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

Happy Easter 2024!

 I am having a lovely relaxing Easter holiday this year. On Good Friday we celebrated with hot cross buns after dinner. They were yummy. 

Then on Easter Sunday, mum, dad and I went to my sister's for the afternoon. She made a delicious Easter meal of succulent roast lamb cooked with red capsicums and aubergines. This was served with crispy roast vegetables (kumara and potatoes) and green vegetables (runner beans and sprouting broccoli).

I took nibbles to start the meal with, which included; hummus and toasted pita bread triangles, hot smoked salmon crostini, olives and cream cheese stuffed pepperdews. 

My brother brought a cheese board and crackers, and my sister's friends made a Limoncello trifle and a raspberry-filled Bakewell cake.

Today I spent a lot of my time in the garden dead-heading hebes, then pruning back the osteospermums. They had become leggy and had lots of new leaves at the base of the stems.  I also watered the yellow cherry-guava tree which is full of fruit. I have harvested a few kilos so far and there is plenty of new fruit starting to ripen.

The blueberries have finished fruiting now that it is Autumn. I really enjoyed picking the blueberries to go with my breakfast of yoghurt and granola every day. And I also made blueberry muffins.

Last week dad and I went to the garden centre and bought lots of plants for inside the house and for the garden. 

For the house we got a purple-blue double African violet, and a burgundy coloured single one. Miniature cyclamens, white, pink and red. Plus a red gerbera. For outdoors we bought a yellow abutilon (Chinese lantern) bush.

We also have two different penstemons to plant, geraniums, canna lilies, fuchsias, a red and a yellow carpet rose and red monarda (bee balm).

Then there are the Spring bulbs to plant; anemones, ranunculi, bluebells and freesias.

Dad is gradually preparing flower beds. It is hard work to dig because the soil is very dry and rock hard. Some areas are black clay and others grey, sandy and gravelly. There are no worms to be seen. We will need to add a lot of compost. 

The arborist that trimmed our trees and hedges, said he would give us mulch and deliver it to us for free if we like. We need to figure out where he can dump the mulch load and where we can store it while it ages.

We didn't have much luck with our peach, apple and pear harvest. A lot of the fruit started rotting on the trees. We managed to pick some slightly ripe apples and pears before this happened though. The arborist said that the trees are old, neglected and diseased. The quince tree is on its last legs and needs to be removed.

The apricot tree didn't flower at all. And the black Doris plum tree, which had masses of blossom in Spring, didn't set any fruit. But it did look wonderful! 

There are not many fruit forming on the feijoa tree. Dad has fed and watered it, but ideally the tree should have been planted in a sunny spot. We have plenty of figs though and I managed to pick the grand total of ten raspberries! 

It was too dry for the boysenberries this year. We didn't know if we had enough water to spare in our tanks as it is our first year of living here. But we have worked out that we should have enough water for the garden next year.

Gardening in a new place is a steep learning curve for us :o) 

I hope that you are having a wonderful time this Easter.

Hugs, Rose xxx