The last week of Autumn in my garden

 

It is the end of Autumn here in New Zealand. The weather has been glorious for the past few days, so I have been out in the garden with my camera. 

I took some photos to show you what is flowering and fruiting now, and also the beginnings of a new flower bed prepared by my dad.  

The tree in the photo above is Cassia corymbosa "John Ball" which is commonly known as the buttercup tree. Its flowers are a lovely buttercup yellow. The tree is unusual in that it folds its leaves up at night and when the weather is very dry. 

Our buttercup tree has been flowering all Autumn and should carry on flowering throughout Winter. Last year there weren't many flowers on the tree, so dad gave it a good pruning and feeding which resulted in the production of more lovely flowers.

The white camellia bushes in front of the house are in full bloom. 

Each flower lasts a few days then drops its petals like confetti all over the place. It looks like it has been snowing!

Some of the roses are still flowering, but I expect not for much longer as the weather is getting cooler.

The lavender has put on a lot of new growth since it was pruned back. There are lots of perfumed flowers for the bees to enjoy.

Some magnolia flowers are opening. This is an unusual tree to me because it flowers all year round, just a few flowers at a time.

I need to discover how to revive the red hibiscus. It hasn't got many leaves and has only got one flower so far. I suppose it is better than last year when it was only twigs!

The new flower bed in progress. 

This corner of the garden looks like it was a dumping ground for concrete rubble, large stones and sand. Dad took out all the rubble and stones and removed the quince tree which the arborist told us had died. Then we bought bags of compost to dig in.

The yellow abutillon bush is in place with supporting stakes. Its branches are very thin and brittle. Here's hoping that it can stand up to the windy Winter weather ahead.

I love the lantern-shaped flowers so much that we decided to buy more abutillon plants. One red and one orange.

The grevillia ground cover has been flowering for a few weeks now. It is a strange plant with very small flowers. It keeps getting covered over with falling Autumn leaves.

Foxglove and aqueligia plants have seeded themselves in the garden. I can't wait to see what colours the flowers will be.

We managed to harvest some delicious feijoas from our tree this year. 

After watering the tree well, pruning it and giving it a feed, we managed to get a couple of bowls full of fruit. 

The yellow cherry guava tree still has lots of fruit on it. The fruit has stopped ripening now that the weather is cooler. The blackbirds are happily eating what is left, which I don't mind. I harvested plenty this year.

And lastly here is a photo of our silverbeet (chard) that is growing in the veggie patch. We also have perpetual spinach and flat leaf parsley growing in the patch, but they aren't very photogenic at the moment 😁

I hope this post finds you well and enjoying the season in your part of the world. I'm looking forward to visiting your blogs to catch up on what has been happening.

Hugs, Rose x

It's bright red and spotty all over!

The fly agaric mushrooms, amanita muscaria, have opened up at last underneath our chestnut tree. It all looks very autumnal with the chestnuts and brown leaves scattered amongst them on the ground.

You can now see the white gills underneath the mushrooms and the remnants of the veil (the white frilly bit on the stem).

The warty white spots, dotted over the red, were once part of the veil that covered the whole mushroom.

Slugs have had a great time munching on the mushrooms leaving big gaping holes. But don't be fooled, these mushrooms are highly poisonous to humans.

I went for a walk in the light drizzling rain this afternoon to take these last two photos. The cloudy weather and water have made the colours in the mushrooms really pop out.

The mushrooms look like they could have come out of a fairytale. All we need are some little elves and goblins in the photos!

I am getting happier all the time with my new cell-phone camera. It is much better and easier to use than my old camera. I can now take clear close-up photos. Big smiles :)

Hugs

Rose x

My Autumn vegetable garden is growing well

We didn't grow any vegetables over Summer this year because the weather was so very hot and dry. The soil was as hard as concrete, impossible to dig. We hadn't intended on doing anything with the vegetable patch through Autumn either, due to the continuing drought.

Then lockdown occurred so suddenly. People started panicking over possible food shortages and a lot were bulk buying, leaving shelves in grocery stores empty. Dad was getting very worried, it reminded him of his experience of severe food shortages during World War 2. So we talked and decided to ressurect the veggie patch again.

Luckily we'd had some rain at this time which had softened the ground up a bit, enabling it to be cleared and dug over. Dad fixed the fences around the vegetable enclosure to stop (or try to stop) the cats from digging in the soil and also to stop the pukekoes from raiding the patch.

Buying vegetable seedlings was impossible for us because the garden centres were all closed. The only thing we had available to use were packets of seeds left over from previous years. Some of the seed was past its use-by date, but we decided to try using it anyway. We also had some potatoes in the pantry that had started sprouting.

We decided to grow mostly Winter vegetables:

- Silverbeet (Swiss chard)
- Kohlrabi
- Pak Choi
- Sprouting broccoli
- Snow peas
- Potatoes

As well as some quick growing vegetables:

- Radishes (German Giant, French Breakfast and White Icicle)
- Mesclun
- Dill

The mesclun grew very quickly and was ready to start harvesting after a month. I pick individual mesclun leaves from the plants as the plants will keep on growing. I love cut-and-come-again plants like this.

The snow peas are doing very well too, despite the seed being so old. I covered the snow pea seeds with wet paper towels overnight before sowing them. I think that that helped.

(If you look carefully at the bottom right of the snow pea photo, above, you will see my cat Abby trying to figure out a way into the veggie patch!)

The dill has grown prolifically this time. It is the best success we have ever had with dill germinating. The seeds used had been gathered and dried in previous years.

It is really too early to harvest any dill yet as the plants have only just started growing. But I needed 1/2 a cup for a recipe I was making. I took a couple of leaves from some of the plantlets, just enough for my meal, I think they will be okay. Fingers crossed.

Everything grew apart from the kohlrabi and silverbeet, which is a pity because I like these. I did find a perpetual silverbeet seedling in one of the old overgrown vegetable patches that I will transplant.

But first I need to do some more weeding. The weeds are growing as fast as the vegetables. I notice the weeds more in the photos than in the garden! Dad removed tonnes of oxalis, but didn't manage to get all of it out. We don't use any chemical sprays, so this means finding the oxalis bulbs and picking them out by hand. I wish the slugs would eat them instead of my vegetables.

Thanks for stopping by. See you again soon.

Hugs

Rose x

Autumn treasures in my garden today

This morning I had a lovely walk around the land to see what treasures I could take photos of. I decided to give my cell-phone camera a try with some close ups, and I'm so happy with the results.

The weather started off cloudy, then, shortly afterwards, the sun came out and it was glorious. The temperature is 24 C at the moment, which is great for Autumn here. It feels more like Spring!

Some of the orange red hot poker, kniphofia, flowers are starting to open. Most of them survived the Summer drought that we had. We have only lost one plant as far as I can see.

The stinking iris, iris foetidissima, seed pods are bursting open with their bright red berries.

The ground is covered with prickly chestnut cases. Unfortunately this year the chestnuts inside are tiny and shrivelled, I think due to the drought.

Fly agaric mushrooms, amanita muscaria, are popping up all around the chestnut tree. They are just starting to open. Their creamy white veils are slowly breaking apart as the red mushrooms grow bigger. The veil will form the classic white spots on the red mushrooms.

Our feijoa, acca sellowiana, hasn't fruited well this year. Again I blame the drought for this. And what friut has fallen is quickly gobbled up by greedy pukekoes. (Feijoas are also known as pineapple guavas in some countries).

Japanese anemones, anemone japonica, are flowering by the house showing off their bright pink petals and yellow fluffy stamens.

The snowball viburnum bush, viburnum macrocephallum, has turned a beautiful russet red colour. I can't wait until Spring when it is dressed in its large white pom pom flowers.

The hydrangea flowers have turned a deep purplish pink colour and are looking very pretty.

This is one of our yellow buttercup trees, senna corymbosa, coming into flower. They look lovely when all of the buds have opened. In the background you can see purple tibouchina flowers. The tibouchina bush flowers all year round here and survives our light frosts in Winter.

I had fun walking through the fallen sycamore leaves, crunching them under my feet. They remind me of when I was a child in England when I used to do the same thing!

And finally I discovered that my Jerusalem sage, phlomis russeliana, has survived and is starting to push up its furry green leaves! I planted it a few years ago and am still waiting for it to flower. Hopefully next Spring I will be lucky and be rewarded by seeing yellow whorls of flowers. Fingers crossed.

What time of year is it where you are?

Lots of smiles.

Hugs.

Rose x