More winter plants!

After the success of the winter annuals we bought in November, we were looking for more plants. We went with an open mind to buy anything that looked nice. And we picked up quite a haul!

The first one was Salvia. I've seen them growing in public places (which is generally a criteria for me to NOT buy them for our garden), but they look lovely. So we picked up two plants.

Salvia

Another interesting purchase were Stocks. Incidentally, this flower is part of a Hercule Poirot murder short story! Anyway, the flowers have a delicate smell and came in multiple colours. We picked up white and purple.

Stocks

One of my favourite flower is Carnation. We saw these pretty variety of Carnation at the nursery, which smell like cloves. 

Carnation

Our next purchase was Ranunculus. I've seen this beautiful flower in many gardening magazines and always wanted to own one. These grow from tubers and will come back again next winter. They will flower through spring. Lets wait and see what they are like!

Ranunculus

Our final purchase were African Daisy! We had them in three colours in Australia and they flowered beautifully from spring to autumn. I'm looking forward to them putting on a show here too.

African Daisy

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

How does your garden grow?

Time for a status report of the garden this spring.

Is there a prettier sight than lots and lots of flowers in bloom? The Jasmine has been doing it well the past few years, they look lovely!

Jasmine

The African Daisies, in conjunction with the various fruit trees are a nice sight from the kitchen window.

Oranges, Daisies, Pomegranate, Lime and Hakea

Last year, I planted Calendula in September. They did not flower at all, but did survive the winter. This October, the first sunny flower showed up. It was pale yellow, I did expect it to be more orange-y. But I read that the soil in which grows decides the tone of the yellow-ness.

Calendula

The new flowers this year are from the Pigface succulent. Last year, it almost died, till we replanted it in a better spot. This year, the buds turned into flowers pretty quickly. Each flower lasts about 3-4 weeks. Interestingly, the 'White' Pigface, also had a lone pink flower! I could not figure out how, as the entire plant had only one root. But anyway, I am not complaining.

Pigface

There are not many vegetables to talk of this spring. The Kale and Spinach are still doing well, worth 10-15 leaves per week. However, the Garlic did not develop into bulbs. The peas also did not survive due to the aphid attack. I had sowed some Lettuce seeds that I had collected last year, they are germinating now.

Lettuce saplings

We had planted Daikon Radish, but only got knobby ones. They tasted nice, but I probably left them in too long.

Daikon Radish

We are not planning to sow any new vegetables this year. To utilise the empty areas of the bed, I sowed seeds of Carnation, Calendula and Virginian Stock. The plants have just started to come up.

Virginian Stock saplings

Spring notes

The biggest news this spring is a lone lime in our 4-year old tree! Every year we get excited when we see the white flowers on the plant. Every year we watch in despair as they drop to the ground one-by-one. This repeats the next season. Until now, one lime, which we almost missed behind all the leaves!

Lime

In other news, Carnation was still happily flowering away. They are my favourite flowers! I planted the seeds in a pot, so they are a bit leggy trying to find the sun. But the flowers still looked pretty, even when not upright.

Carnation

Daisies are the really looked-forward to flowers. They turn up almost overnight and are such followers of the sun! We have them in three colours, so its hard to decide which colour is the best.

Orange daisies

Purple daisies

Pink daisies

Other flowers at this time are the Magnolia and the Eternal Fragrance Daphne. The Magnolia has such a strong perfume that even our next neighbour can smell it in her house! The flowering season does not last too long, only 2-3 weeks. The flowers itself are pretty delicate and the petals fall off with the wind.

Magnolia

The Eternal Fragrance Daphne lives up to its name. The first flowers bloom at this time of the year for about 3 weeks. Once they die down, the plant gives out new leaves and extends its scope. The next set of flowers will bloom in November, just in time for outdoor sitting season.

Eternal Fragrance Daphne

A little overshadowed by its neighbours, the Cherry Leaf Lilly Pilly gives out new leaves at this time. The leaves are a dark red in colour, giving the tree (or bush?) its name. The Lilly Pilly is quite small, only about 3 feet high compared to the other one that we have.

Cherry Leaf Lilly Pilly

The Hakea is quite tall now and successfully blocking our neighbour's from viewing our kitchen! In the spring, there are tiny feathery flowers all along the stem. In the tall tree, they look quite spectacular.

Hakea

And finally, a previously unknown succulent is standing quite tall! This was given to us by my parents when they visited us in April 2012. It came in two little tea cup sized terracotta pots. In the pots it got water sparingly. When we setup our succulent bed, we planted some cuttings. There it got water 2-4 times a week. Judging by the height, it obviously does well with water!

Update Jul 2016: This is Variegated Crassula sarmentosa

Variegated Crassula sarmentosa

P.S. The Jasmine is starting to make an appearance with some flowers. More later!

Jasmine

Summer notes

Sadly, this was not to be a hot summer. We have had cool days, followed by really cold ones. Where is the summer, I ask you?

Setting all that aside, the plants are still providing cheer by flowering. The prettiest flowers are from the Kangaroo Paw. They literally look like pink kangaroo paws that open up to reveal a yellow interior. This is what attracts the birds (or so I read, cannot verify as all birds are driven away by the two doggies)

Kangaroo Paw

We have a native ground cover on the edges of the beds. Since our beds are raised, they form very pretty evergreen cascades. They have tiny star shaped flowers in the spring and summer. We have two colours of the ground cover - bright green and mauve. The flowers are white and in abundance in summer, which attract a lot of bees.

Myoporum Parvifolium

Myoporum Parvifolium

Our other flowers were also doing well. The Tibouchina flowers literally throughout the year, except from January to April. They are a bright purple coloured flower with delicate petals. These fall off after three days, but the tree has enough to keep the cheer alive.

Tibouchina

The African daisies also love the sun and keep flowering. This time I decided to prune the plant a bit as it was taking over everything around it. The plant sent out shoots really quickly and did not sulk at all :) From the cast-offs, I made a bouquet for the house. The flowers last us for over a week.

Purple African daisy

Out of the two Dahlias that we had bought a couple of months ago, the yellow one decided to first settle in and then produce flowers. Whereas, the red one continued flowering and only grew more leaves after it stopped. The flowers are really very good looking.

Dahlia

And finally, the Virginian stock was nicely flowering as well. They are really small and could have benefited with some more seeds in each pot. I have seeds left over for the next season.

Virginian stock

After writing this entry, I realised that most of the flowers that do flower for long in our garden are purple in colour! The Lupins and Hebe flowers are also purple! While I do have orange and pink versions of the African diasies, they do not do as well as the deeper purple. The winter bulbs and dahlias are different colours but last only for a short time. Hence, the next time I plan a garden with permanent features, I will pick more colours.

Too much purple!

A green shopping list

So, there we were, standing in the garden section of Bunnings and wondering what to do because the plants on our list were unavailable! That was our first lesson.

Lesson 1: Have a plan B when the local nursery doesn't stock the plant you want.

Lilly Pilly

Anyway, there were enough knowledgeable people around who could help us pick out something else. We came home with a native tree called Lilly Pilly. It was to be our screening plant (or neighbours-be-gone as called in Australia!). It was already 3 feet tall and expected to grow by a foot every year.We ended up buying a native plant specific fertilizer and a Lilly Pilly disease resistant tablet and also learnt our second lesson in the process.

Lesson 2: The nursery will sell you all sorts of paraphernalia that you don't need.

The Lilly Pilly was so big that it took us novices the better part of the evening to plant it. It took us a couple of hours to get it out of the pot itself! We were trying to beat the sunset but could not finish the mammoth task before it became dark. After struggling to plant such a big (and extremely expensive) tree, we decided to never buy a mature plant.

Lesson 3: Better to grow a plant from seed or a cutting, than to waste money on a mature plant.

Having learnt some new lessons in life, our second purchase was much more practical. We bought young plants of African Daisy, Myoporum and a different kind of Lilly Pilly. These were intended to flank the Lilly Pilly tree. The Myoporum is an Australian native ground cover, we wanted to use it as a garden bed edging. The African daisy was going to give some cheer all year round with random flowering. We were very pleased with the final result.

Our loot!

African Daisy

Before mulch

There was one last thing to do which is a typical garden addition in Australia - mulch. Mulch is widely used in the garden beds and serves a dual purpose of preventing evaporation and preventing weeds from growing. It gave a very nice finish to the garden bed.

After mulch