Saturday, March 31, 2012

I Know I Said No More Impulse Buys...

... but somehow a couple of plants came home with us today.


And there I was thinking that we'd done a good job yesterday whittling down the number of plants sitting around waiting for a permanent home.

I took some photos of our progress yesterday.

Hubby dug out the correa which apparently had succumbed to poor drainage and built up the garden bed even more with good soil mixed with soil improver.


The nandina came forward where it will have more space, replaced at the back by a dianella we had in a pot. Beside it is a variegated euonymus which had looked good in a pot for a few years but had started to  struggle. 


Uh oh, I noticed something was eating a young bottlebrush.


Found the culprits, there were a few of these, easily disposed of. I believe they are sawfly larvae.


Much nicer, a leaf curling spider. I've never seen so many around the garden.


And there was this little beauty hanging between two conifers. Hubby put his gloved hand up so it would show up better in the photograph. Research revealed it's a silver orb weaving spider.


Hubby pruned the myoporum parvifolium, common name Creeping Boobialla, because it was creeping across the old veggie patch.


In a couple of places it had established new roots so those pieces were replanted higher up to fill in bare spots.


A few things will probably stay in pots. This succulent seems to be happy in a pot. The cuttings in old plastic pots and the unhappy rootbound plants need to be planted out but I have a few nice decorative pots which are now empty. Hmm, might have to go the the nursery again.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Sorry to Sulk But Summer Sort of Sucked

Cooler and wetter than average. I was surprised though when I checked the Bureau of Meteorology website that it wasn't all that much cooler and while rainfall was well above average the previous summer had been even wetter. Maybe we didn't care so much right after the drought? Maybe there was more rain but fewer cloudy days? It sure seemed like it was grey almost all the time.

And then autumn began with record breaking rains. Canberra's monthly average for March was passed on the first day and records were being broken all over the state. Almost three weeks later floodwaters are still moving down the rivers.

I suppose I should do a little garden update. Hubby has been mowing every chance he gets but other than that we haven't done much. So much for my plan to have the garden finished by the end of last year and the house organised by the end of summer. Still, it's so nice to have a lovely green lawn again after all these years.

The moss that has appeared is pretty.


The garden is full of leaf-curling spiders.


I noticed a self-seeded something, I'm guessing a crepe myrtle?


Pumpkins came up in the old veggie patch. 
Some are butternuts which we used to grow but I don't know about these.

 
The pink bottlebrush is flowering again.