Gardening moments

Yesterday saw me out in the garden again as I still have serious work to do before the weather turns nasty.  I'm always experimenting with the garden, finding out what grows best with an evolving garden.  We have more shade now than when we moved here over 20 years ago and after having 10 years of drought, most of the plants that love the wet and cool weather we normally experience, have been under stress.  So I put some things in the garden that would cope with the dry and now it's wet again.  So the echium has died, the banksia roses have gone berserk and the dietes is taking over and popping up where I don't want it to.

 

The echium when it was living.

I decided the banksia roses and the dietes had to go.  The banksia roses were sending triffids up to heaven and I was having to prune them every couple of weeks.  Not fun.  Nothing makes me more annoyed than plants that become invasive.  That's what was happening with the dietes and I realised it had been smothering my standard rose.  Roses win in my garden.  So I dug out the four banksia roses.  Did you know that their roots grow all the way to China?  :)

This "old grey mare ain't what she use to be" so after grubbing out the banksia roses I was rather worn out but I wanted that dietes out of the ground yesterday.  So I took big breath and got stuck in with the spade and mattock.  I got it out, finally and can thoroughly recommend hard physical work as a therapy for menopausal mood swings and hot flushes.  You also get a good aerobic workout, what a bonus.  :)

So what do you do when a beautiful echium dies?   Make new plans of course and replant the area with grape hyacinth bulbs, iris bulbs and cineraria.  I also planted sweet peas and made a tee pee for them out of the Curbside Boutique garden stakes I found and some garden twine we had in the garage.  I found a cat mint plant that had self sewn (totally different from plant invasion) and popped that in too.  Mix it all up with a little sculpture made from old farm bits and pieces scavenged from a visit home to the farm and a new garden is in the making.

I'm one very happy gardener who is now looking forward to winter and spring colour.

 Look we found on the dining table this morning.  Those rabbits look very happy considering they are going to be eaten very soon.  The bilby doesn't look quite so cheerful, I expect that is because he is a threatened species.

Have a lovely day everyone, whatever you are doing. 

Anne  xx