Saturday 31 March 2012

Plectranthus


After my last post, a couple of people commented on the purple shrub in one of my photos, so I thought I'd do a post on the Plectranthus.

Plectranthus, with some 350 species, is a genus of warm-climate plants occurring largely in the southern hemisphere, in sub-Saharan Africa, Madagascar, India and the Indonesian archipelago down to Australia and some Pacific islands. It is closely related to Solenostemon and known as the spurflowers. Several species are grown as ornamental plants, as leaf vegetables, as root vegetables for their edible tubers, or as medicine

Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plectranthus

I have a number of these plants growing in the garden as they are very easy to grow, tolerate shade (of which there is much in my garden) and dry shade at that.  The one photographed in my last post is Plectranthus ecklonii 'Medley-Wood'. 

 



This one is behind the chook pen and is huge, sprawling everywhere and looks magnificent when in flower which it is now.

This one is Plectranthus argentatus.  It has lovely silver green foliage and pink flowers.  I've been poking pieces of this in the ground around the garden.  No need for much of a root, it takes so easily.


This one is either Plectranthus ciliatus of Plectranthus nico, I'm not sure.  It is a good ground cover and grows where other things won't.  I have recently pruned this heavily, so don't have much to show in the way of flowers or foliage.

This shrubby one is Plectranthus 'Mona Lavender' and is fairly new to my garden.  I love the dark purple stems of the flower head.

I also planted one of these, a Plectranthus oertendahlii but the chook has just about scratched it out of existence.  I've put a protective barrier around it now so hopefully it will recover.
Photo source
http://www.igarden.com.au/pics/plectranthus-oertendahlii-lrg.jpg
So there you have it, the lovely and versatile Plectranthus.  Thank you for taking the time to read this very garden focused post.  Perhaps it was time for some "Gardened Moments".

 Anne  xx

Thursday 29 March 2012

Sewing and gardening

Hello, how are  you?  This morning I sat down and finished sewing the squares to make the cover of my quilt.  Hanging it on the clothes line is the best place to take a reasonable photo.


I'm very happy with how the squares are looking sewn together.  Now I'm on the lookout for some fabric for a border and will probably use calico as a backing as I have a roll of it to use up.

This afternoon I decided to tidy the front garden next to the footpath.  It is a large area that gets overgrown quite quickly if I don't attend to it regularly.  I've managed to take rubbish photos again, sorry, but at least you will get an idea of the area.

I've got leaves,spider webs and dirt in my hair but at least I have the satisfaction of knowing the green waste bag is full, ready to be taken away tomorrow.  Now I'm off to make a beef and vegetable pie for tea.

I hope you are all having a great day.  I'd like to welcome my new follower and thank you everyone for stopping by for a visit.

.Anne  xx


Sunday 25 March 2012

110

Hi everyone and welcome to my new follower.  I hope your weekend has been enjoyable, perhaps with some sunshine, none of which has appeared in Melbourne the last two days.
Remember the fabrics I showed you in my last post,
they have been cut up into 110  6 &1/2 inch squares ready to sew into a quilt.

I purchased a few more pieces of fabric last week to give the colour scheme a bit more pop and I'm quite happy with the colour combinations.  So all these squares are pinned together in rows and numbered so I remember the right order in which to sew them.  Sorry about the rubbish photo.

Late last week I had an overwhelming urge to have a good sticky down in the local op shop.  I came home with a few bits of pieces, a dress with fabric that is gorgeous and will cut up, a few pillowslips which will be turned into something else and this little china jug which cost me the grand total of 50cents.  

It's just perfect for displaying some autumn hydrangeas I picked from the garden today.  I suppose the hydrangeas are really too big for the jug, but do I care?  Nope!  It's all about what makes me happy, not about being perfect.
This afternoon I took my dog Sophie for a walk around the streets of the neighbourhood which was a lot of fun because tomorrow morning we are having a council hard rubbish collection.  Anyone who has stuff to get rid of has put it on the nature strip and what stuff there is.  Some of it is just rubbish, but I saw so many things I could have come home with.  Wooden chairs that could have been sanded down and painted, an old tiered garden stand and this which I did bring home.
  I'm not exactly sure what it is but it was sitting next to an old broken cast iron fire place grille.  
I have a weakness for wrought iron and I just couldn't leave it sitting on the grass.  I will use it as a display somewhere in the garden.

Well I'm off to iron hubby some work shirts for the week.  I hope your week ahead is a good one.

Till next time, take care,

Anne  xx













Wednesday 21 March 2012

Emerging

Hello!  I'm starting to emerge from the fog, the fog of being unwell resulting from going on a detox programme.  I've been taking stuff (it's not worthy of a better name) for a couple of weeks now to help with various ailments.  I was told to expect some side effects such as headaches and a few aches and pains, but certainly did not expect a weeks worth of aches, woozy heads, lethargy and generally feeling ghastly.   Today I was feeling a little more myself, not wanting to collapse back into bed and sleep quite so much.

Anyway today got off to a glorious start because the postman delivered this to my door this morning.

I decided this book was something I wanted to savour the first time I opened it so got my chores done first.  The grocery shopping in the rain, last night's dishes, oops I forgot it was my turn, and other bits and pieces that needed doing.  I sat down with my lunch and a cuppa and devoured the pages.  This book has simply surpassed all my expectations as to what it would be like.  Each page I turned made me squeal a little more with delight and joy.  The colours, the patterns, the fabrics, the styling!  Selina is truly gifted.

This gorgeous photo from the book reminds me of some of the fabrics I've seen on the blog Bobo Bun.

 I'd be very happy if I could grow roses like this.  The next best thing is looking at them in Selina's book.

I don't buy many books but this is one I am so happy to have purchased and won't need to return to the library.

I've been playing around with these fabrics wondering if I can be brave enough to make a plain quilt made from 8 inch squares.  All I have to do is work out how to cut out all those squares.  HELP!?

They're rather an odd mix of fabrics, but that's where the fun begins for me.  The fun of moving away from something that is perfectly matched and ordered.

Well it's bed time for me as the head is starting to spin, a sure sign I need to rest.

Thanks for stopping by and catching up with my ramblings, it's been lovely having your company.

Anne  xx

Tuesday 20 March 2012

Dreaming

Six week to go.

Paris, France
 

Dijon, France

Lucerne, Switzerland

Lake Como, Italy

 Venice, Italy
My painting


Florence, Italy

Michelangelo's David, Florence, Italy

Tuscany countryside, Italy


Rome, Italy

Cinque Terre, Italy

Nice, France

Aix-en-Provence, France

Avignon, France

Provence countryside, France

Mont-Saint-Michel, France

Over on the ferry to the U.K.

Cornwall, U.K.

Bath, U.K.

The Roaches, Staffordshire, U.K.  Spending time with Louise from Ramblings of a Roachling.

Shrewsbury, U.K.
Visiting relatives here.
Back to France on the ferry.

Staying in Sharon's cottage in Normandy, France.
Image from Sharon,  My French Country Home

Giverny, Monet's garden, Normandy, France
 

Back to Paris, France.

Home after 8 weeks away.

Anne  xx


N.B.  All photos sourced from Google images unless otherwise noted.

Wednesday 14 March 2012

Little Dutch pancakes

Sometimes you just need dessert.  Last night was one of those times and because daughter No. 2 had been talking about pancakes, I decided to make Little Dutch pancakes also known as poffertje.  I whipped up a batch, recipe from here, and discovered pouring the batter into the pan from a jug is so much easier than ladling from a spoon.  Who would have thought! 

Some of us had our pancakes with ice cream and chocolate sauce, others sugar and butter.  I chose the ice cream combination but would happily eat these with golden syrup, maple syrup, lemon juice and sugar and berries or other fruit.  They even make a good snack with butter and jam when cold which was my late afternoon tea today.

One of the fun things about cooking is when the unexpected happens.

This teddy bear face pancake happened all by itself.  This recipe makes a huge batch so we have plenty left over for snacking.  Yum!

I'd love to hear about any interesting and unexpecting happenings in your kitchen.  Do share.

Anne xx

Tuesday 13 March 2012

Roly poly

Hi everyone, just checking in to say hello.  Not much has been happening in my world out of the ordinary, so not much to report and certainly no wonderful photos to share.  So I shall just ramble on a bit about bits and pieces.

Most of my energy has been taken up in the garden these past few weeks in an effort to have it looking reasonable before hubby and I head off to Europe at the end of April.  I've been pruning, pruning and pruning with a little weeding and transplanting of self sewn plants to fill up spaces in the garden.  Who knew two days of gardening straight would give me so many aches and pains.  I really wasn't feeling like yoga this morning but glad I went as it straightened out of few crinkles in the body.

I titled this post roly poly but I'm not talking about the pudding, I'm talking about what happened to me after overbalancing on these steps.





I was squatting on the fourth step from the top while pulling weeds and over I went.  I tried to stop myself from falling but to no avail.  I'm absolutely fine though, a slight graze on my left elbow, a few bruises on my back and of course my dignity....just a bit dented.  It's nice to know that at 49 I still bounce.  :)

Here are a few images of the autumn garden.  There isn't much flowering, the summer annuals are finished and some of the roses are having a last little spurt before they shut down for winter.  The fuchsias are good value though and flower through all the seasons which is nice. It's also the reason I have so many of them in the garden.


Cuphea ignea Firecracker plant, Cigarette bush, Cigar flower                           


































Loving the two tone colour hydrangea flowers on one shrub.

Our very small crop of raspberries.  The bugs sucked the sap out of the plants in summer and destroyed the fruit.  A little autumn harvest is better than none.
My gardening companions yesterday and those naughty steps.  (Mum, the word naughty is in there just for you!)  :)
 In between gardening I have started crocheting another vest, in black this time.  The pattern is much slower to work up than the last one, so I'll do a little more before I show you.

Wishing all a very lovely day/evening and thank you for stopping by to read my ramblings.

Anne  xx