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

We have moved to a new house!

Hi everyone, after such a long break in posting, I am back. The year 2022 to early 2023 was chaotic to say the very least. The biggest thing that has happened is that we sold our house and 10 acres that we lived in for over 40 years. 

We bought a house on a 1/3 of an acre of land in the next village. Dad was finding it difficult to manage the upkeep of the old house and land. He is now 93 and things got a bit too much for him. The new garden has established trees, bushes and fruit trees around the perimeter, a large deck to sit on and a lawn which dad can manage with his ride-on-mower.

Mum had an accident in the kitchen at the old house last year. She fell and broke her sacrum, at the bottom of her spine, and ended up in hospital for 11 weeks. While she was in hospital she caught Covid and other bugs which prolonged her stay. Mum had rehabilitation to get her to walk again, with the help of a walker, and she is now able to get around again. She was discharged from hospital on the day the furniture was moved into the new house and didn't manage to get to say goodbye to the old house. But she loves our new home.

Shortly after moving, dad caught double pneumonia. He started off feeling unwell and went to bed, then the next morning he stayed in bed, which is very unusual for him. I took his temperature, which was high, and he complained of pain in his side. He didn't think anything of it, but I insisted on taking him to A&E and he was admitted to hospital for 11 days. Dad's recovery was slow, but he is much better now, though he gets tired after pottering around in the garden and keeps needing to have breaks.

And as for myself, I thought I was just worn out, getting very tired and in pain for no particular reason, until I was diagnosed with Chronic Pain Syndrome and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. The diagnosis upset me very much, but I have now come to terms with it and am learning to pace myself so that I can do things that I enjoy again.

Today the clocks were set an hour forward, for daylight savings, and it is the third week of Spring which is my favourite season of the year. 

I am enjoying seeing our trees coming back to life with blossom and bright green leaves after a very rainy and stormy Winter. This is the first Spring in the new garden, so it is exciting to see what plants will come up. 

The flowerbeds are all in shade or semi-shade in this garden, so we need to plant shade-loving flowers in the gaps. We brought cineraria seedlings from our old house and they are doing very well as you can see in the photo above.

We also moved white irises, golden arctotis, yellow phlomis, white hellebores, purple tibuchina and freesias here. 

I spent some time this afternoon in the garden, with dad, planting some nicotiana seedlings which we had bought. It was pleasantly warm outside (16 C) and had just stopped raining, so I decided to take some garden photos to show you. I don't know the names of a lot of the plants here. The pink flowering bush above is just starting to flower.

 The light lavender flowering bush above is very pretty, It looks like it is a small tree that has fallen over because there is a tangle of horizontal branches behind it. The pink flowering bush to the right is a camellia.

More unknown plants. I think the green clumps of leaves may be arum lilies? I won't know until they flower! We planted a small bay tree in the plant pot and I am still deciding where to put it. It is in a sheltered spot at the moment while it recovers from being transplanted.

 This is a lavender coloured hebe and to each side of it you can just see pink hebes starting to flower.

There is a flower border full of lavender, at the side of the house, under-planted with dichondra silver falls. I need to weed this section as there is oxalis spreading along the front, smothering the dichondra. 

Above are more arum lilies in front of a yellow flowering shrub. And at the front, left of the photo is a rhubarb plant just coming up.

I hope that you are keeping well and enjoying the season that you are in, like I am. I would love to hear from you. See you again soon.

Hugs Rose xxx