The Devil is in the Details

I love gardens that have a sprinkling of ornamentation throughout. Even better if an ornament serves a practical purpose, like a brass bird tap top. But items that are purely there for show serve a purpose too as the can delight the senses. One of my favourite quotes is by William Morris -. Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. Same goes for the garden I think!

Hydrangea Happiness

A variety of hydrangeas at Ashwell. Some are in pots. Some were gifts and some are cuttings from established plants. The more plain hydrangeas (centre top row) have been here for most of the 35 years, but because they are under the pine tree they have not grown much. This year I have given  them more attention and the results are noticeable. Maybe if I keep at it they will eventually look like significant bushes.

Arty Choke

Pick a flowering Artichoke, place it in a vase, surround it with flowering Hebe stems and you have an artistic arrangement.

Strawberry Fields Forever

It turns out that it you give strawberries love and attention they grow bigger and better.

In winter this year I replanted my strawberry runners into a new position. Mixing chook poo and home grown compost into the soil I made mounds to plant into. Despite the felling of the pine tree dropping bits onto the strawberry plants in September they revived quite well when the patch was cleaned up. After picking some medium fruit in November and December, often sharing the biggest ones with millipedes- grrrrrrr - I then cut off the runners, spread some Rapid Raiser fertiliser and laid down some pea straw. My efforts have indeed been rewarded with larger strawberries and more of them. The straw making it harder for the millipedes and generally keeping the fruit out of the dirt.

Lastly a fence of bamboo on all sides is needed to keep the kangaroos from having their share.

Hard Yacka

The talented Rod has created another sculpture. Crafted from copper and ingenuity this installation has been created to replicate the real thing.

About a year ago we noticed that our Xanthorrohea preissii which had been doing famously for the five or so years since it was planted in the Gekko Garden, was showing worrying signs of illness. We checked the watering system, cut back the dying leaves and hoped for the best. It did not improve, in fact even after seeking advice and armed with fungicide and Gogo juice our Yakka slipped further and further into decline. Finally we had to admit it was DEAD.

The substantial outlay for the magnificent plant removed from native vegetation in Western Australia initially made us a little nervous but determined to follow all the recommendations for initial transplanting and settling. After so many years of going from strength to strength we thought that we would have it for decades. It was upsetting enough to loose the leaves we really didn’t want to part with the trunk too.

Transforming copper pipe .......

.........fitting copper rivets........

........cutting and bending 160 metres of 2.6 mm gauge copper wire for the new leaves.........

........welded into place in neat rings around the copper pipe stem.......

.......hours and hours of cutting and welding........

.......out of the Worksop and into the garden the copper Yakka is a good substitute for the real thing.

“No legacy is so rich as honesty.” William Shakespeare

Visiting my mother’s childhood home in December 2016 we found some honesty seeds on the ground. The owner who is still there, having purchased the estate over 30 years ago said she has never planted them, they just keep self seeding. My Pop would have been the gardener responsible for introducing them into that garden. I am chuffed now to share the legacy of honesty into our garden and enjoy yet another memory of my grandfather.

A slice of spring

        Orchid.              Waratah.         Native Mint.         Arctotis.           Geranium.         Snowball.         Marguerite