Weekend Flowers and A Foggy Garden

Weekend flowers this week is one of my favourites since I was very tiny. We used to be able to buy big posies of sweet smelling violets from roadside stalls in the city. Not now unfortunately - too labout intensive.

 

After weeks of rain, we have had a couple of beautiful Spring days - great to get back into the garden, though it is still too muddy underfoot to do a lot.

But, on Thursday morning we awoke to a heavy fog, so I grabbed the camera and got these shots as the fog started lifting.

The daffodils are out, but have really suffered from the winds and rain.

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Down by the dam.

The old house - now almost a ruin.

Liz Needle -  Linking with Weekend Flowers

Weekend Flowers

Still raining here - so much water. The lawn is under water and everywhere is mud. There is no way I can get into the garden to finish pruning the hydrangeas - they will just have to wait.  On a cheerier note the daffodils are out, though the rain has not treated them kindly. Hopefully tomorrow will be finer and I will be able to get around and take some photos.

Meanwhile a couple of my favourites for Weekend Flowers.

This lovely magnolia is called "Vulcan".

The unusual and quite beautiful flowers of the Tulip Tree  -  Liriodendron tulipifera

Liz Needle

Weekend Flowers

This week some of our lovely Australian flowers which some of you may not have seen.

Flowers from the flowering gum - Eucalyptus ficifolia.

 And the tiny, exquisite flowers of the Blueberry Ash - Elaeocarpus reticulatus. They look like ballerinas in their tutus.

Liz Needle - linking with Weekend Flowers

Goodbye willows

I can't believe it was June when I last posted to this blog - so much for my good intentions. Still nothing much different happened in July  except that it has rained and rained - the wettest July for 18 years. We had 207 points - over 8 inches.

On the few sunny days we had, mark found the time to cut down the last of the willows. Amazing what a difference it has made to the amount of light  and sun we get on the house now.

 As you can see, now that the leaves have fallen, the last willow was badly broken and I always worried that it might fall om someone when it was heavy with leaves.

 In the end it was very stubborn and had to be cut down in sections. The last trunk just would not fall and Mark had to drop it on part of the garden eventually. Luckily it missed the camellias and did minimal damage. Now comes the huge task of cutting the branches, piling them up and burning them.

You can see from the picture above how et this winter has been. This paddock usually has cattle in it, but not right now.

I have been using every second of the few dry days to prune the roses and hydrangeas - running alittle late this year.  The other shrubs worry me less, but I need roses and hydrangeas to provide me with summer colour. At the moment my colour is coming from jonquils and camellias, though the daffodils are almost in flower.

I do love camellias - no nonsense, no problems, no pruning, little watering and yet they regularly produce these glorious blossoms just when you are really feeling the winter blues.

Liz Needle

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