Australia · family · garden flowers · gardening · in my garden · remembering · roses · sisters · subtropical weather

In A Vase On Monday ~ Yellow and Mauve

Joanne32 Comments

This morning, I had a plan. Having woken at 6:30am feeling much better than I did yesterday, I went straight outside, sprayed insect repellant on my arms and legs (does insect repellant exist in other countries, or is that an Australian thing?), and went out to pick some flowers for a vase for Cathy at Rambling in the Garden‘s weekly meme, In A Vase On Monday.

I beat those dratted mozzies – and the summer heat! Woo-hoo!

As usual, I dead-headed old flowers, pulled out any weeds I found, and collected an assortment of any pretty flowers I found. After breakfast, when I sorted through my collection, which awaited me in a plastic cup, I found I had enough flowers for two small vases. So I separated them by colour – yellows and mauves.

From the front windows of my house last week I had noticed plenty of colour on my miniature rose bushes. All three of these roses are from the same rose bush, aptly named ‘Chameleon”.

There are several different colours of Dianthus in bloom, but I only chose the white for this vase. Also, white alyssum adds a delicate touch and some greenery to the vase.

These tiny bell flowers, I believe, are called ‘Correa’, which is native to Australia. I know I have the name added to a photo from last year, somewhere, so I will edit the name if I am wrong. For now, I am going with Correa.

Update: Eliza noted in the comments that this plant is a Cuphea. I remembered where I had put the original label that came with the plant, and Eliza is spot on! This flower is in fact a Cuphea ‘Honeybells’. So thank you for the plant ID, Eliza. 🙂

And here’s a closer shot of the alyssum, just because I love seeing the detail of their tiny flowers!

This flower was a surprise find this morning. It is an Abelia ‘Francis Mason’, a new plant to me, which is planted in the new rockery garden opposite the house. I didn’t notice it was flowering until I went up into the rockery to pull out a weed I had noticed, and there it was, looking very pretty. I love the variegated foliage on this plant, which is what attracted me to the plant when I bought it last year.

And here is where the yellow flower vase will sit this week. 🙂

The mauve vase of flowers are arranged in a small vase that I had all but forgotten about until I saw it in my vase cupboard this morning, and it holds many treasured childhood memories. One of my sisters, who is thirteen years older than I am, loves gardening also. She may even be responsible for my early interest in gardening and flowers. When I was a child she would take me out into the garden to find flowers to bring indoors. We grew pansies, violets, fuchsias, snowdrops, poppies, all planted by Chris, who also cared for the garden when she lived at home. This vase is one we used to put some of our flowers into. There was an even smaller matching vase as well, but I think it must have been broken during one of my house moves in years gone by. As you can see, this vase has many imperfections, but it all adds to the character of the vase. For me, it’s the memories that count. ❤

In this vase I have two blooms of a miniature rose called ‘Love Potion’. The colour is more pink-ish than mauve, but I am happy with the combination of the flowers.

Beside a sprig of mauve coloured Alyssum is Society Garlic, which just keeps on flowering. Every week, I find more new blooms when I go to visit my roses. I have Society Garlic growing around most of my roses, as apparently the garlic odour is a deterrent to aphids.

This mauve flower is called ‘Mona Lavender’. You will notice actual Lavender in the vase next to it, which is a completely different type of plant. The word Lavender simply relates to the colour of the flowers. This plants is from the Plectranthus genus and will only grow in shade, or dappled, morning sunlight. It grows very well under my purple Tibouchina tree, which is right outside my front door.

Looking at the vase from another angle shows the detailed pattern on the Mona Lavender flowers behind two shades of Alyssum, along with my two Love Potion roses.

The flower adorned teddy ornament was a gift from my daughter when she was a child, and the pretty doily was made by my Mum, many years ago.

Now I am going to send my sister some photos of my mauve vase! She lives in Tasmania, many miles from where I live, so I don’t see her often. We often send each other gardening photos, so I am sure she will love to see my vase – and I hope she remembers it! ❤

Australia · from my garden · Mount Warning · photography · seasons · subtropical weather · sunset

Silent Sunday

Joanne23 Comments

This week, I have been a tad out of sorts, with a cold and laryngitis. So today, I appreciate the Silence of Sunday …

In other news, my computer went to heaven. Yesterday, however, my son-in-law installed a new computer for me, so I’m back online. My iPad just didn’t cut it when trying to read blogs and add comments. I will catch up with everyone this week.

And on the weather front, we had a couple of fine, mosquito-free days, which resulted in an amazing sunset in the valley. This photo is straight out of the camera.

Have a wonderful weekend. ❤

Australia · challenges · Changes · concepts · family · gardening · grandchildren · in my garden · inspiration · photography · seasons · subtropical climate

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. 🙂

Australia · garden flowers · in my garden · roses · subtropical weather · summer

In A Vase On Monday ~ Pastels

Joanne33 Comments

When I went outside to collect flowers for a vase yesterday afternoon for Cathy’s In a Vase on Monday meme at Rambling in the Garden, I was swarmed by a thousand mosquitoes! Okay, maybe not a thousand, but when you have your hands full of roses and can’t easily swat flying insects that are after your blood, it feels like thousands. 😉

So it was a matter of cut and run. I had waited for the showers of rain to ease before going outside, which is undoubtedly why there were so many active mozzies in the garden. Once in the vase, I decided to wait until today to take photos as the house seemed so dark with the overcast weather. I shouldn’t have waited: we have drizzling rain again today and the house is once again dark.

Last week, the pink Gerberas had only spent flowers, but this week I was able to cut several to bring indoors. There are also plenty of buds opening, so I may even bring in more to add to the vase later in the week. You may also notice some lilac-coloured Society Garlic blooms behind the Gerberas.

There are plenty of pale pink blooms on my Souvenir de la Malmaison rose bush. I wish I’d had longer to choose some to bring indoors, but by the time I reached that part of the garden, I’m sure the mozzies had told their family and friends I was there!

I love the delicate combination of Lavender and pink Gerberas together. When the weather improves, I would like to bring in more of the two for another vase. 🙂

Roald Dahl roses have a weeping habit, as is evident in the way they droop down the vase. By the smile on his face, they seem to be keeping my little duck ornament happy. 🙂 The Roald Dahl rose bush is also covered in blooms but again, I needed to try to outrun those mozzies!

From my kitchen window this morning I spotted a newly opened Hibiscus flower, so I zoomed in on it and caught a photo early. The rain will probably make the flower droop by tomorrow if this weather continues!

I do believe that as much as I enjoy all flowers, pastel colours are my favourites. 🙂

Thanks again, Cathy, for hosting In a Vase on Monday. 🙂