The Bullfrog's Garden

Whoops!

2011-06-15T10:48:00.006+10:00

Just realised it has been nearly 6 months since I last raved on about the garden. Time does get away. After the big January dry we have been getting small amounts of rain fairly regularly - enough to keep things from drying out too much. I did plant some snake bean seeds rather late in the season and managed to get a couple of meals worth before the cold set in. I will definitely be planting more next season so we have a plentiful supply. In fact I was in Sydney for the long weekend and discovered a nursery that sold snake bean seeds, so I just had to buy another packet.
The Roma tomatoes have been absolutely amazing. Fruit fly got a hold in February and I should have pulled them out then and killed off the flies, but I didn't get around to it. Since the fruit fly succumbed to the cold, the 4 plants have bloomed and fruited a dozen times over. I must have picked at least 10 kg of tomatoes and despite the recent -3 frost, I came home yesterday to find even more partially ripe ones to be picked. This would have to be the last lot, surely - it's mid June!!!
My sugar snap pea seeds have finally emerged from the ground, but I think my English spinach seeds have been moused, judging by the little tunnels dug through the patch. I discovered, in an old gardening book, that you can grow seeds in a plastic garbage bin, which I hadn't thought of. By keeping the lid on until the seeds had sprouted, it would not only prevent tunnelling mice, but also keep the seeds warmer for sprouting. Think I will give it a go.
The flowering parts of the garden aren't doing too much at the moment. The daylilies have been frosted off, hopefully to re-sprout in spring. The roses are blooming their last blooms. They have had great colour this autumn with no bugs to eat them and no hot sun to burn them. The camellias are just coming into bud. I can't wait to see the beautiful maroon flowers of my Grape Soda and the pink and white ruffles of the Volunteer. The tibouchina is in full bloom despite the frosts, as it is in a sheltered part of the pool yard. I just bought a grafted Qualup Bells for an exhorbitant price hoping it will grow well here away from humidity. It will be a challenge, so I may try it in a pot first. Hellebores are re-shooting after being cut back. I just love the muted colour of their nodding flower heads. One of my Gymea Lilies produced it's first flower spike this year. It hasn't bloomed yet, but I'm waiting as patiently as I can. The other four are still spikeless. I think It may be that I put a stone down the throat of the one about to flower. Apparently that induces flowering. So far so good.
The Autumn colour has been excellent this year. The Japanese Maple has put on it's usual brilliant red display, the Golden Chain Tree was a brilliant yellow, the Manchurian Pear was a wonderful deep red, but the best display again came from my Smoke Bush, Cotinus something. Really brilliant shades of orange, yellow and purple, and the spring flowers of huge purple feathers are also stunning. Can't wait.

Dry, dry, dry....

2011-01-25T07:54:00.006+11:00

I know, I know, I complained about the bucketfuls of rain in December. Well, someone heard me and now it's payback time. 9mm of rain for the whole of January so far, and, combined with temperatures in the high 30's and low 40's, things, meaning garden beds and lawn, are drying out rapidly to the brown and crunchy stage. Paddock trees, mentioned in the last post, are needing bucketfuls of water every day or so. I thought I would make the most of the rain and plant 4 advanced and expensive Manchurian pear trees in our driveway as they were the best option for surviving heavy clay soil prone to bogging and drying out to rock solid, plus hot north westerly winds, once established...this being the main point. I am now barrowing 20litre containers down to them each day. Our driveway being 600 metres long, this is no mean feat and great for muscle development.

There have been a large number of caterpillars around this month as you can see by the many plants with holes chewed in their leaves, or leaves missing altogether. The one advantage of this, of course, is the incredible number of huge black and white butterflies with large orange spots on their wings. I chased one around my garden paths for quite a while the other day until I managed to get a reasonable photograph. I will include it in the post.

I decided it was now time to mulch garden beds that I put off in December, so that has been the main task this month. My mulch pile is decreasing rapidly. Time to cut down and chip some more pine trees. Luckily two have developed a severe and dangerous lean and one of those has already lost its top section which plummeted to the ground in a big wind, so time for the tree service man to come and quote again.

My husband welded a new garden arch for me out of some old metal frames he had stashed away. The beautiful pink climbing rose had to be cut right back and untangled from the mass of broken, rusted old arch pieces and the new arch inserted in its place. He did a good job for an amateur and my rose has now sprouted wildly again ready to climb up and over and flower again next spring.

Zucchinis, cucumbers, beetroot, silverbeet, loads of still-green Roma tomatoes and some delicious fruit-fly-free (try saying that 3 times fast) Pixie peaches are emanating from the vege garden as we speak. Still waiting on the capsicum and pumpkins. Speaking of veges, I bought some snake beans for Christmas lunch, having not seen these delicious greens since my childhood. They don't seem to sell them around here in the fruit shops, but I found an online supplier of seeds to grow them, so I have ordered 40 seeds, just in case some fail to thrive. Looking forward to their arrival in the post.

Time to go out and water again before the heat sets in.

Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain....and more rain!!!

2010-12-03T16:35:00.003+11:00

72mm for December and it's only day 3. I know, I know...we've had 10 years of drought and we really needed a good soaking. Well, we've had it. At our house, in our rain gauge, we have recorded 1080 mm rain since Christmas Eve 2009. Not sure if my garden can take anymore without root rot setting in.

I decided to plant out in the paddock 4 native frangipani that I bought thinking I would have to remember to water them through summer. A few days later I had to go and dig a trench so the water could drain away from them before they drowned. I also started mulching with the pine wood chip from the 3 large dead white cypress we had cut down earlier in the year, but decided I need to let the garden beds drain first before I try to stop any evaporation from the surface.

One of our English oak trees dropped a stack of acorns again this year which have sprouted well in the lawn, so once again, hating to waste a free plant or two, I dug up and potted 20 oak tree seedlings, most of which have survived the transplant shock and are loving the rain. Probably similar to an English summer. They will go out into the paddocks along the boundary fences next winter while dormant just like many did this winter. Some didn't make it but those that did are already outgrowing their green bags. It would be nice to live long enough to see them as full grown trees. They have amazing drought tolerance, once established.

I can see that blackspot is going to be a major problem on roses this summer with the rain and abnormal humidity. I usually just trim off the affected leaves, but I have a feeling that may mean the entire plant this year. I may have to resort to spraying with a fungicide.
Talking of spraying, I was wanting to spray my Econaturalure around for fruit fly protection before the little devils get a foothold, but alas, you have to respray after rain, and that would mean ever day at the moment. At over $50 a litre, it is a very expensive option. Let's just hope they all drown!

On a happier note, I will add some more Spring garden photos.

What's Bugging Me

2010-11-09T17:02:00.003+11:00

The garden has been really beautiful, in fact so nice that visitors don't even notice the large number of weeds that have and are still invading garden beds. I have been trying to fertilise, wettasoil, deadhead, weed vege patches as well as the mundane mowing and house cleaning, but I don't seem to be keeping up. I guess 14 large garden beds, as well as weedy gravel paths, is a bit overwhelming. To top it off, my roses were really beautiful until the horrible little brown and orange leaf beetles invaded and have eaten holes in all my pale coloured roses. For some reason they are not keen on the darker reds. I wrote to Burke's Backyard website to ask what they were and was told to spray with Mavrik. However, with all the forecast rain, I haven't done it yet.
On a happier note, my Echium Pride of Madiera has done itself proud. It self seeded from about two seasons ago and is towering over the bed.
The pink old fashioned weeping rose looks lovely over the entry to the "pygmy path", so named by my husband because you have to be 18 inches tall to get through. It will have to be cut back severely when it finishes blooming as the arch it has been growing on for 10 years has totally collapsed and needs to be replaced. I have been promised a new strongly welded steel one. Here's hoping.
The veges are off and running. Silverbeet and lettuces are in profusion and I have two cauliflowers and baby carrots. The zucchini plants and tomatoes and capsicum are starting to be ready to plant out.
Time for a beer in the summerhouse.

Spring 2010

2010-10-07T12:31:00.006+11:00

This must be the coolest Spring that we have experienced in Dubbo in the 15 years we have been here. We have had half a dozen days of over 20 degrees and the rest have been 15 to 18. It means that flowers are developing slowly and will probably retain their colour for longer.
My roses are in bud but only a very few blooms so far. The natives have been brilliant and the new beds I planted last Spring have filled out with a huge assortment of well established plants - grevilleas, isopogons, Geraldton wax, eremophilas, hardenbergias, even a leptospermum in pale pink - as well as loads of lovely ONION WEED!

I decided to buy a thermostatically controlled heat pad for faster sprouting vege seeds. It worked well, probably too well, as I set it up in late August with seeds (in punnets) of zucchini, capsicum, Roma tomato and Lebanese cucumber, thinking I would get a head start. I placed it in the laundry and within 5 days all seeds had sprouted. I kept a clear lid on it and went away for a week. When we came home the seedlings had outgrown themselves and had lengthened considerably to the point where the stems were thin and weak. I had to start again and as we were going away again I set them up in the greenhouse without heat and they have since sprouted into normal seedlings ready for the vege patch, once I weed it. I'm sure the heat pad will be useful when I am home to keep an eye on seedling growth.

A new plant to my garden this year has been the Kniphofias - Red and Yellow pokers have sprung up from bulbs I purchased from Garden Express. I love them and even my non-gardening husband commented on how nice they are, so I think I will buy more next season.

Lavenders are brilliant at the moment. I find the Ruffles varieties eg. Blueberry, Mulberry, Strawberry, Peachberry, etc, particularly good out here once established.

My pool yard garden is in dire straits at the moment. The pavers are very mossy after so much rain and the weeds have come up through the pavers so the whole area looks, and is neglected. I think it will be my next priority before the weather (and the pool) warms up enough to swim and use the area. I have 2 Brugmansias (Angel's Trumpets) in there and they were heavily frosted this winter after two nights of -4 degrees. The Tibouchinas survived, surprisingly, and the Chinese Lanterns are in bloom. Time to go and do other jobs so maybe tomorrow can be a gardening day.

2010-07-28T11:03:00.002+10:00

RAIN
It is raining and will be for the next few days, so it's time to come out of the garden and write about it instead. All my new roses arrived and I did find a spot for each of them. Time will tell how crowded they become. I have spent the last week weeding, mulching and mowing. My gravel paths were loaded with weeds, since we have had a lot more rain this year than in previous years. It was difficult to distinguish bulbs from grass in my bottom driveway garden, so that had to be cleared before the flowers come. I pruned the plumbago, which has become huge, but is covering the septic, so that's OK. My Geraldton Wax plant died after about 4 years. Not sure how long they live, but it sure wasn't impressed with all our summer rain. I replaced it with a weeping Callistemon.
I still have loads more garden beds to weed, tidy and mulch before the heat arrives. Luckily, or maybe not, we lost 3 large Cypress pine trees and had them cut down and mulched a few months ago, and as well as the large Melaleuca tree which suffered the same fate last year, they have given me 2 huge piles of mulch which is breaking down nicedly. I also got to buy 3 replacement trees - always a plus - and I chose Lilly pillys, Acmena smithii.
I now need to start pruning my roses. It takes quite a while to prune 150 bushes and time is running short.
The navel oranges have been huge and sweet this year and have so far provided us with 2 months worth of juice, about 10 litres. However, because I pruned 2 of the trees to allow more light and air to get in, the yield has not been as high this year. We will probably run out of Navels before the Valencias are ready to squeeze.
Speaking of citrus, I bought 4 concrete 45cm pots at a pre-garage sale for $7 each - bargain. I decided to put a small citrus tree in each. Now I have a Meyer lemon, a Lemonade, a Blood Orange and a Mandarin as well as the Tangelo, Tahitian lime, Dwarf Lotsa Lemons and 2 Kaffir Limes that I already had. If they get too big I can always plant them out.

The Bullfrog's Garden: Latest Rose Garden

2010-06-01T09:51:00.000+10:00

The Bullfrog's Garden: Latest Rose Garden

Latest Rose Garden

2010-05-29T19:03:00.004+10:00

Last year, 2009, a friend offered me 12 China Doll roses that had been in her garden for about 15 years. The shade had increased to the point where they were not growing or flowering well. I swapped them for a spare food processor that I had bought on ebay. However, the price didn't stop there. By the time I bought 300 clip-lock bricks for a wall, 3 tonne of garden soil and a concrete statue for the centre (made by a local fellow for a very reasonable cost), and spent several weeks building the wall (using a level to get it right, much to the joy of my husband, who hates visitors to think that he built my crooked garden brick edges), the cost had skyrocketed.

I planted a dozen small statice plants around the outer edge, not realising how well they would grow there. The roses arrived in June with huge, old woody bases and only a few lingering roots. I didn't hold out much hope for their success. I should have had more faith in the ability of roses to overcome adversity. I only lost one and since last spring they have grown to about a metre tall and flowered profusely. I have now ordered 6 more from Swanes to fill in the centre part of the garden so it looks like a hedge.

Roses

2010-05-27T08:00:00.005+10:00

Although Spring is supposed to be a great time for roses, I find that here they look good for a short while, then the sudden early heat we have had over the past few years causes them to flower and fade quickly. However, now that Autumn has been around for a while, the roses are flowering brilliantly and lasting much longer with deeper colours true to form.
I have over 150 rose bushes and have ordered about 15 more to arrive soon. Not sure where I am going to plant them, but where there's a will, there's a way. Roses are one of the most drought- and heat-tolerant plants I know. Even in weeks of 42 degrees over summer, they still only need water once every 5 to 7 days provided they are well mulched. White Iceberg and Pierre de Ronsard have coped remarkably with hot, dry north westerly winds for most of spring and summer.

I have developed a love for the simple, single rose flowers such as Mutabilis, my favourite 5 petalled rose. I have two bushes, one each side of my summerhouse entrance.

Multi-coloured rose flowers, such as the Delbard Painters' series are another addiction - Paul Cezanne, Alfred Sisley, Henri Matisse, Camille Pissarro, Grimaldi and Maurice Utrillo - all grace my garden beds, as well as Hocus Pocus and Abracadabra, which didn't do so well in the garden, but is thriving in a large pot.

David Austin roses, which always remind me of little cabbages, do particularly well here with very little blackspot and prolific blooms.I particularly love the colour of Pat Austin. Now for some photos....

2010-05-11T10:19:00.002+10:00

I had a lovely Mothers' Day, adding 3 new chrysanthemums to my collection. However, I got really excited this morning when I noticed my Blue Lechenaultias, (purchased 7 months ago and thriving), were in flower. The tiny, dainty blue flowers are vibrant and the plant is really healthy. My brother, a native plant expert and purist, told me when I bought them that he had had little success in growing them in SA, so I feel very honoured that they are doing so well when they could easily have decided not to, as they so often do.

Rain

2010-04-27T11:15:00.004+10:00

Now I'm not complaining about the rain. Overall it has been brilliant for the garden and the paddocks and will set farmers up for their winter crops. However, when you've spent the last 10 years buying drought resistant plants and being able to control the amount of water that each plant gets, it is a bit of a shock for some of these plants to suddenly cop 8 inches of rain in a couple of days. I have lost a few to drowning including roses, natives, succulents, psilotis, kurrajong trees and, I fear, a large Geraldton Wax.
This excess moisture has encouraged the insect population to make the most of its short lifespan and breed prolifically producing scads of caterpillars and grasshoppers which have feasted on my favourite shrubs and veges. I try to be as "organic" as possible, but there is a limit to my "greenness"and I find myself bringing out the Confidor as well as the Dipel and trying not to think about all those "good" insects that are going to die too.
I was walking around my garden this morning as usual after a couple of days inside with a head cold. The dahlias are flourishing still - beautiful large, bright red flower heads and tiny yellow pom poms as well as large, bright pink pom poms and a large pink and white cactus-type flower. The Chrysanthemums are really looking good now too - tiny pink and yellow buttons, large, shaggy lime green blooms, white, pale pink, burnt orange and more about to burst into bud. Hopefully, Mothers' Day will bring more plants to be dug in.
One of my favourite plants, a Heliotrope, is in flower and the smell is delightful - a cross between vanilla and cherries - hence the common name "Cherry Pie". It's one I have to watch in winter so the frosts don't kill it. Speaking of frosts, they will be here soon. It was down to 6 degrees this morning. Luckily I have already sprayed my frost tender babies with "Envy", a polymer-type product which has got many of my young plants through below zero temps. Time for some more photos, perhaps? Several dahlias and my purple heliotrope.

Crazy Features

2010-04-26T14:22:00.005+10:00

Shawn and Baabra were made by a friend from Hay and at first glance look quite realistic. We have momentarily fooled a few visitors.
The Atlantic petrol bowser, 1937 model, was bought in 2008 as an added feature for our classic car collection.
The red phone box, circa 1950, was bought in South Australia in 2008 and has had a new coat of paint.
The gazebo was bought in 2003 as a kit and "lovingly" put together by my husband and me. I did the paint job. We use it most afternoons as an R & R spot after a hard day's work.
The pool yard was extended and re-gardened in 2003, then the old pool sprung a leak in 2004 and the new pool was craned in. The pool yard was redone in late 2004 by me. I learnt to love paver-laying.
I think I'm getting the hang of this blogspot thing.

Starting Out

2010-04-26T10:54:00.009+10:00

OK. So I'm sort of getting the gist of this. Thought I'd add some garden history and information. When we bought this place about 15 years ago it had 3 garden beds and lots of lawn. Now it has 13 beds of varying shapes and sizes and two vege gardens. It still has lots of lawn, which was mainly dirt and rocks until our recent downpours. We are on a hill overlooking the Macquarie river flats and a pleasant valley of rolling hills with a mountain range in the distance - a lovely view from our large back lawn.
Decisions about what to plant and where to establish beds fell largely to the lay of the land. I used to be a purist when it came to plants - natives only, but as I get older and realise that gardening time has its limits, I am happy to give any plant that appeals to me a go. I have developed a love for roses, one of the toughest drought and heat-tolerant plants you can grow here. I now have over 150 different rose bushes with 15 more ordered for this year. I feel a new garden bed coming on!
Paths now wind through my garden leading to various areas. I developed strong muscles shovelling and barrowing over 10 tonnes of gravel to make them over about 6 years. We also have a gazebo, a greenhouse, a red telephone box and a 1937 petrol bowser as features. I'll add some photos so you get a bit of an overview of the place.

First Blog - Ever.

2010-04-26T09:00:00.001+10:00

Warm sunny days and cool crisp nights. Autumn is the best season in this part of the world.
After 10 years of drought we have had 600 mm of rain since Christmas. That is our annual rainfall in 4 months. My garden of approximately 2 acres is thriving at last, weeds and all. Its a welcome change and I have even managed to lay some buffalo turf before winter hits.
This is my first time as a blogger so be patient with me. I hope some of the stuff I want to say will be of interest at some stage to someone. I'm quite good at rabbiting on, especially about my garden as that is where I spend most of my time since retiring, apart from the occasional trip away, car club outing, riding my horse or helping offspring with their gardening attempts. I will now attempt to finish setting up this blog. My computer skills need honing when it comes to anything more than email and googling.