Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year to you all!!!

I've been very slack indeed not blogging for weeks and weeks so just thought I would write a quick hello to wish you all a Happy New Year.

The garden here has really been suffering.  We have had heatwave after heatwave after heatwave for about a month now, with almost every second day over 35 degrees C and over 40 degrees C a few times as well.  I was managing to keep the water up to everything but there is nothing like a good fall of rain to really perk things up.  So.....after having almost no rain since winter, we have now had 3 inches since Christmas Day.  Things are slowly, very slowly, coming back to life so I expect in about 8 or 9 weeks I may again be out there photographing roses, particularly if we get more rain very soon.  There have been almost no casualties in terms of plants succumbing to the heat and dry, although I've seen many plants hang on in the dry weather only to drop dead once it does actually rain....so we will see.....

And the heat is bringing a lot of snakes out.  A few weeks back my husband killed an enormous brown snake near our house.  They are one of the most deadly snakes on the planet and I am spending a lot of time tutoring our two year old what to do if she sees one....ie run away, run away.  Last week we had a carpet snake on our verandah, just having a snooze on top of a post up near the roof - not venomous but still not a nice thing to find on the verandah.  He was relocated a long way away from the house.  At least brown snakes don't climb like carpet snakes do....if they did, I would have to relocate myself!!!!

On a happy note, my garden fence has finally begun.   Three sides of the garden are now fenced with only the front fancy post and rail fence to be done, another 200 metres or so.  Happy Days!!!!

Apologies for my lack of photos, the heat has left me nothing to photograph unfortunately.....

Thanks for visiting!!! 

Mystery solved...we think....

We have a problem in our garden.  Each morning we find mysterious little holes that have been dug everywhere.  It has been happening for months, on and off.  First it was in the lawn - we weren't too concerned, the grass grows back quickly and our lawn isn't perfect anyway.  Then it was in amongst the roses - still we weren't very concerned as there was no damage being done to any plants.  Now it is digging out my freshly transplanted cornflowers - I planted about 200 on Sunday, there are about 3 left after the last two nights of hole digging.  Not happy!!!!  We wondered what it was but never caught the culprit in the act.  A rabbit, a hare, kangaroo, wallaby or bandicoot.  But no...it's a fox!!!  A mangy, skinny little fox.  Really do need that garden fence.  Husband....can you hear me...???

Today though, I finally finished the brick edging on my new border and then mulched the entire thing with lucerne.  After that was done, I spent quite a bit of time cleaning up outside the garden, whipper-snipping the grass, getting rid of any rubbish so we can mow outside the garden and clean it all up in case of any fire.  We have quite a few thousand acres of forestry quite close to our house and fire danger is very high at the moment and will be this whole summer.

So now, it has finally begun to cool down after a pretty hot day today (it was still 30 degrees celsius at 6:30pm...) and I have spent the past hour re-reading the most wonderful book, "The Gardenist".

I'm certainly not a book reviewer but...what a beautiful book!  Such beautiful photographs and full of really useful and sensible information about planning a garden.  Perhaps a great Christmas present for my mother......

Thanks for stopping by!!!!

Wheat harvest 2012....finished!!!!

Wow!!!  My parents have just blown my socks off!!!  After living in their current home for 35 years, they have announced that they are selling their home, the place where we grew up, their lovely farm, their wonderful garden, and moving.  Why?  To be closer to family members and so that they can live in a better climate....where no doubt my mother will have yet another wonderful garden.  Wow!!!  You may have seen the photos of their 'Secret Garden' in my last post.  So in a few weeks time, I am going to load my car with empty pots, set off to my parents place, and get cuttings galore so that I will have a few pieces of our old home with me forever.  The idea of not seeing that house again after my parents leave makes me very sad but as my sister said to me, it's the people that make a house a home, not the house itself.

There has been a lot of activity here this past week.  On the farm, the wheat harvest has finally finished.  The quality of the wheat was poor but we have found a buyer and the first load goes tomorrow.  In the garden, my new border along the driveway, close to where the front gate will be hopefully one day (Husband...can you hear me?), is being edged with bricks so I'm spending every spare minute trying to get that finished.  Because of the heat in the middle of the day, I've even considered getting up with the sun at about 4:45am and doing some work then.....I've considered it......and that's where it ends.  There are roses along the back of the border and a couple of large Belah trees and, once the brick work is complete, seeds will be sown to fill it all in - catmint along the front, other taller, colourful cottage garden plants in the centre.  Although they are being used for practical purposes rather than visual appeal, the bricks really seem to give my informal cottage garden a little touch of formality.

Here are my star roses for this week.

This is 'Lilli Marlene'.  It is absolutely covered in these bright red flowers, bunches and bunches of them.  It's quite a sight.  This rose was planted in 2009 and has been a really poor performer until this year - actually so poor that I wondered if I should pull it out and plant something else!!!

'Lilli Marlene'

Finally 'Falstaff' have begun to flower!  Five of these were planted all together in August and they have begun to flower now.

'Falstaff'

And this is 'Norita'.  This was purchased in 2009 at some weekend markets in Toowoomba.  It flowers like this throughout spring, summer and even into Autumn if the cold weather hasn't arrived early.  It is a lovely rose but prone to black spot when it is humid.


'Norita'

Now that I have my little collection of roses going well, I am going to start growing roses from cuttings - something I've not attempted before.  Does anybody out there have any experience doing this?  I've heard it is quite hard.  Would be very interested to know how it is done properly.  If you have any experience, please comment or email me at anna.price.adair@gmail.com - I'd be very interested to hear how it is done, including what time of year is best etc.

Since I discovered the world of blogging, particularly garden blogging, I'm really enjoying reading other gardening blogs, seeing all the beautiful photos, the different plants and learning how other gardeners all over the world do what they do.  So interesting!!!

Thanks for visiting!!!

The Secret Garden

I've been begging my mother to send me some photos of her garden as it is early spring and at this time of the year there is always the expectation of something special.

But first, the story of this little garden.  In late 2008 my husband and I got engaged and decided to have our wedding in my parents garden in early 2009 - we had just over 4 months to plan everything.  At that time my parents decided to convert an old set of sheep yards attached to the existing garden into what they called their new 'Secret Garden' and the plan was to have it all ready for our wedding.  They carted tonnes and tonnes of rich black soil, they planted Roses, Foxgloves and Canterbury Bells and they drenched it all in thousands of litres of water.  As well as this, they extended their existing garden and worked hard to get that ready as well.  Then, our wedding day came and it rained so heavily that we were unable to have even one garden photo despite the entire garden being just perfect.

So this is what the rambling 'Secret Garden' looks like today.....

There are Dianthus along the edge of the path.  Behind them are Foxgloves  and Canterbury Bells that self seed each year, there are hundreds of them.  There are also climbing roses on the arch and along the outside fence (to obscure the view of the neighbours paddock...).  It is a really beautiful, romantic little corner of the garden and unfortunately these photos do not do it justice. 

After being so dry here for so long, it is now a lovely rainy night.  But....we are in the middle of our wheat harvest so it's all a little bittersweet.  We've also been forced to raid our winter woollies as the cold weather has returned with a vengeance.

Thanks for visiting!!!

What a week....

I try to be a fairly positive person most of the time but the past week has been ghastly.  My dear old grandmother passed away at age 93.  She had what we were told was a stroke early last week and, after stabilising and returning to her nursing home from hospital, she suddenly passed away on Saturday night.  She was a very keen gardener, firstly on the family property where she had a sprawling garden including century old cedar and English elm trees and later with a smaller town garden jam packed with her favourite flowers....roses.  Her garden was so lovely, she was even persuaded to open it to the public a few years ago.  She loved her family, her husband, her children, her grandchildren and, most recently, her great grandchildren.  We will all miss her.

Apart from that I am in the midst of a root canal which is a little bit painful, my daughter was ill with a virus and my husband is harvesting wheat that has been so badly affected by the dry weather and late frosts that he doesn't know if it can be sold at all.

Bring on Christmas!!!

Despite everything happening, I have found the time to meander around my little garden snap, snap, snapping away.  The roses continue to bloom well although a few seem to be affected by something I've not seen before.  The foliage on the affected roses is perfect but the flowers themselves seem a bit dead as they open and not perfectly formed, they almost look stunted.  I'm wondering if I sprayed them with Lime Sulphur a little late, maybe after the buds had started to form, and this affected them.  To all you rose experts out there, any ideas?


"Sceptre'd Isle"

Here is the very first rose I purchased, "Sceptre'd Isle", a David Austin rose.  It has beautiful pale pink cupped English style blooms, flowers continuously through spring and summer and seems to be quite disease resistant.



"MaxiVita"

This rose is called 'MaxiVita'.  It is wonderful next to our house as it grows to just the right size, it doesn't send out long invasive canes and it flowers profusely all through spring and summer.  It never needs spraying and, apart from regular deadheading, it gets reshaped rather than pruned in late winter.  It is one of those 'plant and forget' type roses.

"Princess Alexandra of Kent"

I planted about 35 new roses early in September, five of these were 'Princess Alexandra of Kent', a lovely pink David Austin rose.  Here is one of the first of the blooms.  The buds are a little orange and then they open to this beautiful soft pink.

"The Alnwick"

'The Alnwick', another pink David Austin, also blooming and quite lovely.  There are 5 x 5 different varieties of roses in my new garden bed, all David Austin.  The others are 'New William Shakespeare' (crimson), 'Lilac Rose' (lilac) and 'Falstaff' (red).

As you can see, not only am I an amatuer gardener but also a very amateur photographer...it would probably help to have a great camera so the search is on for something new, exciting and versatile.  Any recommendations?

Thanks for visiting!!!

This 'n that....

I've just been tagging and sorting old photos today and came across a few I thought I'd post....

This was taken in late May 2012, it was the last decent bunch of roses I could find before the cold weather arrived.  The roses include the red "Norita", pink "Sceptre'd Isle", and a couple of white "Iceberg" roses.  

As I've said before, everything here is trial and error.  This year I scattered some iris bulbs around to see what would happen and this is what eventuated.  They were so lovely that many more will be planted in years to come.

 

This was taken from our back verandah one evening by my husband.  We have lovely sunsets here all the time.  Unfortunately though, it seems the drier the weather, the better the sunset.

The water for my garden comes from this dam.  It is about 1km from the garden, is over 2 megalitres and very, very deep. 

Outside the garden, a sorghum crop.

Thanks for visiting!!!

Roses

There are about 60 roses in the garden...at the moment.  All of them blooming or about to bloom.  Here are some photos from this week....

'Fiona's Wish' tall standard.  Cherry red with a great fragrance.  This rose was named after Fiona Coote.

'Mister Lincoln' tall standard.  Dark velvety red with beautiful fragrance.  This particular rose stands at over 7 feet tall.

'L.D.Braithwaite', David Austin.  Crimson flowers, lovely scent.  This is tucked in behind a 'MaxiVita' rose which, as you can see, is about to put on quite a show.

I love David Austin roses and, if you haven't already noticed, I love pink, lilac, crimson and red roses with the odd yellow thrown in for some variation.  Amongst those I've planted this year are 'Brother Cadfael', 'Falstaff', 'Graham Thomas', 'Lilac Rose', 'Princess Alexandra of Kent' and 'Lilac Rose'.  These are all looking very promising and are about to flower.  Watch this space for more photos......

The only thing I've done differently this year with my roses is to mulch them with lucerne, very good quality lucerne.  I've mulched in the past but the roses seem to love the lucernce, they are healthier, their leaves are glossy and dark the way they should be, and they have many more buds than they've had in previous years.  I'm probably putting on a biscuit of lucerne per rose.  And, as usual, they are fertilised with Sudden Impact Rose Fertiliser and sprayed every two weeks for black spot.  I also sprayed them straight after pruning with Lime Sulphur which seems to have got rid of almost all the black spot.  Black Spot is something that I can't seem to get rid of completely, but it is certainly under control this year.

I'm off outside now to put some more mulch on the roses.  Thanks for visiting!!!!