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/