Better late than never
A late Sunday Selection of photos from my garden.
Hosted now by Elephant's Child, Sunday Selections is a place to show off your photos, new or old, good or bad. I meant to have this ready for yesterday, complete with the appropriate intro, but time got away from me, as it so often does now.
Come walk with me to see my garden.
finishing now with a single rose, this bloom was hanging by a thread (as they say), I think someone tried to snap it off to take inside and discovered the stems aren't so easily broken and they are very thorny too. I cut it and brought it inside, then went out and trimmed that branch properly to get more roses. This is the only scented rose in the whole garden.
Hosted now by Elephant's Child, Sunday Selections is a place to show off your photos, new or old, good or bad. I meant to have this ready for yesterday, complete with the appropriate intro, but time got away from me, as it so often does now.
Come walk with me to see my garden.
My Christmas Plum trees in full blossom
aren't they gorgeous?
this (stone plant?) is flowering
and spreading nicely
my Christmas cactus plants :(
have been vigorously munched on, almost nothing left of this one,
and here is the culprit, one of many, wooly bear caterpillars, reputed to be able to decimate an entire garden in a single night. this one is lunching on what is left of the many aeoniums at this end of the garden.
at the sunny end, can you all see the gentle arch of almost black pelargonium flowers across the width of the photo?
here is a close up of the blooms. This spread is from only one plant, the branches are spindly, leggy, and look weak, but the leafy flowering ends are very nice. I worried for so long that it wouldn't survive, but I'm more confident now. It's easily four feet across, but not growing at all into the shadier side. If I ever leave here, this is one plant I'm definitely taking cuttings from. Many cuttings.
a smaller purple pelargonium just left of centre of the black arch, also looking a lot stronger this summer. (Neglect is my strong suit)
my black prince aeonium, the only one not munched away by the caterpillars who seemed to prefer the other end of the garden. This one is in a pot and I may just rescue what's left of the rest and put those in a pot also.
the mailbox corner of the garden has another of the purple pelargoniums, a cutting that I put in last autumn and it has 'taken off' very well.
this donkey tail (?) is also doing much better since I began watering again two weeks ago,
as is this one hanging over the edge of the bird bath, it's a cutting off the original.
two small pieces from the original miniature "blue chalk sticks" have almost filled the new pot I put them in just six months ago.
the flowers on my jade plants have all browned now and I really should get out there and trim them all off
I hope you can all see the tiny seedlings in the centre of this pot. I took a chance and tossed in some seeds that are quite old, having been brought from my previous abode when I moved eight years ago. I'm hopeful of having home grown tomatoes by Christmas. around the tomatoes I have seeds of bush beans and I hope to be eating homegrown beans from my freezer again next winter.
this pot with two dracaena was given to me by a neighbour who declared it was unhappy in her yard, she could tell because the leaves are yellowing. I plonked it down in the first space I came to, gave it a drink of water laced with seasol
and used an old shoelace to tie up the drooping self-sown tomato seedling that was also in the pot. We'll see how it goes.
the ixias are still there, but being top heavy the blooms have mostly fallen into the jades and can't be seen. I propped up this one specially for you.
across the lawn into the bigger section of garden, you can see my seaside daisies (erigeron) are almost as tall as the agapanthus to the left side there
and covered with many tiny pink and white flowers.
behind them and also behind the rosemary is this scented geranium, planted as a tiny cutting by Pat about a year and a half before she left to go to the nursing home,
it is now eight or ten feet across, you can see it fills the width of the photo. That's the rosemary front right, also planted by Pat about five years ago and now taller than I am until the gardeners trim it down.
this bird's nest fern was a gift from another neighbour and is now in the garden, still in its pot, until I buy a larger pot to move it into.
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Gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteGrace; thank you.
DeleteApparently the secret to a green thumb is knowledge, patience and a lot of work.
ReplyDeletejoeh; the secret to a green thumb is to toss out what dies and plant more of what survives.
DeleteLoving your garden - despite the depreciations of your vandals. We have roses in bud, but none close to flowering.
ReplyDeleteAnd how I would love that dark, rich, vibrant pelargonium.
Elephant's Child; the caterpillars seemed to focus only on one end this year, at the other side of town, my daughter didn't see a single one. I should move...
DeleteMost roses here are in bud too, this rampant red is always the first and blooms the longest. I had the pelargonium for several years before it took off like this. I tried hard not to baby it, because in the past babying things usually leads to them dying. I'll be trimming it back sometime in March or April.
The plum trees look fantastic. The black pelargonium is unusual. I'd not seen it before until you showed it once before, I think. I would certainly take a cutting, or a dozen if I was leaving. Donkey tails are fun plants. We have a variety that is planted in a bowl of cactus. It needs more water than the cactus which is awkward.
ReplyDeleteAndrew; I have shown the black pelargonium before, when I first got the cuttings, it has taken all this time to settle and get growing. Pour water only onto the donkey tails and enough should seep through to satisfy the cactus.
DeleteWe didn't do much in garden way.
ReplyDeleteCoffee is on
peppylady (Dora) I don't do much anymore, all the work was in the beginning while I watched what grew and what died, then planted more of the survivors. Now it looks after itself. The roses are in a different garden and already here when I moved in.
DeleteI like the pink and white flowers. I have ONE plant, a jade plant in a pot inside. It has never flowered. The rose was a case of a "tempted" theft.
ReplyDeleteVal; the pink and white seaside daisies? They open pink and fade to white as they age. The jade needs sunshine and warmth, and will flower with less watering. Mine were a couple of years old before the flowers appeared.
DeleteThis garden certainly has filled in, and out. I remember your unhappy comments several years ago, and how you've changed. I wish you tomatoes for Christmas, too. What a treat.
ReplyDeleteJoanne; it has performed as expected, just took a bit longer to get going. There's a lot of competition from the roots of the plum trees and every August the woolly bear caterpillars turn up for a feast. I still have a few bare patches behind the jades and I think I'll put shepherd's crooks for hanging baskets in them.
DeleteI keep forgetting our opposite seasons. Delightful to see what Spring has to offer as everything around us is getting ready for Winter. It will I guess if the heat fades a bit.
ReplyDeleteHow rude of someone trying to steal your rose. Glad you were able to salvage the bloom.
Arkansas Patti; it wasn't my rose, that section is community garden. Actually all the grounds are community property, but most people that have a small patch adjacent their flat have taken it for their own and beautified it.
DeleteHi River,
ReplyDeleteGreat pictures. I leave all the gardening to Mrs PM (I hate it).
:o)
Cheers
PM
Plasman; I don't enjoy it as much as I used to, I'd prefer a more private fenced yard, but that's why I planted succulents and other things that will look after themselves.
DeleteWonderful and exotic flowers I like that Black prince one very much. And your secret to a green thumb is precious. I got to remember this.
ReplyDeleteUglemor; the Black Prince is an "Aeonium", a succulent that takes a while to settle and start growing, but does well once established. They like the hot dry weather as long as they get a drink about once a week, but if you have to be away for a while, they will still survive. I didn't water for the whole of our winter which was pretty dry, not nearly enough rain.
DeleteAs I live in a cold country in the Northern Hemisphere this beauty would never survive in my garden; hot, dry weather being a thing we have a week of every fourth year or so. In winter we have snow and cold spells ;) I enjoy all your flowers, birds and beast the more because they're not growing here.
DeleteNature's beauty is welcome any day, every day of the week!
ReplyDeleteCuddles to lovely Lady Lola. :)
Lee; it is looking good out there. Lola gets a daily cuddle, she loves to lie on newspaper, so as soon as I open my paper to do the crosswords, she jumps up and we cuddle for about 40 minutes.
DeleteI love your collections of succulents . We are switching out plants that were killed in the intense heat we had this year, and putting in these. Aeoniums, Jade plants, ixiums, and blue sticks? are happy to have found a home.
ReplyDeleteSusan Kane; the ixia are bulbs, the stems grow tall and extremely thin and are then bowed down under the weight of the blooms, you may need some sort of support to tie them onto. The others are all hot weather, dry conditions plants, so won't need much care once established. I found the miniature blue chalk sticks did much better than the larger ones.
DeleteI didn't realize your gardens were so big, River. These photos are full of beauty. I share your gardening philosophy - if it lives, plant more of it. If it dies, let it go. Why fight nature when there are other things that will thrive instead? Thanks for the photos.
ReplyDeletejenny_o; most of the garden area around the flats I live in is community property, a few people like me have planted up a small section nearest their own flat and the rest is left to the "maintenance" crew (ha ha), who come in once or twice a year with chainsaws and level the rose bushes at waist height, their idea of pruning, then vertically trim every shrub that might be hanging a few inches too far over a footpath.
DeleteYou gardeners fill me with awe and admiration. What a lovely haven you have created! So many of these plants and flowers I have never seen before.
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
Wisewebwoman; I'm not much of a gardener, I just get out there and give it a bit of attention now and again and there are many plants I don't seem to be able to grow. Most of what I have in my small patch is common in most of my state and grows easily once established.
Delete