Sunday 24 April 2011

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

5 comments:

  1. Oooh Anne I see a chocfest coming on........

    You have been busy in the garden. My Echium flowered for the first time this year. I was expecting it to be a little darker in colour but it was very pretty and when all the little bluey/mauve flowers finished the stems created quite a display all their own.

    Shall make sure I don't plant any Banksia roses all that digging sounds very tiring. Hope you are feeling better today with all this beautiful Autumn weather. Although I over heard some city folk talking at the coffee shop this morning, they were saying it was rather overcast in Melbourne..............?

    Your Sweetpeas will look lovely climbing over their trellis. my self sown Sweetpeas in the compost heap are about a metre long already. Very happy in their chosen environment.

    Claire :}

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  2. Hello Ann,

    i love sweetis...very funnny the sweetdolls.

    Happy easter
    greatings you Conny

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  3. Your garden will be beautiful with all your hard work. I'm hoping to plant my sweet peas this week, I did them for the first time last year and from June-Sept they gave me a vaseful of the most scented blooms.

    The Cadbury's Bilby has tickled me, what is a Bilby???? We don't have them here - either real or chocolate!!

    S x

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  4. Anne, thanks for the info on the Bilby!! I Googled for pics and they are cute!! Do you just see them wandering about like we do with rabbits?

    It also tickled me that just as you were having your morning cuppa, we were almost ready for bed!! Whereabouts in Australia are you? Hubby has family nr Melbourne but I've never been lucky enough to visit (although he did as a child).

    It's one of the places I would really like to visit, although I do find the idea of all the scary animals/insects that can kill you a bit daunting!!

    Is today a bank holiday in Oz? Hope you are having a good one....

    S x

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  5. Hi Anne,
    So beautiful the echium! Your garden looks a nice place.

    You put a big smile on my face when you wrote: "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."
    You have a very creative and cheerful text!

    I hope you had a Very Happy Easter!

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