Tender Loving Care is Important.

A gardener must pay close attention to her plants. And I love spending time just doing that - lots of attention...lots of tender loving care. When this is done, I can make sure I prevent lots of bad things from happening. Close observation of a cluster of strawberry delight flowers (even though the pot is netted) shows that some caterpillar activity. The flowers and buds were kind of white-webbed together and upon peeling them open, two caterpillars were found. After squashing them, I had to remove some buds and flowers as they were already damaged by them :

I have since propagated five pots of strawberry delight plants :

My second try at planting Thai basil from nursery purchase is not looking so good. Leaf edges turning brown. I wonder why :

Worrying about the cucumber pollination was unduly indeed. Actually bumble bees do visit the flowers. How wonderful! I have at least five developing cucumbers and they are growing fast :

My yellow capsicum (officially calling it yellow after the green ones ripened to yellow recently) plant is making more flowers and fruits after some of their lower older leaves fell off :

I had to remove some little fruits and lower suckers as I did not want so many fruits. I want larger fewer fruits :

Chilli Padi plants are growing taller and flowering more but still having blotchy spots on their leaves :

Harvested some mint for omelette from the recently propagated mint :

Harvested three calamondin comquat limes and purple king beans :

Passionfruit Panama Gold is putting on new young shoots well here. Good thing I dug it up and potted it :

This is the spot I am going to plant it. Now working on it :

Sweet Potato Creepers & Others

Since we migrated, I have not found sweet potato leaves for sambal stir-fry. I am really pleased that the space around the golden sheen trees can be used to plant this useful & edible groundcover, rather than being space for weeds or some decorative inedible creepers. One of the first sweet potato creepers planted. It has produced many shoots and creeping in all directions, just as I intended.

Here's the one my dog trampled and chewed on. Fortunately the wire cage works to protect it while it regrew and it is doing well too.

Here's the 3rd one.

This is a new one which I had just planted.

And another new one.

The last one here also doing great except being eaten by some pests.

The ivy which I transplanted to the conifer area is beginning to extend itself upwards. I would like it to twine around the black fencing for privacy.

Wow la...my aloe vera...mother plant is growing more succulent and baby plants growing larger by the day. They are extremely precious to me and I look forward to planting some babies in the ground...That would be an experiment.

My beautiful sanorita has put on new growth...those reddish ones...I did not even notice the new growth until recently.

Protea (Special Pink Ice) has also put on two new branches (lighter in colour). Both the Sanorita and Protea seem to be easy to grow as they do not need any fertilising and are drought resistant. I look forward to flowering. :)

Work at the Flower Patch & Garden Update

This morning, I set out to work on this patch, which will have simply a selection of flowers. Existing are a rose shrub (with not very pretty roses) and a few dying down calla lilies : Budget constrain at this moment. Would like to have hydrangeas or kangeroo paws. I had my pot of white daisy and diosma. So they went onto the patch first. Not giving them lots of room to grow so that meant pruning quite often. I am thinking of actually removing all the calla lilies since I did not really like the white ones :

Meanwhile at the back garden, purple buk choys :

Normal buk choys :

Another lot on Patch B :

Silver beet appearing on Patch B :

Four peaches left after Marco picked the rest off the tree :

Calamondin comquat ripening :

Big truss of silvery fir tomato :

Sigh of relief...my passionfruit panama gold is no longer a chewed on victim at night and can finally put on more leaves :

Purple King beans growing :

Cucumber vine growing well, here looking scorched by the sun :

Leaves of Fig (brown turkey) finally emerged! :

The other Fig (brown turkey) has three growing figs :

Garden, Bird Rescue & Heronswood Garden

The coriander that I bought has produced many seeds due to the hot weather. I dont mind since I do not use the herb every day so it will be good for it to self-seed and make new plants at Patch E. Same goes for the continental parsely :

I bought a malnourished-looking chilli fire from bunnings (since it was only $3) and hope that by putting it in the ground (front garden) and fertilising it, it will take off from here :

I am protecting it with a tree shield from my dog and pests :

My sun king sunflowers are growing strongly but the first flower that opened does not look too glorious :

Three pots of lemon grass planted next to the sunflowers are transplanting well. I have added rooster manure and mulched with sugarcane :

Bird rescue. Marco my dog found a baby bird in our front garden. Not really knowing what to do, I got it into a carton. Boy...his parents came and made a lot of noise looking for their baby.

I have no idea where the nest was and decided to take it to RSPCA. They said since it was not native, it would have to be put down. However, the nice guy also told me that this baby has already left its nest and its parents would be feeding it on the ground till it could fly. Cool lesson learnt. I decided to bring it back and return it where I found it, so that its parents can find it again and do their thing. This little bird got me really busy :

We went to Heronswood Garden again. Beautiful weather. Here's two pretty pictures, one overlooking the beautiful tranquil sea :

And an abundance of grapes :

Stir-fry Black Pepper Beef (Recipe)

Still about yesterday. Son was using the computer while I had a look out of my front garden. The rain was a cool refreshing change. The patch where there is a rose shrub and dying-down calla lilies...that still requires further work. I plan to plant hydrangeas or kangeroo paws and some other flowers. It is too boring at this moment. However, hubby wants me to take my time as I am burning up my budget every month! The pittosporum golden sheens are doing well but I wish they would grow bushier faster and taller! The sweet potato creepers among the sheens are doing great :

The two white nettings are where my other two tomato silvery firs are planted. Doing great. In the foreground are my sanorita and vietnamese mint in pots.

Two conifers flank the small gate. My eureka lemon in that square patch.

The yellow capsicums harvested and spanish (red) onions ready for my beef stir-fry.

Two slices of blade beef steak sliced into thin pieces.

Onions and capsicum fried in ready-to-use black pepper sauce (which I bought). Add beef. Fry till cooked. No need to add water.