Bulb Time! Tulips & Daffodils

Today was bulb planting day. A freezing day, the first day of winter in fact, but the sun was shinning.

I'd been chilling my flower bulbs in the fridge for the last 4 weeks & they were now ready to plant.

I had various helpers with me today. While getting everything together & organised I had baby girl. Little boy helper helped briefly & then told me he didn't want to help anymore & wanted to watch Pingu. Then baby girl went for her nap & Siamese cat stayed with me for the rest of the time. A bit of time with everyone.

I had 8 tulip bulbs, 3 daffodil bulbs & 3 little pots.

Baby girl tried to eat the daffodil packet for a second there!

Baby girl gone, enter Siamese cat. I found him sleeping in my climbing rose pot.

I couldn't decide which flower to put in what pot. Decided on 3 tulips in the long terracotta pot, the 5 remaining tulips in the round terracotta pot & the 3 daffodils in the glazed pot.

 

Siamese helper basically sleeping. Not a very good helper.

This is my first time planting bulbs. From my research I've learned that you can grow them in pots, you can bunch them together somewhat, you have got to get them in before the winter & they benefit from a good 4-6 weeks of chilling in your fridge. Once the spring comes they just need the rise in temperature & sun & out the flowers come.

 

I planted them a couple of bulbs deep & covered them with good quality potting mix.

 

 

And here they are, all sleeping inside their pots just waiting for the magic of spring. Just typing about spring makes me feel warm & happy & I can just smell the tomato leaves & roses. My favourite season.

Put the glazed pot with the daffodils here between my rose & coffee plant.

 

And the tulips I put on my other balcony. One next to my oregano & owl. It's supposed to scare off possums. Yeah, right!

Put the Rest of the tulips in between my parsley & standard fuschia.

 

And then watered them all in.

 

Done.

Can't wait for spring. So many wonderful things to look forward to this year. Tulips & daffodils. New maple leaves on my 3 Japanese maples. New flowers on my fuchsia plants. Yellow, antique pink & apricot roses (they will not be eaten by possums this spring, even if I have to cover them with a blanket every night! I will have roses this spring!!) & another season of tomatoes. If I'm lucky I might get some peaches from my dwarf tree this summer & maybe even some coffee beans from my coffee plant.

But now is the time of quiet & cold. Hurry up & pass winter.

Stay warm gardeners,

Bel

Autumn/Winter Garden End of May 2012

Just got back from my veggie patch. It's is freezing out there today! I've been looking out over my patch for a few weeks but with all the rain & cold weather, today was the first time I'd been down there for a while. I trained a few pea plants up their trellis that had fallen flat on the floor & I ate my first snow pea! Yum, nothing like home grown veggies from your own plant.

Harvested some spinach to go in a salad today & some parsley to go in a bechamel sauce for a lasagna. Here are a few photos of how everything is looking now.

My parsley & spinach harvest.

Snow peas climbing slowly.

Whoever was eating the spinach seemed to have stopped, so it's growing once again. Might be too cold for spinach stealing at the moment.

Here's a nice little silver beet plant. I have no idea why this plant is green & all the other silver beet are red?? They came from the same seed packet. If you know, please let me know.

Little silver beet plants. Slow growing.

Parsley & garlic much the same.

The sugar snap peas are looking a bit sad at the bottom, but the tops are very healthy. I'm not sure if this is a problem, but they are flowering, so perhaps it's ok.

 

My Autumn/Winter patch end of May 2012. Things seem to be progressing very slowly. I wonder if it's the cold weather & winter plants grow slower than warm weather plants? If you know, please leave me a comment & let me know if I'm right.

Still haven't done anything about that poorly laid soaker hose. I blame all the rain.

My backyard is a blanket of lush, green clover at the moment & it's really very pretty.

Thanks for reading,

Bel

A New Maple, Rose & a Little Bush

Lots of new things for my balcony the last few days. My last post I repotted my sango kaku, which left me with a big beautiful red glazed pot to fill with something new.

Many posts ago I planted a dahlia in an old pot & didn't wash it. I believe I said something like "I like living on the edge" & "I'm sure it will be fine" or something like that.

Well, it wasn't fine. Not too sure if it was the unwashed pot or if it were to happen anyway, but my dahlia was ravaged by fungus or mildew or something a month or so later, so this time, I washed my old pot!

Little helper was in helping again. I used some bleach & water to wash the pot.

 

Baby girl watching from the side.

Then I gave it a good rinse with water. Little helper finished the job.

 

The next day the 3 of us paid a visit to Bunnings. Little helper fell asleep in the car on the way back, so in his bed he went & baby girl & I did some potting up together. Girl gardening time.

She was happy about it!

At Bunnings I bought a Nandina bush, some rose & terracotta potting mix, a little terracotta pot, some more pot feet & some stones. I had my Gold Bunny rose to pot up from the the other day & I received my mothers day maple.

I knew it was going to be a baby when I asked for it, as it didn't carry the price tag of my sango kaku or inaba shidare, however, I laughed when I saw how small it actually was! One day, it will be a mighty tree & I have plenty of time to watch it grow.

My new maple's full name is Acer shirasawanum 'aureum'. Here's a picture of its leaves (photo courtesy of squirrelbasket.wordpress.com). Aureum Is an upright Japanese maple.

I love the shape & how bright the leaves are. Gorgeous.

So, below is a photo of all my new purchases ready to go, plus baby helper.

Gotta watch out when they start to get mobile, they snatch your shrubs!

Onto the business of potting my plants & baby tree.

I started off by soaking my dormant rose in a bucket of water for about 20 minutes.

While the rose was soaking, I made use of an old black glazed pot I've had empty for some time & filed it with my newly purchased nandina bush.

I've been buying so many decorative flowers & trees, I decided I needed a little shrub to break it all up. I wanted a nandina fire power, which is a gorgeous shrub that has bright red leaves. They didn't have any so I bought a different variety that does have orange leaves, but not as bright as the fire power. Maybe next time I'll buy the more vibrant one.

My old black pot.

Nandina out of its pot,

and into it's new one.

 

I like it. It's a sweet litle bush & it's different to what I'm doing at the moment on my balcony.

Little shrub done, now onto my Gold Bunny rose. I filled sango kaku's old red glazed pot with rose specific potting mix & in it went. I've gone completely pebble crazy at the moment. Mainly because every time I go to Bunnings lately there are bags of stones & pebbles for $2 each. I just can't pass it up & I love the way they look. So I added some green stones as mulch to my Gold Bunny rose.

 

 

Next I potted up my tiny Japanese maple. I filled a little terracotta pot with terracotta potting mix, perlite & some slow release fertiliser. I purchased a simple, small pot to start with & when my baby tree starts to get big, I'll buy a really nice glazed pot for it to live in.

Here's my stick, I mean, tree.

Gold stones added as mulch. See, stone crazy!

I had some left over green & gold stones so I added some to my standard fuchsia & some to my standard Just Joey rose.

This is my other balcony. My standard fuchsia is first up the front, then I have thyme, parsley, my new maple, a heavily pruned fuchsia & a standard rosemary. I don't like the look of the netting around the balcony, but it makes it safe for my kids, so I leave it for now. It's not forever.

Right up front here is my dwarf peach tree.

Here's the gold stones in my standard Rose's pot on my other balcony. I can't stand the rose's awful plastic pot. I will be repotting it once I have some spare cash for a prettier pot.

Here's a couple of before photo's of this balcony before the new additions & a little rearranging.

 

Before..

And as it looks today.

 

 

It's kinda cool isn't it? I love all the stones. It gives it an Asian feel.

Hope you enjoyed my latest post.

Be well & happy,

Bel