Preparing the wildflower garden

Finally we managed to find another contractor, who could come quickly, to rotavate the land in preparation for my next wildflower bed. The original contractor ended up being very busy with big jobs and was finding it hard to fit our small 150 metres squared area into his schedule.

The area was rotavated on Monday, the soil was just the right wetness and has turned out well.

Dad has been helping me by raking over the soil to level it. He also worked on tidying up the edges and removing large clumps of grass. I wasn't able to do it myself as I am not very fit at the moment.

Tomorrow dad will be using our small rotavator to turn over and bury the grass clumps and to loosen where the tractor wheels had compacted the soil.

In the meantime I have been deciding on how to sow the wildflower seeds. I think I will mix all of the seed together, weigh it and then divide it into 10 lots. Then mix each lot of seed individually with 2 litres of gardeners sand. This will help to evenly distribute the seed. The idea is to sow 1 gram of seed per square metre.

I plan to sow half the seed along each long length of the wildflower bed as I won't be able to sow it from one side easily. Then I will need to very lightly rake the seeds over with soil.

I am hoping that the weather will remain good until I have sown all of the seed. Then I hope we will get a few weeks of rain. It is a pity that we can't order the sort of weather we need. All I can do is cross my fingers :)

See you again soon with more news. Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs.

Rose x

More and more packets of wildflower seeds

The last of the wildflower seeds that I ordered arrived today...yaaaay! I now have enough to sow a new wildflower patch of about 50 metres long x 1 tractor width, whatever that is.

I decided not to turn over my last wildflower bed, or re-sow it. There are some wildflowers already coming up in it. So far I recognise scabious, ox-eye daisies and linum growing. I have some perennial seeds which I plan to grow in pots and then transplant them into this bed when they are big enough.

The new wildflower bed is going to be made parallel to the last one, with a grass pathway between the two.

This afternoon I checked to see if the soil had dried out enough for rotavating. It looks good to me, nice and crumbly and holding some moisture, but not claggy like clay soil is when it is too wet.

I now have to wait for the contractor to come and have a look and set aside time to rotavate the patch. The weather forecast is still good for the next few days. I do hope that he contacts me soon.

To pass the time I will make a list here of the types of wildflower seed I that I bought: (You are allowed to scroll quickly past this list if it gets too long for you).

- Dwarf toadflax (linaria maroccana) 10 grams. From past experience this will be the first to germinate and flower, giving shelter for the other seedlings.
- White cosmos (cosmos bipinnatus) 10 grams
- Yellow cosmos (cosmos sulphurous) 10 grams
- Mixed cosmos, crimson, soft pink and white (cosmos bipinnatus) 3 grams
- Cosmos Xanthos (cosmos bipinnatus) 30 seeds
- English marigold (calendula officinalis) 10 grams
- Queen Anne's lace (ammi majus) 3 grams
- Bishops flower (ammi majus) 250 seeds
- Didiscus Lace Mix (didiscus caeruleus) 180 seeds
- Soldier poppy (papaver rhoeas) 10 grams
- Corn poppy/Shirley poppy (papaver rhoeas) 10 grams
- Shirley poppy summer mix (papaver rhoeas) 300 seeds
- Plains coreopsis (coreopsis tinctoria) 3 grams
- Coreopsis tinctoria Dwarf Red 3 grams
- Californian poppy Mission Bells (eschscholzia californica) 1000 seeds
- Cornflower tall blue (centaurea cyanus) 10 grams
- Cornflower country blue double (centaurea cyanus) 50 seeds (this was a gift from a real estate agent)
- Wildflower wild blue yonder mix, (various species) 10 g
- Scabious fragrant dwarf doubles (scabiosa atropurpurea) 300 seeds
- Rudbeckia Cherry Baby (rudbeckia hirta) 100 seeds
- Tithonia Goldfinger (tithonia speciose) 50 seeds
- Purple tansy (phacelia tanacetifolia) 1000 seeds
- Zinnia Giant Lime (zinnia elegans) 75 seeds
- Zinnia Crest Red (zinnia elegans) 90 seeds
- Bees Birds and Butterflies wildflower mix, (various species) 50 grams

Phew that took some typing!

The photo above shows my last flowerbed after it was mown last week. You may just be able to see the markers at the edges showing where the old wildflower bed is and also where the new bed is going to be.

A closer look shows the damage that the rabbits have been doing to my wildflower bed, grrrrrr. I keep having to fill the holes up. There aren't any burrows....yet.

That's all my news for today. It's time now for my cup of hot chocolate and to read my book before bed.

See you again soon.

Hugs

Rose x

Self-seeded calla lilies in our gulley

The calla lilies have sown themselves in our gully and look quite spectacular with their pearly-white flowers. It is a shame that they are considered to be a nuisance weed here in New Zealand.

Bracken, manuka bushes, tree ferns and other native plants are also growing in the gully, all of which have seeded themselves there.

The ground that they are growing in is very boggy, so I couldn't get any closer to take more photos.

I must walk around the land more often. I was quite breathless by the time I arrived back at the house. That is what Winter hibernation does to me. Now that the days are getting warmer I can get out more, as long as it isn't raining.

Spring is my most favourite time of year. I am in the middle of planning another wildflower garden. Most of the wildflower seeds that I ordered have arrived. There is just one more packet to come. I can't wait!

See you again soon.

Hugs Rose x

Early Spring flowers in my garden

This morning I wanted to take photos of my early Spring flowers, but it was drizzling with rain and I didn't want to get my camera wet. Finally, this afternoon, I managed to go for a walk in the garden in between showers of rain. Everywhere was fresh and the soil squelched under my gumboots as I walked on the grass.

The flowers have opened a month early this year because the winter was so mild.

The onion weed has formed drifts in the grass and it looks so pretty. I am waiting for my white and my blue bluebells to open, I love their scent, unlike the oniony smell of the onion weed.

Talking of scents, the freesias smell heavenly. Their flowers are really big and colourful.

This little patch of garden was planted with 100 freesia bulbs after digging in a couple of sacks of compost.

The arctotis has started to come into flower. There are lots more buds still waiting to open. We have interplanted the arctotis with a pale blue Siberean iris that has golden spots on the petals, the same colour as the arctotis. This year I plan to propagate and spread the iris more.

The calla lilies are huge. This patch seeded itself under our feijoa bushes. There is another patch flowering in a gully on our land that I want to photograph when the weather is a bit drier.

It won't be long before the clivia buds open. There are 4 clusters of buds on my plant this year.

This echium self-seeded in the vegie patch.

My succulents are growing well, they make a great ground cover. They are evergreen and flower for a long time. I still have no idea what they are called.

The lavender is in full flower even though it wasn't pruned properly. I shall take some lavender cuttings, when the time is right, so I can spread it more around the garden. I love the contrast between purple and orange flowers.

I am dying to start my wild flower beds again. I have Spring fever and am finding it hard having to wait for the soil to dry before it can be rotavated. In the meantime I have been buying lots of flower seeds. That is another story for me to tell.

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs.

Rose x

Wildflower garden success, it's looking totally wild!

I started this wildflower garden just over a year ago, in November 2016, and it's still in full flower. The coreopsis flowers have survived the rabbits, lack of rainfall and no watering whatsoever by me.

I trimmed the coreopsis plants down to one foot when they first finished dropping their seed. These same plants came up again, together with the seedlings grown from the dropped seed. I plan to do the same again once the flower seeds have set and dropped.

The main flowers showing at the moment are coreopsis tinctoria. They reach over 6 feet tall, so are quite a bit taller than me!

I enjoy going for a walk around this flower bed very much, especially in the mornings and evenings when it's a little cooler. My cat Oscar usually follows me and meows very loudly if I go too fast.

There are some scabious plants dotted around amongst the yellow coreopsis, in shades of mauve, pink, white and a deep, dark, almost blackish maroon, the petals of which look like rich velvet. The butterflies and bees love it.

The following photos show the view across the wildflower garden and down onto to our neighbours horse paddocks and arena. The hill in the background is a nature reserve filled with native New Zealand bush (woodland).

The weather forecast for the end of the week is for strong wind and heavy rain. I am keeping my fingers crossed that not too much damage will be done to my flowers. However looking at it optimistically, the coreopsis will grow back again if trimmed down.

Time now for a cup of hot chocolate and back to reading my book.

See you again soon,

Hugs Rose x

A new garden bench seat - very happy

Here is a photo of my new garden bench seat as promised. It came in kit form, so dad put it together for me. I am so happy with it. I can sit out in the garden again with my cats and enjoy the view. This is my favourite place to sit under the trees. Sometimes I read here and take a picnic.

The ixias in the wildflower bed, that I see from my garden seat, have finished flowering now and have been succeeded by wild oxeye daisies. The daisies planted themselves very generously here. They are lovely to look at. There are lots more coming up in the field too.

When my new wildflower bed is in flower I may move my garden seat over to that area. There is a tree near there where I could put it. My fingers are still crossed that the wildflowers will be flowering by Christmas.

The rain that the weather forecast promised hasn't arrived yet, but the clouds are heavy and grey this afternoon. Hopefully it will rain tonight on my newly sown seeds.

See you again soon.

Hugs

Rose x

Another wildflower bed in the making

For the past week I have been busy preparing another wild flower bed. This new one is 200 metres squared (4 metres wide by 50 metres long). We marked out the area in the paddock first and then dad mowed it with his ride on mower. We then paid a contractor to rotavate the area by tractor. The area was too big to tackle by hand.

There was a delay in sowing the wild flower seed due to rain and high winds for a few days. The rain was much needed though to settle the soil down. When the rain stopped I divided the wildflower patch into eighths with markers. Then I used 780 grams of wildflower seed in total mixing 98 g of seed at a time with 2 L of fine pumice stone in 8 batches. I then sowed the seed by hand.

This morning I finished sowing the wildflower seed, yaaaay! It was a fun job to do, if a little bit back breaking. I felt like a farmer of olden days sowing a crop by hand. It was quite therapeutic.

The birds have found my seed to be irresistible to eat, especially the doves. The blackbirds have been turning over the soil looking for worms. And the rabbits have been digging holes at the edge of the wildflower bed. Sighs. Luckily I sowed the seed densely. Dad and I covered the seed finely using eight 40 L bags of compost, so hopefully this will slow the birds down.

Now it is a matter of keeping my fingers and toes crossed that the seeds will germinate. We are expecting light rain over the next few days, so that will help. Because the area is so big we aren't able to water it ourselves, so it is up to nature to do its thing.

It is exciting waiting for the flowers to pop up. The seed was a mixture of 30 different types of flowers which were un-named on the packets. I recognised poppies, cornflowers, calendula, French marigold, cosmos and scabious seed. I hope that the flowers will be blooming by Christmas time :)

Time now for a cup of tea and some more colouring in.

I hope that you have a good week.

See you next time.

Hugs.

Rose x

From 50 Ixia bulbs to thousands of flowers

I started this wild flower area many years ago and planted just 50 ixia bulbs in it. Now the ixia have taken over. It is surprisingly one of the last surviving plants in this spot. It gives a splendid display of thousands of flowers now and takes little, if no, looking after. I let the plants happily seed themselves after flowering and just mow around the edges to keep the garden in check.

This is a view from the ixia bed across to the pond. It is my favourite place to sit in the Spring time. I like to watch the flowers blowing about in the gentle breeze and watch the birds flying overhead from here.

And this is my old garden seat which has now been put into retirement because one of the legs rusted through.

Yesterday we bought a new garden bench seat which dad assembled today. I will have to photograph it to show you, it looks great in its new position. I am very happy with it and so are my cats who like to sit with me.

I am hoping that the flowers will continue putting on their show for a few weeks more.

See you next time.

Hugs

Rose x

Another successful wildflower garden!

I am so happy. My no-dig wildflower garden plan worked :)

Everything has grown so well that the taller plants, which should have come up much later, have dwarfed the smaller ones. But it still looks pretty.

The honey bees, bumble bees and butterflies are certainly not complaining! The place is alive with insects flying from flower to flower. And it is lovely to hear the humming of the bees with the cicadas chirruping.

The cornflowers did really well, they have grown to mid chest height. The packet of seeds that I chose did say that they were tall cornflowers, but I have never seen anything like it before. The cornflowers I have grown in the past in flower beds only grew to thigh height at the most.

I found that Toadflax is brilliant to grow in a wildflower patch. It is the first to germinate and the first to flower and provides shelter for the other seeds and plants which will eventually grow taller.

These little red Coreopsis flowers are gorgeous and they look and feel like velvet. So sumptuous.

Here you can see the cornflowers starting to grow higher than the toadflax. Amazingly the toadflax is still flowering in amongst the taller flowers even though they have almost been smothered by them

I think that this flower is vipers bugloss? A few of them have grown from a mixed seed pack which didn't list the plants included in it. Any ideas?

The Shirley poppies are definately the favourites with the bees. It is quite funny watching the very large fuzzy bumble bees landing on the smaller poppy flowers. The flowers bend almost down to the ground under the weight of the bees.

I am waiting for all of the yellow cosmos to open now. Hopefully the blue cornflowers and red coreopsis will still be flowering then :)

(you can look here to read about the beginnings of my wildflower garden).

Looking forward to seeing you again soon.

Hugs,

Rose x

The beginnings of a wildflower garden

It all started with a patch of muddy paddock where the cows had churned up the clay soil. A place where they were fed hay and in the process they had "enriched" the earth.

The cows had since been moved off the land and I saw the opportunity for establishing a wildflower bed.

I was sure it would work. Again I wasn't able to dig the soil because my shoulder was still recovering, so I improvised. I dragged a rake across the drying soil so that it was broken up 5 cm deep, per some instructions I had found somewhere on the internet.

Then I decided to cover the whole area with a 10 cm deep layer of composted pine tree sawdust that we had. I mixed that into the soil with the rake. After that I covered it with straw to compost more and to keep it moist.

I kept my fingers crossed that earthworms would move into my wildflower area and do their work, helping to make the soil deeper.

I checked after a month and it had worked, there was wonderful soil under the hay and hundreds of earthworms of all sizes!

In the meantime I was busy buying wilflower seeds:

- shirley poppies of many colours

- blue cornflowers

- yellow, orange and red cosmos

- red coreopsis

- linaria in jewel colours

- orange Californian poppies

- and lots more.

I was in heaven!

I finally lifted the hay off the prepared area and raked the soil to 5 cm deep again. Then mixed together all the seeds that I had bought and sprinkled them over the whole area. It was great fun.

Then I gently watered the seeds in and waited.

I watered every day and finally seedlings popped up. I was so happy. I carried on watering for a few weeks when the weather was hot and dry. The seeds should really have been sown at the beginning of Spring 2 months before, but I was lucky, my plan worked out.

Lots of smiles,

Rose x

Edit: You can see an update of my wildflower garden here.

A wild flower meadow next door

Imagine my surprise when I drove down our drive on my way to work, and saw my next-door neighbour's front paddock filled to the brim with large blue flowers. One day no flowers, then the next day a sea of blue!

I thought I was seeing things at first, so I slowed my car down and stopped by the mail box to have a closer look. And sure enough, there they were, the prettiest blue flowers, everywhere I looked. Even though I was running late I hopped out of the car for a closer inspection.

I couldn't figure out what the flowers were. I thought at first it was blue linum which flowers on our land. But these flowers were much too big to be linum.

I puzzled about it all day. Then I remembered that a few years ago some of these flowers appeared in our vegetable patch. It was chicory. A whole field full of it.

I decided that I would take some photos of the chicory flowers when I got home from work. I couldn't wait. It was a lovely sunny day with blue skies, perfect.

But...when I got home I couldn't see any flowers in next door's field. I wondered what on earth had happened to them. Surely I didn't imagine them in the morning. Maybe they were flowers that just opened for one day and that was it? I was so dissapointed that I had missed photographing them.

The next day there they were again...a field full of bright blue flowers! But I hadn't got my camera with me and I didn't have time to go back and get it because I was on my way to work again.

It then rained for a few days, so on the next fine morning I was prepared. I had my camera with me, and I caught the little blighters unawares and got pictures of them with their flowers open hehe.

I don't know whether the chicory was sown there intentionally to make a wild flower meadow, or if it seeded itself there. I would have really loved to go for a walk amongst the flowers. But yesterday my neighbour put his horses there to graze...such a shame. I am so glad that I managed to take these photos just in time.

See you again very soon xxx