Category: Roses

Autumn in the Garden

15/5/2014

Here in southern Australia, autumn is a beautiful time. The weather is more stable. We experience lovely days and cool crisp nights. I like deciduous trees. I have an October Maple, another maple, two silver birches, a paper birch and some fruit trees. They are all in the process of colouring and dropping their leaves. Autumn leaves carpet the back yard - love them!

I just took these photos of my garden. Hope you like them.

Usually there are a lot more flowers in the garden but it is a bit empty this year.

A Hollyhock plant is growing well at the moment. Its leaves are about 15cm (6in) across. I am looking forward to some beautiful flowers there in spring.

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Gardening at Easter

23/4/2014

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Enjoying a day in the garden

It was busy and yet quiet at Easter this year. Some days were very busy and others were quiet.

On the quiet days I enjoyed pottering in the garden. It is Autumn time here on the south coast of Australia and the weather has been more stable. We had a week of light rain then a week of warmer weather and sunshine, just the weather to make plants grow.

I have been working on replanting a garden bed in the front yard. This bed faces south and so it gets pretty cold with icy southerly winds for six months of the year. The other six months of the year it gets baking hot. The soil gets so hard that it is impossible to get a spade into it.

I am not one to water my front garden much so the plants MUST be very hardy. There are a couple of roses that have lasted there for years, a daisy bush - can you actually kill daisy bushes? and some red valerian. That is so hardy. It has thick roots under the ground that nourish it whatever the weather.

It is a good time to plant bulbs so that they will be ready to flower in springtime. I had bought five big, plump, round hyacinth bulbs. They looked like purple onions. I am looking forward to the deep purple colour and the magnificent perfume in the future.

To get these bulbs ready for planting, I soaked them in water and homeopathic 'Plant Strengthener' for 24 hours along with a little hydrogen peroxide. These were then drained and left to sit for a couple of days. Tiny white roots started to emerge like a corona from the bottom of the bulbs.

I took a sheet of paper towel, dampened it, and sat the bulbs on it for another couple of days while I watched the roots growing.

Plant Strengthener is available here

Self Watering Pots
On one of the quiet days over Easter, the bulbs were planted in a self watering hanging basket. I just love self watering pots. The plant always has access to as much water as it wants yet doesn't get waterlogged. Air can still get in between the bottom of the soil and the water level. Also watering can be intermittent. They are good for the forgetful gardener.

Preparing the Soil
The soil was also especially prepared. I used the following:

potting mix
vermiculite
perlite
blood and bone
water saving granules
epsom salts

This was mixed up and the bulbs were layered into it. They were well watered and left to sit in a sheltered spot for a few days. They will find their new hanging space when they start popping out of the soil.

Encouraging Young Gardeners
One of the youngest members of our family, a little two year old, checks out some pots of bulbs each week when she comes to visit. She is so excited to see how they have grown each week. It's a great way to instil a love of gardening into the next generation.

Plant Strengthener is available here

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Cécile Brunner, The Sweetheart Rose

19/3/2014

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Here is a lovely rose growing in my garden.
It is flowering prolifically at the moment and I couldn't resist taking a video of it.

The Cécile Brunner rose is named after the lady who bred it 100 years ago.
It was so pretty and perfumed that it was also called The Sweetheart Rose.

It was a favourite in the gardens of our Grandmother's times.

More details below the video.

Enjoy

Height
The original rose grows about 1 metre (3ft) tall.
Mine is a tall variety growing 3-4 metres tall (9-12ft).

Flowering Time
The original rose flowers for a month in springtime.
The tall variety has many flushes of flowers throughout the year.

Varieties
Bush rose growing 1 metre tall - 3ft
Climbing variety
Tall variety growing 3-4 metres tall - 9-12ft

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Climbing Roses and Good Neighbors

21/2/2014

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Beautiful golden climbing rose

We are lucky to enjoy this lovely golden climbing rose. It belongs to our neighbor and overlooks our courtyard. It gives us hundreds of roses most of the year round.

Our lovely neighbor keeps the rose in trim and when he prunes on his side he comes and prunes on our side of the fence as well. What more could we ask for.

Even after this golden climbing rose has been trimmed it has a show of beautiful, deep red leaves as the new growth comes along. These are also spectacular.

He also has a lovely red rose that does not come through the lattice. Funny, that.

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Garden Blossoms

30/1/2014

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There is always something flowering in the garden. Throughout the hot summer weather with days reaching into the mid 40 degrees in temperature, only the hardiest flowers bloom.

Roses, yellow Evening Primrose and purple Lavender still bloom. Some orange Watsonia has been flowering but its leaves were hit in the 46 degree heat. Pelargoniums will always flower. There are lots of colours of these.

My Peace Lily has been moved out to a new covered courtyard and is settling in well. It has more elegant, white flowers than it has ever had. I think it likes the increased light.

My Begonia has had a severe trim and been moved outside in the courtyard also. It has responded with lots of pale orange waxy flowers.

Enjoy these flowers from my garden.

Pictured are Peach tree blossom, Wallflower, Kiss-me-quick - an old fashioned, self seeding flower and Senecio, White rose, Lobelia, Alogoyne - an Australian hibiscus, and yellow rose.

Next there comes a daisy, wattle, climbing rose and hot pink cyclamen.

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Roses and Mosaics

28/11/2013

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Mosaic Bowl

No, this is not a posed photograph.

Some years ago I spent many an hour decorating this earthenware dish with pretty mosaics. I do love colour.

For a few years this bowl sat beneath the tap in my front garden filled with water for the wild birds. They came to drink and to have a bath in the hot Australian summer.

More recently it has been scrubbed up and is now used to feed my hens in the afternoon. if you look closely you will see little seeds still in the bowl.

The hens know that if they come to the back door about three or four o'clock they will get a handful of different seeds. it is a mixture of cracked corn, sunflower, millet and sorghum and whatever other seeds I find in my travels. it keeps the hens friendly.

Mary Rose
The bowl was placed on the lawn near my lovely Mary Rose rose. A stem of the rose bent over and lay beside the bowl. It had some buds on it so I left it lying there. A couple of days later it rewarded me with the sight of the flowers opening. I just couldn't resist taking a photo of it.

This rose grows well from cuttings so I have a few bushes dotted around the garden. It has a soft perfume and thorny stems. It was my first rose planted in my new garden when we moved to this home on the southern coast of Australia on the eastern side. we are only seven minutes walk from the pristine beaches that spread into the distance each way.

The wind is often cool here especially in the winter as we have about 420 kilometres (about 260 miles) of sea to the south of us before you reach land in Tasmania, our southern most state which is an island out in the ocean on its own. At the southern tip of Tasmania there is only cold, blowing, blustery winds across the swelling sea until you reach Antarctica.

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Author

I love growing flowers in my garden and sometimes make Flower Essences from them. They have great healing properties. Chickens adorn my backyard and give me much pleasure too.

My garden is free range like my chickens, there is no order here. All plants get along happily together.

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Let's Talk Health

WindowLane

The Bantam Blog

Autumn in the Garden

Gardening at Easter

Cécile Brunner, The Sweetheart Rose

Climbing Roses and Good Neighbors

Garden Blossoms

Roses and Mosaics

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