Tag: gardening
The Colour Purple
“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.” ~ Alice Walker, The Color Purple.
Glorifying Winter
As I write, it is just after 9 am, Saturday morning, and I’m about to head out into the garden.That’s where I’ve been for the last two days. My aching muscles and joints are a small price to pay for the end result of what I am involved in, preparing the garden for the wedding of my youngest son and his beautiful bride-to-be.
So here it is, August 1st, the last month of winter here in Australia, and the sun is shining, the skies are a brilliant shade of blue, the highest temperatures this week have reached around twenty-two degrees Celsius and even the newest plants in my garden are already in flower! What a magical time of year this is.
I’ll only add one photo today, which shows the purple flower of my Tibouchina tree, right outside my front door. The surrounding pink is the flowers of a potted Azalea. I have a number of young Azalea bushes in the garden, both in the ground and in pots, and all are in bloom right now. As much as I would like to think that they will still be in flower for the wedding in early September, I doubt that they will be. I’m also confident that my garden will have flowering plants galore though, to compensate for the lack of Azalea blooms.
During July I have been catching up with my blogging friends, becoming reacquainted with some I had lost contact with, and also discovered new blogs and made some new friends. I have discovered a new and very happy rhythm with blogging, I like it a lot, and intend continuing with more of the same from now on.
Okay, I’ve already changed my mine about adding only one photo. I took a photo of the July “Blue Moon” last night, just before coming back indoors from my day of gardening. I can’t leave that photo out, can I? The moon sat so low in the sky that it hid behind a palm tree leaf, and I quite like the silhouetted image.
The Baby Shower last Saturday, that I mentioned at the end of a post the day before the event, was a huge success and I took so many photos, which I will share here next week. For now though, I must return to the garden, where the men are working on the “heavy stuff” and I will continue with my weeding, mulching and re-arranging. I have already lined up one of my daughters to go plant shopping with me next weekend, which is always a highlight of the gardening experience. Emma and I have our little ritual, she loves to choose the plants with me, and when we arrive back home again, she will make me cups of tea whilst I do the planting. No dirt under the finger nails for my girl! 🙂
Have a fabulous weekend, and I hope the sun is shining as brightly on your world as it is on mine. ❤
What’s New in the Garden?
“In the garden I tend to drop my thoughts here and there. To the flowers I whisper the secrets I keep and the hopes I breathe. I know they are there to eavesdrop for the angels.” ~ Dodinsky
Little Miss Tibbs loves gardening. She thinks she is in seventh heaven when she’s sniffing the stories of the breeze, rolling in the freshly laid mulch and basking in the sunshine amid the colourful flowers. 🙂
Under the watchful eye of Miss Tibbs, I planted Cornflower and Foxglove seedlings, the whole way along the line of the fence. I haven’t tried out either plant before, so it will be very interesting to see if they grow well. Both are classed as old-fashioned flowers, and I’m an old-fashioned person, so we will be very happy together if they like their new home. Just imagine the cut flowers I could be bringing inside in a few month time!
My son and his lovely wife-to-be will be married in our garden this September, so the rush is on to have the whole garden looking just right. I’m planting seedlings and flowering shrubs, weeding and mulching, whilst husband takes care of the heavier work to be done.
Husband is tackling the biggest job of all right now by replacing a retaining wall, which holds up our paved area right behind the house, where the main events of the wedding will take place. Over the years the wall had moved and the paving dropped ~ cracks were beginning to appear throughout a whole section of the area, and now, with the wedding imminent, the rush to have it repaired is on!
Little Forrest puppy, my son’s dog, and a little adventurer, had discovered how to escape out of the back yard, so my son has begun to fence the back garden into two sections, the upper section will be for entertaining, gardens, and the swimming area, whilst the lower section (where the escapee likes to break out!) will be known in future as the food area. This is where we have our fruit trees, the pecan nut trees and vegetable gardens.
The food area is also the area where my future chook pen will be positioned. safely away from bouncing dogs, and I’m hoping that my future chooks will oblige by fertilising my fruit trees in return for a large run. 🙂 But they will have to wait until after the wedding.
I have planted three fuschias in the garden this year, and so far, all three have survived, which is a first for me. Previously, I have tried to grow fuschias in hanging baskets and have lost them all, so I’m hoping they will continue to flourish in the flower beds.
Fuschias bring back happy memories of my very young days, living in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. We had a beautiful fuschia bush, and my “middle” sister (she’s 13 years older than me) would help me to lay the cut flowers between pieces of blotting paper. We would then carefully place heavy books on top of the flowers to “press” them. The same method of pressing worked very well with pansy flowers.
Last week I asked our local stationer if they had any blotting paper and they unfortunately didn’t. He told me they had been trying to get it in stock for some time now, without success.
I wonder what Miss Tibbs could smell here? We hear the occasional possum or bandicoot out and about at night. Perhaps they have ventured along this fence at some stage, leaving a scent for another, more curious feline-type animal to investigate.
My daughters loved snapdragons when they were little, so when Emma and I saw these at the garden centre, we had to bring some home for the garden. They are so colourful, and another flower that brings back happy memories of years gone by.
With my first grandchild due in November, I want to have a happy garden in which they will be making their own new memories.
I found a climbing shrub, Duranta, about a year ago. I hadn’t heard of the plant before, but the flowers looked so pretty, so I thought I would give it a go next to the chainwire fence. I think it likes growing there, it has grown substantially bigger since I planted it, and has started to flower again this year. Happy Plant ~ Happy Gardener!
I never seem to go wrong with either Dianthus or Alyssum as edging plants for a flower bed. No matter where I plant them in the garden, sun or part shade, they grow well, and continue to flower, year after year.
Well, that’s the latest of my plantings in the garden for this week. I thought it might be fun to try and keep a journal of what I’m planting, and when they are planted, and if the plants I choose are successful or not, for future reference. It also may be of interest to my overseas friends to compare the difference between the plants we grow in each of our countries.
Fingers crossed, I’m hoping that all of my choices grow well in my sub-tropical climate. The harsh summer time will be the biggest test for them all, but we have a wedding before the heat arrives, and all being well, I will have some beautiful flowers to admire come September, which will double as backdrops for the wedding photos. 🙂
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In My World 