A warm winters day in the garden, plus new dahlias and amaryllises

After experiencing three frosty mornings in a row, it was a surprise yesterday when the temperature rose to a warm 15 degrees C. Today the temperature was the same, so I took advantage of it and spent half an hour walking around the garden taking photos. I didn't even need to wear a coat.

Some of the camelia bushes are in full flower now. They seem to think it is spring already. The red flowered camelia in the photo above has flowers that are larger than my hand. I picked one and put it in a vase to bring more colour into the house.

The white arum lilies are putting on a good show in the shade under the trees. 

There are so many trees and shrubs that I love, but I am finding it hard to find other plants that will survive underneath them. I found some real estate agent photos showing what our garden used to look like many years ago, before we moved here. The flower beds, which are 2 metres-wide, used to be full of perennial flowers, roses and small shrubs. The alder tree, which is now massive, was just a small sapling and the weeping pear (not-an-olive-tree) was about shoulder height.

The shrubs and trees now take up the whole flower bed space and cast shadows across the garden. However, they give us a lot of privacy from the neighbours as six properties overlook our garden. Without the trees it would make me feel rather exposed, especially since we used to live in the middle of 10 acres of land. Another advantage of the trees is that the shade cast by them gives us some respite from the heat of the sun in summer.

 

The viburnum is coming into flower now. Dad trimmed it back a bit earlier on in the year and he removed all the dead branches from the bottom. The growth is now a bit scraggy after its "haircut", so I think I will trim the bush harder to neaten it up once the flowers have faded. I am not sure when the best time would be to trim the viburnum, but I won't do it until all threat of frost has gone.

Two out of the four purple tibouchina cuttings, that we brought from our last house, are well established now and are flowering their hearts out. They are in sheltered positions and luckily didn't get hit by the wind and frosts.

The Chinese primulas, that we bought in spring last year, self-seeded and have started to flower which I am really pleased about. The slugs are pleased about it too by the look of the holes in their leaves! I may transplant the smallest of the seedlings into pots and grow them on until they are big enough to survive the slugs.

The orange abutilon (Chinese lantern tree) has grown massive since I planted it out. I need to stake it as it is on a sideways lean due to the strong winds we have had, and the soil being wet and soft in that corner hasn't helped either. 

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The neighbour's flowering quince is flowering, even better than last year, over the top of our fence, and the golden arctotis plants are starting to flower.

I have also been busy ordering more amaryllis bulbs and dahlia tubers online from the NZ Bulbs website. I bought 2 amaryllises and 6 dahlias which will be arriving late next month or early September. It is so exciting. 

The photos below of the amaryllises and dahlias are from the NZ Bulbs website.  

The amaryllises that I chose are:

- Dancing Queen  

- and Nymph 

The dahlias that I chose are:

- Cafe au Lait

- French Can Can

- Kenora Macop B

- Labyrinth

- Peaches and Cream

- and Tsuki-Yuri-No-Shisha

While I am waiting for these to arrive, I will be buying planters, stakes, potting mix and compost, ready for planting them. I will be putting all of these around the edge of the deck where they will get the most sunlight. I can't wait 😊.

                               

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Hugs, Rose xxx

Afternoon tea at my new desk

Today my new desk arrived! 

I have needed a new desk for a few years now because my 50-year-old formica-topped table was starting to fall to pieces. The back extending flap was beginning to fail, and I was in danger of losing my computer monitor which was sitting precariously on it.

Over 2 years ago I saw this desk online and fell in love with it. I dreamed of owning it and put a picture of it in my One Notes dream list app.  At the time the price was too high, for me, and I didn't think any more about it. Then at the beginning of this month, while I was browsing online, I saw that the desk was on sale with 40% off the original price. I couldn't believe my luck. 

The desk is made of solid oak and has 3 drawers. It is not as deep as my formica table, but it is much wider. 

I have also pre-ordered an oak floating shelf, for the back of the desk, to sit my monitor and speakers on. This will enable me to store my keyboard and mouse underneath the monitor when I want to do paperwork or crafting. The floating shelf should arrive mid-to-late August. Something else to look forward to 😊

After the delivery men assembled my desk and placed it in my room, I couldn't wait to set it up with my ornaments and computer monitor. There is plenty of room in the drawers for my A4 folders, notebooks, pens and anything else I am not using at the moment. 

The desk is a little bit high, so I added a cushion to my chair, and it is very comfortable.

Once everything was set up on my desk, I decided to have my afternoon tea there. I had English Breakfast tea in my Redoute Roses teacup, which my sister-in-law gave to me. And with it I had a couple of pieces of Ginger Slice which were yummy. It was lovely and I am so happy. 

I hope that you have kept well since my last post in April. My chest infection and collapsed lung cleared up after a couple of months and the x-rays came back normal. No more patches on my lung which is a big relief. As a result, things have been rather quiet here.

Winter is here now, and we have been experiencing some really nice days in-between the rainy squalls. The plants in the garden seem to think that it is Spring and we have had daffodils (Earlicheer) already flowering. And anemones, freesias, ranunculi and bluebells are poking their way through the ground.

I have been yearning to start gardening again due to the warmish weather. But the frosts are still to come (if we get any). A few days ago, I took some fuchsia cuttings from unusually early, new growth. The cuttings are keeping warm inside the house. I used rooting hormone to help them along. At least it has satisfied my gardening urge. 😊 On the next sunny day, I plan to take more cuttings of different shrubs to see what happens.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Lots of hugs, Rose xxx

Happy Easter 2025

 

Wishing you a very happy Easter and that you have lots of fun with friends and family. And don't forget the chocolate!

Lots of hugs, Rose xxx 

Happy New Year 2025!

Happy New Year to you and all visitors to my blog! 

I will catch up with you soon.

Lots of hugs, Rose xxx

Merry Christmas from Rose

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas. Have a wonderful time with family and friends. Keep well and safe over the holidays and I will see you again soon.

With lots of Hugs, Rose xxx

Making table decorations for my pre-Christmas lunch

 
I enjoyed myself, this past week, doing a little craft project. I decided to make Christmas cracker boxes for my pre-Christmas lunch table. Ones that I could fill with little treats and Christmas jokes for each of our guests.

I had thought of buying Christmas crackers from the shops, but the contents are never much good. So, instead I searched through hundreds of ideas on Pinterest, my go-to website for ideas on things to make. 

This little template appealed to me. It didn't link to a webpage, there was only the template with no instructions. But I managed to follow instructions from other pins for Christmas crackers to assemble it.

I re-sized the image and printed it onto glossy photopaper, one cracker box per page. 

It was easy to cut out with scissors, but I used a craft knife to cut out the internal diamond shapes. Then I folded the paper along the dotted lines and glued the tabs to the opposite side to form a tube.

I bought some thin red ribbon and tied a bow around the diamond ended parts which made it look like a Christmas cracker.

I left the bottom ends open so that I could fill each Christmas cracker box with Christmas chocolates and also Christmas jokes, which I printed from the internet. 

Then I closed the ends with a tiny dab of glue, so that the cracker boxes could be easily opened up to get the treats out.

Now I still need to iron my newly washed white tablecloths and napkins. And sort out my placemats, cutlery and dishes that I will be using. There is no hurry to do this as I still have 11 days to get ready.

The menu and the shopping list have been sorted, presents all wrapped and Christmas cards written. 

I have assembled the large Christmas tree, which needs the lights and decorations to be put on. For some reason it feels like a bit of an effort to do this year. Maybe it's just because it is so hot at the moment.

But I have decorated my little Christmas tree on my bedside table with vintage ornaments and some of the little paper house decorations that I made for the dining table last year.

And I have tidied up my desk and made it look Christmassy 🎄

I hope that you are enjoying yourself during the run up to Christmas this year, 

and that things are not too hectic.

See you again soon,

Hugs, Rose xxx

Flowers in my garden mid-Spring

This Spring the amaryllis flowers are amazing. There are 19 stems of flowers in-all and they have grown really tall. Their red trumpets are huge and look like rich velvet. I have never seen them do this well before. Maybe the mild Winter had something to do with their success. 

This is the gravel pathway between the house and garage where we grow plants in pots and tubs and also raise new cuttings.

The clematis is also doing well, it is absolutely full of pretty blue flowers. We love it so much that we have bought 3 more in different colours. One has buds on and the other 2 are madly climbing up their stakes. I will take some photos of them when they flower.

We also bought a red mandevilla plant, it has lots of new growth on it and quite a few buds.

We're not sure where we're going to plant the mandevilla. It may look good growing up the fence at the front of the house. Or we may put it in a large plant pot and keep it where it is.

This yellow snapdragon plant has been growing and successfully flowering for over 3 years.

We didn't know that snapdragons could be grown as perennials. We trim each stem, when it has finished flowering, to just below the seedheads, and leave the plant alone through Winter.

Dad has created a new flowerbed at the side of the water tanks. We are planting hydrangeas, foxgloves and aquilegia here as it is quite shady under the fruit trees.

This flower bed now joins the existing bed where the arctotis and cineraria grow.

And the flowerbed continues around one of the lime trees to where we have planted white irises and phlomis. 

Dad is going to widen the iris bed and I have ordered more irises in different colours to go here. They will be arriving in late January, so there is plenty of time to prepare.

The abutilons that we planted at the far corner of the garden are growing well, and the self-seeded white foxgloves are much taller than me now!

The orange clivia put on a good show this year. I am thinking of maybe getting a yellow-flowered one to put in another shady spot, next to the garden shed, under the plum tree.

I hope that this post finds you well. Wishing you a lovely weekend.

Hugs, Rose xxx