Pursuit of a red flower

I can rarely walk out of a bookstore or a plant nursery empty handed!

We wanted to renew the mulch in our garden before the weeds started to spread during spring and summer. It was a simple task, should have taken us 10 mins. But when we got there, I had a wishlist ready which consisted of buying a red flower. It was recently I realised that all the flowers in our garden are white, yellow, pink or purple. The Kalanchoe is red but flowers for a very short time.

Little did we know that finding a striking red flower can be so difficult! We wanted a perennial, bold and large red flower. Bottle brush and Azaleas were out due to personal reference. Everything else was an annual. We did like the summer bulbs of Gladioli and Lily, but those are short lived. Hence, we were walking out dejectedly after picking up the bulbs.

At the checkout of Masters, they had a collection of natives. Through the closely placed plants, Anshuman spotted a Waratah. It is an Australian native and the state emblem of NSW. It has a large showy flower, bright red in colour. Hence, we ended up buying it, along with Lily and Gladioli.

You would think that at least one of those would deliver. But noooooo. Here is the sad tale of the red flower.

Lily: This is what it looked like in November. It took a month or so to get to this point. We were soon going on a holiday for 3 weeks, so hoped that it would flower AFTER that. But one cannot control nature - it flowered behind our backs and didnt even have a fallen petal to show for it!

Lily

Gladioli: Did not flower, only sprouted some nice leaves and that's it.

Gladioli

Waratah: Flowered and looked good doing it. Sadly, we did not take a single photo! And now the plant is dead. Yes, the plant that can survive a bush fire did not survive our garden. How depressing is that! Anyway, here is an image from the web to show what potential it had.

By Casliber (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

So, in the end we were left with our trusty Carnation to save the day. They flowered in all shades of red.

Carnation

Spring in full swing

You know spring is here when you can smell the Magnolias from the door! Something that looks as spectacular as this has to be pleasing to the senses.

Magnolia

Even when the petals fall, they look lovely.

Fallen Magnolia petals

The rest of the garden is also doing well. Oranges are ready to be plucked and the African daises are in full bloom.

Garden in spring

Here is what we harvested this season.

Kale

Spinach

Peas

Oranges

Sneak peek of spring

August is awesome in Melbourne, full of hope for us who are sun-deprived and heat-cravers! The days get warmer and more consistently sunny. Best of all is the activity in the garden with flowering weeds of Dandelion. These are amongst the first few to flower and are important for the bees who are coming out of hibernation.

Here are some pictures of what's happening right now.

The Virginian stock I planted last year, self-seeded and grew again. It looks awesome now!

Virginian stock

 One pea pod is developing now, lol! That would make a fine stir-fry.

Lonely pea pod

The last of the Hyacinth is flowering now.

White Hyacinth

I love the first leaves of deciduous tress. The pomegranate is showing signs of new leaves.

Pomegranate

The Daphne is spreading it's perfume in the entire garden, and looking pretty good doing it!

Daphne

Jasmine is just starting to flower.

Jasmine

As is the Magnolia. It also has a very strong scent.

Magnolia

The African daisies are really perking up their corner of the garden. On sunny days, the flowers open fully. They are as excited as us to see the sun!

Pink african daisy

Purple african daisy

Orange african daisy

The calendula have really kept the winter cheerful by flowering non-stop.

Calendula

And these are the last of my favourite flower - Jonquil.

Jonquil

Citizen day!

Today we became citizens of Australia. As is the norm, we each got a native Austrlian sapling, along with our certificates. The saplings are of Hardenbergia Violacea - Purple coral pea.

Hardenbergia Violacea

The leaves looked familiar to me. On googling I found out why. This evergreen climber is grown around my office. It is flowering now with purple flowers and looks awesome.

We have not found a spot for it yet, but the veggie patch might be the best option.

Winter notes

Things are slow in winter. It's cold and wet and gets dark early. If we are lucky, the weekends are dry. This is when I step out with my camera to capture the growth!

Let us start with the Guava. We saw fruits in February this year. They stayed small and green and rock solid until last week. Out of the eight, 2 started to turn yellow, though the size remained the same. I plucked one when it started to smell a little ripe. As it turned out, I plucked it too soon.

First Guava

 Anyway, the others were starting to turn yellow too. But, to my surprise, they were also getting bigger! In one week, they showed considerable growth.

Other Guavas

Next up are the Peas. I had sown a few peas in the middle of May. These were picked from the dry ones we normally use for cooking and got no special treatment before sowing. I simply popped them in under the now well-grown Tibouchina stakes. Two weeks later, the small saplings started to appear! Yet I waited till two more weeks to get a good picture.

Growing Peas

Over the weeks they have grown taller and bushier. As of today, there are close to 10-15 white flowers. The first flower is now becoming a tiny pod. I look forward to harvesting them!

A small Pea pod

Now, I love Jonquils! Every year they cheer me up in the dead of the winter. They can be seen from the kitchen window and I am able to see them in the morning while eating breakfast. This year, when I got home one evening, I saw the first flower of the season. So excited was I, that I took a picture in the darkness.

First Jonquil of the season

A few weeks later, all the Jonquil bulbs are flowering, smelling heavenly.

Jonquils in bloom

The other two bulbs that we have are not doing too well. I did not expect much from the Tulip as they do not last long, but I think the Hyacinth is suffering because of it's location. It still flowers every year, but much smaller than the first year. And it is really difficult to access now with the growing Orange and Myoporum around it. This year I will move it to under the Maple once the foliage dies down.

Hyacinth

Speaking of Orange, they are almost ready! Normally we start picking them in end of August.

Oranges turning orange

Then only vegetables that we have been picking regularly are the leaves of Spinach and Kale. They do very well in winter and I have been careful to keep Aphids and leaf eating insects off them. Every week we get a good dose of salad leaves!

Kale

Spinach

Coming up next month are Asparagus and Daphne!

Asparagus

Daphne

Kangaroo Paw project

Kangaroo Paws have fascinated me ever since we started gardening. They are really unique and indigenous to Australia. Our plants are the tiny ones, but we have seen some really large specimens in various garden shows. They come in a lot of colours from the red side of the spectrum - red, light pink, dark pink, maroon, orange and yellow. We have the pink ones.

I wanted to keep this plant with me even after we leave Australia. The only way to do that was to dry it out and frame it.

I cut the flowers in October-November last year and hung them upside down in a cupboard to dry. I did not want to press the Kangaroo Paw flowers as the flowers have a lot of 3D elements to them. The leaves grow pretty flat anyway, so did not need any pressing.

The frame took me a long time to find. I had to find one which had space between the glass and the back. We finally got one from IKEA in January.

This may sound funny, but then it took me 6 months to find the perfect glue! None of the glues that I had (or could purchase) was holding these leaves to the paper. How I missed Fevicol! Finally though, I was able to get a tube from India. Life was good again :)

The project took 8 months to complete, but is finally done. I may change the colour of the white strip around the flower to something more contrasting with the background.

Autumn colours

I have only ever seen autumn foliage in my 2 years at Germany. What's the big deal you say? That's what I though too! But when you see the trees with lovely shades of red, that's when the beauty really strikes you.

We do not have many trees with that kind of foliage. But the couple that we have are still pretty good looking. For the others, the yellow leaves look nice as they last for a long time.

Here are some pictures.

Pomegranate

Pomegranate

Maple

Maple

Crepe Myrtle

Crepe Myrtle

Pomegranate

This year we finally harvested….wait for it….ONE pomegranate! It seems less, but when I tell you the care it took to get to this point, it will be a big deal.

Year 1: We bought the plant in 2012 summer, hence, it was too small for any flowers or fruits.

April 2012

Oct 2012

Year 2: In 2013 summer, we saw a couple of flowers. The flowers are quite pretty and look fantastic against the green leaves.  However, those did not last long and fell off before the weather became hotter.

Sep 2013

April 2014

Year 3: In 2014 spring, we saw many more flowers than the previous year. Initially, we were pretty excited and expected fruits that season. But Melbourne is pretty windy (or maybe the plant was still too young), so the flowers started falling off. However, this year the tree continued to flower. With the second batch of flowers, I gave hand-pollinating a try. It did not help and those flowers fell off too. The tree taunted us with continuous flowering till late summer.

July 2014

2 Nov 2014

3 Nov 2014

6 Nov 2014

8 Nov 2014

Year 4: This was THE year, the year we got a fruit. The plant followed its cycle of flowering-falling flowers-more flowers-more fallen flowers from 2015 spring. But, unknown to us, a flower near the foot of the tree had stayed on and was turning into fruit. We did not notice it till it was quite well settled, due to the Daisy growing around it. Maybe that is what kept it on the tree when the winds blew. It took an awfully long time for the fruit to ripen. The variety we have is Ben Hur, with fruit expected to be as large as the size of one’s hand. The fruit we got was not quite that large, but bigger than I have seen in India. I was waiting for the skin colour to change to red (like it said it would), but it didn’t. Finally, I saw that the skin had split, indicating that the fruit was ripe. We had it for an evening snack that day. The seeds were really large and tended to be a bit chewy, but the flesh was really sweet and juicy. Perhaps this variety is better for juicing.

Sep 2015

Jan 2016

Feb 2016

April 2016

April 2016