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. 

Cooler Weather Afoot!

At long last, the cooler weather is here! And this means I'm able to get off my very lazy butt and work the garden.

Well, okay, in the past few weeks, I've had day surgery done at the Wesley Hospital here in Brisbane, and I'm still recovering from the knock-out stuff they gave me, but that's no excuse for me to be lazy in the garden - even with the smallest things.

But it's May, which means, I must start my collection of bags of potting mix... yes, it's a weird old thing for me to do around my place, but it's something I do. On the first week of May, I begin buying bags of potting mix so that by around mid-July, I get myself working hard in my garden to repot my garden.

While I'm buying potting mix, I'm also going to be saving up for really big pots... only around 4 or so, to pot up some Broms and a few other plants around the garden. In all honesty, I really can't wait until I move out of this townhouse complex and into a proper home where the soil is so much better. You see, the soil where I am is only good for lawn; and not much else - it's red clay and builders rubble... how disgusting is that? So, I've got a gorgeous lawn and the inability to grow anything else. 

So, it's a container garden for me right now... and if I get myself into the larger containers, I'll be able to use the biggest buggers for the herbs or bonsais in my next place - to make my place look and feel wonderful. And believe me, I won't be moving from my next place for a very long time... I'll make sure of that - yep, it's going to be a forever home.

I also bought 2 plants for my terrariums - as a few of the plants in the two I have have either died or are beginning to look a little lanky. So, I thought to strike while the iron is hot and replace - or add - to those lovely glass containers. 

Well, despite that, I have been busily working in the garden - readying it for Winter. On Tuesday, I pulled a few pots away from the border of pipe and brick and raked out the long grass and weeds and it looks so much better! I then repotted a Frangipani because it was rootbound and then spotted that my second Brom was with pup - another one! - and so I'll have my 4th one to pot up and 2 to toss out! Wow, that's going to be a lot of work to get done; and I hope I don't get all sliced up while doing it as it's a sun-loving Brom; both of them. 

So, that's what I've been up to over the last month... what about you? Have you preparing for the cooler months here in Australia? Or if you're in another country, what are you up to? Until my next post, happy gardening. 

Flooding Rains

Out west, it's been raining so much, it's flooding all the previously dusty towns; and this means all that water will be coming towards the coast and filling our dams.

This is a good thing - and can be a bad thing as well. It's a good thing because it'll make our red centre turn green. It's a bad thing because there'll be a flood.

I have noticed, though, that our storm season has been late and so the garden has flowered late as well. My Moch Orange shrubs didn't go through their first bloom until late February and my pink-flowering Frangipani didn't put out any flowers this year. But I kind of expected the latter because I backfilled the pot last year.

The Lilly-Pillys have turned that lovely pink they normally do every Summer when they have new growth; just before their leaves turn that gorgeous light green then their lovely dark green and then, they put out their fruit of bright pink berries.

My lawn has grown so much since the rains have returned that it feels as though I'm constantly mowing it and pulling out weeds from every corner. But that's a good thing that the lawn is green, and the plants are growing so much! So, how is your place going? Until my next post, happy gardening.

Not A Typical Summer

Just when I think it's going to pour rain, and the garden's going to get a good soaking, the clouds dry up and take off to another part of the country and flood there instead.

Yep, it's been a weird old time for us here in Queensland; and this is one reason why I haven't really been on here to tell you guys much.

Not much has been happening in the garden.

Some of the Frangipannis are growing nicely that I planted into pots - and they'll need new pots come Winter. 

My Ficus needs a new pot - already - and that'll come this Winter too; as the plant hasn't grown as much as I had hoped.

And then, I'll be upgrading another Large Leaf Jade into another pot - or backfilling it soon as well. This means I'll have to save a bit of money for this until Winter. 

Otherwise, the lawn isn't growing as well as it did last year, and the only good thing is that I don't have any bindis... at least that's a good thing about that. Well, until my next post, happy gardening. 

Dry! Dry! Dry!

After the termites were treated, we got rain... yeah that'd be bloody right! So, Dad came back and treated them all again, and they were dead and gone!

However, my back neighbours put down astro-turf and have caused those termites to come to my place. What nice neighbours I have, right?

Well, I've been off to Brunswick Heads, hoping that my nice lawn which I've nurtured back to health was going to get a watering by Mother Nature... but when I returned, I found it was almost a desert!

So, I jumped right in and soaked it for 2 days straight in the late afternoon, pulled out a huge amount of weeds and threw away any dead plants... what a bloody disaster!

But it's looking so much better now... and I'm seeing where some plants need to be repotted and others don't.

My sun-loving Bromeliad - the Mother - is in full bloom; and will take a while to show her full colours properly. The Cardboard Plant is throwing out new fronds and there's an icky Globe Spider high up in the Moch Orange shrub - which I have yet to trim. I have tried to hose him out, much to the disdain of my back neighbours, but he hung on tightly to his web and bits of the shrub!

Otherwise, my garden is recovering nicely as I pull it back together after only 3 days being home.

Yep, this Summer is going to be a right scorcher and we have to make sure it doesn't destroy our gardens. Until my next post, keep gardening.

Damned Termites!

It's been a while since my last post and so I thought to update you all about what's been going on.

We had the pest control people out looking around the complex - they were checking for termites around everyone's houses. 

You see, years ago, one of the chair-people got a couple of termite infested trees chopped and chipped and - instead of getting them to haul it off to the dump and burned - they dumped it next to my place! Well, she told everyone here to use it in their gardens as free chip and the whole place would look great!

I didn't use it knowing it would destroy my house.

A few of the townhouses had to be fixed up and worked on because they fell for that trick. And the landlords were put out pocket for a lot of money. My Dad was so peeved about it because not only did the termites in those piles of chip destroy some of the townhouses around here, but they also destroyed the already dilapidated boundary fence faster than it would have fallen apart on its own.

So, we had to have termite inspections a few years ahead of time - because the protection on these places lasted around 25 years - due to this person's stupid decision.

Okay, back to what I was saying:

The guys came into my place. They looked around, tapped everything, went into the ceiling and walked around the backyard... but they found termites coming from my back fence.

This means it's not my fault; but my neighbour's fault. They had put down astroturf and forced the damned things into my direction! 

Today, Dad came over and treated the whole place for termites. I have a passionate hatred for those little wriggly white buggers... they eat everything, get through your house and destroy your garden! And if your neighbours are big enough idiots, they do something really stupid like put down fake grass and push them into your direction. 

I really can't wait to move into a place of my own where I can look after my own place... I'm not that close to another person's property and I can have a nice garden, lovely lawn and know where everything is. Yes, it'll be more work, but I like it that way. Until my next post, happy gardening.

Spring Is Finally Here

Yep!

Spring has sprung and that means hot hot days and still-cooler nights. But it also means that our gardens are going to burst into flower pretty soon, and I'm looking for the rain to help out with all of this - but it's nowhere to be found!

So, I've had to get out the lawn food, the garden hose and bird seed and help the lawn - which is going really well. It's becoming so well-established as well, seeing the sun is moving around to the other side of the house in the afternoons now.

My Frangipani has pushed out its first leaves and the Agapanthus is looking so lush and green. It's going to have nine flowers this year - and it's in 3 pots now -and so I'm looking forward to seeing them all show off their lovely, bopping purple heads in the sun this year.

But, there's still some things I have to get in and pot up. I have some pots I bought at a local thrift store I'd like to get in and use along the side fence. I also want to seriously save up some dosh and get a screen put up along that side fence for not only privacy, but also to keep the cats out and the people out too. It'll look good too.

And seeing the lawn is going well, I'm hoping to get the compost working again - but not until I move into another place; which might not be until next year. Yeah, I like to make those long-distant plans at this time of year. Well, until my next post, happy gardening.