First Month In!

It's the first month into the Little Garden Facelift and so much has been done! 

So far, I've cleaned out the Broms - all of the ones I don't want anymore - and the whole garden looks and feels so much cleaner; not to mention, I've scored some big pots to recycle! I've also cleaned out a cane I no longer need, and that left behind a nice terra-cotta pot too!

In one of the pots, I planted 4 cloves of garlic before the Winter Solstice. Which is good. I've got year to wait until that comes to harvest. I'll have to keep and eye on that! 

I then bought some bags of potting mix and started looking around for a rose for my dear friend, Hannah. I also bought 2 bags of rose potting mix - which is good for camelias too - and over the past few weeks, I've hesitated buying a rose bush because it may not grow properly in the place I'm currently living. So, I might give Camelias a try; as they're a nice plant and don't have thorns. They also attract the bees - which is good for the planet. 
I also bought a Geranium to support the Breast Cancer Foundation - and it's a hot pink one! It's jumped in and flowered in the most gorgeous way! But it's been in a bird cage to keep the possums away from it.

I have a solution for this - and another plant which was struggling with this problem too - and that was to buy myself a greenhouse! So, I did. I went out this week and bought myself a Naturallife walk-in greenhouse. It's a nice little one and it cost me only $44.90; and I have posted my day yesterday putting it together on Earth Gardeners on FB. A few people on there have advised me to save up for a better one - that this one is okay for now, but it will fall apart once the days get really hot. 

So, I know what I'm getting myself for my birthday this year! Yep, a bigger and better greenhouse! I'll be able to grow everything I want to eat in it and have it bolt together.

But for now, this one will have to do as it's what I can afford. Dad is stoked at how much my garden has jumped forward in the past year; and was amazed I offered him and Mum a couple of Agapanthus. Mum was so happy! She loves the plant and asked what colour they flower - as they flower either white, blue or purple - and when I said purple, she was so happy about that too! 

Truthfully, I can't wait to get in and grow vegetables again without the possums helping themselves... I really do miss eating my own herbs without fighting the possums for them... and getting to my tomatoes before the possums and flying foxes do. Well, until my next post, happy gardening! 

The Shade Area

Yesterday morning, I was out in the garden pulling apart the shade area to make it grow and bloom next Summer. 

I hadn't had any breakfast and had put on a load of washing; it was 8:30am and the chill was still in the air. 

After pulling out the table and chairs from the shady area, I then picked up a nice plant I didn't know the name of and repotted it into a larger pot. It had grown pups over the last 6 months, and I knew it needed room to move. When I pulled it out of the pot, I found the roots had become rootbound; so I had come by it just in time! The pot I was putting into was twice the size and perfect for it to have room for the next year! It looks great!

The next thing I did was pull out all the broms I had let go from the past 5 years... they were just getting too much and I ended up throwing them over the garden gate and into my car port to be thrown in the bin - as it was collection day yesterday. I found my Desert Rose and repotted that dear little thing - as it didn't flower last Summer and I thought it had died. So, that's got a bigger pot to expand into.

I pulled out more broms and found some pots that I had 'lost' amongst the forest of weeds and overgrown broms and plants... and then, I came across a very grumpy Blue Tongue Lizard who was trying to hibernate. Poor little guy! He showed me how ticked off he was and bit me... and I well deserved it for interrupting his sleep and put him back where I found him. 

Once it was all done, I put the table and chairs, left the lizard alone to his sleep and hung out the laundry... with a happy note that I had gotten rid of a good lot of plants I didn't need and now have plenty of room there to add some I'd like to have in that area during the facelift. This is going really well! 

One Step Forwards - Two Steps Back

Sometimes I wish I had a credit card - but only sometimes - as I would never be able to handle the payments. Anyway, this week, I had a good lot of purchases towards the garden for the facelift it badly needs.

Yesterday, while I was out and about after doing the grocery shopping, I bought 2 bags of potting mix and a large grate for what I've decided to be as the climbing rose - Angel Face. It's hopefully going to be a purple range of rose (my favourite colour) and very pretty.

Now, I have the rose potting mix, the grate and the next thing I need it the pot - but really it just needs a big pot; which might just be one of the pots from the garden I already have. You know one of the ones which the Broms I have to get rid of live in now? Yep, one of those ought to do until I move and then I'll transfer it into another pot or better still into the ground! 

And, well, that's all I can buy for the garden - as that's all I can afford right now - until next pay, where I'll be buying just 1 bag of potting mix and a rose in a bag (which will be okay so long I keep it out of the sun and away from anything which might eat it). So, I might have to keep it inside near the door, or in the shaded area - I'm not sure yet. Otherwise, I'll have to look around at the yard this weekend and see what I can pull out of the pots and toss out.

Yep, it's going to be a busy weekend. What are you up to? Until my next post, happy gardening!

The Little Garden Facelift!

It's been a couple of years since I last did a facelift on my garden - and it's high time I did another one.

This is where I go looking through my yard and pull out all the pots and find out what the plants need - do they need repotting badly, do they need to be tossed out, do they need to back-filled? - it's on for young and old when it comes to this kind of facelift with my little garden, and so I call it The Little Garden Facelift - mainly because my garden it little and it really does need the facelift.

I'm really looking forward to this and so what I've begun to do is collect bags of potting mix... so far I've got 2 bags of Rose potting mix (for the rose I'm going to plant in the yard next month) and one bag of ordinary potting mix. I've also replaced 1 plant with a new one, repotted a plant from the shade area which was really reaching out for the light and ready to flower in the next week or so... and so that's brought me up-to-date with the little ones I'm hoping that aren't too over the top.

But the two big sun-loving Broms are going in the bin along with the cane by the fence - all of these will take over a yard if I plant them in the ground. So, they're out of my garden for good this year. This will give me 3 pots to reuse! Yay! I'm looking forward to this. 
I'm repotting a Frangipani and moving it to the back fence and moving some of the Agapanthus into the front row and seeing if I can get one of them into another pot to expand the family of them (they're purple and look just gorgeous, but last Summer, they didn't flower due to not having enough root room). So, once they're planted into new roomier pots, I'm sure they'll be better... 

Anyway, I'm hoping the garden will look and feel better once Hannah's rose is in. Hannah is a friend of mine who committed suicide and last week was her service in the UK. I'm planting a lovely rose in her memory in a lovely pot... but so far I've only got the potting mix. Over the next month, I'm hoping to get myself together to buy a nice pot for a rose I've picked out... it ought to a lovely memory for her. 

All of this will take part in July/August - yes, the coldest part of our year - so my garden will hopefully recover fully by the time the seasons warm up again; and I fix up the lawn from the Logan City Council invading my yard again to stuff around with the sewage drains again. Last year, that camera they used killed off a huge amount of lawn and the guys didn't put down any tarpaulin to protect my garden; assuming I didn't care, but I did. 

Well, that's all to report about my garden and what's going to be happening this year. Until next time, happy gardening.