A bouquet of flowers

Some collective nouns do their job quite well, such as a gaggle of geese, but the idea of a 'bunch' of flowers has never sounded right to me. Far too plain a word for such a lovely thing. However, a 'bouquet' of flowers is a lovely word, and so here's a little photographic bouquet of flowers in bloom this afternoon in our early-spring garden here in Sydney.

Geranium 'Philippe Vapelle', the only survivor from a group of six or so geraniums I bought at a flower show five years ago. I was told they like a colder climate than Sydney's and whoever told me so was right, but at least Monsieur Vapelle is flying the flag for true Geraniums here in Sin City.

Good old alyssum, just scatter a packet of seeds in a long, low planter and it looks after itself. Of course you have to put up with it self-seeding into cracks in the paving and all sorts of other spots, but I don't mind. And it does smell nice when you're weeding in its vicinity.

The calendulas are doing a lovely job making the spinach patch brighter, and as I've grown these from seed I'm just that little bit more pleased about them.

One of the bonuses you get with seed-grown plants is that they occasionally toss up weirdos, such as the very pale lemon double calendula. Yes, it's a confused mess of a thing but it's my seed-grown confused mess, and it's welcome here next to the spinach patch.

This is another of that category of plants which I frequently refer to in this blog as 'Pam's plants'. It's a dark-leafed pelargonium which sends up almost pink flowers which in certain lights look almost salmon-pink. However, Pam likes it for its dark leaves, and I'm growing it in one corner of 'Succulent City' where it adds some welcome contrast and colour in amongst the succulents.

Also in amongst the succulents, and completely uninvited, are the primulas, which I foolishly bought many years ago, and which self-seed prolifically and come up everywhere each spring. A pretty weed at best which I try to keep down to a few splotches of pink here and there.

And finally, my sage bush is in bloom. Though this is my culinary herb bush, not a flowering type, someone forgot to tell my sage that it doesn't have to flower prolifically, because it's a herb, and yet it does. (Probably thinks "Everything else is flowering, well so will I.") As soon as it finishes flowering, which will be in a few weeks' time, I'll get out the secateurs and cut the whole thing back by about one-third. This brings on lots of new leafy growth and it always looks just yummy by late summer and autumn.

Up close, each little blue sage flower is reminiscent of an orchid bloom, with its spotty tongue leading down to a cavernous throat, with wings on each side looking as if they are ready to paddle foolish insects inside.

Viewed side-on the sage bloom is not quite so pretty but is beautifully complex nevertheless. (Reminds me of that Rolling Stones tongue logo). At the end of flowering all that's left are the muddy-red cups which held the blooms, and at this stage the plant truly looks exhausted, clapped-out and half-way to carking it. That's when the magic of the secateurs is needed. This renews its mission to be a fragrant, beautiful and useful member of the garden, which it is. Even though it's a humble herb, it's actually one of the stars here in Amateur Land.

Finally, if any readers of this blog are in the Sydney, Central Coast or Hunter regions, the annual Florafest flower and garden show is on again at Kariong near Gosford, and I'll be manning the Burke's Backyard stand next Saturday, so drop by and say hello if you are planning on checking out the show. Every time I go to Florafest I tell myself that "this year I'm definitely not buying anything because there's no room to put it". Last year I only bought three clivias and three ornamental gingers, so that was fairly restrained. Who knows what I'll bring home this time (or, for that matter, what Pam will bring home, too!)

Playing catch-up

Let's not beat about the bush. I've been neglecting the garden lately, by my standards. Mind you, I freely admit to being a bit of a gardening nutter, yet lately I've been anything but that, a disgrace to the nutter-hood. However, the prospect of an old gardening friend paying a visit next weekend has propelled me back into full-blown nutcase mode again. I just spent this whole weekend playing catch-up, and here's how things are going.

For starters, I would like to say a heart-felt 'thank you' to my old mate Huey, the weather god, for laying on one-and-a-half days of mild, sunny weather ideal for gardening, then completing the deal with not one but two good showers of rain on Sunday afternoon, to wet the newly-laid mulch and water in the fertiliser. Thank you Huey. But now, on with the show. The poppies needed no attention at all. Well done, chaps.

Oh goody, the hellebores have decided to bloom. They should be looking good in a week's time.

Purple alyssum needs no encouragement or attention, and the succulent patch, under the wise leadership of the Mayor of Succulent City, Mrs Lithops, is ready to receive visitors.

No doubt ready to perform splendidly over the coming months, the first of the calendulas is sending up flowers. As these have been grown from seed, I am claiming bonus points!

In the vegie patch all is coming along nicely. Here, the baby beetroots are throbbing with colour.

Nearby, the coriander patch is thriving, partly because I am constantly snipping off leaves with scissors to take inside for cooking. Each snipping seems to match the patch lusher within a week. Regular organic liquid feeds don't do any harm, either. Behind the coriander patch, that's a pelargonium which nominally belongs in a pot, but which escaped from that little prison long ago and is now master of its own domain and a terrible bully to all its neighbours. If it wasn't for my secateurs the whole garden would eventually be one big pelargonium patch!

I haven't harvested any of these leaves yet, but they're ready to be used now. This is a new addition to Amateur Land. It's called the celery leaf plant, and it's closely related to celery but doesn't form those robust, crunchy stalks. It's low and leafy. I use traditional celery all the time in cooking in the kitchen, and I often use the leaves of celery bunches. So when I saw the packet of 'celery leaf plant' seeds in an Asian supermarket in tropical Darwin earlier this year, I had to try them.

One of the unsung heroes of my garden is the rosemary bush. This healthy person was grown from cuttings and is about three years old. As for the cuttings, I did what an expert gardening friend, Cheryl, said to do, which was: "Just poke the cuttings straight into the soil - most of them will grow just like that." And so they did. And my how they've grown!

The rosemary is just starting to flower, and it smells absolutely wonderful when you get up close to it to take yet another stalk or two for the kitchen. It really is one of the most fragrant things in this garden.

Finally, Mrs Agave has delivered two gorgeous children, as she likes to do most years. Both mother and children are doing well.

While everything else is now in much better order, I am afraid that the real work done on this lovely weekend of sunshine and showers hasn't rated a mention yet, mostly due to the lack of suitably nice photos.

I just couldn't manage a lovely photo of weeding, yet three or four hours yesterday afternoon were spent pulling rotten little weeds out of the ground. And the photos I took of newly mulched beds look far too mulchy. You'll just have to take it from me that there is mulch almost everywhere now. Same goes for the trimmed hedges out the front. Ramrod straight now. And the fertilising, too. Did lots of that, but I don't think I could manage a nice photo of chicken poo (in fact I didn't even try). But the air is currently wonderfully fragrant with that classic farmyard aroma. So Pam and I are going to do what we always do when I fertilise everything - that's right, we're leaving home for a few hours and heading off to the movies!

Waiting in line

Haven't I been quiet lately? Well, yes. Two whole weekends in a row without gardening or blogging, and the truth is that I could get away with a third gardening-lite weekend, as everything is in a 'set and forget' mode at the moment. A few weeks ago I had a huge weekend digging, sowing and planting and since then the seeds have slowly gone about their business of germinating and forming roots and leaves. Early morning sprinkles of the hose from me, and that's all I need to do right now. So here's all the chirpy little seedlings, waiting in line for their turn to become dashing herbs, vegies and flowers a month or so from now.

First stop, spinach and calendula land. Spinach the three rows left, calendulas on the right edge.

Trainee spinach.

Calendula wannabees. Just like in reality TV, some of these hopefuls will be voted off over the coming days and weeks, to make room for the remainder. That's show biz!

The next orderly bed (with sugar cane mulch dividers) features coriander, choy sum, celery leaf plants and baby beetroot.

Beetroot rangas.

Coriander kids

Choy sum punks, too many of them

Slow off the mark, these probably are the celery leaf plant seeds. Who has ever heard of weeds growing in orderly rows? No, these must be the seeds I sowed, probably, I guess...

Next bed, poppy seedlings, and the bare earth at the front now has a long line of the tiniest little baby curly parsley seeds coming up. At last!

Across the way, the flat leaf parsley seeds have turned into seedlings, while the shallot seedlings behind, as usual, are just getting on with business.

Let's finish off with some seed-sowing graduates. The chervil loves the semi shade as much as mint does, but is a lot better behaved. Lovely little herb.

And the oak-leaf lettuce looks lovely in the early morning light. And it ain't half bad in sandwiches, either.

Everyone in Sydney agrees this autumn has been something special. It's still sunny and moderately warm, but the heaters are on at night now, and the weather folk say that it should be colder and wetter this week, and there's not a peep of complaint from anyone. We need the rain, as it has been too dry. And we don't begrudge the colder weather finally arriving, as it is overdue.

This loveliest of all our seasons has been such a kind one to all the plants in the garden. The youngsters are all waiting patiently in line, growing every day, while that old gardener doesn't seem to have much to do and just wanders around taking a few photos, pulling up a few weeds here and there, and stopping occcasionally to look up and that clear blue sky, making sure to remember what a fine, glorious autumn this has been.

Momentarily distracted

It's amazing what can happen while you are momentarily distracted. You think you're noticing what's going on, suddenly your attention is drawn elsewhere, then when you focus back on the job at hand everything has changed. Well, in my case my little moment of distraction actually lasted a fortnight, and in that brief interlude I barely had time to do anything out in my garden other than sprinkle water around to keep things going. And while I wasn't playing close attention (or blogging, for that matter) all sorts of delightful, and not so delightful, things happened out in Amateur Land.

Crassula 'Campfire' decided to blush red and green at the same time. Lovely succulent, this.

The first of the calendulas, employed as casual colour for just the next few months, until I can get my hands on some new, tiny Tibouchinas which will eventually fill the same space with purple power every autumn.

Standing back for a moment and looking down the left side of Amateur Land, it looks as if it's spring has well and truly begun. It has been unseasonably warm here lately, and virtually no-one in Sydney has complained!

The right side is much the same. Down in the foreground, lined up behind Ingrid, my pie, flan and quiche specialist, the little parsley border is doing well, with not a single casualty so far. A flat-leafed miracle!

The poppies keep on popping and Pam brings in a new bunch every second day. What value!

The second wave of orchids, the pinky-white ones, just opened up today, in the afternoon rain.

And no doubt all the others will follow the leader very soon.

In the vegie patch, a second miracle. Peas. Not many, and it's all my fault anyway. I misjudged how much sun its spot would get after a tree was pruned, and the poor plants spent most of their July days in shade. Now that Sol is smiling on the little blighters, they're playing catch-up, no thanks to me, and are dutifully cropping, grumbling all the way about how many more they could have produced if only muggins knew his sky a bit better.

No grumbles from the spinach patch, though. Getting underway nicely now.

In the interest of documentary truth I now present a total and utter disaster brought on by my little fortnight of momentary distraction. Compared to the other vegetables, which are either grumbling or humming away, there's just the quiet sound of munching here. Womboks – Chinese cabbage – munched to death by slugs and grasshoppers. Far gone, inedible, a disaster. And it's all my fault. I haven't been paying attention lately. Not doing much gardening, no blogging at all...

And J'accuse! I blame it all on Andre Citroen!

Take last Saturday for instance. Week two of new car ownership. Sunny day forecast, again! Two options. One is to go outside and pull up the womboks, sow seeds, tackle weeds. The other is to run in the new Turbo-Diesel C4. And so I headed south, visited the family farm at Kiama on the South Coast (been with us since 1840, it has), and eventually made it home after a 300km loop. What an indulgent waste of fuel I hear the eco-friendly chorus cry! Guilty as charged. 300km, 16 litres. I've got myself a fuel miser! And a clean-air one, too. With its nifty particle filter, it produces a minuscule 0.004g of particles per kilometer, better than virtually every other petrol-engined car. Vive le France!

I have to admit that beneath the veneer of a dedicated garden blogger there lurks an old rev-head from way back. I road-tested motorcycles for bike magazines for many years in the 70s and 80s (that's how I got started in journalism, in fact) and so, for me, the lure of driving a lovely, interesting car is every bit as irresistibly fascinating as the lure of raising crops from seed or watching a flower unfold. Besides, there's room for both, and much much more, in my life. I often feel a bit frustrated with blogging as a single topic exercise sometimes. There are just so many other things that fascinate me as much as gardening does – history, movies, cars, bikes, cooking, novels, art, politics, current affairs, science, music, sport, socialising with friends and discussing all or any of the above, etc etc – and sometimes gardening takes second place for a while. But usually not for long. It is a major joy in my life, second only (but a distant second!) to Pam.

But back to the garden! I must go out there this weekend. Seeds need sowing. The weeds are having parties. I need to attend a wombok funeral. Bromeliad pups are whimpering. Life goes on, even when the head gardener is off with the pixies for a few weeks.