Hello gardening friends! I have returned from a short hiatus while I’ve been traveling overseas and have been eager to tell you all about the wonderful gardens that I visited while I was there. However I have been thwarted when on my return I promptly lost my camera and all of the photos from my trips. Its a very sad time.
I quickly realised that my life becomes difficult without a camera, so I rectified the situation on the weekend with the purchase of a new little Canon Powershot. Its quite a nifty little camera, with significantly better performance in zoom (10x) and image stabilisation which make quite a difference to the results of my usual haphazard snapping technique. It almost makes up for my loss, but I still mourn the photos. Maybe one day I’ll find it.
So I arrived home from a hot, humid summer in the US to a bracing, subzero morning in Canberra. The trees are naked and the garden is a mess of leaves and debris. Thankfully though a few hardy survivors stuck around to give me hope that I hadn’t missed it all.
Banksia cones peeping out to feed the birds over winter
Hebe "Wira" cv in full flower
Erysimum, through the bare branches of my crabapples
Euryops, in flower for most of the year!
What did surprise me were the plants peeping out to let me know that Spring isn’t all that far away.
The end of July is remarkably early for a daffodil!
Of course Tai was pleased to see us home too and stalked us for a few days before deciding it was safe to leave us alone.
Tai accompanying me on the tour of the gardens
Home we’ll stay for a while now I think, to see out the winter and prepare for Spring. The state of my garden indicates there is plenty of preparation to be done. My friend Kristy despaired of her 12ft high, leggy roses seeking out the minimal sunlight in her front garden so I rescued one and introduced it to its new home. I hope it will be happy here – I did relieve it of quite a long taproot when I dug it up, but a few buckets of Seasol and some fresh compost should see it through. I’ll try to take identical photos through the growing season to mark its progress.
Our new addition - pruned, its still around 3 1/2 ft tall. "Kristy's Rose" (pink?)
That’s about it for now. If I ever recover my old camera I’ll tell you all about the delights of Ladew and Longwood Gardens in Maryland – they were something else indeed! At least I still have the brochures.
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Nice to have you back!
Glad you’ve still got signs of life… It’s pretty hard to fathom subzero temperatures at the moment
Hello Karly and welcome back! Great to see those daffies out, mine are springing up everywhere too.
As for the rose and cutting the tap root I can relate to that a bit, I have been moving some of the roses around in my garden and have been shocked just how deep (and strong!) their roots have buried themselves in the clay. No wonder they are such survivors!
Sorry to hear that you have lost your camera – I will keep my fingers crossed that it turns up.
Hi Heidi – I’m glad to hear you’re seeing bulbs already too! I was quite surprised, its generally quite a bit later in Canberra that they come out.
You’re quite right, its no wonder roses are the great survivors. I just hope my new one makes it