Winter

We've had a lot of rain lately and the weather has turned really cold - much too miserable to do anything much outside. We have planted a number of native plants along the side fence and by the old house and they seem to be coping with the winter weather so far. Looking out the kitchen window today I mused about what I could put on the blog - all seemed bleak and grey, so I took the dogs out for a stroll around the garden.

Things are happening despite the weather.  The bluebells and daffodils are just breaking the ground and in a few weeks will look spectacular.

 The jonquils are already strutting their stuff. What a pity their scent is so strong - much too heady to have indoors. They are such cheeful winter flowers.

A few weeks ago I trimmed the old leaves on the hellebores and now the new green leaves are unfurling and the first buds have appeared. I love these flowers - they are so rewarding with their long-lasting flowers in subtle colours and tough green leaves that add greenery all through summer.

I have violets everywhere and the sweet flowers give off a wonderful scent as I walk past.  So many violets in fact that they are almost feral, spreading everywhere and swamping other groundcovers if I am not vigilant. I think it is the commom\n violet that is the problem as the 4 other varieties I have are far less vigorous. I don't really mind though because they keep down unwelcome weeds and smell so wonderful.

In the vegetable garden we are harvesting broccoli, radishes,carrots, turnips and various green leaves and soon we will have cabbages, brussel sprouts, celery and celeriac ready.  The citrus trees are doing very well with limes, lemons and mandarins aplenty.  I am going to preserve lemons and make lime and mandarin marmalade.

Perhaps my favourite shrub at the moment is the beautiful Banksia longifolia "Giant Candles" We bought it years ago to plant along the road. Unfortunately it has grown much bigger than anticipated and our not so nice tree loppers come along each year and cut it back so that it won't reach the power lines. Not that it ever will grow that tall, but regulations say there has to be a certain clearance, so they hack it back indiscriminately. We wouldn't mind if they knew what they were doing as far as pruning goes, but their idea of pruning is to hack to the detriment of the plants.

And of course there are the camellias - but that's another story.

Liz Needle

Raining Cats and Dogs

Real rain and more rain. Last Friday and Saturday we had 89 ml in 36hrs 3.6 inches in the old measurement. The paddocks were flooded and water poured into the dam - not that it's very deep these days, but it is nearly full.
Earlier in the week, Mark and the two dogs had a great time stacking the old willow stumps and burning them. The dogs spent a lot of their time in the mud of the dam and came in very dirty.

The dogs had a wonderful time. Ollie has a fixation with fires and sticks his nose into every nook and cranny trying to pick up burning embers. Alfie looks on from a distance. He's a bit timid about anything scary.

Meanwhile there is colour in the garden. Some of the salvias are looking very pretty at the moment - maybe because of the mild autumn.

The citrus are ripening nicely and add another colour to the spectrum



Meyer Lemon

  

Tahitian Lime



The windflowers continue to put on a show

And my first Oriental poppy is a stunner.

I do like Autumn!!!

Liz Needle

Finally Some Rain

Finally we have had some good rains and the soil is moist and black and ready for planting. We have our winter veggies in and are using the last of the summer crops. Having made quince jelly and paste, I am now attempting Feijoa jelly and paste. I still have quinces in storage and have to stir myself to use them up - or give more away, but the Feijoas are more urgent as we have a bumper crop and they do not store for long.

Autumn was less colourful in our garden this year. We did not get our usual show and the leaves did not hang on for as long as usual. Now it looks very wintery outside with most of the trees quite bare - except the oaks. They seem determined to be the last to undress for winter.



Manchurian Pear



I love the colour in these pear leaves.

 

Unfortunately all too soon we had a carpet of leaves

The persimmon has beautiful leaves and lovely orange fruit.

 I found a beautiful glory vine on the side of a nearby road. Please excuse the ugly cables in the shot.

Thanks to the rain, some of the perennials are taking on a new lease of life and are putting on a brave show. I'll have to get the camera out when it stops raining - never thought I would be able to say that this Autumn.

Liz Needle

More Bali Beauty

My garden is still in the doldrums. Today I finally planted my daffodil bulbs - somewhat later than planned, but they should be OK. Mark has been busy planting garlic and a whole swag of winter veggies.

The quinces are all picked and I have made quince paste. We had to pick them early because the birds were getting at them. They are currently laid out and I am waiting for them to ripen a bit. I did make a beautiful quince upside down cake which Don is sneaking at every chance.

Now the Feijoas have snuck up on me and I picked up a bucket of fallen ones today.  I guess that means more jelly and jam.

Meanwhile I have some more Bali shots to show you. Flowers abound in Bali and many of the blooms that we struggle to grow successfully here, grow everywhere in Bali. Flowers are a very important part of Bali life and are used etensively in the daily offerings that are made to the household god.  Huge baskets of loose flowers are sold at the local produce markets and the Balinese purchase fresh flowers for their daily offerings or buy readymade offerings.

The day after we went to the market there was a big Hindu religious ceremony and everyone was buying flowers.  This woman is making  bouquets to be used in the ceremony.

And these are some of the floral arrangements on sale.

Of course many people grow their own flowers, especiall Frangipani which grow wild. I am not very conversant with tropical flowers, so I will leave you to enjoy them without my comments.

And my favourite, the Bauhinia tree.

I would be more than happy if anyone can put a name to any of these.

Liz Needle

Bali in Flower

So long since I posted on my garden blog. Have not had much enthusiasm over the last few weeks. No rain, plants suffering, garden looking tired and miserable. Autumn, usually lovely up here, has just not happened. Not cold enough for the usual display of autumn leaves and those few that have turned fall very quickly. Autumn this year is a carpet of fallen leaves.

But, I have been to Bali and had a most enjoyable 10 days there, so I thought I would share with you the greenness and the lovely gardens that I saw. I only wish I had taken more photos.

The hotels we stayed in had beautiful gardens - labour is cheap and the tropical climate allows for luxuriant growth. The first shots were taken at the Puri Santrian in Sanur. This is a large resort with many rooms and extensive grounds.

The next shots are of the De Munut hotel in Ubud. Just a small place but very picturesque.

And finally some photos of a hotel garden we looked at but did not stay in.

These are just examples and by no means are they the best gardens, just ones we happened to see.

Even more beautiful were the grounds of a temple we visited. Here there were no gardenes employed. All the labour is provided by older locals who use the temple.

More later. Right now I'm off to watch the football. Go the Crows!!!

Liz Needle

End of Daylight Savings

Well, this weekend sees the end of daylight savings and those lovely balmy evenings sitting outside watching the birds put themselves to bed. The mornings are already getting darker and waking up at 7 is becoming more and more difficult - for some reason getting up in the dark no matter what the time , is so much less inviting than waking up to a soft bright dawn light.

But, with the colder weather and shorter days comes the rain - and that is very welcome.  Good rain last week and more to come tomorrow - Thank Goodness!!  We got our Summer water bill last week and it was horrific!!  I must ring someone for a quote on installing more rainwater tanks and for cleaning out the dam and putting in a pump.

We've been working a lot in the garden this last week after the rain, tidying up, weeding, doing the garden edges and spreading bark chips. Mark has been out in the veggie garden and between Don and Mark we have had great saving in vegetables this summer.


I love these Japanese windflowers. They thrive in the moister areas of the garden. This single pink pops up all through the front garden

And the first double deep pink one has come out. These were beautiful last year and I am hoping for another good showing soon.

 Around the garden there are late summer flowers still on show with a flush of roses getting ready for April. We have 3 new garden areas ready for new plantings and are just waiting for some more rain before we get on with that work.


This little area where we put up the new bird bath is starting to look quite pretty and by next spring should look even better when the irises and all the salvias are in flower.

See how neat my lawn edges are. Behind this bed there will be a new bed of Australian natives to form a hedge between the road and the garden.

More tidy edges and newly mown lawns.

Such a simple, pretty flower.

Liz Needle