November flowers

Oh November, where have you gone? I looked forward to you all year and you've passed in the blink of an eye. The garden is peaking and I haven't had time to appreciate it. When I went out tonight to photograph the roses I realised most of them were overblown and browning off. Oh well, tomorrow night I'll get out and deadhead them and hopefully some more blooms won't be too far off.

I've bought two peonies recently and today my neighbour gave me one he was getting rid of. I am going to have to have a reshuffle to fit them in, especially as I've realised the spot I'd planned for them isn't sunny enough. I have one there and every spring it buds up, but the buds don't swell or develop and eventually fall off. So I will need to put them all somewhere sheltered with full sun. Fussy little buggers, aren't they... but the flowers are worth it!

Above, clockwise from top left: lambs ears and geraniums, staples in my spring garden; Ash Wednesday rose; unknown peony (but doesn't give me any trouble with flowering); snow in summer; sweet william; Queen Elizabeth rose; dusky pink foxglove; Claire rose; peony poppy; chive flowers; unknown white rose; Sexy Rexy rose.

Our spring weather has been quite volatile. Wind is the norm, if we're lucky it's just a brisk breeze but often it blows up into a gale. I came home from work last week to find my Queen Elizabeth rose blown right over and the wooden stake I'd tied it to snapped in half. I found an old fence post and hammered that in and that's held it up so far.

That's it from me tonight... I'm going to try and organise my garden tour photos so I can get a post done on that soon.

October flowers

 I've gotten a bit behind with my posting in the past couple of months but I've still been taking photos! We haven't had the best spring weather but luckily that hasn't stopped the flowers. I had a reasonably good crop of ranunculus (not all the bulbs delivered on their promise though) and the anemones were very impressive. I also planted some out some new plant including two kinds of viburnum which will be nice next spring when they've bushed out a bit.

Above, clockwise from top left: clematis montana, pink and white ranunculus, apple blossom, miniature blue anemone (a special treasure from the alpine plant show), pink rhododendron, snowball viburnum, pastel anemones (with petals looking like they've been brushed with watercolours), violets, viburnum Mariesii, yellow ranunculus, white ranunculus, red watercolour anemone.

 I used this vase to grow hyacinth bulbs in and it's also been good for showcasing smaller blooms. I just put a small glass bottle inside to hold the bloom. (The anemones last a long time in the vase, opening and closing with the daylight.)

 Cherry blossom makes a frothy background for this ranunculus.

I didn't have garden roses in October so I bought some from the supermarket to tide me over!

That was October in flowers - it feels so long ago now. November has been hectic so far but I hope to get a post together soon to show you what's in bloom right now in my garden. I also did some garden tours on the weekend and I have some gorgeous photos to share... soon I promise!

My kitchen shelfie

 Hello again. It's been a while and I didn't really intend to be absent from my blog for two months, but once I let things go it was difficult to get back into the swing of things. I'm still dealing with earthquake repairs to the property and the uncertainty has made it difficult to focus positively on the house and garden, so it's just been easier not to do anything! However, I did start to miss my blog and having a record to look back on, so here I am again.

 A recent email from Gardenista pointed me in the direction of Urban Jungle Bloggers, who do a monthly plant themed styling challenge. This month's theme is My Plant Shelfie. I love a good shelfie and it seemed like a good reason to rearrange the houseplants, which I needed to do for summer anyway. The cyclamens have been banished to a cool dark room and the succulents have come forth.

 On this shelf I have my favourite little handmade houses and an art print of lavender, held in a vintage floral frog. The little brass chair is made from the cage from a champagne bottle.

 This is a new addition, with rather cool, graphical silver and green spotted leaves. It has a bit of attitude, don't you think? The plant label says it's called Scilla or Ledebauria Socialis. It's a nice compact size to fit inside this ramekin.

 I love the silvery green and plum tones on this succulent. It's container is a cat food can wrapped with rope (thank you Pinterest).

 I really love the tarnish and patina on this silver-plated salt shaker. It contrasts most beautifully with the delicate green leaves on this plant. I've had the plant for years and I forget what it's called! It's pretty impossible to kill but the leaves do have an annoying habit of turning brown from the base of the plant outward. I'm thinking of replacing it... does anyone have any suggestions for a similar nice, delicate trailing plant?

Now I'm submitting this post for the challenge. I'm actually very late with it, almost at the deadline in fact but I'm calling it a win that I even got the post written at all :) Thanks to Igor at Happy Interior Blog and Judith at Joelix.com for the prompt!