Garden Update

Since my blog hiatus I've been up to my elbows and knees in filth, grovelling around in black sand, mulch, manure, rain and anything else disgusting you might care to think of. But the end result is we now have a completely new re-planted front garden. A fabulous team of young men came along and excavated, paved, reticulated and limestoned, and then after they finished I ventured forth with rock carrying muscles, a shovel and expectant green thumbs.

All is going well, nothing has keeled over yet! I am so pleased with how it's all turned out, and every day go for a wander round the garden, visiting each and every plant. I did masses of research for my plant choices, and for now (until my memory starts to fail me) am a veritable encyclopedia, able to spout forth botanical names and growth habits at will.

Without boring you with the many hundred of photos I have taken, here are a few bits a pieces. plants l-r, Grevillea "Bonnie Prince Charlie", mini kangaroo paw "Bush Ranger", Spotted Emu Bush, Polygala.

Look at the different that mulching makes - I LOVE mulch. It hides all the reticulation dripper pipes as well as keeping the plants' roots moist.

I have fallen in love with this plant, Correa reflexa "Federation Bells". It flowers for much of the year, birds love it and it has the most delightful bell-shaped flowers.

You should see how many photos I have of these spectacular miniature Kangaroo Paws "Bush Ranger". They have gone mad and have trillions of flowers, pretty special for something that's only been in the ground a few weeks. They last for ages and are a good cut flower too, although I haven't had the heart to actually cut any. The purple flowering plant in the background is a Polygala, and the bright green foliage ground cover on the right is Acacia cognata.

For ages now we've been wanting a big, ancient-looking statue of sorts, and the Easter Island heads have always appealed to us. We have a small garden bed near the front door that we decided would be the perfect location, so off we trotted to the statue shop. After carefully examining the facial expressions of those on sale, we chose the relatively solemn and haughty looking "Rocky" (why did I name him Rocky I hear you ask - because he is a rock :-) ). And to our immense joy the statue shop was having a sale - 2 for the price of one! So we also chose "Slim Jim", Rocky's skinnier brother who lives in the back garden, guarding the koi pond.

For those of you that are horticulturally minded, here is the plant list. They are nearly all Australian Natives and I chose very carefully with a low-water garden in mind, plus a variety of flowering seasons and colours, and most importantly to attract more nectar loving birds -

Acacia cognata "Limelight", prostrate bright green foliage plant

Adenanthos "Albany Woollybush", tall dense shrub with small tubular flowers. Bird attractant.

Adenanthos cuneatus "Coral Carpet", ground cover with new foliage a gorgeous pink/purple colour

Banksia ericopholia "Heath Leaved Banksia" - winter flowering, golden slender banksia flowers. bird attractant

Callistemon citrinus "White Anzac" - smaller slightly weeping bottlebrush, bird attractant

Callistemon "Burgundy Jack" - bird attractant

Calothamnos sanguineus labill, small plant with teatree looking leaves and tiny red tubular flowers

Correa reflexa "Federation Bell" - this is even more lovely than I thought, little bell shaped flowers that birds adore

Correa "Dusky Bells" - same, but more of a ground cover and the flowers are more tubular

Darwinia citriodora "Seaspray" - lemon scented ground cover with interesting flowers that remind me of prawns

Eremophila "Kalbarri Carpet" - groundcover, grey leaves, little yellow flowers, bird attractant

Erimophila maculata "Spotted Emu Bush", tiny bright red tubular flowers, bird attractant

Grevillea rosemarinifolia x alpina "Bonnie Prince Charlie", small plant with the most amazing red and yellow flowers. All the grevilleas are bird attractants and most flower during winter

Grevillea "Gingin Gem" - ground cover with red flowers. apparently can be used as a lawn substitute it's so flat.

Grevillea "Mt Tamboritha" - tiny ground cover with pinky red flowers that look like raspberries

Grevillea "Seaspray", low sprawling one with grey foliage and beautiful little red flowers

Grevillea pimeleoides, lovely clusters of tiny gold flowers with small round leaves. Endangered plant.

Grevillea "Honey Gem" - I've coveted this since seeing it at Kings Park Botanical Gardens. Tall skinny one, with huge arching sprays of gold flowers

Kangaroo Paws - 2 x "Yellow Gem", 2 x "Big Red", 2 x "Amber Velvet", 2 x "Gold Velvet", 2 x "Black Velvet", 2 x "Green Machine" (mini), 10 x "Bush Ranger" (mini red), 2 x mini orange one. All bird attractants

Leucophta brownii "Silver Cushion Bush", small rounded bush of silver foliage.

Nandina "Gulf Stream", tiny little sacred bamboo. Foliage goes bright red seasonally

Prostanthera ovalifolia variegata "Oval Leaf Mint Bush", lovely mint smelling leaves and loads of purple flowers in spring

Westringia fruiticosa - native rosemary

Westringia brevifolia var Raleighii - bigger than above, a medium open shrub with mauve flowers

Viburnum tinus, old reliable favourite. Tall bushy shrub, masses of tiny white flowers that bud as red
Arthropodium Cirrhatum "New Zealand Rock Lily" - lush foliage, big sprays of white flowers

Choisya ternata "Mexican Orange Blossom" - Lovely glossy foliage and fragrant white flowers.

Ceanothus "Blue Pacific" - Gets covered with flowers of magnificent brilliant blue
Clivea Miniata - bright orange flower clusters in winter

Artemisia Powis Castle - "Wormwood" - I grow this in the back garden, lovely shaped grey foliage. Insect repellent. Fantastic plant for leaf whapping (printing on fabric)
Echinacea purpura "Purple Coneflower"

Polygala dalmosiana - Shaped like a small tree with purple pea shaped flowers

Liriope muscari - tiny strappy thing with central flower spikes

Phormium "NZ Flax" Clumping grassy plant, striped red leaves

Hebe "Blue Gem" - I tend to kill Hebes so here's hoping this one will be happier. Blue flowers

Dampiera linearis - ground cover with gorgeous bright blue flowers

Cuphea hyssopifolia compacta - small mound plant with tiny purple flowers

Sisyrinchium "Devon Skies" - tiny strappy plant with clumps of bright blue flowers in the middle.

Visitor In My Fig Tree

EDIT: The bird has been identified - it's an Indian Ringneck Parakeet, grey mutation (thanks to a very kind person on THIS Flickr group for solving the riddle). It's not native to Australia and on doing some research it seems that over the years these exotic aviary birds have escaped and become established in the wild and are a declared pest here in Western Australia! You learn something new every day. I'm thinking that because this one was alone that maybe he's recently escaped from someone's aviary - I'll have to check the Lost notices at the local shops.

I've been hearing a new bird call in the back garden over the last few days, and I spotted the owner of the voice this morning. Here it is, having a snack of figs at the top of the tree. Does anyone know what this parrot is? I've hunted through my Australian Bird Book to no avail.... I wonder if she/he's escaped from an aviary?



It's a beautiful parrot.... soft grey feathers and a red beak. Not very big, and fairly quiet as far as parrots go. I'd love to find out what sort of parrot it is, so if you've got any idea could you please leave me a comment, pretty please! :-)

For Tomorrow We Diet, On Pretty Plates

Steve and I have been doing a bit of spending lately. Like a new fridge - ours was about 25 years old, slowly conking out and way too small, so it's been rather fun having a new one. We bought a big Westinghouse fridge, with a skinny freezer attached alongside. I didn't think we'd need more freezer space as we have a deep freeze, but I stand corrected - it's FABULOUS having all this extra freezer and fridge room. And things are COLD!!

But rather than bore you with a photo of a rectangular white box that is chilly, I thought you might like to see our new dinner set instead - it's way prettier. We've been using the same crockery we've had for over 25 years.... a white dinner setting that was a freebie - a piece every time we did our grocery shopping at Woolworths all those eons ago. Fancy that eh. I'm not into spending a fortune on things that can break, but I do like pretty plates, and we both liked this 4 piece setting which was just under $60 at Big W. And what I was most impressed with is that the setting has 4 mugs in it, instead of cups and saucers that we never use. Noice huh.

Whenever Steve and I decided we need to shed a few kilos the only way we can do it properly and successfully is by calorie counting and writing down everything that goes into our mouth. It's a commitment for a good few months and we find it a great way to think more about eating, rather than just shovelling stuff in and trying to kid ourselves. So, over the last 10 years (which is when the weight starting creeping on) we've done this three times, so we have quite a collection of exercise books full of what we ate, what the calories added up to, what we weighed and so on. They are very handy to review. We are sensible, we don't starve ourselves and we eat regularly, basically just cutting down portion sizes a bit and cutting out as much fat as possible. And it starts TOMORROW

There's a bit of everything in this post! I took this photo at the Albany Wind Farm. It's an amazing place and impresses me no end - Albany is a large regional town in the south of Western Australia and has a population of around 30 000, and this Wind Farm produces about 70% of Albany's power needs - isn't that great! I really like this photo, it was a very cloudy day and I like the misty effect of the white wind turbines against the clouds... looks kinda spooky

I've been playing with macro photography today, testing the limitations of my camera. This photo is of a flower called Alyssum which is tiny weeny, and that ant that looks like a monster is a normal little black ant, who kindly posed for the shot. The actual photo is much larger than this, this is a tiny little crop out of the main shot, and I'm pretty pleased that the focus has stayed reasonably ok, soft but ok.

And for those who enjoy a bit of mystery, here is a macro mystery for you. What is it? When you think you've figured it out.... or if you have been driven insane and just have to know, the answer is HERE.

Focus, Zoom, Snap

You'll have to bear with me for a bit, while I bore everyone stupid with lots of photos of nothing in particular - I love my new camera! :-)

Now first, a Scatterday update.... you know I mentioned I wanted to use a Viagra Pen for last week's V thing in the Office, and that I couldn't find one..... well, I found a whole heap of them, so here, for your viewing pleasure - Viagra pens! Not all that exciting are they :-)


I think this is really cool, this is a close up of a thorny stem on one of my pot plants.... don't you reckon those pale bits look like the upper part of little people? Or am I delusional? Interesting blend of colours and textures anyway, those tendril looking bits are actually cobwebs I think.


My Mum and Dad had a recent holiday to Egypt and look at what Mum brought back for me.... I must stress that my photo does not do this glorious Egyptian cotton justice, it's the smoothest, softest, most lustrous fibre I've fondled in a long time. Both pieces are fringed on each end and could be used as pashminas, I haven't decided whether to wear them or sew them! For now I'm enjoying just looking at them.


I bought myself a treat today - a DVD. I love creepy, gruesome, bloodthirsty movies and fantasy ones in particular. I don't know too much about the story of this one, "Pan's Labyrinth", but I know when I saw the previews of it at the movies last year I got all prickly and excited and decided that I just had to see it. Never got round to seeing it at the movies so what a good excuse to buy it eh, especially as it was only $20.


And finally, Steve picked the very last of the tomato crop today. We've had oodles of them from his vegetable garden and they have been delicious. There are two types, the longer ones are grape tomatoes, my favourites - they are nice and firm. The rounder ones are cherry tomatoes, sweet and yummy. Steve's favourites are Tommytoes which finished a few week's back.... they are slightly larger, like a big cherry tomato. They're all good!

Goodbye Palm

See this massive Canary Island Date Palm? We planted this in our front garden 25 years ago. It now towers over the power lines, causing problems every year with fronds hitting the lines. And nothing grows under it except horrible fishbone fern. We can't even get a spade in the ground the root mass is so thick. In short I hate it. Steve has a soft spot for it but I have won because I have moaned and whinged and nagged him to death and he has admitted defeat. :-)

And on Wednesday it will be gone, it's being cut down! And thus will commence the transformation of the front garden. It looks much worse now than this photo taken just over a year ago. Poor garden, it's been sadly neglected and needs some love.

We are turning it into a low maintenance low water garden. Lots of the lawn is coming out and will be paved. Low limestone walls will edge the garden beds to keep grass out and soil in. A lot of the plants will be replaced with low water natives. Except that blue plumbago hedge in the foreground. I have a soft spot for that so it's staying for now. It's pretty tough actually and can survive low water, it just needs pruning fairly regularly.

So, lots of work and organising and phonecalls to come in the near future, but I'm looking forward to the result.

And on another topic, I wandered over to a craft market today, and had the great pleasure of meeting Miss Dot and her sister, and Feli! It's so nice to put faces to bloggers, particularly ones as nice as these lovely ladies.

My Back Garden

My mind is not on crafty stuff at the moment, not sure why. Perhaps because I know that there are spring chores to be done. Have a look at this.

Hideous eh. This is what happens to our paving bricks at the end of each winter- slippery, green and disgusting.

That looks a bit better eh! I've been brick cleaning. And weeding. And cleaning out fish ponds. And Steve is painting the pergola - if you look at the top of the photo you'll see the new lighter colour on the right, as opposed to the dingy and dated Mission Brown on the left. He's also taking off all the small wooden slats and replacing them with a glorious golden shadecloth. It gives the most beautiful glow.

I had a go at doing a panorama photo of the back garden, from just outside the kitchen window. On the right is the new paint job of the pergola with the new shadecloth. The big green thing is our barbecue. Mid photo is the old in-ground spa which we are now using as a rainwater storage tank, for watering the garden. I cannot begin to describe the thrill that using our own collected free water from the sky has given me! :-)

I also clipped, bathed and groomed our dogs, as it's time for their annual vaccinations. Every year I slink into the veterinary clinic, knowing that I'm going to be told off because the girls are a little bit porky, so I take the opportunity pre vet visit to remove any excess hair to make them look as slim as possible. :-)


Pepper likes to sit like a bear, possibly because it's the easiest way to hold up her stomach. Pepper is the quiet dog, which distracts from the fact that she does whatever she darn well feels like. She is her own woman. But she gets bossed by the cat.

And this is Maxie, she is my special girl - she follows me everywhere. Pepper on the one hand is quite content to snore happily on her own wherever she is most comfortable, but Maxie is my shadow. She has attitude, does Miss Maxie. And she doesn't let the cat boss her.

Madame On Felt

You know that I've got this slight obsession with polymer clay faces right? Yup. Well actually it's kinda strange because I have a little container full of the faces I've moulded thus far, all sitting there ready for action, to be part of creative endeavours and wondrous things. But then I get thingy about it and don't want to use them, like I'm some sort of weird, over protective parent or something. sheesh

Anyway, in saying all that, the other day I DID use one of my little people. I had a yearning to make another wool felt keyring having made one once before with a bit of embroidery on it, but this time I wanted to use a face.

I had another go at using bullion stitch for hair. I reckon it makes cool hair, a bit like ringlets. And I had more practice with scroll stitch around the edge in purple.


And Madame herself is attached by way of three holes I poked in the edges of her head before she was baked. I was a bit worried that the weight of her face would warp the shape of the keyring so I counter-weighted her with a polymer clay bead on the back. And equally handy was the fact that the bead has holes in it too, so I ran the stitches in between the holes in the two clay things, which has made everything nice and stable.


I tried something a bit different for the edge treatment this time. First I just did a whip stitch (I think that's what it's called, just ordinary stitching round and round the edge). But as I was doing it, I threaded a long silver bead on every second stitch. It was difficult to keep them all straight and even but regardless of that I quite like the look. And it's very nice and feely to run your fingers around the edge.


And on a complete change of subject, I thought I'd throw in a photo of our lime tree, which has obviously hit some untapped source of nutrition underground because it is absolutely dripping with blossom at the moment. It smells lovely.


And the old apricot tree has started blossoming too. We've had the apricot tree for about 25 years and it's been a legend, producing kilos and kilos of fantastic fruit. But the last 3 years it's done virtually nothing and Steve has tried all sorts of different ways to prune it to try and coax it back into fruiting life. Most of the branches are showing promise with spatterings of blossom, but here we have one smartarse overachiever, one scrawny little twiglike branch completely covered with flowers. We are watching with interest to see what results.

Veggie Heaven

Steve is the vegetable grower extraordinaire of our household. He has his little slice of heaven in a 5 metre square corner of our back garden and he lovingly hauls in bag after bag of sheep poo and chook poo and various other goodies to dig into his ever-enriching soil. He also gathers up fallen leaves from around the garden and rots them down into leaf mould to dig in, and he also shreds up garden prunings to use as mulch. It's a beautiful, natural, recycling system.

He tries very hard to keep things organic and not spray chemicals to control bugs. One of the ways he's been experimenting with this year is to grow things earlier in the season than normal... in the cooler weather before all the cabbage white butterflies and aphids are out in their droves. So, instead of vegetable patch lying fallow this time of year, it is chockablock full of fantastic produce! And barely a bug in sight. It does depend on the weather, luckily we don't often have frosts and our winters are not too cold. Not everything will grow in the winter though, like tomatoes for example... the plants are growing well now but they don't like fruiting until the weather warms up.

Steve had a harvest this morning and look what we're having for dinner tonight!! Nadine potatoes, baby cabbage, red iceberg lettuce, baby carrots, snow peas, purple beans and sprouting broccoli. Yummy yummy yummy!

And the other wondrous thing we are growing, although these are in a box on top of the fridge, are these fantastic portabello mushrooms. We bought one of those mushroom farms in a cardboard box and it's been fun watching them grow... it's amazing how quickly they increase in size. Add these to the veggies above and we have a meal fit for a king!


I spotted a recipe for cornbread in the newspaper the other day, it sounds interesting so I'm going to cook that to have with the vegetables. I get the impression that cornbread is something that is eaten regularly in an American diet (is that right or is that just something I read about in books?), whereas I've never seen it before. Looking forward to trying it!

Ornamental Roofing

You know how you occasionally see cool stuff on people's roofs - chimney pots, dragons, finials and no end of clay or stone creatures. Personally, I have always coveted a gargoyle or two, the ones that perch right at the roof apex, peering downwards in a somewhat haughty and slightly threatening manner. Call me strange but I reckon they are very cool.

Well, I was surprised on my return from the local swimming pool this morning to discover that I now have my very own gargoyle! Not quite as creepy a gargoyle as I'd hoped for but hey, I'm impressed. Let me introduce you to...

GARGOYLE de la DUCK

Why is there a duck on my roof? Is this not an odd thing? And now I come to think about it I heard quacking yesterday so I think he's been around for a while. I went out to take this photo and he/she peered down at me quite unbothered, and I was chatting to him quietly so as not to scare him, and he was quite taken with this and engaged me in a gentle chattering quacky conversation.

Then he slowly waddled down the roof tiles, doing tiny little quacky noises all the while. Finally he made his way over the guttering a flew to the ground where he proceeded to walk right up to me and looked up at me expectantly!

I was his new best friend, he showed no hint of shyness at all. I was very tempted to try and touch him but restrained myself in case I scared him away. Instead I wandered around the garden and he happily followed me round. Finally I went inside and now an hour or so later I just heard him quacking up on the roof again. I have no idea what is going through this little quacker's mind and why he/she thinks our roof is a cool place to hang out. It will be interesting to see how long it stays!

Edit: The duck nicked off for a few days but now she's back - Steve spotted her this morning. She was sitting on the roof of his shed and scared him to death. Then she had a little quacky conversation with him too! AND, she brought a duck friend with her! They've gone now but I'm wondering if they are eyeing off the little fish in our backyard pond!

Sunseeking

Brrr, it's been so cold this week. The sort of of weather when a sun soaked cushiony quilty corner seems the perfect place to snuggle down with my laptop and catch up on blogging.


I finished my tea cosy, gee I love it. I think I'm drinking twice as much tea just so I can use it lots. :-) I ended up running a row of machine straight stitch around the edge for strength, then used Butterfly Chain Stitch for a decorative embroidered edge.


I am so in love with wool felt. I knew diddly squat about it until a couple of months ago, but at the moment I want to make everything out of it, and stitch on it constantly. I love the way embroidery stitches slightly sink in to the felt and nestle in. It's also handy for running the loose end of the thread inside, so it can't be seen. A friend of mine has a birthday this week so I thought I'd make her a little something. A little wool felt keyring, adorned with my two favourite embroidery stitches to date, Whipped Wheel Stitch and edged with Butterfly Chain Stitch again.


I caught up a little with my Take A Stitch Tuesday stitches too, by adding some dragon breath flames done in Satin Stitch with extra spitty bits of flames done in single Wheatear stitch. I wanted the satin stitch area to look reasonably raised, so I cut the flame shape out of a scrap, thin piece of red felt, laid it down and satin stitched over it. Which achieved the aim of raising it up, but also, being red, meant you can't see any wonky gaps between the stitches. I'm so clever I scare myself sometimes. ;-)


I made a cake, complete with beautification. I got a piece of paper and folded it up and cut bits out of it like we used to do as kids to make snowflake Xmas decorations, then plonked it on the cake and sprinkled icing sugar over it. Kinda funky eh


Steve's been planting out his vegie patch. He tries each year to plant things earlier and earlier in the season, to try and get some things harvested before the cabbage white butterflies arrive en mass in spring. It's looking good with the promise of things to come.

A Year Of Colour - Scarlet

This week's colour for the Flickr Year of Colour group is scarlet. Bright red but with a hint of orange is the go.

As we have been blessed with an abundance of tomatoes from Steve's vegetable patch they had to have a look-in. This particular variety are called Grape Tomatoes, tiny little ones that are slightly enlongated. Sweet tasting and very firm and just perfect for salads.


Next is a plant from mum's garden. It's a type of succulent I think, called Red Hot Poker. It has quite a striking effect don't you think.


And finally, this is a shot taken in King's Park at the annual Wildflower Festival. It was a photographer's feast, so many gorgeous colours. I rather like the layers of colour in this photo and also liked the bright and cheery benches!

A Year Of Colour - Carnation Pink

Only a couple of photos this week, I am not a pink girl. I was not inspired at all, however, one only has to walk into Meshell's room, and, ta-da, PINK. Everywhere! The china cupcake is hers. Isn't it funny, this is the girl that didn't like her pink bedroom walls when I painted them about 10 years ago. She covered them up with posters. Contrary creature. :-)

And this photo is of everlastings.

A Year of Colour Mosaic - Cerulean

A Year of Colour Mosaic - Cerulean, originally uploaded by dytay.

Cerulean, a tricky colour I think. I'm not sure if I've got it but I like all these photos so they'll do!

The sails were taken as an overhead shot when we had a half day trip on a big catamaran during a holiday to Monkey Mia in the north of Western Australia. It's the place that's famous for the dolphins that come to shore to say hello.

The cornflower was growing in my back garden a few years ago. If you look carefully you'll see a teeny weeny white spider sitting on it.

The bottom photo was taken at the Sydney aquarium. I like the illusion this gives of a cut off ocean. The sky and background water are a mural which is behind real rocks which are positioned along the back wall of the large sea water aquarium.