Pottering around...

Once upon a time I would always plant flowering annuals for each season. Then came the drought in the early part of the 2000s. Water became too precious ( and more expensive) to use in the quantities needed for annuals...and hosing was banned, so watering was by bucket or watering can. And that was hard work after a full day at work! Lol Even though we installed some rainwater tanks, I still didn't plant my usual annuals. 

Then in November 2010 we hosted a 30th birthday party for the man who eventually became our son in law. That meant a bit of a spruce up of both the house and the garden. So in Spring that year, I potted up flowering annuals in the September school holidays so they were ready to put around the garden by early November. It was still drought so it was all hand watering. But the pots of petunias looked good on the night. The drought broke here with the floods of January 2011 and gradually we could use mains water for gardening again. But my potted colour efforts were pretty hit and miss until this year. Having our Canadian friends visit on Easter Sunday spurred me on...after all potted colour distracts attention from a lot of things!! Lol.

Petunias...new varieties jostle with old favourites! 

 I love lots of 'old fashioned' plants and my geranium plants decided to flower too! 

I love bromeliads too and I brought up some extra ones from the shaded area in the garden and put them on the veranda...

You know how they say you learn something new every day? Well on Easter Day morning I discovered that possums like petunia flowers. And the resident possums continue to de bud /de flower/raid the flowers in several of the pots. 

The ones near the front steps are untouched...this is possibly because the sensor light would come on when the possums approach...

On the bright side, the constant 'trimming' should mean the plants get more 'bushy'? Lol. At least the possums are not eating the plants down to ground level like they do with my parsley.

46 years...Part 1

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about DH and I 'babysitting' plants for some friends who are selling their home. 

DH reckons we have 100 or so extra plants which are tucked into any available space in our yard. 

Well the packing up is almost done and there is just some vacuuming of empty rooms still to come. DH took some photos at our friends' home yesterday.

Once you would not have seen the ground as there were so many plants...the ones left are staying as they are not in pots.

In the last 3 weeks or so, the removalists have been bringing empty shipping containers over at predetermined times. They then pack the container with the boxes of household items etc and the container is then taken to a storage facility until it's time to deliver the containers to the new address. 

Yesterday there was one container down the driveway and one on the street bear the front door...they were to be packed/filled from 9am this morning. 

This house has been home to our friends for 46 years and part of my life for 39 years. Many of the plants in my gardens ( I've had 3 homes in that time) have come from plants, seedlings and cuttings from this garden. My children played in this garden...

Aren't we all young here? Lol

There were lots of Llhasa Apso puppies born here, including my girls' childhood dog, Reggie...

( P and G were registered breeders for a number of years) 

Next post we'll take a peek inside the house...

That garden bed beside the fence...

Long time readers might recall the 'saga' of one of the garden beds in the front yard...the one that DH and I allowed to be dug up to enable the firm who was redeveloping the site next door to us, to lay the stormwater pipes. It had been a tale of mismanagement, firms going out of business and reapplications to council, which caused the townhouses to be almost completely built without the stormwater drains being laid and connected up. DH felt that we should display good neighbourliness and give our permission for the tradespersons to dig up our side garden to allow them to access the property next door. The 2 young men who did all the work were polite and well mannered and their boss, and  the obsequious project manager of the building firm (yes I'm referring to Brad!) had promised that all would be restored after the work was finished.

 The remnants of this particular garden ...

I had even furnished Brad with a list of plants that had been dug up and which I reasonably expected would be replaced. Then DH and I went on our 7 week holiday to the UK and France...
When we arrived back, there had been a fair bit of progress on the build next door...and the fence had finally been replaced. The engineering firm had turfed alongside the fence on our property and soil had been brought in to replace all that which had been taken away...and my edging had been replaced. More plants had disappeared though, and despite digging into that mulch, I couldn't find any trace.
How barren it all looked and I started my campaign of ringing the project manager to see when he would be dropping off those promised new plants...yeah right???

That termite monitor box in the above photo, is actually a replacement...the landscapers made the previous one disappear along with a few plants...pine bark mulch on wooden fences isn't a good idea in Brisbane either. From the base of the fence, I removed enough mulch to spread around 2 other garden beds. 

One plant purchased from Bunnings and several cuttings from friends, became my replacement plants...
We've had quite a bit of rain here in the last month and what a difference it has made!

Even the tired old pentas is doing well...

 I like this garden bed now, as the plants remind me of those friends who provided those cuttings...and the replacement soil is very good quality, so that has to be a bonus :-)

Around the garden...

It's been a bit drier here in SE Queensland this year, but some good rain has fallen this month...it also actually rained in some of the rural areas that have been in drought. Winter hasn't really visited us this year and I'm sure the plants thought that we went straight from Autumn to Spring! I took a few photos a week or so ago...

Nasturtiums always remind me of my childhood...one of the few flowers growing in the garden that my mother would allow me to pick.

 I brought home these as self sown seedlings from my friend's garden and they have finally flowered...

 Since using the sprinkler once a week with tank water, the passionfruit vine has rewarded me by producing fruit that ripened and didn't just wither on the vine ;-(

 My mother's aloe vera plants have grow tall flower spikes in the last month or so...(I 'inherited' my mum's potted garden that she had in her later years)

 Some bromeliads that I 'cadged' from a friend...

 Some self sown Dietes...

A geranium grown from  a cutting...

 The NZ Christmas bush has been flowering all winter...

But I've kept the best thing I found in the garden till last...
Last year I wanted to trim the top of one of my bottle brush trees...but there was a little nest in it, right near the top. So no trimming and eventually a couple of chicks hatched out...squawking for their parents to feed them. In no time at all it seemed, the hatchlings flew and the nest lay empty. And I never did get around to trimming the top of the tree! Well a few weeks ago I noticed that there was a bird sitting in the nest...
Despite taking lots of photos...you can't really see much...

Then, 2 days ago I stood beneath the tree and looked up and I saw 3 open mouths!
DH took some photos with its special lens attached...

It looks like 'Daddy' bird is helping ...

I feel so proud that this little bird family have chosen my tree in which to bring up their chicks...

Springtime in the garden...

In my last post I wrote about my 'battles' with the bush turkey...but all is not lost, gardenwise...

The daylilies are flowering, despite being neglected...

This plant is flowering for the first time since I got it as a Christmas present...

The year before last, I got a cutting of this cactus from a friend. Last year it had one bud. This year there were lots of these buds, but this year these buds opened up before they fell off.
So, buds...

 Turned into these flowers...

A few months ago, I bought a galliardia plant. My mum had these flowers in her garden...I loved the colours. This one is a bit different to mum's...a bit frilly. But it's been flowering really well this month...

Most of my hippeastrums are in pots. Despite having twigs and even a piece of ceiling insulation from the building site next door on top of the potting mix, these hardy plants had buds developing...

 Nearly opened here...I dug up the bulbs of these red ones from the garden of the house where I lived with my first husband, and brought them with me :-)

 Here are some of the pots of hippeastrums gathered together in one spot...

I was given this one as a housewarming gift when I moved to a little rental house in 2000

I potted up this petunia seedlings in early September and most of them are flowering now; here is my favourite one...purple!

And lastly, some of my tomato crop...

The first photo is a bag of the larger tomatoes that we gave to Tim, along with a bottle of red, as a thank you for Faux Turkey...

And this is a bowl of cherry tomatoes including some yellow ones...all self sown.

I decided to not take photos of the prolific weeds that are also in my garden lol! I weed a little bit each day but it doesn't seem to make much difference.

Part 3; Queen's Park during Carnival of Flowers

Next DH and I went to Queen's Park to have a look at the garden displays there. We would not be disappointed...

the last time DH and I toured this park, the monument was surrounded by scaffolding and restoration work was being undertaken...

Like a meadow filled with poppies...

A garden bed of herbs...

Ornamental kale plants

The tree below has 2 'collars' of perspex and I asked one of the gardeners whether this was because of possums. And it was...apparently the possum population in this city park has 'exploded'. The possums have been causing considerable damage to trees such as this cypress and in some cases endangering the life of the old trees. The possums also dig up and eat the seedlings of  the annuals that are planted for the displays. The park staff were given a permit to trap and relocate 20 of the estimated 60 possums which live in this one park.

The 4th part of our Carnival of Flowers day out will be about the station at Spring Bluff...a very special place :-)