SoS 6/11/21
In the city for a couple of days this week, I took the opportunity to take some pics of the Matchbox. It’s such a tiny space with such a nice ambience and considering how long it can go before we give it attention, I really love it.
In the city for a couple of days this week, I took the opportunity to take some pics of the Matchbox. It’s such a tiny space with such a nice ambience and considering how long it can go before we give it attention, I really love it.
Spring has sprung upon us and scared the hell out of us with three days of 18-26 this week! We literally watched the blossom emerge from the trees and then fall before we could even rush to get cameras and things, in between dashing around with a hose, moistening dry soil.
But then all day yesterday it rained and so the garden is looking satiated and as if it now has time to really think about spring. It’s about 13 today and a few things have opened. One must take the time to look because one finds spring is done and dusted in our neck of the woods in next to no time.
Had a swift dash to the city to collect mail and make sure the little Matchbox was okay. And to pick up birthday presents. I dashed around the tiny garden, took five shots, and then in a bitterly cold Antarctic burst, drove back up the coast. No pics from here but tomorrow I will be planting rhubarb and purple asparagus and feeding the herbs.
I reckon it’s quite hard to do SoS in the winter. There just doesn’t seem to much going on that’s of interest. Especially in our little Matchbox garden in the city which is resting, as any little hard worker should, until the busy blooming time of spring.
We’re back in our big garden on the coast after dallying in the city last week and I was happy to see the garden breathing again as temperatures drop and the nights have welcome dews. This garden suffers in summer, as I’ve mentioned before, and in order to try and create a more temperate micro-climate, we’ve slowly been filling the old orchard with trees of all sorts. Hopefully they’ll act as not just wind protection, but feedlots for birds and insects AND lower the overall summer temperature of the whole garden. Trouble is, it may not be in my life time. But that’s gardening, isn’t it? A measure of future-proofing?
Gosh, after a busy Christmas, a dry and hot week or so of the New Year and a tumultuous international affair, I’ve finally got back into my garden. We welcomed a full day of rain yesterday and showers today.
It’s been an horrendous couple of weeks with the seasonal equinoxial gales. We live at 42 degrees south latitude, commonly known as the Roaring Forties, so gardening has been something we’ve done only if we really really have to. Best to stay indoors or find a stretch of the coast under the shelter of cliff.
Our house painter says the winds make him melancholy, the teachers all say the pupils develop a kind of madness; our Jack Russell certainly does. I have a balance issue and so the sound-buffeting and the visual disturbance of trees waving and gyrating can bring on an attack of vertigo. But the gales are abating now and I’m in clean-up mode. Masses of whippy branches from the two willows, cossetting the gardens with as much water as possible and starting to shovel mulch all around after much water, so that summer doesn’t dry everything out.
Here’s my lot for this week:
As the world begins to lockdown, the garden couldn’t honestly be a better place to spend one’s time, could it?
Not many words in this frantic ‘before Christmas’ post.
The little Aussie Matchbox blooms amazingly when we go to the city. When we are on the coast though, it’s a constant effort to keep things fresh and exciting in the middle of the ongoing Big Dry (to which I’ll add the word – windy!).
So my six are all those I’ve shared the previous summer – only this year, they’re one year older and showing just how stunning they can be in my white garden.
The strange and ghostly white clematis with the mauve tinge and green stripes is completely unknown. I just remember I liked it in the catalogue. It’s LOVELY on the fence.
And so’s the pom-pom green one. But actually, so’s every other clematis I have – and surprise, surprise, all whites. All eleven of them!
Just for some variation closer to the ground, I do love the pulmonaria (which flowers white) and the dicentra (I have two different varieties of white flowers).
I do apologise for the lack of names but I’m away currently on the coast and my botanical list is in the city. I’m trying to pluck names from a pre-Christmas head chock full of non-essentials. In any case, I’m sure the informed amongst you know exactly what each plant is!
To see how gardens are progressing in the northern hemisphere, do click on the link and go to The Propagator’s SoS. It may prove a gentle way to spend a weekend!
Another Saturday, time flies!
We had to spend time in the city this week and so had three days messing about in the Matchbox garden. We trimmed the hedge that separates our townhouse from the row behind. It’s about 3 metres high and 25 metres long – made of awful shrubs that grow in weed proportions here. Things like the Cotoneaster Glaucophyllis and the New Zealand Mirror Bush which seed horrendously and choke our native species in the wild and our own gardens.