Drowning in Roses

Strawberries and zuccini

Lobelia, pansies and borage

Nepeta "Six Hills Giant", lavender, artemesia

Icebergs

The front garden has repaid all my effort this year a thousand-fold. Bees and butterflies buzz and flutter amidst a tumbling profusion of miniature, bush and standard roses as well as catmint, pansies and cosmos. The sea-foam roses are as frothy as their name suggests and they are happily drowning the dying daffodil leaves I wrote about in my last post. 

A couple of years ago I planted lemon-scented geranium next to the front gate. The plant is not remarkable in its beauty, but the idea was that one would release the intoxicating lemonade scent when brushing past the leaves. Unfortunately violent crushing, rather than elegant brushing, was required to release the scent. I left the geranium where it was, despite the failed experiment and it took over that area of the garden with its straggly, springy stems. I pulled it out last weekend and transferred the lavender grosso from the back garden as a substitute. I also planted some pale blue, pink and white petunias. Vita would be horrified. I'm fairly confident she would hate petunias. 

Lavender Grosso and petunias 

About a month ago I sowed some heirloom tomato seeds I found that were out of date. They all germinated, so I have planted them out in a pot and in the back rose garden with a some basil seedlings. I removed most of the pomegranate tree a few weeks ago because it did nothing and threw one of the roses in the shade. I left a little bit, which is still growing and I will train a small tree. The formerly overshadowed rose, a pale pink, very droopy David Austin, is now flowering for the first time.

Die, daffodils, die

My husband is horrified by the title of this post, as daffodils are his favourite flowers. I love them too, but I don't love them dying a long and grisly death all over my lovely spring blooms. The problem is, you can't cut the leaves back or tie them up until they are well and truly brown and dead, according to Googleculture. Daffodils gather lots of nutrients for flowering the next year as the plant dies. So, it's best just to camoflage them with annuals. They are ready to remove when you pull the leaves and they come out easily. You can give them a feed then, too.

Dying daffodils remind me of those messy women you see at this time of year staggering and splatting at the races. 

Did I mention I killed most of the parsley seedlings a few weeks ago by planting them out in almost pure cow manure? Well I did. I waited a bit and then spread some potting mix over the top and planted the cottage blue salvia seedlings in the same spot today. Here are some of the pink roses that have started blooming:

Cecil Brunner 

Bonnica 

Mary Rose 

Pale pink Iceberg

Sharifa Asma 

Pinks

I've had a big weekend. Once upon a time that meant too much stolly and bolly and a hangover to match. Now it means hours of crouching in the dirt planting seedlings, pulling out weeds and creating eons of bad karma by squishing aphids on rosebuds.

Parsley for tabbouli and salsa. Theoretically. Probably I will just look at it and pick a spring or two to chuck on top of veges when I remember. 

These pansies have been thriving for months. Something is eating lots of them and I deadhead them regularly and either of those things is promoting lots of new flowers. 

Pinks

I bought some dianthus chinensis x barbatus seedlings called 'Devotion'.  Also known as sweet william, pinks, gillyflower, cottage pink, carnation and clove pinks, Shakespeare called them "nature's bastards" in A Winter's Tale, perhaps because of the ease with which they hybridise. A friend once told me the purest white in nature is a white carnation. I'm not sure if that's true but it's a nice idea. 

I sowed some more cosmos, this time pink, red and white ones from Fothergills called 'Sensation Mixed'. 

http://mrfothergills-seeds-bulbs.com.au/Cosmos-Sensation-Mixed.html

Calla Lilies or Zantedeschia aethiopica are a new bulb for our garden. They are native to east Africa and their natural habitat is river banks and damp areas, so we'll see. Will have to try and keep them damp so they at least have a chance. Anyway, I planted one bulb called 'Romeo', which will be pink in the front garden and a yellow one called 'Florex Gold', which sounds like a dangerous chemical, in the back garden. 

Calla lily bulb

http://www.gardenexpress.com.au/calla-lily-romeo/

Give Fruit a Chance

Impetuosity when gardening equals failure and dejection. Actually, impetuosity in life often equals failure and dejection. But this is a gardening blog, not a philosophy blog, so I will stick to seedlings. Today I planted out a multitude of Queen Anne's Lace, Nigella and Blue Lace Flower seedlings. Most had developed true leaves, but some still only had their seed leaves, so who knows whether they will survive the trauma of being transplanted. I thought about waiting until they were bigger to give them a better chance and then thought, what the hell.

I also cleared some grass away from the peach and an apple tree, fertilised each of them with a kilo of rose food, watered the fertiliser in and mulched them. The peach did not fruit at all last year, hopefully this year it will, so I can wander out in January, pick random fruit that I have failed to protect with a net and then throw them in the compost, having been half-eaten by birds and inhabited by insects. The forget-me-nots are blooming, as are the azaleas, jasmine, lavendar and daisies.

Forget-me-not

Bluebells 

Bluebells always remind me of Lord Denning, who began his judgment in Hinz v Berry [1970] 2 QB 40 with, "It happened on April 19, 1964. It was bluebell time in Kent". I have always been thankful for that segue.

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/bluebells-in-kent-a64581/

Nasturtiums

Growing up in Mosman, nasturtiums (Tropeolum majus) were something that just were in the landscape. Tumbling over garden walls and scrambling over the ground in parks and gardens, I never thought of anyone actually planting them, let alone that there were different cultivars. The round leaves are a nice, peppery addition to a salad and the flowers are pretty and edible, too. When I was a child I loved sucking the nectar from the base of the flowers and eating the occasional leaf when I was playing in the garden.

They self seed easily, hence thinking they were a weed as a child. Actually, they probably are classed as a weed. Nasturtiums are originally from South America.

Here is a blue violet, with lobelia and borage in the background. Nasturiums would look great with these colours, but I don't allow any yellow or orange in that part of the garden except for the odd daffodil.

The sun is finally peaking out after a whole weekend of rain. I managed to weed the back rose bed where the nasturtiums grow, along with some blue Triteleia that I bunged in in about April 2013 after I found the bulbs neglected and sprouting in a bag in the potting area. 

Next week I hope to remove the grass from the base of the apple and citrus trees, fertilise them and mulch them and you never know, maybe we'll be eating our own apples in autumn. 

Stupid things I did in the garden today

I accidentally almost ripped out a lavander that was already stressed because it hadn't been watered for ages. I trod on another lavander and snapped the biggest stem. And I put weeds that had gone to seed in the compost.

On a brighter note, the some of the lace flower seeds have germinated and the blue part of the garden is coming along. I added a borage officianalis. I sowed salvia 'Cottage Blue' seeds, cosmos and Italian parsley. The salvia and cosmos will look gorgeous together. I sowed most of the seeds in trays, but sprinkled some around the new climbing iceberg, because I have to water that every day for six weeks, so the cosmos seeds will be kept damp enough to germinate. This is assuming I remember/can be bothered watering the Iceberg every day. Big assumption.

14 January 2012

 The lavandula x intermedia 'Grosso' was not the best choice for a hedge lavander, because it is quite small and since I think I killed two of them today, I might move the rest and replace them with a larger lavander or even something entirely different.

31 August 2014

Icebergs and artemesia

Bought and planted two Artemesia arborescens 'Powis Castle' ($11), commonly known as wormwood, from which absinthe is made. It needs regular pruning to keep it tidy and should be cut back to base in winter. It can be propogated from hardwood cuttings. I bought it for it's silver foliage.

Powis Castle is in Wales, by the way.

The garden is ready for spring. The man at the rose shop talked me out of buying blood and bone and dynamic lifter for the roses and convinced me to buy "Better Bloom" instead. Fifty dollars for 10kg and $55 for Lucerne Hay for mulch, so it was a very expensive day.

Artemesia in the foreground. The scrubby, pathetic looking thing at the back is a lavander that was overshadowed by a rosemary hedge and didn't get enough sun or water. I can't bring myself to pull it out. 

Mulched with Lucerne Hay and ready for spring. 

I also planted a climbing Iceberg ($20), probably a bit far from the fence. The rose was bare-rooted and first I soaked the roots in a weak solution of Seasol, then planted with some well-rotted cow manure and soil and wet the soil until it was like a slurry. This removes any air-pockets around the roots. I am supposed to give it nine litres (a watering can full) of water daily for six weeks and fertilise in about three weeks time.

Lessons learned

The Queen Anne's Lace (QAL) and Nigella seeds have germinated, but not the Blue Lace Flower (BLF). The BLF seeds are in the same mini-greenhouse as the QAL and I need to give the QAL some air now but not the BLF. So lesson-do not sow two different types of seed in the same mini-greenhouse because they may germinate at different times and then need different conditions to grow.

The Nigella seedlings have little furry things on them which I really hope is not mould. It has been teeming with rain now all day and so the now uncovered QAL seedlings will be saturated, which will pre-dispose them to rot. It's amazing anything survives at all, really, especially with me looking after them.

Queen Anne's Lace seedlings. If I leave the plastic mini-greenhouse lid on now they have germinated, then will grow long and thin trying to reach proper sunlight. 

Nigella seedlings. Apparently they hate being transplanted. I didn't read that bit of the instructions until after I sowed them in the tray.

Yesterday I ordered more Russian Sage, again because I failed to read the whole blurb when I ordered the first one, which explained they looked better and fared better in groups. I also ordered A

"Sweet Lili", also known as Hummingbird Mint, which is a gorgeous pink tinged with apricot. 

Image: http://lambley.com.au/plant/agastache-sweet-lili

I am trying to decide on a white climbing rose for the sort-of white garden next to the front fence and after much research have decided a white Iceberg is probably the best option. I have a mental picture of a garden connoisseur friend rolling her eyes when she reads this, but the other roses I have looked at are not sufficiently white or may not suitable for Sydney's humidity. I would rather not learn the hard way while watching black spot decimate the plant. Here is a Mlle Sombreuil:

Very pretty and Old Rosey, but too cream. Another lovely one is Lemarque:

http://www.treloarroses.com.au 

This Claire Austin is lovely. Grows 1.5m high and can be trained as a moderate climber:

http://www.treloarroses.com.au/

And here is the Climbing Iceberg:

http://www.love-of-roses.com/Iceberg.html

Agapanthus et al

We take agapanthus for granted in Australia. It is everywhere and classed in some parts as a weed, so the eye just passes over it. I looked at agapanthus anew when I was researching blue plants. They are also known as 'Lily of the Nile', which is romantic, but innacurate, considering they come from South Africa and I remember reading they were brought to Australia with the First Fleet.

There are quite a few varieties available now and last week I bought two 'Queen Mum' agapanthus, a blue and white variety: 

Agapanthus orientalis 'PMN06'

I also love the agapanthus Bressingham Blue, but I'm not sure that it's available in Australia:

I was pleasantly surprised to see agapanthus at Sissinghurst, near the purple border. The White Garden features white ones in July.

Today I 1threw a couple of handfuls of cow manure around each of the front garden roses and then watered with Seasol. I planted a white Lavandula pendunculata, referred to as "butterfly lavander" because of the petal wings that appear above the foliage. I also planted some Pansy x wittrockiana in front of the lobelia, which are a gorgeous vivid blue (of course). I just read that lavanders should be given a yearly feed of Calcium and Magnesium, both present in dolomite lime.

A violet transplanted from the family home in Burradoo is thriving around a camellia grown from a cutting in the same garden:

The camellia is middle top and the plant in the foreground with oval leaves is a blueberry.

The success of the violet has prompted me to think about using more ground covers as mulch. There are lots to choose from, for example Ajuga reptans, Vinca minor (periwinkle),  and Geranium macrorrhizum. I have some Lamium maculatum, again from cuttings from Burradoo and some geranium, the latter of which is very pretty but dies if not watered for too long. Any groundcover I choose will have to be tough, because it will live under the Camellia sasanqua hedge that borders three sides of the back garden and will have to survive on rain-water after it has settled in. 

Blue Annuals-3 August 2014

Sowing seeds is much, much cheaper than buying plants but it also requires a bit of effort at different stages. If you're like me, the biggest effort is remembering to water the seeds once they're sown, rather than becoming distracted by work or other pass-times, then wandering out to the potting area weeks later to see dry dirt and not one speck of green. Writing this post is part of my attempt to remember my little seeds, the other method being post-it notes and crossed fingers.

The green lid on the bottle is specially designed so you can sprinkle water gently onto seeds so as not to displace them. 

I usually buy proper seed-raising mix which contains fertiliser and fine particles which adhere better to the seed. I buy the mix, but here is a recipe for home-made mix. I sowed Trachymene coerulea (Blue Lace Flower), Nigella damascena (Love-in-a-Mist Blue) and Ammi majus (Queen Anne's Lace). The nursery from which I bought the seed states that you can "sow direct", meaning you just sow it straight into the garden where you want it to grow, however that rarely works for me, because you MUST keep the seeds moist, otherwise they won't germinate. Not sopping wet, either. Just moist. 

I cast the seed on top of the mix, then patted it down and sprinkled a fine layer of mix over the top of some and vermaculite on others. I want to compare to see if one method is better than the other. Then I thoroughly moistened the seeds and mix and placed a mini-greenhouse over them to keep them warm. When the seeds germinate, I will prop the lids of the greenhouse open to give the baby plants some air. 

Place the trays in bright light out of direct sun.

By H. Zell (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Nigella damascena by Louise Docker from sydney, Australia (Twisted) via Wikimedia Commons

Flower, Blue lace flower - Flickr - nekonomania

When life gives you lemons

Lemons are synonomous with the Mediterranean, but it wasn't always like that. It was not all that easy to find reliable information on the history of the lemon in the Mediterranean on the internet. I have read some of my gardening encyclopedias and hunted down articles and it seems that lemons were not known in ancient Rome and Greece. Theophrastus, Aristotle's successor and the first man to attempt to create a taxonomy of plants, doesn't describe lemons, but he does describe citrons, a huge, thick-skinned fruit that was either revered or reviled. Lemons are not mentioned in the bible, either, but citrons are. 

So the "lemon trees" that I found when I googled "lemon trees in ancient Roman frescoes" are probably citron trees, or even quince trees. Probably quince trees, actually. The picture below was taken in the Villa of Livia in Rome, which was first built around the first century BC. 

"Livia Prima Porta 08" by Miguel Hermoso Cuesta - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Lemons were introduced to Europe by the muslims and were grown in Sicily by 1000AD. The ancients did, however, have vinegar and perhaps thats how they satisfied their taste for sour things. 

A year or two ago I hard-pruned my lemon tree and this year I harvested a ridiculous number of lemons. Now to use them. This weekend I will make a joue de boeuf en daube provencale, beef stew with lemons. I made a honey and lemon mask this afternoon, which is supposed to lighten the skin and fight pimples. My pimple days are over but it tasted yummy and felt quite decadent. 

I am going to make some lemon marmalade and lemon infused olive oil. For the latter, just simmer the zest of one lemon in 3/4 olive oil for about 20 minutes, then strain the oil into a jar or bottle and store in the fridge for up to two weeks. The recipe is from a gorgeous site called Souvlaki for the Soul and contains beautifully composed photos as well as great recipes. I will also make some preserved lemons, using a recipe by Claudia Rodin.

The bright green branches start where the branches were pruned

Lobelia erinus

Today I bought five lobelia erinus for $10 (Aus). There were no labels on the pots, so I'm not sure what cultivar they are, but one was a bluey-purple and the others an intense ultramarine, my favourite colour. They are native to southern Africa and I am yet to find a photo on the internet that does justice to their colour. Here is a photo I took the other day of a neighbour's lobelia. 

This Wikipedia article describes the different shades of blue. The ultramarine originally used in painting was made from high quality ground lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. It was very expensive and artists usually needed wealthy patrons to buy it for them. The pigment was often used to colour the Virgin Mary's robes in paintings. The painting below, by Sassaferrato, appears in the National Gallery's Making Colour exhibition, which examines colour in art. 

Ipomoea purpurea, or Morning Glory is no doubt classed as a weed in Sydney, but the colour of the flowers is divine. 

Cobalt blue pots can make a nice contrast in the garden. Might try some deep orange nasturtiums and sapphire coloured lobelia trailing from a blue pot. The Empress of India nasturtium is a dark, rich orange. Here is a photo from the Diggers Club website: