Here is the front view just after the lawn was put down.
Saturday, 30 April 2011
Mary Rose
Today I took some photos of my first Austin bloom. She has been beautiful all week so I thought I'd best gets a pic before the downpour started. After a morning of scattered showers she is now looking a little sad and nodding toward the ground but holding up ok.
I didn't plan on getting 'Mary Rose', the disordered and ruffled bloom form and brighter pink colour wasn't my favourite style. But she was less than $8 on sale so how could I resist? I'm glad now as she is magnificent.
Be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted, forigiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. - Ephesians 4:32
Friday, 29 April 2011
Upsy Daisy
I just realised I also love daisies. I have blue margeurite, a yellow paper daisy and two kinds of ostespermums so far. I keep looking longingly at pics of the funky looking spoon osteospermums and the English daisies. I have high hopes for the copper purple osteospermum. Mine hasn't bloomed yet, it is looking healthy and has a few buds though. It is a bit of a delicate hybrid. It's in part shade and looks wilty on warm days. I hope the blooms are as beautiful as this!
Thursday, 28 April 2011
And she's back.
Right so I was leetle fed up with blogger for a while there. And at our builder. I have no desire to mention any more details about our new house except that we now live in it. It is ok. And I don't want to talk about the joys of building. Are you getting that building sucks?? So let me start afresh and talk about something I AM enjoying... planning my garden!!
As I have never owned a home I have never been very interested in gardening. Everyone said "It will be different when you have your own place." And of course they are right. I never really doubted it. I have looked forward to having a garden of my own for a while now. I used to enjoy the few plants we had at our old places but spending money to improve a place you are renting is frustrating and there is no scope for imagination in that. But NOW... HAHA! I have a whole yard to turn into my kind of Eden. And I'm only limited by the heavy clay, the building litter, the shallow pipes (who knows where they all lie?) and deep shade all along one fence line and the service side of the house except in Summer when it is sizzling in parts of it there, lol.
Well we have started with a retaining wall all the way along the rear of the property. Half of it is overhung with trees so it gets a fair amount of shade during the day. It is a bit of an experiment to see what likes living there.
Currently planted in it and mostly doing well are:
Copper purple osteospermum (daisy)
Walker's Low nepeta
Dusky Bells correa
White Nancy lamium (beautiful)
1 strawberry plant (yep just the one)
Some ugly ground cover thing I have forgotten the name of and want to rip out
Rosemary prostrate
Basil
Pink verbena (was spendid now is half eaten)
Oregano
Lemon Thyme
Purple verbena (flowering well)
Pink dwarf lavender (not flowering but looking ok)
Stevia
And a couple of pea shoots that have sprouted from the pea straw and are growing peas! They have pretty pink flowers.
That sounds like a lot when I list all the plants but it doesn't look that busy IRL. There is still room along the back for more plants or veggies. Veggies were the plan up the other end but I've run out of enthusiasm for them. I only want to grow rhubarb and I don't think it will fit, the retaining wall is only about a foot deep.
We also have some lovely lawn out the back and in the front garden. In the front beds we have planted a row of dwarf box hedge and a row of pansies behind that. Near the letterbox in the front are 2 blue margeurite and a yellow paper daisy. Baby tears are planted down the service side of the house in the deep shade. There is a pink zantedeschia in a shady corner at the front, and some bulbs in planters for the front garden are just started to send up a few teensy shoots.
Waiting to find their place in the garden are:
Hydrangea x2 unknown grown from different cuttings
Azalea - Mrs Kint
Camellia - Fuji No Mine
Flowering quince
Erica - Ruby Shepherd (pictured right)
Purple Osteospermum x4
Coreopsis - Limerock Ruby
Pineapple Sage
Duranta Repens - Geisha Girl
And a few little succulents and various other thingies.
And then there are the roses... I have ordered a selection to trial (all bush roses and all David Austins unless otherwise specified):
White/Near Whites
Summer Memories x6 (Kordes floribunda)
Yellow
Charlotte
Apricots
Ambridge Rose
Crown Princess Margareta
Jude the Obscure
Pinks
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Jubilee Celebration
Mary Rose (already purchased from the bargain bin)
Pretty Jessica
The Alnwick Rose
St Cecilia
Wife of Bath (already have as a gift from MIL)
Red
Benjamin Britten
Ok so I may have gone a little overboard and ordered too many but ever since Big Daddy gave me the beautiful pink climbing Pierre de Ronsard
I have discovered I love roses. My parents have always grown hybrid teas and I was never really interested in them. I have discovered more out there in the rose world. My favourite are the big old fashioned romantic cupped shaped blooms. I'm not fussed about the scent as much as visual appeal (and all *true* rose enthusiasts shake their heads and roll their eyes). I have never been a fan of the hybrid tea scent so it is a pleasant surprise to find that I do very much like the scent of the PDR blooms. I am just opening up to the idea that they might not all stink like toilet spray. The Mary Rose I bought 3 days ago has one full bloom today and her perfume is quite nice, stronger but not as nice as PDR. It is very sweet to my nose, maybe too sweet.
Wife of Bath is pretty tiny but she has a couple of buds on her that I'm looking forward to seeing open.
As I have never owned a home I have never been very interested in gardening. Everyone said "It will be different when you have your own place." And of course they are right. I never really doubted it. I have looked forward to having a garden of my own for a while now. I used to enjoy the few plants we had at our old places but spending money to improve a place you are renting is frustrating and there is no scope for imagination in that. But NOW... HAHA! I have a whole yard to turn into my kind of Eden. And I'm only limited by the heavy clay, the building litter, the shallow pipes (who knows where they all lie?) and deep shade all along one fence line and the service side of the house except in Summer when it is sizzling in parts of it there, lol.
Well we have started with a retaining wall all the way along the rear of the property. Half of it is overhung with trees so it gets a fair amount of shade during the day. It is a bit of an experiment to see what likes living there.
Currently planted in it and mostly doing well are:
Copper purple osteospermum (daisy)
Walker's Low nepeta
Dusky Bells correa
White Nancy lamium (beautiful)
1 strawberry plant (yep just the one)
Some ugly ground cover thing I have forgotten the name of and want to rip out
Rosemary prostrate
Basil
Pink verbena (was spendid now is half eaten)
Oregano
Lemon Thyme
Purple verbena (flowering well)
Pink dwarf lavender (not flowering but looking ok)
Stevia
And a couple of pea shoots that have sprouted from the pea straw and are growing peas! They have pretty pink flowers.
That sounds like a lot when I list all the plants but it doesn't look that busy IRL. There is still room along the back for more plants or veggies. Veggies were the plan up the other end but I've run out of enthusiasm for them. I only want to grow rhubarb and I don't think it will fit, the retaining wall is only about a foot deep.
We also have some lovely lawn out the back and in the front garden. In the front beds we have planted a row of dwarf box hedge and a row of pansies behind that. Near the letterbox in the front are 2 blue margeurite and a yellow paper daisy. Baby tears are planted down the service side of the house in the deep shade. There is a pink zantedeschia in a shady corner at the front, and some bulbs in planters for the front garden are just started to send up a few teensy shoots.
Waiting to find their place in the garden are:
Hydrangea x2 unknown grown from different cuttings
Azalea - Mrs Kint
Camellia - Fuji No Mine
Flowering quince
Erica - Ruby Shepherd (pictured right)
Purple Osteospermum x4
Coreopsis - Limerock Ruby
Pineapple Sage
Duranta Repens - Geisha Girl
And a few little succulents and various other thingies.
And then there are the roses... I have ordered a selection to trial (all bush roses and all David Austins unless otherwise specified):
White/Near Whites
Summer Memories x6 (Kordes floribunda)
Yellow
Charlotte
Apricots
Ambridge Rose
Crown Princess Margareta
Jude the Obscure
Pinks
Charles Rennie Mackintosh
Jubilee Celebration
Mary Rose (already purchased from the bargain bin)
Pretty Jessica
The Alnwick Rose
St Cecilia
Wife of Bath (already have as a gift from MIL)
Red
Benjamin Britten
Ok so I may have gone a little overboard and ordered too many but ever since Big Daddy gave me the beautiful pink climbing Pierre de Ronsard
I have discovered I love roses. My parents have always grown hybrid teas and I was never really interested in them. I have discovered more out there in the rose world. My favourite are the big old fashioned romantic cupped shaped blooms. I'm not fussed about the scent as much as visual appeal (and all *true* rose enthusiasts shake their heads and roll their eyes). I have never been a fan of the hybrid tea scent so it is a pleasant surprise to find that I do very much like the scent of the PDR blooms. I am just opening up to the idea that they might not all stink like toilet spray. The Mary Rose I bought 3 days ago has one full bloom today and her perfume is quite nice, stronger but not as nice as PDR. It is very sweet to my nose, maybe too sweet.
Wife of Bath is pretty tiny but she has a couple of buds on her that I'm looking forward to seeing open.
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Arrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhh (a pirate I be)
Now I remember why I abandoned this blog the first time. I just cannot get the hang of the formatting. It is fine until I post photos or change the formatting in any way. When I post photos I cannot seem to get the text to sit consistently below them. And then I'm typing away in one font and it will suddenly jump into another, or change colour or size for no apparent reason. Then there is the evil line spacing demon who takes my sentences and spreads them at varying heights! I can sometimes fix it by editing the html code but then it just goes mental again. I think hotmail used to be a bit like this years and years ago before it wasn't crap anymore. I just find it extremely UN-user friendly. Apparently I should just type in plain text blocks like this and stop trying to insert photos and change things around. And another thing... why can't the photos go where I'm up to instead of at the beginning of the post? This space is too small for dragging and dropping. It somehow messes with all the rest of the formatting. Obviously I am doing it all wrong feel free to educate me.
PS - I really want to make this text pink but daren't.
PS - I really want to make this text pink but daren't.
And for the insides...
Internal selections:
Paintwork - Dulux Whisper White
Doors - Corinthian Balmoral 
Door harware - Gainsborough Lianna leversets in brushed chrome
Kitchen cupboards - Classic White laminate
Handles - long brushed silver things you could hang a tea towel on, all horizontal
Benchtops - Polytec Aspen Stone
Taps - silver things TBA exact brand
Splashback tiles - Dark purple mosaic tiles with a metallic gold swirled through them
Oven - Electrolux Pyro
Rangehood - Electrolux
Cooktop - Electrolux induction
Bathrooms
Vanities - same colours as kitchen (no choice "boo")
Showers - silver semi-frameless
Tiles to ensuite:
floors - black 300x300
walls - white 600x300
black & silver glass mosaic feature
Tiles to main bath:
floors - light stone 300x300
walls - white 600x300
french grey & silver glass mosaic feature
Laundry
Floor tile - same as main bath
Bench - same as kitchen
Wall tile - mocha 100x300 stacked horizontal
Linen - classic white built-in
So... what's the plan?
The plan is to build an awesomely good house. Well the builders will build it and we'll just watch and fret and pay for it. And then afterwards we'll do all the work we're too poor to pay other people to do like flooring, light fittings, furnishings and landscaping. That sounds like enough work to me.
External Selections :
Roofing, gutters, fascias & windows - Colorbond Monument
Eaves - Off white
Render - Paperbark
Carport doors - Colorbond Paperbark
Front Door - Corinthian something (I don't know!)
Gable Infill - Timber stain to match front door
Bricks - PGH Caffe Latte
It should look something like this:
External Selections :
Roofing, gutters, fascias & windows - Colorbond Monument
Eaves - Off white
Render - Paperbark
Carport doors - Colorbond Paperbark
Front Door - Corinthian something (I don't know!)
Gable Infill - Timber stain to match front door
Bricks - PGH Caffe Latte
It should look something like this:
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