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.
This is probably a ‘dangerously close to being rejected post’ because it’s a late submit. I daresay all the northerners are safely tucked in bed, sleeping the night away.
I haven’t been part of Six on Saturday for very long but it’s fairly obvious I’m growing a white garden. For many, I daresay white can be boring, but this evening, my husband and I walked in the gate from a dog-walk and the whites and ivories glowed like moonbeams. They provide their own sort of luminescence and in fact for me, it’s a kind of secretive garden at night – pearly light leading me on.
But guess what? I do have colour! Some of the plants have little backstories and it’s that which allows them to take their part in my white garden.
As part of the regular gardening blog hop put up by The Propagator, my Six for Saturday are growing in our little matchbox garden in the city. I mentioned once before in another post, that this garden is only three and half years old and was built from scratch. (See Matchbox Gardens)
