Amy's Garden: Australia

Showing posts with label Australia. Show all posts

Friday, August 3, 2012

Gardening Australia

Reading Australian gardening magazines is not much different than the Canadian mags. What I find so interesting are the planting times, seasonal differences... Right now, in July, there are daffodils blooming - along side Bird of Paradise flowers and Jade plants in the ground. Rhododendrons grow higher than rooftops, and cherry blossoms are just beginning. Camellias are blooming, and other natives like Pilotus, Callistemon, Pauciflora (Eucalyptus Snow Gum) and Eremophila (Emu Bush) are mentioned. For three years now I've tried studying the plants while I'm here - this year I've taken to wandering through garden centres, taking photos of the plant tags. Some day I hope to know as much about Blue Mountain flora as I do about Northern Ontario.

a book I think our garden needs

and the book ends to hold it

I adore this watering can...
wish I could fit it into my suitcase

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Oz Wedding & a Rainbow of Tulips

42 Rainbow Tulips
The Three Sisters, Scenic World Australia

When organizing flowers for a wedding overseas, with email the only form of communication, I put lot of faith in The Little Flower Shop in Wentworth Falls - and could not have been happier with the result. Louise really did read my mind and my heart. Her arrangements were beautiful, delicate, romantic - perfect. My bouquet, a rainbow of 42 tulips, was incredible.

Most outstanding were the floral crowns for our nieces, our precious flowergirls - who looked so, so pretty. I wanted their crowns to match in colour, but with flowers other than tulips (which I didn't think would hold up in hair). Their bouquets were tulips - yellow, and Hannah's was white (for my father). The flowers were everything I had imagined and more.

rainbows and ruby slippers

Rohan & Amy
Oz Wedding 29 July 2012

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Orange Groves in Mildura

Orange World
Mildura, Victoria, Australia

I've never enjoyed an orange so much as I did in Mildura. Picked right from the tree and eaten on the spot. The aroma surrounding me as I photographed the grove is something I'll never forget.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Dear Garden Diary,

It's been a week since I spilled a large, steaming hot mug of coffee (black) on my computer. Thankfully my data has been retrieved, but the fate of my machine is still in the hands of the guys at Mentor. I could be more patient if we weren't leaving for Australia in four days. ...sigh..

I've lost track of where I was with updating our garden status, ...and now we're about to leave it. N & T, and M will have a lot to raid while we're away - the garden has gone mad, simply mad. It's hard to say goodbye. Hopefully everything will still be producing and blooming when we return.
If Thunder Bay continues to live up to it's name there shouldn't be a lot of need to water, other than for the pots. The garden has required minimal watering this year so far, inspite of the heat wave and forest fires - down here by the bay, five blocks from to be exact, we've had plenty of rain. Rain and heat, rain and heat, it's been absolutely delicious our small vegetable garden.
The peppers have been buried... so,..whatever happens happens. Some are surving down there in the jungle. I've already been picking them and they are yummy - yellow banana peppers, green bells, ..there are some jalapenos I have plans for beofre we leave too.

The Early Girl tomato is a monster: taller than me, with strong arms like Popeye. It seems the more I prune it the more it grows, so I've stopped and have turned my attention to pruning the yellow tomatoes growing in the east perennial garden. They too have grown almost over my head - but gangly and needing staking (there is both a tall wooden stake and a iron bean support behind Early Girl - the plant has never had to work a hard day in it's life). Unlike poor yellow number 2 over by the peonies. Your get what you deserve when you plant a tomato nearish peonies, so I've learned. It reached for sun every way it could, and was awkward. I chopped it right back to some string producing branches near the tomato cage height. It looks much better now. :)

The peas have also grown taller than me, allowing for hands free nibbling (no, no..I don't really do that...). The beans I've dealt with by dropping strings from the second floor back balcony to the bean polls. I'll be adding a few nore strings before we leave (I ran out of R's meat-binding barbecue string, which has come in handy all over the garden...)..we need more string.

Some Cosmos and one of the Basil plants suffered at the floppiness of Gromit, who rolled off the new back deck before the new railing was installed. It was a great flop: one minute he was recharging in the sun on a warm cedar deck, the next he was two feet below in soft cool garden soil, pink flowers, and surrounded in a green jungle (for being of Basset Hound height). Gravity has a way with all that extra skin....
He was fine, just a little shocked, ..then embarrassed. The Basil was done in instantly, while the Cosmos carry on but with significantly less sturdiness.

The new back deck (once the basic wooden steps leading from the back porch to the backyard) is beautiful, cedar, and hand-made by R. It's large enough now to fit one of my Muskoka chairs -

which were my Mother's Day gift to myself when Hannah was 1, our first summer with our own backyard garden. I originally bought four: two remain - which R and I painted green last year, one died, and one was never put together and still is somewhere in the basement, in a bag, waiting to be assembled, ...and, with R's new fascination with woodworking I think it might.actually.happen ...IF we can find it; our basement is a scene from Hoarders.

It's so hard to leave the garden now, of all times. The tomatoes are all about to ripen, the peas are delicious, the zucchini - finally exposed to sunlight after also being buried by heavy drooping peonies are finally beginning to grow ...the coming weeks are going to be crucial in keeping it growing upwards. I'm more worried about mildew than overcrowdedness...mildew spreads faster. So long as the zucchini climbs more than rambles we should be good. With the pruning of both yellow tomato 2 and the peonies (which have finished blooming as well as became a few nice bouquets for around the house for our last pork-and-more barbecue party) there is a lot more air flow to the area, as well as sunshine. I expect a zucchini boom.

The cucumbers under the beans are slowly working their way on to the barbecue deck...searching for sunlight. They were a little slow to get started, but are finally behaving like the vine I know. Meanwhile, the cucumbers hastily planted in the side garden are also making up for lost time, but at a much quicker pace. I gave them a little support and one of the twig trellises to give it some places to go, along with weaving along the path (I suspect any cucumbers on the path with be chewed or at least licked by a dog and I accept that. I'd say most of these cucumbers are for Claire anyway...)

They're good filler for the area this year, in the sunniest part of the side garden filling in the gap between the Morden Blush rose and some more transplanted blue irises. (Next year there won't be as much space between..)

And of course: more natsurtiums tucked in and around for fun.

The Mounding Nasturtiums 'Buttercream' from Renee's Garden are poking out all along the edge of our kitchen garden. The have huge leaves that playfully ramble near the footpath, and butter yellow blooms. I adore them. :)

There's so much more to update before we leave, which I hope I can find the time to do. I am looking forward to the change of scenery, the smell of the gum trees, the daffodils and Birds of Paradise along the roadside.. ..under a new set of stars for a few weeks..I do plan to do an Aussie version of garden blogging while we're there - which I didn't do last year and wish I had.

The storm clouds are passing now, the lightning is on the Giant and blue skys are taking over. It's time to go outside. ... :)

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Establishing A Food Forest

Establishing A Food Forest
(The Permaculture Way Series)

by Geoff Lawton

Educator and Consultant Geoff Lawton discusses the principles of Permaculture and Agroforestry in his film on developing sustainable, ecological food systems. A review of the film can be read here, I can't describe it any better. Though the film features in Australia, the principles are globally relevant.
Consider how this theorum can be applied in our Boreal forest.

Order your own copy of the DVD from the
Permaculture Research Institute of Australia

The Permaculture Research Institute as a registered charity and global networking centre for Permaculture projects around the world.

Permaculture is a design system for sustainable human habitats that supply human needs in an environmentally sustainable way – an environment enhancing way. -- Geoff Lawton

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Seedy

This Australian Digger's Club catalog is from Rohan's father, who thoughtfully forwarded it along through Rohan during his visit home last August. Digger's boasts "the largest range of heirloom vegetables, cottage flowers and fruit plants that can be delivered direct to your door." I enjoy their logic, and especially enjoy their

MINI PLOT PLAN.

Comparing the dates (i.e. planting, harvesting) to ours in the northern hemisphere is something. I can't wait to gaze at the stars in Australia, and see what's blooming there this August ~ during winter.

Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog also arrived the other day.