Sunday and all the rest

The traditional, indeed biblical idea of Sunday being a day of rest has quite an appealing sound to it. Day of rest... as in, 'doing nothing'. Must try it sometime, but I wonder if I'd get bored in half an hour? Probably.

Anyway there was no danger of doing nothing this morning, and nothing much happening here at Amateur Land. It is spring after all, there's a ripper of a mild sunny day on offer, and a garden barely half-way through the planned renovations.

I think there was a meeting in the shed last night,
where my pot of assorted salad seeds were slowly
winding their way towards germinating. The meeting
went something like this: "OK, it's agreed that we all
pop up, in unison, early Sunday morning. Jamie's
been checking on us daily, been nice with the water
spray, and he's getting a bit impatient (which isn't
the first time). So, when he opens the shed door on
Sunday morning we all yell out "Surprise!" in unison.
And that's exactly what happened, sort of.

Next stop, Marrickville Markets, to pick
up the Tiger Grass plants I ordered two
weeks ago from the nice guy there at
Swane's (yep, he's part of the well-known
gardening family). The terrible winds
of the last week had blown these plants
about a bit, but the soil surface has
plenty of new shoots popping up, and
they should get growing well in spring's
warm weather.

I like the Tiger Grass label. As the label says, it's an
alternative to bamboo, without the bad manners. 

This uninspiring shot represents the next hour or two's
work this Sunday, thoroughly digging over yet another
bed prior to planting being the main job. At the back,
centre, is Tibouchina 'Jules' which should grow to
1m high and wide. Near the front are two little mauve
lavenders, which will reach 60cm high and wide.
And dotted in between them are seedlings of a little
low-growing chrysanthemum with white flowers
which will fill the large gaps while the main players
reach their full size over spring, summer and autumn
(aren't I the optimistic one?). Fingers crossed yet again.

Impatience has few rewards, and so while the potted
Roma tomato is covered in flowers, that's all that is
happening there. Just flowers, but if I was a bee I
would definitely be visiting this guy. 

And while all the gardening was going on within view of her studio which overlooks the garden, Pammy was having her own version of a Sunday without rest. Head down, she's hard at work, doing even more paintings for her second solo art exhibition, which is at the Eden Gardens Garden Centre in October (where she staged her first solo show last year, in September).

In the meantime, Pammy is also part of another art exhibition which is currently showing here in Sydney, at Gallery Red in Glebe. This exhibition is called '31 Days' and it is a group show by several artists, all of whom did 31 paintings in the 31 days of July, to the very broad theme of 'The Space Between'. 

Pam based her 31 pieces on our road trip across the United States in September and October last year, which regular readers of this blog will probably remember. If you're in Sydney and want to check out this great little show, it's on until September 25, and is open Monday to Saturday (check the Gallery Red website for times). I'm floating somewhere between proud and thrilled about Pam doing these exhibitions, hence the shameless promotion on my little blog! Here are three of her pieces from the 31 Days show.