Merry Christmas! First Gladioli Opens!

Yippee! My Christma present from the garden...the first gladioli has opened! Very pretty flower! Here's a picture of the patch taken from the road. This patch next to the garage was tough work but amazingly the plants are doing fantastic after a hard time establishing themselves.

The gladioli close-up with the matching orangy-yellow calendulas behind.

Here's the Annabel dwarf marguerite daisy shrub and two blue marguerites, oregano and rosemary.

I hope gladioli flowers will last long for admiring.

Patch Next to Garage - Fresh Faces.

This challenging patch...with its very clay soil...leaving me clueless on when I should work on it...digging is tough on dry and warm days as the soil is hard like stone...digging is not easy on cloudy wet days as the soil clumps up and hardens into lumps. But with all the effort I have put in, I am beginning to see incredible results.

The tiny pot of annabel daisy has grown 6 times. I keep on with deadheading its flowers which encourages new blooms. So far this daisy is growing faster than any plant here. I hope the space I have designated for it would be sufficient. Compare with http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/09/calendula-germinates-patch-next-to.html

The little rosemary bush is also doing well. Compare it with http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/10/patch-next-to-garage.html

So is this oregano. Strangely, I am expecting it to spread outwards but it seems to be growing upwards. I would want it to be an edible ground cover here. Compare it with what I saw in the botanical gardens : http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/02/botanic-gardens-potting-on.html

The two candy tuft plants are also well. Notice that the annabel daisy, rosemary and oregano have been mulched but not the candy tuft. I was waiting to see if I need to pull up the candy tuft plants in case they did not survive.

________________________________

Tip : It is better to wait and see if a plant establishes itself well after transplanting. If it does, then apply mulch. Better to mulch later in case you need to dig the plant up for some reason.

The Lilium LA hybrid plants are budding.

3 of the 5 gladioli plants are growing big. But 2 others have not appeared.

These 3 calendula officinalis plants are the fresh faces of this patch. I have just transplanted them here. So far very good results.

_________________________________

Tip : During transplanting, minimise root disturbance and maintain potting mix shape. Transfer the whole potting mix with plant over. Water with seasol after that and make sure the plant is hydrated daily.

Here's another new face...my bay tree. It is very tiny now and it is a slow-growing plant. I have planted it in the centre of the patch and it should be the tallest and the focal point of this patch in years to come. Edible too!

Patch Next to Garage...Spring's Ending.

This patch next to the garage has been a challenging one and I have spent intermittent periods of time working on it. So far so good. Results are slowly getting better. The plants went through a period of establishing themselves in the poor clay soil, looking not too good and then now looking much better. There is still space for more work and more plants. Colour theme here is a mixture of yellow, white, pink, orange and blue (if everything flowers at the same time). View from the back. Daffodils (dying down), Diosma Sunset red, Lilium La Hybrid, oregano, rosemary, blue maguerite, annabel daisy are all mulched with composted pinebark (ornamental mulch).

View from the front. The whole patch is surrounded by strings looking like a boxing ring because my dog would trot on it and even nip off my plants. The two candy tuft plants (front right with tiny white flowers) have bounced back and doing well. :)

This rosemary which I have propagated from the original pot looked really bad some time back but it is now doing well especially with the addition of mulch. I did find one caterpillar wrapped up among its leaves. The same caterpillar which I have been finding among many plants in my garden recently.

Oregano too is doing wonderfully on this soil and has been growing. Also found one or two caterpillars here but all is well besides that.

The two Lilium LA Hybrid plants are doing well and have put on some flower buds. The third one was nipped off by my doggy and will not flower.

I planted one calendula seedling here just to see if it will survive the soil here. As last two days were scorching, it withered in the heat. However, with constant watering and application of Seasol, it is doing fine and will bounce back in the evening. If this one does well, I will probably plant a few more seedlings into this soil.

Patch Next to Garage

The three Lilium LA Hybrid plants have emerged and looking quite good. I hope it will survive the not so good soil here.

One of the gladioli plants has emerged as well. I have since fenced up this patch because doggy has been trodding on it and even nipping off some of the plants.

I only got two yellow daffodils this season while the rest all did not flower. They are probably on the way to die down. Hope for a better season next round.

The two candy tuft plants that I have planted are not doing well. There goes my twenty bucks!

Rosemary is also not doing well.

Oregano's not doing too bad at this point of time.

The blue and white daisies are doing just alright.

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.

Work at New House

Before I fly off again after moving into my new place, there are lots of work to do. One of it is pruning my pittosporum golden sheens, watering and fertilising it since it is spring. This is how they look like after my job, a few of them are shorter than the rest as I did not bother to measure using a string. :P

Although I have sown some tomato seeds recently but I do not have the feeling that they will work out. Feelings can be very true at times. Sometimes when my gut tells me that it wont work, it really wont, and sometimes when my gut tells me that it will, it will. Anyway, that made me buy a pot of beef steak tomato from Kmart and planted it into the new vege patch 1.

I spent a bomb at Kmart buying pots of flowers for the patch in front of the garage : Diosma Sunset Red, Candy Tuft, Annabel dwarf marguerite daisy, Blue Marguerite.

I planted them into the patch in front of the garage, plus one pot of rosemary which I have propagated and a pot of oregano which I hope will become some sort of edible groundcover. Thyme is another candidate which I am still considering about. It will take time and care before the patch be transformed into a nice flower and herb area. The front portion has yellow daffodils and I intend to plant King Alfred daffodils to another portion so that there is contrast in heights of all the flowers and herbs :

The three 'uprooted' snow pea plants (below) have been planted into Patch 2 of my new backyard.

Hope they survive the transplanting shock :

I also bought three pots of strawberry. Pretty leaves.

Had two planted into Patch 3 :

And the third one into a pot :

So Much Work!

Work at new house : Vege patch D : Work with cow manure and lime. Planted and mulched 3 pots of cyclamens. Hope they will grow well in this shady spot.

Rake up fallen plum leaves.

Place leaves in make-shift netting in backyard to let them turn into leaf mould.

Succulent plants flowering beautifully.

Lavender growing new leaves.

Work completed for patch next to garage. Hope not to see weeds!

Work in rental house : Calamondins not doing well. Fruits attacked by aphids. Treated with pyrethrum.

Lemon verbena growing lots of new shoots after last trimming.

Cayenne Pepper under netting since finding out they were attacked at night.

Curry plant growing more shoots in the new house after trimming off lots of aphid-infested shoots.

Buk choy planted from pot to vege patch.

Treated oregano root ball with pyrethrum as it seems it is attacked by gnats.Repotted the oregano and wonder if it will survive the treatment.

Re-potted the aloe vera into a shallow wider planter. New pups emerging. Delicate...broke one.

Potted the Pixee dwarf peach with aged manure and premium potting mix.

Peach tree is losing all its leaves. (below)

Rake up to make leaf mould.