Category: gardening

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Karma’s Photo Hunt ~ The Hill Project

Joanne35 Comments

When Karma suggested a photo hunt for her blogging friends to join in on, I immediately knew which photos I needed to search for!

Last year, as I have mentioned before, I spent a lot of time revamping several of my garden beds. The hill directly opposite the front of my house was the largest project, a garden running almost the full length of the house. Plus, it’s on a sharp slope. We had tried to make the hill manageable previously, without a great deal of success – what I didn’t realise was that our first attempt at constructing a manageable and attractive garden was in 2010!

Here’s the first photo I found during the hunt –

15th April 2010, before the first Hill Project began.

As the photo shows, the hill was steep! So anything we constructed there would be a challenge to maintain. You will notice growing on the far right of the photo is a small pine cone tree. I decided this tree would be beautiful when fully grown, and would shade the front of the house.

19th October 2020 – the tree had grown!

The next photo I found during the hunt was taken in 2020. I had even convinced husband to extend the retaining wall out in front of the pine cone tree at some stage, to accomodate the tree’s roots. The original plan had been to cover the whole hill with drought tolerent ground cover plants, which may have worked well if most of the plants hadn’t struggled to get a root-hold on the slope!

By this time, husband had lost interest in helping me with the garden. Weed mat and mesh wire to hold mulch in place simply wasn’t successful on the sharp slope. I slipped down the slope when trying to pull out weeds. Also, by this time we had brought home potted plants galore from my inlaws house when we had cleaned out their property, ready for sale. It was a trying time, putting my inlaws into aged care facilities and dealing with my father-in-law’s declining health. I think it fair to say we had both lost our gardening mojo completely.

The day my seventeen year old daughter brought home a boy “she thought she might like” – nearly nineteen years ago – little did I know what an inspiration he would be to me in the years to come! I wrote a post about him several years ago, I think I called it A Man of Ideas or some such thing, as I had discovered he has a unique knack of getting into my brain, seeing the vision I have, then improving upon my ideas. He’s wonderful! So when we spoke about a possible solution to the most challenging part of my garden and threw around a few ideas, we came up with a solution that he was prepared to help me bring to fruition …

Winter 2023 ~ the Hill Project 2.0 begins!

First, the pine cone tree had to go. Next, the retaining wall needed to travel along a straight line once the roots of the tree were removed. What was I thinking when I insisted the tree stayed? Those tree roots were gynormous!!!

Three little people, along with the dogs, enjoyed watching Daddy – to the two little ones on the right – and Uncle – to the little one on the far left – hack away at the hill, essentially restructuring the land to accomodate our vision for a new, attractive, easy care, easy to access, garden.

The dry creek bed under construction.

During times of heavy rain, the far corner of the garden washes away in a stream of water which cascades down the hill. My man of Ideas suggested we construct a dry creek bed in that corner. This area of the garden is still under construction, but I think this photo, taken around October last year, shows the basic formation of what we have in mind.

And here’s the constructed garden –

The construction and planting is complete!

The height of the lower section of the retaining wall has been raised, another small block wall has been contructed and a wooden sleeper wall at the top runs along a hedge of Sacred Bamboo, Nandina Nana. It had to be a rockery garden to compliment the natural surroundings, so my son-in-law lifted the larger bush rocks into place with the mini-excavator and left several smaller rocks for me to play around with, to create the garden I had in mind.

It was a long process, but we did it! I hope my son-in-law realises how much I appreciate his contribution to everything he helps me with around the garden. Maybe the thousand times I have said thank you may have been a clue. 😉

So there are my before shots, before-before shots, during and after shots, Karma – you did say the rules of the photo hunt are loosey-goosey – right? 😉

There’s still time to join in, so why not follow the link to Karma’s Photo Hunt!

The second part of the challenge is to take a photo, one for each season of the same place, which I will join in also! I am eager to watch my new garden plants grow and change as the seasons progress. 🙂

cooking · family · gardening · grandchildren · grandson · memories

School Holiday Activities

Joanne16 Comments

Besides growing flowering plants in my garden, I also have areas where I grow fruit trees, vegetables, and herbs. My poor veggie garden is looking rather neglected these days, however, due to the heat. A few days ago I brought in the last of my beetroot plants, which I have now pickled, leaving just a lone rhubarb plant to fend for itself. It is actually fending very nicely, but I am keeping a close watch on it. I picked a few stems about a week ago and stewed them with two large apples off my tree – yum!

My kids grew up watching me bring fruit indoors for jam-making and often climbed the trees to reach higher fruit for me. I once had an amazing kumquat tree and made the tastiest marmalade from the fruit. I also grew starfruit, lemonade fruit, grapefruits the size of which you would never find in the stores, mangoes, lemons, and mandarines. Some trees have gone to heaven and have since been replaced.

One fruit I have never had any success growing is strawberries. We have the climate for it, they grow, but the visiting birds and animals always get to the ripe strawberries before I do!

Not to be deterred, when my favourite seven-year-old asked if I could make strawberry jam with him during the school holidays, I found beautiful ripe strawberries at our local store. My son – his Dad – knew I would relish the task, given my past history of making jams and chutneys when he was growing up.

My grandson had an even better idea – could we make bread also, to put the jam on, he asked? I knew we would both enjoy our day in the kitchen making both. 🙂

Short, seven-year-olds need a chair to stand on to reach the stove, so he was able to climb higher, and was fascinated watching the strawberries turning somersaults as they bubbled away in the boiling pan. So was I! I explained everything I was doing, step by step, and found my student to be an extremely willing assistant.

As I had not made strawberry jam before, I decided to make a half quantity, just in case it was a complete flop. It produced three jars of the best strawberry jam I have ever tasted! Even his Mum, not usually a fan of jam, announced she now apparently did like it! 🙂

The bread recipe I used required two, two-hour sessions of rising! I chose a Paul Hollywood recipe for a white loaf as that is what my grandson prefers and we alternated between jam-making and preparing bread dough for the next rise. After sharing the jam and bread with his Mum and little brother when they came to collect him, the loaf was nearly all gone!

Later, when I spoke to his Mum, I told her that he was a willing student who could undoubtedly give her complete instructions on bread and jam making if she asked – she said he already had! Lol. 😀

Australia · family · garden flowers · gardening · grandchildren · memories · roses · seasons · subtropical weather

In A Vase On Monday ~ A Scorcher!

Joanne37 Comments

Well, aren’t I glad arranged a brand new vase on Saturday morning as I had guests arriving in the afternoon – today is an absolute scorcher! Indoors is 28 degrees Celsius, outside is 34 degrees, yet our weather station in the kitchen – I love it as it keeps us up to date with actual details of the weather in our garden – says it “feels like” 40.3 degrees. I checked, and the conversion to Fahrenheit is 104.54F!

I am indoors today, adding my ‘In A Vase on Monday’ post, hosted by Cathy at Rambling in the Garden, with doors and windows closed and ceiling fans going in every room. We don’t have aircon. I always think that for the few days of unbearable heat we have here each year, I will survive without it; on days like today, I question my wisdom!

It was hot enough on Saturday morning as well, as evidenced by the scorched rose petals. I collected my vase of flowers in a hurry, while also deadheading as I went along; I also used the same vase as last week for the sake of speed – I had guests arriving soon – so hope I am forgiven for being boring. The roses I salvaged one or two of were Olivia Rose Austen, Souvenir de la Malmaison and Jude the Obscure. I feel dreadful about leaving my plants so badly unattended, but with this summer heat, I have no choice. 😦

I deadheaded far more Gerberas than I brought inside. A couple of red flowers had damaged stems, so they were placed right down low, beneath the foliage.

As you can see, some of the Gerberas are a tad frazzled, but the Verbena Polaris are loving the heat!

It was good to see that some Society Garlic ‘Tulbaghia’ flowers had survived, although most had fallen over and died in the heat. With flowers this pretty, I must plant some more when the weather cools.

For a greenery backdrop, I decided to try some sprigs off my Lilly Pilly tree. This variety may be Weeping Lilly Pilly ‘Waterhousea floribunda’, but as the flowers are not fully formed yet, I can’t be sure. I planted the tree around fifteen years ago, and can’t remember the details of its name. I do recall, however, that it was in a large pot near my back door, not looking healthy at all, so I decided to plant it in my (then) newly-built garden. It took off! And now it is a fully-fledged tree.

Previously, I have only added closeup shots of my vase and flowers, and from comments, I’ve realised that a full view is needed to add perspective of the size of the vase and flowers. So today, here is a full view of the vase in situ, in the living room at the front of the house. 🙂

When the larger vase was full, I had a few small stemmed leftovers, so I made up a smaller vase for the living room at the back of the house. My Lavender is beginning to bloom – doing a happy dance about that! – and I had a few sprigs of leftover Verbena and Lilly Pilly as well.

If we have too much rain it may upset the Lavender plants, so I am hoping it doesn’t get too wet before the season is over. From memory, this is French Lavender.

I think the Lavender and Verbena make a great team when together in a vase.

In the interests of providing perspective, here is the full view of the smaller vase. You might remember the miniature ornaments that featured in my Tiny Treasures post a couple of Mondays ago, seen here next to the vase.

I have just one more “vase” to add, and this one is from yesterday. My son, his wife and their two boys – featured modelling Christmas aprons I made late last year in this post – came to visit and swim in the pool. Later, when Masters Seven and Two (almost three) came back to the house, they presented me with four Frangipani flowers that they had picked for me.

I floated the flowers in some water immediately. 🙂

What Nana wouldn’t want to save as beautiful a memory as that? ❤

Thank you for getting me out in my hot garden, again, to choose flowers, Cathy! 🙂

Australia · garden flowers · gardening · herbs · Ixora · subtropical weather · summer · window

In a Vase on Monday ~ Heat Survivors

Joanne21 Comments

Late last year, when reading an ‘In a Vase on Monday’ post, I noticed that Cathy at Rambling in the Garden said she had collected her flowers on Sunday to take indoors. Given the heat of summer, and knowing how much water I need to add to the vase the day after bringing my flowers indoors, I decided to pick my vase choice this week on Sunday instead of on Monday morning. The first photo, taken this morning, shows a more upright collection of stems than yesterday when the flowers were first picked. It’s amazing how much more sprightly my flowers look after a few hours out of the heat.

While having a wander along the garden near the pool, which is hit by the main heat of the day during the afternoon, I noticed the salvias looking quite happy, even though there was a warm breeze blowing.

This is a purple salvia, Salvia verticillata ‘Purple Rain’, and is growing well. I need to plant more. The buds are not all open yet, so I hope now they are indoors, they open fully. There’s a bit of “trial-and-error” happening here!

In another garden nearby, which is slightly shaded, I saw several, perfectly formed Ixora ‘Prince of Orange’ flowers blooming. My other two shrubs of the same plant, growing in a more exposed area of the garden are long past blooming now, so these were a lovely surprise. I wouldn’t usually put vivid orange and purple flowers together in a vase, but these seem to work.

The Verbenas – Verbena rigida f. lilacina ‘Polaris’ – are coping well in the heat too. I love these flowers, both in the garden and in the vase – it’s getting them into the vase that is a challenge. The leaves and stems are so coarse! I adore their dainty flowers though, which belies the texture of the greenery.

When I had almost reached the house I stopped off to check out my struggling veggie patch. The silverbeet plants have been munched on by insects and frazzled by the heat, so out they came. I also need to go back out into the garden today to pick a few rhubarb stems before I lose any more, but the rosemary is flourishing. I snipped a couple of stems, just to add a touch more greenery to the vase.

Some of my parsley has gone to seed. I was about to cut the seeding umbrel stems when I thought perhaps they would look pretty in my vase. I have never considered adding herb cuttings to a vase of flowers before, but why not? They are interesting foliage, and they smell beautiful. 🙂

Once I had arranged the flowers on my kitchen bench into a new vase – a gift to myself just before Christmas – and I had taken basic photos of my chosen flowers, I began to notice the light outside changing. I clicked away a few more times, and about half an hour later I had taken far more photos than I intended!

Nearly every photo I took was a play on darkness and light.

And when I looked at the upper section of the vase, the leggy stems, flopping this way and that, reminded me of a wildflower meadow.

The green of the parsley umbrels, which I had considered removing from the vase, began to glow in the changed light.

In other shots, the background glowed while the vase contents remained darker.

The deep green Rosemary stems against a reflection of light added a new layer of interest to the photos.

When the room is in focus, evidence of the playful light dancing through the windows can be seen.

Many thanks, once again, to Cathy for hosting the weekly In a Vase on Monday meme. ❤