Rain and Festivals

It's Festival time in Adelaide and the lights are on again on North Terrace. The city is swarming with people at all hours of the day and night. Being usually disorganised this year we have tickets for nothing and have not even been to WOMAD (gasp).

All the tickets have gone for EVERYTHING at the Speigaltent and the line to get into the Garden of Unearthy delights is extremely long.

Still the buskers are great and there are many free events such as the light show and Writers week. The rest of my family are in the city sampling the delights of Amococo at the moment.

Fisherman and I had the unexpected delight of a double sleepover for the children last night allowing us to GO TO THE MOVIES, mooch about without any sounds of complaint and roam the city streets until the wee hours. I can highly recommend it.

The Northern Lights.

The lights change every few minutes making fairytale objects of the buildings.

So go on into the city and soak up the atmosphere.

But back to the happenings in the garden. The last few months have been extremely hot and dry but what excitment yesterday, it rained!!
The verandas flooded and we had a minor leak inside but we were jumping up and down with excitment to see all the water cascading into the rainwater tanks.

The chilli bush in its second year is covered with fruit. It seems to thrive in the harsh conditions.

This part of the garden is looking good with sedum Autumn Joy, some bright dwarf zinnias and a euphorbia.

A close up of the sedum Autumn Joy. It is also doing very well in the dry heat. I saw lots of these at the Gardening Australia expo which I managed to go to this weekend. I was feeling pretty smug that it is already in my garden (I do smug rather well and often without justification). Of course while I was there I did purchase some plants. This included a few more interesting succulents that hopefully will feature in a future posting, and also a Pomegranet, I am trying to work out where to put it.

The Garlic Chives are flowering. There are dahlias in here as well.

I had to put this in, I so love my walks on the beach, you never know what each day will bring.

Here are a couple of pots around the front veranda.

The lemon tree in what I like to think of as my mediterranean garden has been looking sick and really needs the rain, it is stressed and badly effected by scale but has a very good crop of lemons. There is also an Orange in a pot, rosemary, a myrtle, geraniums and a rose.

Dispite the lack of rain the front yard is looking quite good and we have only lost one plant from the past spring planting. The native plant sale is coming up in the first week of May so we can replace the eromophillia nivea that did not make it. The Causrinas, Banksia, Lamandras and various saltbushes are going well

Hopefully the extreme hot weather is over for this season. Dispite resolutions of being good and saving money I have ordered spring bulbs so I am looking forward to planting those.

I have big plans for winter planting of yet more fruit trees in the backyard!!

Yesterday I planted french beans and rainbow chard and I have seedlings of lettuce, coriander, pak choy and rocket coming up. Up until now with the very hot weather most seedlings have not survived so I hope this lot will live.

Summer Holidays

Beautiful Yorke Peninsula

Working on a new water feature in the courtyard.

I am away on Yorke Peninsula at the moment so not sure how the garden is faring.

Still working on variations of new plans for the back yard.
The beautiful flora here at the bottom end of Yorkes is inspiring for native plantings with many variations of form and foliage colour and many birds enjoying the flowers.

Dogs in the Veggie Patch!

This morning I find that the dogs (we are minding a friends dog at the moment so there are two) have been up in the veggie patch and have snapped off two tomato plants and trampled the lettaces and basil. I did not head off to work in the best frame of mind after this discovery!

Small Garden Delights

It's often the small details in gardens that are delightful, especially if you don't want to look at the big details because there are lots of weeds, bare fences and other sources of discontent! I wish the beautiful picture above was from my garden but it is from the Fitzroy Gardens in Melbourne.

I'm very happy with my plant stand at the moment. The brass pot at the top was my Mother's and as I polished it up yesterday it brought back many memories of conversations around the table at Wentworth street.

Baby Gladdies (Blushing Bride) flowering in the Spring, next to a seed grown two or three year old Persimmon. This was grown from a seed from a Persimmion from our old house in Hilton.

The red wall.

The Goddess of the courtyard

After Christmas

I live in a very beautiful place, South Australia. Here are the rocks at Port Willunga, my favorite beach.

There are many beautiful beaches close to Adelaide. Here is Horseshoe bay below.And within a short walk of my home, the beach and jetty at Grange.

Little pots we picked up at the Port Adelaide Art Market before Christmas, we really enjoyed it.

My favorite Christmas presents, flowers from M's garden and the priceless tea cosy from L

My hard rubbish find, the plant stand with a new coat of paint.

The new tanks. Soon to be covered by a wooden slats trellis and I hope to grow a Altissimo (? I think) single red climbing rose on this

The table set for Christmas day lunch.

What a long time since my one and only post in 2007! It reflects how busy I have been in the last few years, I am hoping that the next year will be slower and bring a little more time for enjoyment of the simple things in life like gardening and music.

We are very much in a post Christmas slow down at the moment. We had 35 people for Christmas lunch and it was a beautiful day, mild for Adelaide, about 25 degrees, perfect for lunch under the veranda.

It's hot today, the veggies are back under shade cloth and I don't feel inclined to go out and do any gardening. I will be on holidays in 5 days so plenty of time then for mulching and planting.