A Springtime ramble in my garden

The rain has finally stopped, for the moment, so I jumped at the chance of going for a stroll in my garden with Otto and my camera. I love being outside during Spring, seeing the new flowers opening and the leaves on the trees unfurling. 

The purple Babiana flowers are abundant in my garden this year. They grow from corms which I spread about each year to form new clumps. The flowers also form seeds which I collect and sprinkle around wherever I want them to grow.

Once established, the Babiana clumps grow quite quickly. I love the contrast between the purple of the Babiana with the gold of the Arctotis.

We spread the golden Arctotis by taking cuttings, at any time during the year, and planting them directly into the ground. We tried growing different colours of Arctotis, but for some reason gold is the only colour that will survive in our gaden. I have no idea why.

If the Arctotis flowers are regularly deadheaded, they are supposed to flower from Spring right through to Autumn. But it is backbreaking work, we have so many of them. I tried one year and had to give up. There were too many flowers and each flower only lasts 2 days. Maybe this year I will try deadheading just one clump and see what happens.

Below is a view across the Ixia wild flower bed towards the native New Zealand Ponga trees (tree ferns). The Pongas grew themselves there, we didn't need to plant them. 😊                                                                                                                            

And another view, in the opposite direction, of the Ixia. The wind was blowing quite strongly so the flowers were bobbing around making it hard to take a clear photo.  

                                     

This is my favourite garden seat, overlooking the Ixias to the pond. Behind the seat are Kniphofia, Agapanthus and Clivia plants. The Clivia didn't flower this year. It tried to, but snails ate all the flower buds off them 😕

I still haven't managed to find the name of our frothy, pink-flowered succulents. Please let me know, in the comments, if you have the name for them. It has been puzzling me for years.

Here is Otto, walking alongside the orange Sparaxis. This clump has been growing steadily in size over many years. You can see how big they are compared to Otto!

The Sparaxis have also naturalised into the wildflower bed near the Ixias. 

This year the pheasants have left the Sparaxis alone. Usually they peck all the flowers off. I don't know if they actually eat them, or just like picking at them. Hopefully they will form large clumps like in the photo above. But it will take many years.  

               

I feel refreshed after walking outside. I find the garden calming and soothing, and Otto is quite hilarious as he follows me around, then runs up trees all excited that I am outside with him.

Now I am back inside trying to sort out some technical problems. My mum's iPad has stopped being able to download library books. I phoned the library to see if it was an internet/library problem, only to be told that their eBook application had been updated and that many people are having the same problem. The libraries are all closed to the public in Auckland, due to lockdown, so there is no other way for mum to borrow books.

It turns out that the operating system on the iPad is too outdated, even after doing an update for it. Sigh. Mum was beside herself with despair. I phoned my brother for help and he said there is nothing we can do apart from by a new iPad....But shortly after, he phoned back and said to expect a new iPad mini in the post! Thanks big brother, mum is now over the moon with delight.

My next technical glitch happened after I downloaded the latest update for my Android cellphone. Included in the update was a change to how the phone's camera operated, to speed up the time it takes to take a photo. My photos now are not as clear. I will have to investigate the settings and see if I can do anything about it. Plus there are other changes that I haven't tried yet...a job for this afternoon.

My last technical problem was with this blog post. Not being able to align my photos and text properly. Not sure why it is happening, but please excuse the messy bits.

They do say horrible things come in threes, so fingers crossed that that is all, for a while at least! I am off now to have a play with the camera function on my cellphone, while the weather is still fine.

Looking forward to seeing you here again soon.

Hugs, Rose x