cactus flower

I have a collection of cactus plants and most of them came to me about twenty years ago.  They are often neglected but at times I would repot them or remove the weeds.  Last winter I repotted a few of them and gave them a feed and placed them where they get the blistering afternoon sun.  I have been well rewarded with flowers and I notice buds on another thorny plant.  I will keep working on the other neglected pots and hope to see more of the rather attractive flowers.

exotics

The seed of this loofah vine was planted in October.  It has taken its time to grow and I hope the warm weather will help it to be productive.  I would like to see a few of the fruits to develop for vegetables and a couple to grow to turn into bathroom sponge.  The loofa gourd is grown for its fruit and picked when young and I suppose it is also grown for the sponge market.

The seeds of this peanut plants were planted at the same time as the loofah in October.  It is growing at least.  I am waiting to see them flower after which the flower stalks will push downwards into the soil to form the peanuts.  I cannot wait to see my exotic plants produce.

sugar cane

This is not the first time I've tried to grow sugar cane.  In September I bought a couple of canes from the Asian store and chopped up 4 pieces to plant.  The pot was sitting with the bother seedlings in a protected area and not much was happening.  When I moved the pot to a warm, north facing, protected area things began to happen.  It took weeks to come to the stage shown in the picture.

The plant is growing and is now almost 24 cm high and was transplanted into a bigger pot a few weeks ago.  Another shoot is appearing in the seedling pot so I am hoping to have a couple of clumps of sugarcane in my garden.  I would have to protect them in winter if they were to survive.

Some of my favourite flowers

What could be more beautiful than this lace-like blossoms of the elderflower tree?  The elderflower grows easily from cuttings and regular pruning will keep the tree low.

Love-in-a-mist will self sow but they are so easy to pull out if you have too many of them.

Blue love-in-a-mist.

The mauve version.

The stunning blue lobelia.

For heights, the acanthus mollis and hot poker (kniphofia) will do the job well.

Banksia

The banksia finally shows its beauty after over three years of waiting.  I bought the spindly plant from the bargain table at CERES in Brunswick over three years ago and planted it in my outside garden.  It took forever to grow and while other plants close by were shooting up this miserable specimen remained neither lively nor dead.  When it finally grew to over a meter high it began to look healthier.  Early this year I saw signs of flower buds which remained in the same state for months.

It has taken a few months for the buds to finally bloom and it has proven to be a beauty.  I have no idea what the variety it but it does not matter to me as I tend not to remember names.  I can see the flowers from my kitchen window and I am sure I will see the honeyeaters drinking the nectars.

cherries

I planted two cherry trees three years ago - "Starkrimson" and "Stella".
I cannot boast of prolific harvest but I have been eating a few cherries from both trees.
The blossoms in spring were beautiful.

I hope to see more fruits in the future as they are so juicy and delicious.  I will be topping up the mulch around the trees and will keep the branches low.

Wild life

This blue tongue lizard comes out to enjoy the sun.  I don't really know if there are more than one living  in my garden because I have seen the lizard in different parts at different times.  The lizard is so slow I don't expect it to move far.  I have to watch where I walk as I almost trod on one this morning.

A closer look at the lizard which can remain still for quite a while.

Broadbeans

I have been enjoying the broadbeans, which, fortunately, are not eaten up by the snails which are creeping up all over the plants and creating holes in the leaves.  A few of the mature plants have been pulled out after the harvest as there was no sign of flower buds.  Those promising more beans will stay. I have planted out a few more seedlings and hope to harvest the beans beyond Christmas.

This is just one of the many snails found on the leaves of the broadbeans.  There are just too many of them to be successfully removed.

poppies

The red poppies are back in the same patch.  There are not as many as two years ago but as more of the buds open up their slender stems dance bravely in some of this spring's wild winds.

There will be a few left come November 11, Remembrance Day and I will collect the seeds for next year.  They self sow, but I would like to create a big patch of the red poppies in the outside garden for next year.

 I put aside a corner of the vegetable box for the bright yellow Californian poppy and the large mauve poppy.  The seeds of the mauve poppy I collect for cooking.  The poppies self sow and appear in some unexpected places.

roses

This pink climber from my old garden was given to me as a cutting almost thirty years ago.  I took a cutting before leaving the old garden and the rose has been sitting in a pot until last autumn when I planted it beneath this arch as the two yellow climbers had died.  It looks very happy here shooting up very quickly.

A close up of this climbing pink rose.

This pink old fashioned rose adorns the arch leading to the path.  I am waiting for the buds to open up and cover half the arch.

This rose has the hues of sunset when newly opened and covers the other half of the arch.

This rose starts off as deep pink with a white centre but turns pale as it matures.  It has a subtle perfume.

I rescued this rose from a shaded area and it is promising to give more flowers.

Early morning dew on this Black Velvet.

A Black Velvet bud.

azaleas

I have started to prune some of the azalea bushes with unsightly spent flowers but there are a few plants  still in their glory.  This white one is a favourite and looks good in a vase.

When I came to this garden four years ago I felt a bit threatened by the azaleas which seemed to be everywhere.  I do enjoy them now, especially when they are in flower.  The different shades take turn to show off their colours.  I prune them once they have finished flowering and once the new growth start to mature the different hues of green provide a soothing background in the garden bed.

from garden to dinner table

The mushroom is the size of my hand and it has taken two weeks to grow to that size, from a tiny button.  My mushroom box is still producing and I hope the warmer weather will hasten the growth of the tiny buttons on the top of the box.  I picked the few spears of asparagus and the snowpeas for a stir-fry and a beautiful, sweet and crunchy dish it turned out to be.

Ranunculus

The ranunculus is very showy, especially when you have a bed, or a big pot of them growing.  Each year in spring when the ranunculus show off their colours, from pale to brilliant hues, I tell myself I must plant more of them.  In autumn, when the seeds that look like the legs of a dead insects are planted, I am usually short of the dream I have of mass planting.  I plant them in well drained soil, about the depth of the length of my thumb and with enough distance to give each plant to grow and send up tall stalks of intended beauty.

I have no idea this pot of ranunculus would bear pink flowers, almost the same colour as the azaleas that has blossomed faithfully in the four years I have had this garden.  This spot receives plenty of sunshine and when the ranunculus is spent I shall put in its place a tomato.  Even a neighbour's cat seek out a bit of space here to sunbake in.

I find growing the ranunculus in pots more satisfying as those in the ground have to fight for space in my overcrowded garden.  An advantage of growing in pots is the ability to move them when the plants are no longer showy and need to be shoved to the working part of the garden while waiting to prepare the roots for next season planting.

spring vegetables

It is too cold to be out sowing seeds but the spring vegetables are doing well.  There are plenty of green leafy vegetables and the different coloured chards and silver beets, as well as curly kales are enough to create a variety of dishes from plain stir-fry to fillings for pies or curry puffs.

The asparagus are beginning to shoot up and three or four stems are enough for a meal when added to finely sliced chards and a sprinkling of chopped chives.  Both the garlic chives and the ordinary chives are thriving and my effort at splitting big clumps into many smaller clumps are giving me more to harvest from.  The snowpeas are quite prolific and I have to remember to pinch the shoots which will make a good addition to the salad green.

Spring garden

After being away for two weeks it was wonderful to return to a spring garden alive with flowers and blossoms that may bear fruit.  The sunshine and blue sky enhanced the greenness of the lawn and new leaves.  The ornamental pear, which was bare a month ago is covered in white blossoms, albeit not too thickly, because of the pruning in winter.

The cherry tree on the right is still bare but the blossoms of the flat peach were attracting bees so I hope we'll get some fruits in February.  I love the pink of the peach blossoms, see picture.

The big peach tree is also covered in blossoms and I will cover the fruits more carefully this season to protect them from the birds and possums.  This is my fourth year in this place and the flat peach was planted the week I moved in.

While I was away I was concerned about not seeing the daffodils in flower but they are still showing off and I have quite a few of them in different parts of the garden.  They are still upright even though the strong wind that has been blowing since this afternoon is threatening to slice through delicate plants and uproot trees.

I would have to go to my gardening books to name the different varieties of daffodil in the garden and this is my favourite.

The azaleas too are doing well.  I should have taken a picture of the best of the lot, a rounded mound of pink.  

cyclamen

Over the years In have been given potted cyclamens in bloom.  When the plants died down I had left the corms to look after themselves and that's what the cyclamens had done.  Not only have they reappeared to flower, they have been self sowing seeds in areas I did not expect to find them.  

Here are a few of them sprouting up through the mulch.  Some have appeared in pots alongside the mother corm.  I have planted the seedlings in pots and in the ground underneath the jacaranda tree, but with enough light to encourage flowering.  They are a beautiful sight in different shades of pink.

They brighten up the garden in winter, where they are the happiest, rather than smothered in the heat of the house.

violets

I have patches of violets in different parts of the garden.  At the moment the little gems are shining bright.  This patch is overrun by oxalis.  It is a case of pulling out the weed when I am crouching to pick a bunch of violets for the house.  They do well enough in shady areas but to flower well they need a good dose of sunshine.

This is another variety with thicker leaves and petals.  The flowers are usually larger too.  I feed the violets when I am feeding the other plants in autumn and that seem to help with the winter flowering.