Today I went to the supermarket to buy milk and came home with a calla lily. I did not think twice. As soon as I saw it, I picked it up and put it in my trolley because it reminded me of my grandmother. This a photo of my grandmother in her garden, the farm … Continue reading Grandma’s poison arum lily
Category: Gardening Fix
For the love of Bromeliads
Last week I shared my pineapple and my love of bromeliads. These shady spots under trees where nothing grows? Perfect for a bromeliad. You don't have to water them. The downside is some of them are prickly if you have to work around them. The real upside is the variety of surprising flowers. This is … Continue reading For the love of Bromeliads
Surprise! It’s a pineapple
A pineapple is a lovely surprise! Growing a pineapple is as easy as buying a pineapple and eating it. Retain the top crown and pop in in the ground. Water and Wait. Like, really really wait. Two years later - up pops a prickly little pretty thing! The pineapple grows in the middle of the … Continue reading Surprise! It’s a pineapple
Strawberry Guava Jelly
Our Strawberry Guava has never done anything much. Last year I actually fertilised it and we gave it a good trim because it was blocking our winter light. Perhaps both, or one of these things has produced a crop of about 302 423 pieces of fruit. The fruit is not really palatable to eat so … Continue reading Strawberry Guava Jelly
Summer Sucks
I don't like summer. This seems a controversial statement - like saying I don't like parties. Perhaps I will tell you about my feelings on parties another time. I particularly don't like the type of summer we are having this year. Hot and dry. At least if we get a summer storm most nights, I … Continue reading Summer Sucks
Purple is my favourite
I suspect we all have a connection to a particular tree. For me, it is the Jacaranda tree. Growing up, I lived next door to my grandmother (I know, bliss right!) and she had a Jacaranda tree that forked perfectly to easily climb into and sit and read, or dream or write letters. My home … Continue reading Purple is my favourite
The Weather Prophets
Writing a book is like collecting pebbles and muck that might look like ideas and jamming them together into a coherent narrative. It takes lots of ideas to make a complete book. The ideas can come from anywhere, anytime, and be a complete surprise, and change the whole direction of the book. One of the … Continue reading The Weather Prophets
Not a drop of rain!
I have decided that after a month of sprummer it is already summer. The worst sort of start. A week of hot dry winds, the horizon smudged with the smoke of bush fires. The trees in my garden have dropped leaves and look bare and parched. My lettuce is shrinking instead of growing. I took this photo of … Continue reading Not a drop of rain!
Plant Crimes
This is an example of the poor planning that defines my sporadic gardening. The strangely paired bedfellows in this pot most surely do not belong together. The red flower is a hippeastrum. I got a stack of bulbs from my friends Donna and Andrew, who had an excess growing in the garden of their newly … Continue reading Plant Crimes
It Sprummer – but don’t put your blankets away.
So, according to Dr Entwisle's review of seasons in Australia, it is Sprummer - a changeable cross between spring and summer and a time when there is a second burst of flowers. My banksiae rose did exactly that. Finished flowering at the end of August and then flowered again in October. Through September, both the mango and … Continue reading It Sprummer – but don’t put your blankets away.