6 Oct 2013

spring garden ramble

 

I thought as we were poking about the vegie garden, you might like to have a look at the rest of my garden? Because spring has arrived - save the occassional frosty cold snap - and colour is re-emerging in my garden.

Actually let's stay in the back yard for a moment and admire my banksia rose, climbing over the back fence and gradually providing a screen from the neighbours and a magical sense of enclosure:


It's glorious right now, its lemony yellow blossoms a lovely backdrop to the vegie patch. I actually do not like yellow flowers (they remind me too much of weeds), but these delicate clouds are more than acceptable.


Closer to these house are these coral-red kalanchoes. They too go dormant over the winter but are really starting to glow right now. The spot I have this and another pot hanging from catches the late afternoon sun, which seems to make them really happy - this is the lushest this pot of colour has ever been. The other pot is hanging over a clump of pale lilac bluebells, and the contrast is delightful - and it reminds me of just how much I love and need colour, no matter what combination (for work this week I was required to wear a black shirt, which sucked the life out of me and made me feel drab and depressed. On Friday I rebelled and wore my hot pink cardigan with multi-coloured sequined spots and my brightest pink lipstick, and instantly felt like me again).

Before we head up to the front, let's detour inside and have a look at my potted orchids. They are on the kitchen table at the moment while I'm waiting for some roofing renovations to occur, but a benefit of this indoor hiatus is seeing their soft pastel prettiness everytime I go into the kitchen. I am smugly pleased to report that my orchids are apparently lusher than mum's; I don't get to claim those victories often!


So back outside and into the front. I try to accept that my garden is like an English garden over winter - it just shuts down. There is only so much green I can look at, so I am always happy when everything starts to pop back to life and wave its colourful vibrant flags. Dark pink boronia (with its heady fragrance), variegated pinks of the weigela tree, the desert-hot red and look-at-me orange of various gazanias, lush velvety reds of wallflowers, the pinks and lilacs and corals of the pelagoniums and stocks and sweet williams and ornamental kale and other pretties.


There is still much to happen - I'm waiting patiently for my two young lilac trees to reveal themselves fully, and the various penstamon cuttings show no sign yet of doing anything colourful. The petunia and lobelia seedlings are steadily growing, but are still a few weeks off buds and blooms. The next couple of months hold such promise.

20 comments:

  1. Spring, loving it and hating it! Loving the blossom and all the pretty flowers, growling at all the bugs and diseases this appalling wet season has produced.
    Your banksia rose is an absolute joy, and I love the phrase from your last post - 'a fragrant cloud of freesias'. Perfect!

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    1. i agree, jo - spring brings good and bad and sometimes - when you;re surrunded by aphids - it'shard to work out what outweighs what! and thank you for your kind words. i think of you when i see my baksia rose as i remember you liked it last year too :-)

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  2. Usually I avoid orange like the plaque - but loving the spot in the second-last pic above. Trying to remember its name, usually see it as a pink. Thanx for the tour - much enjoyed.

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    1. hi linda - you know, i can't remember it either. i want to say gazania, but i don't think it is. it is looking very vibrant right now! thank you :-)

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  3. I think I've got it - is that orange daisy Arctotis???

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    1. lordy! i am not sure... that sounds too fancy. i'll ask my mum tonight!!! you see it growing by the side of the road down here, too... pretty weedy, but very gorgeous for a weed

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  4. Your garden is an absolute picture!

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    1. thank you lizzy! it's such a wonderful time of the year in the garden.

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  5. Such a lot of lovely colour, it's beautiful. I have a Banksia rose climbing up my house, such a treat when they flower!

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    1. thank you alex. banksia roses are just like large blossomy clouds, aren't they? i agree - a real treat!

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  6. Love it, thanks for giving us a peek of the rest of the garden.

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    1. thanks jacqui. my pics don't really do it justice but it's too pretty not to share!

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  7. How gorgeous is that ornamental kale (that is what the first pic up there is of isn't it?!) - I think I might need to plant some of that in my garden!

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    1. hello becs (and welcome, i think, to dig in?) - yes, it is, and isn't t so pretty? so delicately coloured. one got jumped on my a neighbourhood dog or wallaby, but it is still a picture of prettiness.
      i have a dark purple one too which is going to seed already, so i shall be collecting the seeds to see if they grow 'true" (or revert back to something edible and not so ornamental).

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  8. Hi E...I've been away again but was delighted to return to your beautiful garden blog. So pretty! The colours varying from pastel pink to vivid red. You have obviously work very hard and it shows. There is a lot of love in your home. I had to laugh at your black top comment as I wear black for work too, perhaps I should take a leaf out of your book and add a splash of colour too. :)


    These pictures are just so beautiful, they remind me of those beautiful English gardens where ladies sit and drink tea out of a pretty china cup - a lot more appealing than coffee in a jar.

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    1. :-) if only this horrid wind would die down, and one could sit outside with a pretty china tea cup. as a family friend used to say, this wind would blow the milk out of your tea. i say it would blow the tea out of your tea!

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  9. Your garden is SO amazing! I have spent all weekend in mine and it still looks like something from a disaster film. (The fact that we did have a natural disaster in it in June, aka a large landslide, has not helped). But I can but dream that one day it will look like yours (if I look at one tiny bit of it at a time!)

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    1. Hello KM - and thank you for the kind words! i shall pass on your compliments to the flowers :-)

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  10. Those front flowers are gorgeous, and you even have orchids! Spring is awesome, I love how it makes me feel alive!

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    1. thank you paula. i love these orchids - they are such delicate little things.

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