SOS 2/7/22

Hurrah, I made it to SoS with pics of our main garden on the coast as opposed to the tiny little Matchbox in the city!

Starting with one of our two giant weeping willows which I adore with a passion; especially in summer when they create magical corners in the garden for me and for my grandson. They’re now leafless and seem covered in a black mildew which doesn’t seem to hurt them at all but makes a livid mess on any garden furniture or tools one leaves beneath them.

The tubs filled with tulips are doing well. I’ve left them alone and they’re just doing their own thing. If I have a concern, it’s that the three new clematis might flower at the same time and whilst they will look beautiful with the generally white/ghostly flavour of that border, the clematis and the tulips just will not mix because the tulips are old ones from a couple of years ago and are black and orange!

Because of the current price of veg in Australian shops (owing to summer flooding in the high commercial cropping areas), we’ve planted some veg in winter. Unusual for us as we always let the veggie garden lie fallow over winter. We’ve planted rocket, chard and mixed lettuces. There’s also the regular rows of garlic and broadbeans. In the bed behind the camera, we have snowpeas and the last of the carrots, potatoes and spring onions. A good soup coming up…

This is an experiment. We’re not cutting a patch of grass facing west behind the windbreak. I will mildly till it, sprinkle meadowflowers on the soil, maybe plant a few bee friendly flowers, paint the old wheel barrow black, fill it with good soil and plant that with meadowflowers as well. It’s a plan to help the bees. Hope it works. The grass is already filled with dandelions, white daisies and clover which the bees love in spring and summer.

This is my first ‘successful’ attempt at propagation. It’s a rambling rose, white and open with a beautiful fragrance that hangs over a fence on one of my dog-walks. It came with swellings on the cuttings and since dosing with honey and planting in lite soil, its buds are rapidly filling and there’s a sign of leaves at the top. Is it putting on a spurt before dying?

And finally, I spotted a little French lavender in the Dry Garden as I looked for photo opportunities. It’s quite delicate and pretty and a reminder that spring is only about 8-ish weeks away.

Thank you for looking at my Tasmanian garden on the far southern end of the globe. Please click on this link and spend time in international gardens, courtesy of Jon, our Propagator. The gardens are lovely and have much more colour and presence than mine!