A Spring Quickie

Here’s a few quick shots of some roses that I have taken over the last week or so.

This one is Gertrude Jekyll which I have growing as a climber along the fence. It isn’t a prolific flowerer at other times of the year but it puts on a great show in spring.

It’s being a little swamped this year by Heritage, also grown as a climber next to it. That’s probably my fault since I tend to favour the Heritage over the Gertrude Jekyll when I’m pruning since GJ is so incredibly thorny. I will have to let it go a little more.

And finally a shot of Abraham Darby. This rose is taking a long time to grow for me but it is beautiful and superbly fragrant. I do what I can to encourage it – maybe it’s the spot, maybe it’s that particular plant.

Happy gardening!

Ahhhhh - Spring!

The leaves are fresh and green, the skies are deep blue and the temperatures are, for the most part, very reasonable. I’ve been lucky enough to have had the last couple of weeks off work to potter around the house – it’s been great!

The first week was all about spring blossom as all the peach and nectarine trees were out.

The bottle brush was out as well. I have three cream trees down the western side of the house.

Then some of the roses started blooming.

Pat Austin

              

Skylark

Kathleen Harrop

And Seduction. This is my climbing one – after 4 years it still hasn’t got as big as a shrub of a similar age.

I spent part of the time building a couple of slightly dodgy structures to support my weeping standard roses.

Here’s one for the Lamarque.

I have my fingers crossed but it’s already leaning heavily towards the north with the back feet lifting. Time will tell, but I am making back up plans.

The other one is for the Red Pierre. I have a lot more confidence in this one.

Happy Spring!

Sue

Hello Little Weeeeeeed

Hello there and welcome to the post where, if you don’t know me apart from blogland, I give away my age with the “Bill and Ben, Flowerpot Men” reference in the title.

You can see here with this scratchy you-tube clip that my childhood was lived in the days before colour was invented.

Actually, my age was driven home to me last week when I read a blog post talking about how ‘Mom jeans’ are back in style. Imagine my surprise when, instead of seeing well pressed jeans with centre leg creases in the photo or the comfortable sort with elastic waists, there they were, Levi 501s – but they were fashionable only last decade… wait, no… oh, 20 years ago. Dammit! 

So what’s the point of all this blithering? Oh yes, the photos. This is the well-known and oh so lovely arum lily which is a declared weed here in Western Australia. So how can a gorgeous flower, best known for church floral arrangements for goodness’ sake, be a weed?  It “thrives on sandy soil with a periodic high water table. A serious weed along creek lines and in wet areas of south western Western Australia” (from this website). Here it is thriving in the local swamp which I note I wrote about at almost exactly the same time of year last year, mainly I guess because there’s really nothing happening in my own garden, although it’s full of the promise of spring.

I was going to try and get a little closer for some better shots but I was afraid of snakes, I’m sorry to say. My dedication to this blog doesn’t stretch to risking my life from death by snake bite. This makes the perfect segue to the photo of the very dead (good cat) highly venomous young dugite snake I found on my driveway around about last April (for scale, those are my shoes in the shot).

Scary isn’t it? ‘Where’s its mother’ is my question!

May all your jeans be comfortable.

Sue