Snapshots from February 2016

Here we are looking back at the month of February. If January was rainy and unsettled, then February was the complete opposite with an incredibly regular schedule of warm summery days. It was pretty perfect actually, exactly what summer should be like! And after our cold start to spring (with some of the coldest November mornings on record) it turned out that February was the warmest on record. I guess that is climate change for you, and one day it won't even be unusual to have such extreme temperatures.

Dahlia season is in full swing. I like how dahlias can't help being bold, even when their colours are soft! I also love the faded petals on top of the lambs' ears leaves.

As usual I made time for reading and crochet.

I changed up the kitchen shelf display to some summery colours. The day after I put these teacups out, we had a 5.7 earthquake. Amazingly the teacup stack didn't topple, although everything on the shelf shuffled closer to the edge! It seems we'll never be free of these earthquakes, never quite be able to relax from the idea of having to always be prepared. So I stuck everything down again with Blutack. It's annoying when you want to get things down and use them, but at least it keeps the pretties safe!

These are a couple of projects from this month. I finished a cover for the kitchen stool, and continued with the centres of Circle Puff Squares.

My brother helped me put up some boards in the hallway, and then I mounted hooks on them. The boards line both sides of the hallway. They are great for hanging flowers and plants, and keys.

I also had an ATC swap with a lovely lady from Japan, who I met on Instagram. On the left is her beautiful ATC. 

More crochet! I want to finish the Circle Puff Blanket, and I enjoy working on the pretty pastel circles. But suddenly I needed to do something different, so I started making some random squares. They are from Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Squares book. They will go together into a sort of patchwork blanket, eventually.

Some more dahlias, in remembrance of 22 Feb 2011. And another random square for the blanket.

Can't believe we're in March already! I'm having trouble finding time to blog lately, but I still have some garden updates to get out... hopefully I'll get to them soon! Have a great month everyone.

Potager, Summer 2016

Here are some photos from my summer potager. These photos were taken a good month ago but it's taken me a while to get them edited and uploaded! Still, the garden looks mostly the same (just fuller, bushier and more rampant) so let's have a stroll through the potager.

The lavender hedge attracts tons of bumblebees. They are such funny little garden companions, going about their harvesting business and not caring at all how close I get or whether I shove a camera in their face! They also love the bean and zucchini flowers.

I have Sunset runner beans planted on both arches. The pink flowers add the finishing touch, especially when they mingle nicely with the pansies.

In the First Quarter is a Kumato tomato plant - the only variety I bother growing outside the glasshouse now. Even with very little care besides staking (I haven't even remembered to trim laterals for a while) it's growing strongly and has plenty of fruit. Still, I better get in there and trim some branches so it can ripen! To the left is some broccoli and a cauliflower. To the right is a bare patch where I harvested the garlic - I've since planted bright lights silver beet and more broccoli in the space.

The Cheddar caulis that I sowed in spring did really well and I was able to harvest them at a good size, before there were any caterpillars around to do damage.

On the right in the Second Quarter is sweet corn. It grew strongly from seed but is a bit smaller than previous varieties I have grown, and each plant is only averaging one cob. They taste good but I'd prefer it if I was getting double the yield. I also planted heirloom beans between the corn plants, and there are self seeded pumpkins in there too, bursting out of the garden and hugging everything in their reach. The pumpkins are doing surprisingly well too, setting fruit and all. I've grown pumpkins before, both self seeded and purposely planted, and they never seem to manage to either set much fruit or get it very big. So I'll keep a cautious eye on these and hopefully they will continue to surprise.

Leeks are growing next to the corn. If they can continue to withstand the attack of the pumpkins, there will be a good stash here for winter!

Words to the wise.

Here in the Third Quarter are Borlotti beans. Since taking this photo, the leaves have started turning yellow meaning that it's nearly time to harvest. After that I'll put the bed to bed for winter.

Looking through the arches, past the beans and the pansies and the pumpkins and the rosemary. 

At the very back is my apple tree Monty's Surprise, which is so heavily laden that it's bent right over and I had to tie it to the cherry tree to try and hold it upright! I guess I will need to dig in some really good stakes over winter.

In the meantime there is plenty of harvesting to do - beans, tomatoes, zucchini, spring onions. Time to finish this up and get into the kitchen to deal with some of it!

February flowers

Welcome to my February flowers post! I noticed as I uploaded this that it's my 500th post. I've also been doing Flowers Monthly for almost 6 years! Far from finding it repetitive, I enjoy the monthly ritual of photographing the garden and flowers and collating them into this mosaic to represent what's been in bloom during the month. I go back and compare with previous years, and even though a lot of the individual blooms are the same, each collage has its own personality. It's a reminder that the garden is always changing and evolving even though the same seasons always follow each other.

Anyway, this month the garden is still fresh, but starting to take on its full, slightly overgrown and overblown look. Roses are still in full bloom, but hydrangea petals are starting to speckle and the first autumn berries have appeared. Above, from top left we have: a pretty striped cosmos; snowberries; a new hydrangea called You and Me; clematis William Keay (in his second flowering flush, yay!); osteospermum; pink penstemon; white frilly fluffy begonia; white echinacea; dahlia Cupcake; swan plant flowers and happy munching caterpillar; rose Sexy Rexy; cactus dahlia. In the middle is a little bouquet featuring a Compassion rose - gorgeously scented and grown from a cutting. I have a post planned soon to tell you more about this season's roses and how the cuttings went.

For now I will sign off and add my post to the list at Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day... have a look for inspiration from all around the world!

For previous Flowers Monthly posts click here.

Snapshots from January

 Hi friends. Here is my first lot of phone snapshots from the new year. The weather was all over the place, keeping a semi-regular schedule of its own... A few day of hot temperatures, then a couple of days of cloud. Some rainy days. Then repeat from the start. The garden (and weeds) are flourishing, and as long as we keep getting the warm temps, I'm not complaining too hard.

 I started the year with a quick project for my niece's 4th birthday. She wasn't super impressed with the handbag to begin with (as she opened it, she muttered to herself, "oh, I hope it's not a hat!") but I'm hoping it will find its way to the dress-up box and be useful in the future! The pattern is from Tangled Happy - if you want to disappoint a 4 year old in your life, you can find it here.

 It was an exciting day when I picked the first tomatoes of the season! These Juliet cherry tomatoes were ready on the 5th of January and they were quickly followed by Orange King... I'll go into more detail about tomatoes in another post, but they are all doing quite well this year.

 I continued working on my Greg blanket. Once all the squares were completed it didn't take too long to join it up, and it was a good way to spend a few grey afternoons.

 Before I went back to work after my summer holiday, I spent a few days with Mum in Timaru. On one day we drove down to Riverstone in Oamaru. This is a restaurant surrounded by lush, mostly kitchen gardens. They grow all their own produce for the restaurant and visitors are free to wander around and take it in. It's quite a drive to get there but worth the effort! We had a lovely wander around the gardens, before sitting on a sheltered bench with coffee and a punnet of delicious locally-grown cherries.

 This is another vista from Riverstone. And a view of my propagation station (set up on the top of a compost bin)... I've said before that you can never have too much lavender!

 Back in my garden, the bees are getting busy. My garden flourishes mostly thanks to the efforts of bumblebees. There are a few honey bees around, but as we all know they are in decline so I'm glad for the work of my bumbly friends!

 I finished The Luminaries on my second read. It was good, but I think could really have been edited into something a lot slicker. There was a lot of unnecessary epilogue stuff at the end, filling out plot points that had already been explained. I also finished Greg (details in this post).

 More tomatoes in my harvest basket - also spring onions, zucchini and beans. The glasshouse is in full on production mode and becoming more of a jungle with each day!

And the month ended on the saddest possible note with the passing of Mr Lui. Still missing him like crazy, but taking heart from these pictures showing him enjoying the everyday pleasures. He mostly had a very happy month.

January flowers

Welcome to January in my flower garden! I've still got a lovely selection of summer flowers which I'm pleased about, as sometimes in previous years I'm in a bit of a dull patch about now. I planted some lily bulbs last autumn and a couple of them are flowering, and the roses are still mostly doing well. The poppies are moving into the pretty seed head phase and the dahlias are starting to open.

Above, clockwise from top left: one of the new lilies (scented, and pink, double yay); lavatera; astrantia; cupcake dahlia; hollyhock; carnation; sweet pea; Christmas lilies; poppy seed head; dierama (grown from seed which I thought was pink but it's come out more red sadly); lacecap hydrangea; pelargonium. Centre: Claire Rose makes a beautiful statement in a vase.

I'm joining in with Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day where gardeners from all around the world share what is blooming in their gardens.

Snapshots from December

 Here are some of my phone snapshots from December. It's such a beautiful month for flowers and decorating, and the trick is to try and find the time to stop and appreciate it. I had the last of the bright vivid peonies to admire, and roses and sweet peas moved to take the spotlight as the peonies faded. 

 I usually try to go for a subtle look when editing my photos for Instagram... but sometimes I just can't help myself and go all out with textures and colour washes. I love the dreaminess of the rose above. My favourite editing programme is Pixlr, which has lots of options from simple to dramatic.

 Of course that little thing called Christmas began to slip in and the decorations came out. My favourite little glass baubles ornamented many an Instagram photo.

 I made several doilies for Christmas presents. In the above left photo, the doily at the bottom right is called the Passionflower Doily and you can find the pattern here. There was something wrong with my first attempt at the doily (not the one above) and I wasn't happy with how it turned out. So I began to work out another design, roughly based on a vintage doily from my collection. The first couple of attempts are in the left photo and the blue doily on the right is how it turned out. Hooray! In the meantime I attempted the Passionflower doily again and realised I hadn't made the right number of stitches to start with, which had thrown out the whole thing. So I started again and this time was very happy with the finished result.

 These pictures mostly sum up the December crafting... doilies and blanket squares. 

 My friend Caren and I had a swap in December for 12 Days of Christmas. We each sent the other 12 little gifts to be opened one each day in the 12 days leading up to Christmas. It was such fun to open a present each day and really made Christmas feel exciting. Caren sent me all sorts of delicious treats such as chocolate, fudge, organic vanilla, coffee and drinking chocolate. She also sent beautiful Christmas ornaments and the little house above... it is lit from within by a battery tea light. I do love adding a little house to my collection.

 Lui enjoyed getting into everything I was doing this month! Here he is testing the blanket squares for softness, and photobombing my carefully styled shoot! He is 12 years old now and very companionable. When he was younger he wasn't really interested in hanging out with me too much, but these days (when he isn't sleeping) he is quite happy to accompany me around the garden or through the house. I love his company.

Let's end the month with some more dreamy flowers! The Cecile Brunner roses are always lovely in a vase. Poppies don't last as long so I take close up photos of them in the garden... lovely!

Happy new year to you all. xx

Oh and just for fun, this is my #2015bestnine (ie most popular Instagram photos). It's interesting to note that it's all crochet... well, those are some of my favourite photos too!

A summer hailstorm

 My lavender bushes are at their peak right now, loaded with fragrant purple sprigs. The best way to spend a summer evening is out in the garden with snips and basket, harvesting bunches and hanging them upside down to dry. They only take a week to dry and then it's just a matter of crumbling the dried buds into a container and hanging some more up to dry. When I've harvested all I can, I'll fill lots of little organza bags for under-the-pillow sweetness.

 Of course I'm not the only one who likes the lavender... bumble bees are very busy getting in there and gathering pollen. I must say I enjoy the company of these hard little workers and I find them very obliging in getting out of the way as I pick my bunches, although they do often continue to harvest the flowers in my basket!

 The plants on the deck are filling out as well. 

 In fact everything was looking pretty good, until last Sunday when a rather bolshy thunderstorm blew in. Rain and wind lashed the garden, and then hail pelted down. It was rather heavy and rather loud.

 Not to mention cold... brrr! This looks like a nice coating of cherry blossom, but it's actually hail. Fortunately more rain came along after this and washed most of the ice away.

 This is not as bad as the big storm that lashed Sydney, but it was enough for me and my garden! 

Most of the damage was sustained by big-leaved plants which are all looking battered and tattered. I was sad to see the damage on the Cercis Forest Pansy (top left) because I love it's heart shaped leaves. The hosta my neighbour gave me (top right) really took a pummelling. I might be able to trim and feed it to convince it to grow some new leaves. 

In the vege garden, the beans mainly bore the brunt of it (bottom left), but luckily they have only just started producing flowers so there weren't many to be knocked off. My apples have been the main casualty (bottom right), with lots of little apples knocked off (I'll consider this nature's way of thinning them out), but the rest were badly pock marked. I'll still use them for cooking and cider making, but I feel bad for commercial growers who have probably lost entire crops.

So that's the latest from the early summer garden! How are your summer/winter gardens going?

December flowers

Here we are in the December flower garden. Rose season is in full swing, and I have to say the roses have never looked better! All that watering at the start of the season has led to strong foliage and lots of flower heads. Take note for the future, self! 

Above, clockwise from top left: purple poppy, pink gypsophila, The Fairy rose, Claire rose, sweet peas, Queen Elizabeth rose, pink peony poppy, Peace rose, a little pastel pansy, lavatera, Sexy Rexy rose, Queen Anne's lace. In the middle is a grouping of sweet peas and roses in little glass bottles... a lovely scented centrepiece.

This area in the garden always gets a bit wild over summer as everything grows tall and bushy. I like the pastel tones of the lambs' ears and lavatera but I realised recently that something had always struck me as jarring about the scene, and that something is the pink penstemon. It's a really hot coral pink (more so than this picture shows I think), and just clashes too much with the surroundings. So I'll leave it be since the weather is too hot to shift it now, but next winter I'll whip it out and replace it with something more pastel.

Everything looks much prettier when viewed from the other side! I'm enjoying the poppies while they last too. They are self seeded from last year and about every third plant has reverted back to red, so I pull those ones out, and hope I'll still have some pink seedlings next year!

It started to rain while I took these pictures, so I popped into the glasshouse and spied on the sparrows in the feeder. I love hearing birdsong in the garden.

That's it for today! I have some more garden pics to show soon along with some Christmas decorating. This month is flying along so fast!