More Rain!

Rain clouds on the mountain looking towards Bilpin

I have planted the rest of my Angel Face roses.  Five went in last week on the western side of the driveway to replace the recently departed plumbago.  The other five I took walking yesterday along the front garden and anywhere I found a spot near things I thought would be complimentary to their pinky-mauveness, I popped a pot down and got digging.

One went near the white spirea that will replace the dreaded yellow broom, which was condemned to death months ago, even to the point of the spirea being planted right next door, but which hasn't been cut down as I've been waiting patiently till autumn when it's shade won't be required any more for the voilets growing underneath.  Did that make sense?  What I mean to say is that I have delayed the chopping down whilst it was summer because I needed the shade the broom created.  That's nearly as confused as the first time.  Anyway, one Angel Face went in between the white spirea and a buddleja alternifolia which I bought online last year.  It hasn't flowered here yet, here's one I had in my last garden.

I love this shrub, particularly the way the flowers bloom kind of spiraling around the stems.

Another one went in front of Brother Cadfael.

Here he is on a previous sunny day.  The dear Brother has grown up very tall and hopefully Angel Face will hide his long straight legs!

The other three I put in a sort of triangle between another heliotrope 'Lord Roberts', DA St Cecilia, and this rose which grows behind the lavender hedge.

I bought this rose at a reputable rose nursery - as DA Abraham Darby!  When it got it's first bloom, I stood there and scratched my head for quite a while, the second bloom I took back to the nursery and said to the lady "it's still got it's Abraham Darby label attached" to which she replied "well, take it off because it's not!!"

So this pretty rose is now know as 'Not Abraham Darby'!

But with a forecast of increasing rain over the weekend, this might be all the gardening that gets done this week.  In the meantime, I have progressed with the cross-stitch -

and as well have put the last round of blocks on the first of the pair of lap quilts!

Just got to make another 45 of the edge blocks and the second one will be done as well.  I have achieved everything but great gardening this week!

Autumn!

Ahh!  The bliss of knowing summer's over.  Not to say we won't get more hot weather, but at least there's light at the end of the heat tunnel.

Even the sound of the word makes me feel happy.  And putting a blanket on the bed last night and snuggling in under it was so good.  Putting a woolly jumper on this morning was bliss.  Although I do think I'm probably dressed warmer today than most people on account of how I feel.

The doctor tells me I have a kidney infection.  Which is quite a relief to me, as I was fairly convinced that I was dying from bubonic plague.  It's been a very long time since I have felt quite so second hand.  Consequently, no gardening is being done, I have cross-stitched some more, Poppy and I have chatted about the price of fish and other current affairs and we have practiced our evil laughs together.

A persimmon growing on the persimmon tree.  Last year, it was loaded and the flying foxes ate every single one before they ripened.  This year, I will pick them and ripen them inside the house.

Meet Poppy!

My daughter and her husband have gone up the coast for a week, to celebrate their first wedding anniversary.  Where has the time gone?

And I am babysitting Poppy, their Indian Ringneck Parrot.  It's been raining most of the day today and I'm not feeling terrific, so I've spent most of the day sitting at the table, cross-stitching.  And I've been asked about 10,000 times "whatcha doin?"

She also has the phone ring sound down to perfection, even the interval between the tones.  She does a perfect incoming SMS tone, and a variety of other sounds and sayings, including "Gimme a kiss!" and giggle, giggle, giggle "Oh, that tickles!" which is a copy of an Elmo doll sound.

She's been lovely company on this very non-gardening day.

The Rules of Gardening

That's a moot point!

Maybe not really rules, maybe just guidelines.  Ideas and advices that will help to make the best of the situation.  Like perhaps not cut down a shrub when it's in full flower.

Which is what I've done today.

And I normally wouldn't.  I totally get that most plants have a time where they are flowering and looking beautiful and other times where they aren't and are therefore living closer to the edge of that dangerous world of shovel prune!

But this was a plumbago.  Of which there are three in the front garden, or at least there were three, now there's two.  Which is probably still one too many for me.  One thing about plumbago, I don't know a single garden that has only one.  Because one plumbago soon becomes a clump of many, many stems and then shortly thereafter, a new little plumbago emerges a few metres away on that side, and another one over on that side, and a couple more out in the lawn, and so on and so on until a hedge of plumbago exists where once a single plant stood.

Suffice to say, it's not my most favourite shrub.  I hate the sticky bits.  But I do appreciate the flowers, which look like little pieces of the most perfect blue sky.  And the butterflies love it.  And the frogs croak out of it when it rains.

But it had to go.

So I started snipping, ever mindful of the probable existence of a wasps' nest inside, which I eventually found when they buzzed at me and sent me scurrying in for the can of Pea-beu.  They are such aggressive creatures, they fly right at you, one I swept out of my hair before it had the chance to sting me.  Being on the lookout for them in any reasonably sized plant that hasn't been disturbed for a while, like with a good prune or something, is something I've learned since gardening here.

There was actually two nests, this old one which looks like it has served it's purpose and another new one being built and being aggressively guarded.  After I snipped this one off the shrub, I put it on the garden wall and the ants came in an absolute swarm.

So plumbago removal looks like keeping me occupied for the next couple of days.  I will soldier on with the job, because I have plans in my head to replace the plumbagos with my Angel Face roses and purple vanilla-flavoured heliotropes and white agapanthus.

Here's an audition of the plan.  That works for me!

And which side of the driveway is this happening on - why, on the western side!  The opposite side to where I planned first to plant the new roses.  I lined up the pots on the eastern side and sat there and contemplated the look of the pinky-mauve roses in front of the hedge of Robyn Gordon grevilleas that already exists in the eastern bed and it was not sweet music!  There's something about our native flora - and fauna for that matter - everything screeches at you, be it cockatoos or galahs or grevillea flowers!

And that's the wonderful thing about gardening and the rules thereof!  You make them up as you go along and then you are perfectly entitled to change your mind and disregard them completely.  Could there be anything better?

Luscious Mr Lincoln(?) !

Garden gloom

I think my garden has turned against me.

After the rain we've had, one would tend to think that every growing thing should be fighting fit and bursting with good health.  One would be wrong.

I've just spent the last few hours wandering from one visual disaster to another, and here are just a few!

A foxglove with a severe case of droop, with a completely dead aquilegia behind it.

Dismal blackspot on almost every single rose in the garden.

What is this weed?  It has almost completely covered the gravel path in places.  Not to mention in the garden.

This one has spread from the grass into the front garden bed, and is a mass of stems under the mulch.

Take heart, dear!  Look at the lovely, healthy looking shoots on the Troilus rose!  So much taller than the old growth.  What's that?  They're coming from under the ground?  And the ones on St Cecilia?  Oh, same thing, eh?

Better go get the secateurs.

Okay, rain's been lovely but I think we've had enough now

When we were kids growing up in Dorrigo, where the potatoes grew, and more potatoes grew, we used to sing a song at Sunday School about the foolish man who built his house on the sand and the wise man who built his house on the rocks and the consequences of their actions when the floods came.  And as simple country kids, we used to sing with great gusto "The rains came down, and the spuds came up!" (Meant to be 'floods').

Well, I've been singing that song all weekend!

And now it's Monday and I'm out in the garden singing "and the weeds came up"!  But it's so nice that the ground is damp and the weed removal is, at least, easier.

I picked up my latest online auction purchases on Friday.  10 Angel Face roses which I'm thinking I might put along the eastern side of the driveway.

Pretty things, aren't they!

But look at this one!  What the . . . . ?

Even before it started raining, we had been suffering through humidity up in the 80-90% range.  It's been just so uncomfortable.  Everything feels damp, especially me.  And of course, all the roses are showing signs of the dreaded blackspot.

Our extended period of hot, dry weather has sadly claimed some victims in the garden.  Here is an English Box that I have had in this big terracotta pot for years.

Sadly, it is not looking like it's going to recover!  Also, the pot on the verandah has in it a pink mandevilla vine which was the pride of my mother when she lived in her unit.  I brought it here when she moved, carefully re-potted it into the big terracotta pot and it was growing up the verandah post mixed up with the Leander rose.  I'm not going to tell her that it's died!

I think this is Mr Lincoln.  The blooms are like red velvet.

And Lucetta keeps on flowering.  Love it!

Yikes! It's already February!

That's just ever so slightly scary, isn't it?

Today, I have spent the day weeding the bank between the hedge and the pool fence.  The entire day - it's five o'clock and I'm yet to eat lunch!  And when I say bank,  I actually mean cliff!  I struggled most of the day to maintain my footing, wearing my gardening clogs.  The agapanthus have finished flowering and I was deadheading them as I went along, pulling out the weeds and losing my gloves, which I keep removing because I find them so difficult to use.

Daisy kept arriving to help, then quickly became too hot and had to be accompanied back to the stairs to go inside.

This is where I'm up to - just look at what's coming  up next!  Kikuyu!

I promised myself this morning, I would achieve four bags of rubbish.  And I did, but they were a hard job.  There are five panels of pool fencing and I have finished weeding two!  In the end, I clambered up and weeded in my bare feet - ever mindful of the bitey creepy crawlies, but able to cling on to the slope better.  Then Daisy arrived for the umpteenth time and got stuck on the steps, I turned quickly to see and my left foot slid off down the slope and I did a very undignified splits and saved myself from falling with a quick grab of the fence!

So I have retired, hurt, to the pavilion!  And to add insult to injury, I have just looked in the mirror and have the worst case of hat hair I have ever seen!

Welcome to February!