Golden Sheens

I did not sleep well last night. The winds were horrendously beating the bushes and trees outside my window and the rains fell intermittently. I was seriously thinking about my Pittosporum golden sheens. These two days' winds reached 55km/h and I wondered if any golden sheen had already been snapped into twos. I wondered if we had chosen a bad time to plant them.

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When Samuel was at kinder, my friend Pascale and I visited the golden sheens. Thank God they were still standing in place but several had slanted sideways. I quickly took out the stakes and garden twine I had just bought and tied the golden sheens into place. Hopefully this will help with standing against the strong winds till they pass today.

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I had planned to water the golden sheens with my collected rainwater and seasol today but with the rain, I wont need to.

A Time for Flowers at our New House!

Actually today is my Hubby's birthday but haiz...we had to be out at the new house doing work as we could not reach a common date with the tradesmen and pittosporum supplier. Here's the tag from our Pittosporum Golden Sheen : Some daffodils have sprouted at the patch next to the garage :

This tiny stretch of fence will not have any Pittosporum Golden Sheen. It has some arum lily bush growing. We had relocated some arum lily from another part as it interfered with pittosporum planting (the one on the left was a relocation. Hope it survives replanting) :

Another clump. The middle one was original where else those two on its left and right are relocations :

I have let this rose shrub go haha...I have uprooted all other rose shrubs except this lucky one. I have pruned its long branches this morning without much knowledge. See if it will produce some beautiful blooms for me :

This is the plum blossoms from our plum tree. It is white instead of pink and smells mild :

My immediate neighbour has a camelia which is flowering. I really dont mind admiring hers because I have pulled up mine to make way for fruit trees :

A neighbour further away has a Magnolia tree. Beautiful tree with beautiful blossoms for ornamental purposes. I am not going to have one since it has only lovely flowers and is very expensive, so I will be content with admiring that nearby tree this time every year.

I sought the tradesman's help with identifying this succulent plant. He mentioned it was a Jade plant and this plant is grown for good luck and prosperity. Whatever, it is pretty and have lovely flowers and I will keep them where they are. I have three growing at the side of the house :

I cut a bunch of lavendars from the bush. Did that before pruning the bush :

The bush is growing well :

That's the same bush after pruning :

Another bush after pruning :

Pittosporum Golden Sheens are Up!

It rained almost the whole day yesterday. I had hoped it would not today as work was scheduled at our new house. Samuel was also having a bad cold for a few days, nose running like a tap and I could not find any childminding for him while Paul and I were going to be on site. Thankfully, the weather today was gorgeous! Sunny and clear and best of all, the soil was soft to work on. And another thanksgiving point was that Samuel recovered from his bad cold almost suddenly after a nap yesterday afternoon. No more running out of tissue paper at home! The first thing the tradesmen did was to dig holes for the two conifers to be planted at both sides of the small gate. It used to be rose shrubs. These two conifers are not cheap, costly us $70 a pot : Samuel was well enough but we decided to enclose him in the car as he would probably create some minor havoc in the garden and interfered with the work. He bothered us a little but was able to spend some time 'camping' in the car and doing 'handstands' and 'somersaults' from backseat to boot :

Our 24 pots of Pittosporum Golden Sheen have arrived. One of the pots looked a little run-down but well, I shall see how it grows :

One of the tradesmen started his work pruning my flowering plum tree :

He has pruned off quite a fair bit :

Here's the final look. May not get much plums this year but pruning was necessary :

The Golden Sheens were spaced out. 24 pots, just enough! :

This is after the plants have been planted in and given some black gold which is a type of garden compost with pig manure :

Now the tradesman work on the camelia stump and removed the concrete ring. This space will have a new tree which I have not decided what it would be :

And work went on to dig a trench around the oleander stump. Wow it was seriously massive and they mentioned they had to return with some grinder/machine to dig it out. It was too much using manual strength. And I have to clear all the sawdust produced before any possible future planting can be done because oleander is poisonous :

Making Way for Pittosporum Golden Sheens

A cool morning with weather forecast for showers and possible thunderstorm but none happened. Hubby, myself, Samuel and our church-mate Robert went over to our new property to get some work done after our church service. We have ordered our 24 pots of Pittosporum Golden Sheen and we planned to plant them in two weeks' time, so we needed to make way for them.

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Work done : 1. Cleared all existing mulching and weed mats and all the roses and small bushes. 2. Chopped down the oleander shrub (which was huge) and camelia with a chain saw.

Mulching, roses, shrubs and weed mats cleared.

Oleander sawn down to stump.

I was very pleased to spot a huge arum lily flower (above) along the fence. If not for the flower, I would have pulled all the 'unknown plants' up!!! I realised that they are all arum lillies growing...one of my favourite flowers which I had used for my wedding.

Another lot of arum lily plants which I have to either remove or replant them as they are in the way of the Pittosporum Golden Sheen.

Camelia sawn down as well.

1. All the branches of the oleander stacked up at another two stretches of mulching, waiting to be slowly cleared.
   

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   Now we have to just wait for the professional we have hired to poison the stump and dig them up and of course, to dig holes and plant the pittosporum hedge. How exciting to see my hedge up! It will be a very different scenery.

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   Follow up work that we have to do soon :

   1. Raking up the fallen plum leaves. 2. Weeding the growing dandelions and lamb's tongue (as usual sprouting up everywhere) 3. Figuring out how to remove a few existing calla lillies and replant them somewhere else as they are growing on the area where the pittosporum golden sheens are to be planted. 4. Chopping and gathering useful straight stems from the oleander for use as stakes. 5. Pruning the large plum tree (paying a professional to do that).