Frangipani dreaming

Well, it only took two months to get our latest frangipani planted. I thought it would take longer, being a pessimist about my workrate during summer, but the last two cooler mornings have seen the whole job done.

Regular readers might remember this blog posting from December, when Pammy came across this very nice little baby frangipani tree at a local ceramics gallery, where she conducts painting classes. Home it came to our place, I blogged about how wonderful it was, then followed the hottest, most humid and nasty summer for many years. In the last two days the weather looked a lot better, so I got to work.

First of all I had to remove the sprawling and very dead Grevillea which occupied this spot. That looked like a really daunting challenge in this weather, but I was wrong: it was so rotten and dodgy that it took about half an hour to cut off all its limbs and dig out the stump. And so this morning the task of planting the frangipani was all done by 7.30am. 
(I like to do my summer gardening very early each day ...)

As the frangipani isn't in full flower at the moment, here's a reminder of its many-coloured, pinky-yellow themed blooms. It's going to be a lovely complement to the white and yellow frangipani that shares our backyard.

If you haven't planted out a baby tree from its pot, the basics are simple. 

Water the pot first and let it soak for a while, to loosen the root ball, while you dig the hole. The hole itself should be no deeper than the pot itself, but twice as wide. Don't add any fertiliser to the hole. 

Take the plant from its pot, very gently! Sit it in the hole and do a few checks. 

Make sure it is facing the way you want it to face. 

Next, make sure the soil surface of the pot's soil is at least level with the surrounding soil. (Lay down a straight stick/rod to check your levels are OK.) Lower than the surrounding soil is bad, slightly higher is OK, level is fine too. Then fill in around the hole with the surrounding soil. Lightly tamp it down, but don't pack it down. And never cover the pot's soil with garden soil.

Did I say don't add fertiliser? Well, don't. Then water it generously from a watering can, to which you have added some seaweed solution (here is Australia it'd most likely be either eco-seaweed, or Seasol). That's it.

Now, finally, a photo to finish of the dead grevillea, and its empire of Spanish moss, because we've come up with a wonderful idea for where to put the Spanish moss (if it works). AND, I've also started up a bonsai growing project that has been on the back burner for quite a while. So expect a few more February postings from this little amateur gardener.

Farewell old Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream'. Sad ending, but you were a wonderful native garden shrub, stunningly colourful, a mecca for squabbling honeyeaters, and in your demise, a hauntingly memorable display stand for our beloved Spanish moss. You will be missed!

Last day of summer? Not here it isn't!

February 28 is, for people who put their faith in calendars, the last day of summer here in Sydney. Tomorrow, March 1, is when autumn begins. Well, I don't subscribe to that faith at all.

I prefer the way that summers end at different times each year, the way the season flickers out like a candle with a few late, warm days popping up to surprise you. And then one day you feel that special chill that says "it's autumn now and winter's not far away" and you realise summer ended a while ago, on no particular day.

So, at this stage of the year our garden is of the opinion that summer has several weeks to go before the party's over. It's a time when herbs like to flower, crops turn to gluts and there's plenty of colour wherever you look. I always like the simple little herb flowers in particular.  

Wild rocket flowers at the tips of its thin, gangly stems.

Broccolini is meant to be harvested before it flowers, but this
one beat me to it. I only planted the seedlings three weeks ago!

Basil mint is a tussie mussie of tiny blooms.

Eggplants show off their potato family heritage in a pretty hue.

And they're cropping now in purpley-white abundance.

Every day I pick a handful of red Serrano chillies that I swear
were deep green only the day before.

As well as all the edibles producing their little spots of colour, many ornamentals are a pleasure to be around at the moment.

New Guinea impatiens, which we've mass-planted under the
grevillea in the hope they suppress weeds better than the thick
mulch has abysmally failed to do. So far so good ....

Frangipani

Grevillea 'Peaches & Cream'

Ivy geranium

More ivy geraniums!

Blue salvia

Yes, spring definitely has sprung

Wow, Huey's laying on a pearler of a first week of spring. Sunshine plus warmth in the 20s every day, and for the next few days it seems. Love your work this week at least, Huey! While all the garden renovations chugg along nicely, the established plants in other parts of the garden where mattocks aren't being swung have all jumped out and, if they could speak, would be cheering loudly. The whole show here is starring, of course, the dazzling scadoxus family, but they're not the only spring bloomers around here.

The Scadoxus are at their peak right now, after taking
more than a week to fully open.

This year there are four of them, last year three.
They're at their best in the late afternoon, when the
low sun catches the tops of the flower tips.

Talk about photogenic! These scadoxus
are superb in the early morning light,
gleaming like neon adverts while all
the greens around are slowly waking up.
In the afternoons they catch fire. They're
the first thing you see when looking out
from the house, and you'd think I'd be over
the sense of 'wow' after a week of this,
but no, every 'first glimpse' gets me.

The largest of them seems to be making babies while
still blooming. Ever the optimist, I am hoping this is
a good thing, the beginning of a scadoxus empire,
achieved without much help from me, I might add.

If there is such a thing as a ridiculous amount of
flowers on the one plant, then my lime tree has a
ridiculous number of flowers on every twig, branch,
stem: you name it, it doesn't just have a flower on it,
there's a cluster jostling for a bit of bee action.

The hum of bees is the soundtrack to being out here
right now, and it looks like these baby lime-ettes
indicate that a bee has paid a welcome visit here.

When limes flower profusely, lemons flower too, but
not quite in such abundance, and in a different colour
scheme, too. Both have a lovely fragrance to be near.

Reliable as ever, the pinky-white cymbidium orchids
make their September appearance with aplomb.

And the most popular flower with visiting native birds
is working its way up to an October peak, but it is
already filled with blooms. This is Grevillea 'Peaches
and Cream' a modern hybrid that, like the Robyn
Gordon and Ned Kelly grevilleas to which it is
related, blooms most of the year anyway. The native
birds actually squabble over visiting rights, sometimes
quite noisily, but they all get a good feed every day.

As the garden is being renovated now it isn't quite as filled with flowers as it usually is at this time of year, but the old regulars are still a delightful bunch to have around. This really is the nicest start to spring that we've had for several years – may it continue this way for as long as possible, I say.

The time-lapse bush

I mentioned in my previous posting that my Grevillea 'Peaches and Cream' is flowering its head off at the moment, and the way it bursts into bloom all over is almost like time-lapse photography. Wherever you look there's a bloom in one of the stages of opening, and so that's what I thought I would record here. All these photos were taken this weekend.

Fully open and two-toned, the only thing Peaches and Cream lacks is subtlety.

I can't imagine a garden full of two-toned blooms – one bush is enough, but my Pammy fell in love with a Peaches and Cream in a house nearby and she wanted one. It has taken me a while to also really, truly love this plant the way she does, but it's growing on me. Certainly it's a hit with the honeyeater birds who visit it every day. As you can see from this photo there are blooms in every stage of opening up, so let's take a closer look.

Stage one – the flower pokes its head out from the foliage.

Stage two, the unfurling begins, from the base of the flower head.

Stage three – more unfurl, all a pleasing, pale limey-green colour.

Stage four – the flower grows from the base, more stamens (is that their name?) unfurl.

Stage five – the first blush of pinky orange appears.

Stage six – all the buds are opening now.

Stage seven – red-tipped antennae send out signals (sorry, I'm not a botanist, not sure what these thingies are really called).

Stage eight – almost there now, pink blush growing, not quite fully open though.

Stage nine – birds start feasting on these now, a lolly shop for honeyeaters.

Stage ten – a fully mature flower, pinky peaches and yellowy cream.

The bush itself is about 2m high and wide, but it would grow bigger (maybe 3m) if I left it to grow to full size. But sorry, Peaches and Cream, that isn't going to happen in my tiny backyard. Besides, my brutal trimming seems to suit this bush beautifully. It thrives on being pruned, and that's how things are hopefully going to be for many years to come.