November 2008
Poppies
I know that mine is an Australian native garden, but there is one small section
outside the part of the house that was to be my mother Beatrice's,
and here I like to grow some of the English plants that Mum and
I used to share in our previous gardens.
There are some things in pots and
some things that just pop up all by themselves,
like these poppies, and eventually I am hoping to fill this small section
with some of
Mum's hellebores and miniature cyclamen. But at the moment it is too
exposed to the sun in the summer, so I have planted some acacia boormanii
which I hope will grow to provide some shade for me to begin creating
this special little place in Mum's memory
Apart from the little orange poppies
that popped up, we have had these stunning purple ones
appearing each year in different parts of the garden.
Jonni keeps trying to tell me they are weeds and I should pull them out -
but the bees love them!
The garden bed which I planted to
disguise the ugly concrete slab is doing surprisingly well
even though it gets very little rain.
The poppies seem to have rather
taken over and are in danger of swamping
one of my very favourite plants in the whole garden - the erymophila racemosa
which I grew from a cutting
I love the various colours all over
the bush as the brown buds mature and open first to
yellow flowers and then turning to cerise
And on the north side of the house
the creeper has taken off like a rocket.
Although no sun comes even an inch into the window in summer, it will be lovely
to
have the pergola eventually totally shaded by the vine.
The wallaby grass has gone beserk
in among the garden beds, but they are much easier
to control than the tussock grasses.....................
.......................which have
taken hold with avengeance
.
I know there are some banksias in there somewhere!?
And I think I'm going to have to
persuade Jonni to get out the crowbar
again to reduce the amount of grass so close to the house as the bush fire
season is upon us