Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Parsley?

Yes, this is one of my flat leaf parsley plants going to seed. I like to leave a few of them seed so that I have a continuous supply of parsley for my cooking. The bees polinate, the seeds form, I scatter them, then the rain will germinate them. Sometimes the heat is so intense that the seedlings burn, or it doesn't rain & I loose a lot of them, but one or two plants is all I really need.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Fresh Flowers


I love fresh flowers in the house, I think it makes the place look more homely. This is the bunch that I picked this week. It is made up of geraniums, some of my May Bush, and another shrub in my back garden of which I do not know the name. Enjoy.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Love Me, Love Me Not


I remember when we were kids & we used to find these seed heads & blow them singing "Love me, love me not, love me love me not". We would keep blowing & singing until the seed head was empty & all the seeds were floating along the wind. Now when I find them in my garden, I carefully pick them & throw them in the bin, just so the seeds do not start another round of weeds. I must admit though, it was very tempting to start singing & blowing again. This one was just perfect. One day I am going to produce one of these in stitches.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

First In, First Served


With temperatures reaching over 30 degrees yesterday I thought I would check & see how ripe my strawberry had become. Someone had been before me & was actually having a wonderfull feast, buried right down inside the strawberry. It looked like an earwig, which I quickly removed, & the above strawberry was part of my breakfast this morning , minus the holes of course!

Monday, September 22, 2008

Pruning Day

Yesterday was such a warm day, with temperatures reaching 23 degrees, & it was just too nice to be inside. So I made a decision to prune my climbing rose on my side fence. The males of the household who mow the lawn had been complaining about getting attacked by wayward rose tendrills. It has been flowering, & I wanted to wait until the flowers were finished before I did anything. So my climbing rose has gone from this:-

to this:-

As I was pruning away I noticed quite a lot of new little shoots like this,

which I know will produce buds like this:-
Lots of them went in the green waste bin which is unfortunate. They would have made a beautiful show in a few weeks. Still, the lawn mowers will be much happier about not getting attacked by thorns, and there are still quite a few left that will pruduce some flowers for me.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Warmer Weather is Here

Another beautiful day in Sydney yesterday with temps of 21 degrees. It is supposed to be even warmer today, already it is 21 degrees, and it is still only early. Consequently, there is more activity happening. The pic below is is the first flower of the season for my scented geranium. The leaves just have to be touched & the perfume wafts through the air. It is different to all the other geraniums I have.The other thing I noticed is the first of the strawberries. At this stage this is the only one that is even big enough, & if I am lucky, it might be ripe enough to put on my cereal in a few days. I just have to put the snail bait out to keep both the slugs & the snails from eating it first.

Flying Lessons


OK, a pic of a tree, boring stuff. This is, however, not just any old tree , it's the gum tree in my neighbours back yard, and the top of it is home to a family of crows. If you look really closely in the center you will notice their nest. The crows were particularly noisy yesterday & I could hear them calling to each other from all directions. It was then that I realized that the babies were having flying lessons , & Mum & Dad were encouraging them to fly just that little further. At this stage the babies are only hopping from one branch to another, and when I took this pic, one baby had just hopped back onto the nest. It is good to see them back, they have nested in this same spot for the last few years.

A Budding Wygelia


This wygelia bush is just outside my front door, and has been there since we bought the house. It isn't my favourite plant in the garden, in fact I actually wanted it removed at one stage. Admittedly, the flowers are pretty when they come out, but they are only present for about three weeks of the year. In the warmer months after the flowers are gone, it is just leaves, & come late autumn through winter, the plant is just sticks. Anyway, when we tried to dig it up a few years back, it put up all these suckers so we decided to leave it there. Occasionally the little wrens come & sit there. There are buds all over it at the moment and it is about to flower. The weather forcast is for more warm temperatures over the next few days so it should be in full bloom very soon.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

My Hibiscus Is Alive



About two months ago I was out for the day at a Stitchers Plus meeting & when I came home I found my double pink hibiscus had been mutilated. It was nothing much more than a stump! All the beautiful leafy branches had gone & I was left with just a few twigs sticking out from the central trunk. Last week I noticed what I thought were new leaves comming, & yesterday I found this, along with a few other green tips, sticking out from those twigs. This past winter has been particulay cold, so I will blame the weather for my bush taking so long to recover. Now the weather has warmed up a little, maybe I will see more new leaves soon.

A Sparaxis In Flower

When I looked realy hard in amongst the weeds & the johnquil leaves this morning, I found this sparaxis in flower. There are a couple of others dotted around the garden too but not in flower yet.

Another Iris

A walk around the front garden this morning showed this iris about to flower. The weather has cooled condsiderably since the weekend so we may be lucky if it is out tomorrow. By the way, just ignore all the weeds, nothing is going to happen about that until other more pressing matters are out of the way.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Spring Has Sprung

Welcome to my garden. I have been incorporating some of my garden into my stitching blog & thought that perhaps I should keep a seperate blog just for my garden. Who knows how frequently it will be updated & what with, only time will tell. But I hope to show you all the wonderful plants & flowers, as well as all the creatures that live in it.
Over the weekend spring definately sprung in Sydney with temperatures hovering around 30 degrees. On Saturday morning this iris was just a fat bud with no colour. By Sunday afternoon it was in full bloom. I love these irises, & cannot wait till they multiply so I can have more.