Calendula Germinates & Patch Next to Garage

My calendula seeds have germinated in their pot. I had to shift the pot away from its spot as my Carolina Black Rose grape vine has arrived from Daley's Nursery!!! Yippee!!! I bought a pack of Gladioli bulbs last week with the plan of planting them at the patch next to garage. Their tall blooms will create contrast with my daffodils and white lily :

I have prepared the soil (compost and lime and rooster manure) and planted them 15cm apart and 10cm deep. As mentioned previously, the soil here is clayey and lumpy, so it is very important to loosen as much soil as possible or the root system will find it hard to establish.

Mulched area is where the 5 gladioli bulbs are planted.

The lone annabel daisy is doing fine after I plucked off some of its yellowing older leaves. It has since opened more flowers.

The two bushes of blue marguerite are doing the best at the patch despite its not so ideal soil.

Some Digging and Planting - Apricot, Kaffir Lime, Egg Plant and Thai Basil.

It has been raining and raining and raining. I am grateful for the rains though not really for the chilly strong winds. The rain softened the ground substantially and provided lots of watering for my new garden. I managed to dig the hole on the front garden for my apricot Moorpark and planted it into the ground. Drainage over this spot does not seem excellent but I will have a go and see if this apricot will establish itself well : As per my earlier entry, after coming back from 2.5 weeks of overseas trip, the pot of kaffir had produced lots of new leaves but at the same time, its potting mix has become home to thousands of ants which I had killed drenching the mix in pyrethrum. Older leaves were falling at an astounding rate and I assumed that the kaffir lime needed nutrients. I fed it with with Osmocote, a slow-release fertiliser with hope of easing its problem fast but soon the young leaves started crinkling. Gosh! Over-fertilising? Poisoning? Last resort : plant it into the ground! :

Crinkling/Shrivelling of leaves (above & below)

Here it goes into Patch 3 (above)

I bought a pot of thai basil and eggplant supreme from IKEA while there to shop for storage solutions. Planted them near the kaffir lime :

Marco my dog trampled on and nibbed off the parsley on Patch 6. Well, I might as well pull them off since I hardly use parsley and there are so much of them. I also bought a pot of coriander and planted it next to the leftover parsley :

Potting On Chilli Padis, Lilium LA Hybrid White Lilies & Others.

Today, I removed the cayenne pepper plant from its pot as there was not a sign of life. Surprised to find fat earthworms around its roots. Are they feeding on the roots since they are dead?

I potted up my three chilli padi plants in the cayenne pepper pot :

Hope that as the weather warms up, the chilli padi plants will grow quickly :

I am excited about the many new leaves the kaffir lime is putting on, as well as flower buds :

Did some pruning to my mint pots :

Harvested some snow peas for lunch. Oh they are so tender and sweet :

Planted 3 white lily (Lilium LA hybrid) bulbs in the patch next to garage, right behind the lime mist daffodils :

Strawberry plants are doing well. I could have planted them too close for comfort :

The pretty succulents which I have propagated from their parents at our rental place are growing well and even flowering :

Nice fleshy leaves. Wonder if I should plant them under my golden sheen as groundcover. Still thinking :

This ivy which I also propagated from its parent from the rental place is doing even better over at our new place. However, I am still unsure if I should grow it in the ground for a shady spot. Concern is that it may become weedlike and dominate the whole area and leave me to regret :

New Leaves and Fruits.

Eversince my aloe vera has been placed under the patio where it gets indirect sunlight, it has gone green and new pups are developing at a faster pace. This concludes why it was very light green and had burnt-like tips whilst in the green house under direct sunlight and heat. It was too much for it. With several new pups growing, I hope to be able to propagate new aloe veras in new pots : My Trixee? Pixee? (just cannot get its name right) dwarf peach is growing well since my fungicide treatment and fertilising in winter. I was even surprised to find lots of peaches growing. However, I will try to stay on the pessimistic side as the branches are so close, I reckon the peaches have not much space for developing. Fingers crossed, none have dropped yet :

Kaffir lime has got lots of new leaves growing but it looks a bit unwell :

Pomegranate (left by its previous owner but I will gladly accept it :)) has put on lots of leaves but I have no clue what I should do with them...prune? :

Apricot Moorpark finally put on leaves. I thought it was dead :

Within 2.5 weeks, the plum tree put on a whole crown of leaves. Lesser plums this year after the recent hair-cut :

Flowers Galore!!!

This is a close-up of my snow pea flower. The 'veins' on the petals reminds me of fingerprints, wonderful creation : Once the flower withers, the pea grows :

My mosquito plant is flowering! I could have seen its flowers much earlier if some of the branches did not break in that strong winter wind :

This flower here is so far not identified yet. I suspect it to be some canna lily. Very orchid-like :

2.5 weeks ago, the lavender were still in leaves. 2.5 weeks have passed and I came back to glorious blooms. Even the bees are visiting these blooms. We watched in safety behind our living room window : The three cyclamens have grown a lot compared to when I just bought them :

The pot of gorgeous nasturtiums continues to grow and bloom which is really eye-catching :

The pot it is in is only 20cm but the nasturtiums have long since spilled over and toppled that I had to put the whole pot into a 30cm one for support.

The sunflower (Sun king) have sprouted in two clusters. Strange that the other two clusters did not :

Patch Next to Garage

Before I left for holidays, I worked on this patch, planting herbs and flowers here with the intention of turning this originally pebble-filled patch with a few straggly succulents and weeds infestation into a display of flowers and herbs of various kinds, colours and heights. This is the look after I returned : The daffodil which greeted me just on the day I left had withered, replaced by another which greeted me on the day I returned :

The sunset red diosma is growing well and flowering more. I am expecting to see it grow up to 1.2 width by 1.2 height. Diosma is a common hedge grown here in Melbourne. It has aromatic leaves and gorgous display of tiny flowers that can cover the whole bush :

One of the large rosemary plantlet which I have propagated from the mother rosemary plant. The soil at this patch is actually clayey (but I still find lots earthworms) but I hope this rosemary can thrive here with the availability of sun. If it does, this rosemary will be contrasting with the other low bushes since it has the potential to grow quite tall :

The oregano which I planted here from its original pot seems to be growing better and happier. This herb is low-lying and tend to spread out. I intended that it acts as a groundcover as seen in the botanical gardens. See http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/02/botanic-gardens-potting-on.html

Two Blue Marguerite (Felicia amelloides) with blue daisy-like flowers are also planted. These are small evergreen bushes which are low-lying. The blue flowers will contrast with the yellow flowers of the daffodils :

I also planted one dwarf marguerite daisy 'Annabel' (argyranthemum frutescens) which can grow to 1m width and 0.7m height and produces white flowers. Some of the older leaves look a little yellow :

Candy tuft (iberis sampervirens) is a mat-forming perenial groundcover. I planted two right in front of the patch since it is low-lying. One of the candy tuft died leaving a little left to survive while the other candy tuft is not doing to well. If still not thriving I will replace them with a bulb plant :

It will take a long while before I see the fruits of this patch. For now, I will be faithful to pull up weeds that find their way onto this patch.