Six on Saturday 25/11
It’s actually Sunday here in Oz and it’s been an awful week weather-wise, so I despaired of having anything to offer. But then I sat and watched Netflix last night – seasons of Big Dreams Small Spaces with Monty Don.
The Don is my hero – his quiet honesty, his raging enthusiasm for things he loves, his faceted depths and what appears to be gentle humility. Anyway, suffice to say that when he went to Wales to help two young chaps create their vision in the worst weather – rain, more rain and wind – I thought’ Oh what the hell…’ and went out to take a few pics.
You see, we’ve had 5 days of drizzle, mizzle and rain and a bit of wind as well. And whilst rain at this time of year is marvellous, fills the waterholes and tanks and gives the gardens and open spaces what they truly crave (natural water not chemically enhanced stuff), I am DONE with it, I tell you! I’m sick of the wet, the mist, the gloom, the grey skies. My dog has webbed feet and is in deep depression and I’m over having super curly hair! Besides, in 8 days, we have summer!!!
My six this week consist of a lot of ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I have no idea’- so if you can help at all, please comment. It’s a combination of the Matchbox garden, the Coast garden and walking the streets.
Here we go:
- Some delightful native, whose name is ‘I have no idea’. It’s tuff, flowers stupendously in summer and has fab seedpods (also evident in the pics)to grace the plant in winter. The leaves are structural and the plant is low-growing. I’ve seen it in a massive terracotta tub and it looks marvellous. This one is perched on a wall down the street. I think I know the nursery that grows them. It’s about 40kms away, so I shall be beating a path to their door.
- This horrid creeping plant, whose name ‘I don’t know’, has dared to invade my white and grey garden. I don’t know its name beyond searing epithets that I send its way often. I have tried to dig it out but it grows on runners that root like octopus tentacles. It is about to receive a Roundup kiss as I do not want it in the Matchbox garden at all.
- This is a secret garden and has the most wonderful weeping mulberry (I think – it may be an ‘I don’t know’) at its centre. Behind the jungle is a charming house built after Federation but its been empty for years. The estate sold last year for over a $A1million and prior to sale, a bevy of gardeners launched in, trimmed back and one could see the bones of the most beautiful garden emerging. Post sale – it’s reverted to jungle. So sad, so enticing. How I’d love to climb the chained gates and investigate.
- Remember my strawberries? Bought on a throw-out table at the local hardware? They are hanging in there. I think we might get fruit!
- On my plantsman friend’s advice, I also bought Strawberry Fragoo. She said the fruit is delicious, that the shape of the fruit is charming and the plants look wonderful in proper strawberry pots with the little cups moulded into the sides all the way down. I had one of those years ago but haven’t seen any in our nurseries lately, so my plants are in amongst lobelia and a native convolvulus in a half wine barrel on the patio. I really rather like the sharp pink/red of the flowers – unusual for me with my white fetish.
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Finally, the seeds are forming on the four acers in the Coast border. They look like little helicopter rotors or propellor blades and detach and fly in much the same way. Suffice to say I have a million acers seeded across the garden, but they seldom grow out because of mulch-smothering. I am beginning to develop a fetish for many seed- heads thanks to reading SoS’s.
Cheers all and do go to The Propagator for this week’s journey round the global world of gardening.
The first plant looks daisy like or aster, but probabaly wrong, I do believe the yellow creeper could be the lesser celandine I thought at first winter flowering aconite but when I looked closely it wasnt, so its the Celandine https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2018/01/early-spring-flowers-flowering-plants-and-shrubs/
I have both in the garden !!!! The celandine is a pain!
It certainly looks like it, Libby – especially in the photo further down the article. I need to kill it dead. It’s voracious!
I love that programme too, especially on a rainy day.
Agreed. One can sink into it.
#2 looks like creeping buttercup. Annoying to remove and quick to creep…a selective weed killer used for lawns would kill it without the help of Round up. Sometimes we have no choice but the less we use Round up, the better we will be.
A friend called it celadine. Am imagining it’s the same thing?
It’s got to go, whether I use glyphosate or Fusillade or something to get it gone!
Monty is The Don, tis true. He is fast becoming a national treasure. Well done for braving the elements! We salute you.
And still it drizzles. I did venture into the Matchbox today and pull self-sown mirror trees and tried to dig out more of the yellow peril.
As for Monty Don – I credit him with enticing my son (now 35) to gardens. Son spent hours watching my Monty Don DVD’s of European gardens and started to dream of having his own!
Don’t know if I’m worth saluting yet, Mr.P. Think I need a few years of watching all the SoSers. 😉
I think the first plant is Pachystegia insignis, which comes from the north east corner of South Island, New Zealand. The next is creeping buttercup, Ranunculus repens, for which you can thank the British. I’m not sure why Fred thinks a lawn weedkiller is preferable to Roundup, I’d use the latter every time. I bought a book when I visited Tasmania called A Guide to Flowers and Plants of Tasmania, produced by Launceston Field Naturalists Club. I love it, it’s the best souvenir I could possibly have come back with.
Jim, you are quite amazing because you’re right!!!! http://www.woodbridgenursery.com.au/perennials/313-pachystegia-insignis.html
Husband and self have decided to buy a couple. One for the big tub on the patio at the Coast which currently houses a native convolvulus and the Fragoo strawberries and one for the part of the Matchbox that shares the Body Corporate driveway in the city.
As for Roundup, it has been this gardener’s friend for many years. Used on plants that have literally gobbled up areas and won’t respond to tireless digging and/or smothering. I’m fully aware of the dangers and hate it for being so damned good at what it does. The only killer I know of that is less toxic is called Slasher (in Australia) and is certified safe for organic gardens. But I haven’t tried it yet. This may be the first time.
Fancy you having the Guide to Plants and Flowers. It’s also in my bookshelf. I’m delighted you’ve been here. I do hope you had a great time. We have some wonderful gardens and some exceptional wilderness.
Sadly we only spent 4 or 5 days there and too much of that in the car. I loved it and would love to come for longer but it is such a long way. It’s such a joy to go somewhere and be immersed in plants almost none of which are familiar.
It is so far from everything, you’re right. But that’s its charm. Damned expensive though!!!!