We have had a week of relative warmth, redolent of spring, and we’ve even had sunshine which has been superb. I can hear the groans from the Northern Hemisphere as I write, but truly, it’s been an awful winter – too wet, too cold and too long! And the weather boffins are telling us that thanks to La Ninã and the Indian Ocean Dipole, it will be wet on the east coast of Australia until at least December.
I swear I’m done with it.
Anyway, my six:
Back in the little Matchbox garden this week for SoS. My main garden is having a rotten winter with chill rain and wind and it’s reassuring to see it survive; spring will be a lovely reprieve for it. But in the meantime, the tiny city patch has its own microclimate. When the streets, hedges and gardens beyond the garden fence have been white with frost, this little space is showing that it’s moving forward quietly and with no fuss.
Where has this last week gone!
I don’t know about you, but mine’s been spent caring for my canine garden-companion who had surgery for bladder stones this week. Being a Jack Russell, keeping him quietly resting requires total concentration. I’m nothing if not a gaol-warden now and trust me, the prescribed opioids etc have not worked at keeping him sedentary. Sigh!
Grabbing pics has been literally on the run and they’re rather an odd bunch of images which I confess I’ve cheated with and added two that are on my wishlist of future purchases, should I ever win the lottery.
But to start at the beginning. This is my first ever potting up of what? Are they Aeoniums? I don’t know anything about them. They were given to me in this pot and I’m potting them on into terracotta. How do I look after them?
This is our Viburnum Plicatum F. Tomentosum ‘Mariesii which is having a short hiccup, flowering in the middle of winter but I dare say it’s as hopeful as I am that spring is coming.
My most favourite rose of all time, the vibrantly robust Madame Alfred Carriere. We pruned it this hard last year and it flourished so I’ve done the same this year. I want to move it as it shadows my veggie garden too much. Terrified of moving it but we have just under 8 weeks till spring so must do it any minute!
I love terracotta pots in a garden, especially when they age and become heavily covered in mosses and lichens. This pot is a year old and is beginning to oblige. It’s got a clematis planted in it which is a transplant. More on that if it lives to tell the story.
This is the first of my ring-in pics. An Arras greenhouse/summer house for sale this week at one of our most upmarket and favourite garden accoutrement shops – the Jardin Room at Oatlands, Tasmania. I love the summerhouse 11/10!!! At approximately $A8000+, I’m waiting to win the lottery or else will ask a welder my husband has much respect for, how much he would charge to make one similar.
And finally, I have this little pot on my wish list as well. There are so many metal and wire floral sculptures that Aimee Pradel creates that I love. I’m tempted by her auriculas but something about a pot of bright yellow-trumpeted daffs on the kitchen bench all year round, really appeals. I have an eye on her stunning wreaths as well. Crikey, I need to win the lottery!
That’s it from me for today. As usual, Jon The Propagator hosts Six on Saturday and please pop over to this link to have your weekly international horticultural tour.
Cheers!
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!
It’s been months and months since I did an SoS although I’ve taken much joy in looking at all the gardens on display.
Also gobsmacked at the milage and burned rubber Mr.P is running every weekend. Puts us all to shame! My excuse is I’m too old!
Anyway, here’s my six from our little city Matchbox.
This is the back garden. I’ve just done an Edward Scissorhands everywhere (except the bay trees) and so the place is denuded and embarrassed and longing for spring and sunshine.
You may remember that last year, I purchased a variegated agave purely because it’s variegation fitted my garden theme. Last winter’s frosts hit it and it declined into a slimy lump. But lo, it burst forth with new gusto and despite a couple of frosts, freezing temperatures and horrible winter winds, it’s doing really well. I keep thinking I should wrap it in fleece or move it, but move it where? I have no glasshouse.
One of the pots of bulbs (could be tulips – black, white and orange) bursting through the soil. Wire to keep possums out.
If you can remember my garden last year, you might remember that the house wall-garden was a feast of Solomon’s Seal which left nothing much to look at in winter. So my blessed husband dug all the Solomon’s Seal out, put in new soil and I ordered some new black and white hellebores of various kinds and divided and transplanted some others. Everything is doing really well and whilst I don’t expect flowering this year, I hope next year will do me proud. Closest in frame and covered in anti-possum wire is a white hydrangea. This is an experiment as it will get absolutely no sun at all. Time will tell.
This is the bottom terrace of the back garden and I have cut everything back hard so it looks barren. But you can see the hellebores are loaded with blooms. I just hope all the other plants I’ve nurtured come back swinging like this. By the way, Phil the Pheasant is about to be painted black.
My final pic – because I desperately needed something to look at when I walked out the back door, something bright in a dour freezing winter, I purchased two primroses. They’ll do.
Please do go and have a look at the gardens on SoS https://thepropagatorblog.wordpress.com/2022/06/18/six-on-saturday-18-06-2022/ This garden-lover’s blog has grown as well as all the global gardens it exhibits. Cheers.
There is a harsh reality elsewhere just now, and I understand if no one reads what I’m writing, but here goes anyway. It may just help a little…
“I went down in the afternoon
to the sea
which held me, until I grew easy…” Mary Oliver
My mother always called the coast her healing place – the place she went when she was tired, emotional, recuperating, grieving or just plain cranky. The name stuck and for all my life thus far it has been that and more.
Like now…
Another one is about to bite the dust.
There’s music thumping outside and people yelling. That’s the difficulty with having New Year in summer – everyone celebrates outside and to hell with the neighbours.
We left the coast because the population has bred like the plague (one wonders if that’s literally!!), had hoped the ‘burbs in the city would be empty like they have been every other year. But then this is a Covid year and everyone seems to be eschewing the super-spreader locations and ‘playing’ in back yards.
