reason which makes me saaaaaaad. There are a few blooms on my copper purple daisy but they are mostly copper and not much purple at all. I was hoping for a more spectacular two tone effect. I would have photographed them today but it is way too windy! The purple daisies are budding but none have opened yet.
He has also cut and stacked a pile of wood for our soon-to-be-installed combustion heater. I am counting down the days to warm-town baby, yeah! 3 more days!! We are very blessed to get this heater at such short notice as they were sold out up here and on back order for a 5 week wait. My very kind father helped me ring around Adelaide where wood heating is in less demand and we managed to snare a floor model that had only just arrived in the store. It is a Nectre mk2 pedastal which can be installed quite a lot closer to the wall than others. This is important to fit where we want it to go in a central position. It is locally manufactured and has a great reputation. And I like the look of it. ;)
The day after my birthday (good timing) my bare root rose order from Treloar Roses arrived. G & I spend a good part of yesterday planting 8 in the front beds and 10 more into pots. We have a site planned for the rose beds in the backyard but are waiting for plumbers to finish digging around fixing things around that particular area. And the other 2 went to my mum; a 'Mother's Love' rose I had ordered for her Mother's Day present, and a 'Redgold' floribunda rose which was one of my free gifts from Treloars. I'm sure it is very nice but it doesn't look like the colouring that will fit in with the rest of my garden so mum was happy to take it off my hands. They also sent a David Austin rose called 'Brother Cadfael' which I am stoked about. I have already planted it in a spot I had reserved for a pink cupped climber. I was going to get Nahema but I'll give this one a go first. The other free rose is simply labelled 'Surprise' Floribunda which seems to be an elusive variety not listed on their website. I thought maybe it was meant to be like *surprise* a random rose bush but then I thought surely they wouldn't do that without giving me a name so I know how to care for it. I think I've found out what it looks like on some gardening forums. It is possibly a yellow/pink thing like a sunset blend. Sounds interesting.
And so I look lovingly at all these little sticks planted in the ground and a long row of pots off the carport and tell them to grow.. grow.. don't die little babies. Tonight I worry they are going to be drowned by the end of Winter. I can't wait for Spring!
Some of the pansies out the front are flowering well but half of them died for no apparent reason which makes me saaaaaaad. There are a few blooms on my copper purple daisy but they are mostly copper and not much purple at all. I was hoping for a more spectacular two tone effect. I would have photographed them today but it is way too windy! The purple daisies are budding but none have opened yet.
The big developments this mon
th are:
th are:G has built the garden shed on top of the concrete in-ground rainwater tank. It matches the colorbond fence. It looks pretty good.
He has also cut and stacked a pile of wood for our soon-to-be-installed combustion heater. I am counting down the days to warm-town baby, yeah! 3 more days!! We are very blessed to get this heater at such short notice as they were sold out up here and on back order for a 5 week wait. My very kind father helped me ring around Adelaide where wood heating is in less demand and we managed to snare a floor model that had only just arrived in the store. It is a Nectre mk2 pedastal which can be installed quite a lot closer to the wall than others. This is important to fit where we want it to go in a central position. It is locally manufactured and has a great reputation. And I like the look of it. ;)
The day after my birthday (good timing) my bare root rose order from Treloar Roses arrived. G & I spend a good part of yesterday planting 8 in the front beds and 10 more into pots. We have a site planned for the rose beds in the backyard but are waiting for plumbers to finish digging around fixing things around that particular area. And the other 2 went to my mum; a 'Mother's Love' rose I had ordered for her Mother's Day present, and a 'Redgold' floribunda rose which was one of my free gifts from Treloars. I'm sure it is very nice but it doesn't look like the colouring that will fit in with the rest of my garden so mum was happy to take it off my hands. They also sent a David Austin rose called 'Brother Cadfael' which I am stoked about. I have already planted it in a spot I had reserved for a pink cupped climber. I was going to get Nahema but I'll give this one a go first. The other free rose is simply labelled 'Surprise' Floribunda which seems to be an elusive variety not listed on their website. I thought maybe it was meant to be like *surprise* a random rose bush but then I thought surely they wouldn't do that without giving me a name so I know how to care for it. I think I've found out what it looks like on some gardening forums. It is possibly a yellow/pink thing like a sunset blend. Sounds interesting.
And so I look lovingly at all these little sticks planted in the ground and a long row of pots off the carport and tell them to grow.. grow.. don't die little babies. Tonight I worry they are going to be drowned by the end of Winter. I can't wait for Spring!
Monday, 9 May 2011
I don't know anything much about camellias but they have wonderful dark green shiny foliage which contrasts amazingly with white flowers. This one I bought months ago was covered in fat buds. A couple of them fell off but the rest are finally starting to open, to my delight. They are tiny little wonders on a small plant.
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