Went to the nursery again on Sunday

Peter and I went to the local nursery on Sunday, to look for some citronella plants.  They are good for keeping mossies away  - that's mosquitoes for those of you who don't speak Australian :)  It is really nice to go to a smaller family nursery instead of a huge nation-wide chain.  Yes, they have a smaller range of plants and they were more expensive.  But on the other hand they did have a different range and they offered really personal service, which was sooooo nice.  They didn't have any citronella plants in stock -  which surprised me because they do grow a super breed of mossies out here - but they have ordered some in for me.  


While I was there I also spotted just the plants that will fill a couple of spots in our garden at home.  Peter didn't want to buy them here, he has taken the name and wants to buy them at home.  One is part of the Dryspell range called Anisodonka 'Raspberry', which grows 1.5m x 1.5m.   

It is a tough and hardy plant that does well out here in the west so should cope with our equally tough conditions in the front garden at the corner of the house. Another nice feature is that it blooms most of the year. 


Another is the Ricinocarpus or Wedding bush which has star-shaped flowers in spring and grows  3mx2m and makes a great screen so it would be a great one to put in the back yard across our back fence.

Before we left home we planted out quite a number of plants that we had bought the previous Sunday.  We'd spent too much money on them to just let them die, and had to get them into the ground.  


We chose the garden along the front of the house.  It has needed attention for ages now - it has been difficult to get it looking the way I want it to.  At one end we have a sacred bamboo, which is a reliable anchor and source of green.  At the other end where the garden turns to go along the side of the house there are a couple of abelias.  


This garden has very poor soil, as all our gardens had to begin with.  When we bought the house   the developers had removed any topsoil that was there and we were presented with clay - red clay.  When you dug down through this red clay you came to - white clay.  So over the years we have put an enormous amount of effort and a considerable amount of money into improving the soil in the gardens by adding manure, blood and bone, compost, gypsum etc.  And we have mulched with mushroom compost and lately with sugar-cane mulch.  That's one thing that we have plenty of in Australia, and it is great to see good use made of something that used to be regarded as a waste product.  It's a terrific mulch too, and it breaks down and enriches the soil.


So - gardening lecture over lol!  I bought lots of plants to go in this garden and when I looked at them I realised - they were mostly pink and white.  We still need a couple of tall ones to go behind but I couldn't find just the right thing on Sunday 


Here is a photo of the length of the garden, looks rather odd because of the angle I held the camera. 

 It is still a bit of a mess because the rocks need to be fixed and we haven't cleared up the pots and things when I took this photo.  The bamboo is at the far left of the photo.  As you can see the plants are all quite small but hopefully they will grow quickly.  And it is a reasonably long garden - it goes right across our bedroom which is 14ft, then turns a corner and continues along the front of our son's bedroom and down the side of his bedroom too.  This section is just across our bedroom.   The row closest to the wall has the bamboo on the left, an Australian native with white flowers halfway along.  The small plant is a lavender that I put in the other day, Lavandula Avonview.  The tag says it's a compact (H80cm x W60cm), vigorous variety of Italian lavender that has deep purple flower spikes and aromatic foliage.  It sounded the perfect shrub to put under our bedroom window. 


Here in this second photo you can just catch a glimpse of one of the abelias at the corner of the garden, and peeking out from the corner of the wall is a large pot with a lilly-pilly planted in it.  

We have put that in a pot because nothing will grow in that corner.  We've tried all sorts of things over the years, without any success at all.  It is too sheltered by the eaves to receive any rain and it receives the full westerly sun in the afternoons.  Also the footings for the house extend right into the area. Being in a  self-watering pot we are having more success with this shrub.  In front of that corner of the wall is where I am considering putting the Anisodontica 'Raspberry' though I didn't really allow enough room for that when I planted the little plants out.  Hmmmm.

One of the  two kinds of plants in the middle row is this Madiera Pink Crested, botanical name Argyranthemum frutescens.  It is a daisy as you can see, and has semi-double flowers.  It reaches around 70cm so it's a good middle-row size

.The cosmos seedlings that are scattered around and between these are 'Purity', a dwarf variety also reaching 60-70cms.  I love the white of these flowers, adding a sparkle to the garden.

I've alternated the Madiera daisies with Amerias, planted slightly further forward because they only grow to 15cm with a spread of 40cm.  

They are in a range of pinks, and I like the textural contrast of the fine, grass-like foliage.  The ball-shaped flowers are also a change from my usual favourites which tend to be daisy-type or pea-shaped.  I'd like to add more of these later on to fill out the   space a bit more.

This is a little spreading white-flowering plant.  I've put it on one corner in front of the bamboo.  The pot didn't have a label or else I've left it at home but it is a rockery plant and spreads to around 40cm.  

As another bit of a contrast to the pink and white I've put in one of these Felicia amelloides, which flowers almost all year round.  It looks a bit sad in this photo, so I hope it brightens up while I'm away.  

Yes, it is another daisy-shaped flowers, quite bright blue petals surrounding the golden centres.  and there are some blue lobelia plants in as well, already flowering brightly.


When I laid out the pots, I wanted to follow the curve of the garden with these white border plants alternating with some white verbena.  However in the planting some of the curve seems to have been lost vbg.  But the rocks needs re-setting anyway so I will fill in the curves with more little annuals in white.  

I'd also like to get hold of a few Dianella 'Little Gem' which is an Aussie native.  It is blue and would go wherever we could find a space.  We fell in love with the Dianella variety in Western Australia but I don't know whether it would grow in our soils.  Hopefully this type will since it is in the nursery here.


There are a couple of these Ornithogalum, or Star of Bethlehem put right in the front of the curves in suitable spaces between the rock edges,  to be further white highlights.  They are supposed to bloom early adding an early splash of colour.

That space just along from  the corner is an option for the Anisodonka Raspberry that I showed you at the start of the post; the garden needs a bit of height there.  I'd even consider a climber on the wall.


In the backyard we've put two more pink daisies into pots to go on each side of the garden seat.  These ones are Federation Daisies, 'Summer Stars', main flowering time is spring and autumn but flower throughout the year.  Did I mention that I like daisies?


This area of the backyard has a jacaranda tree and around the base there are native violets.  A birdbath sits among the violets and so do two fairies with a sign 'There are fairies at the bottom of my garden'.  The garden bench is under the tree during summer when the leaves cover it to provide shade, and it gets the sun in winter.  It all sounds idyllic and pretty when I write about it but unfortunately our back yard needs lots of work still done on it and I am determined that it will look much prettier by this time next year.


We have left strict instructions with our nephew (he lives with us) that the gardens and pots must be watered thoroughly while we are away so they don't die.  He knows that I will not be happy if they don't survive and he doesn't enjoy life when his Auntie Sandie isn't happy so hopefully he will remember and water with the hose for a decent time instead of a token dribble with the watering can. 

A warm welcome to two new followers....and visitors to our garden

Welcome Hanna and Traci

I am delighted with the way this mini community is growing and feel honoured - I wonder how you all find out about this little ramble of mine. You are so welcome Hanna and Traci, thank you for visiting and becoming Followers. I have visited your lovely blogs too and there are many lovely things to look at there. Sorry it has taken so long to post this welcome, I've been waiting to finish off a few things to take photos of the cottages but it has been delaying it too long - so again, you are welcome and thanks!

Some of our favourite visitors to our garden

 Rainbow Lorikeets fly overhead and are in the trees around our house but there is just one family that visit our back garden.  sometimes it's just the parents, sometimes they have a young one with them.  I love lorikeets.  I know they are hated in areas where they have been introduced and have become a pest, but here they are in their natural habitat and they are lovely.They are so cheeky, I really like their call though it isn't the most beautiful.  They can be tamed to come and eat out of your hand but we haven't tried to do that.  When we go out of our kitchen door to watch them they squawk at us in protest but at least they don't fly away any more and gradually they are getting used to us getting a bit closer. We don't feed them, but want to provide lots of native plants to encourage them to the garden.

We have a Robyn Gordon grevillea growing by the fence at the end of the little porch at the back of our house and it attracts nectar-feeding birds. There are constant territorial squabbles with the Wattle Birds complaining about any other bird coming into the grevillea and the lorikeets arguing back.  Eastern spinebills and tiny nectar-eating birds which we call 'greenies' and yellow-crested honeyeaters also love this grevillea, which at the moment is about 8-9 ft high.  It is difficult to choose a time to prune it back because it never stops flowering.  The birds love it and we love watching the birds.

 

Recently I was watching the antics of two of them and took my camera to the door to try for some photos. One of the birds was working the rear of the shrub, one was more to the front. He stopped to have a look at me then went on with his search for nectar.

When they get into the shrub, they do all sorts of acrobatics to get to the nectar in the flowers - it is really amusing to watch.  But can be difficult to get a photograph!  I was clicking away for quite a while to get some nice clear ones like this on the left.

I moved down off the porch and onto the grass, very slowly while he kept an eye on me.  After a while he stopped occasionally, looked at me and squawked.  I spoke back and he squawked again, then went on searching for nectar.

Finally though, the bird had had enough.  It stopped feeding and looked at me with its beady eye, staring hard.  I spoke to it and it squawked back.  We repeated the exchange several times.  If I lowered the camera, it relaxed.  When I raised the camera it squawked me lol.  In the end, when moving right out to the end of the branch and staring fixedly at me didn't work, he gave a final screech and flew off.  But he was back within the half hour and regularly every day since so obviously it didn't put him off too much,.  And he is getting used to us being out and around in the back yard - just doesn't like that camera!