Saturday, February 20, 2010

The garden and Darcie's birthday outing.

A garden post for Shawna and Boo! Enjoy ladies :D

Last Friday I wasn't being paid to do anyone else's garden so I thought I'd take the time to actually do something in mine. It had begun to look rather sad and neglected and lots needed to be done. On the Thursday night I had headed to Bunnings (the major hardware and gardening store here) and had what I like to call 'A Bunnings Orgasm'.
You see, I have a Bunnings fetish, I simply cannot walk out of the store without something for my garden, usually over a hundred bucks worth of something for my garden...
And this time was no different. $115 later I had compost/soil conditioner, petunias, garden ornaments, a dwarf apricot Oleander (one of the Mighty Tough, Super Hardy range lol), a new miniature rose and some sheep poo (yay for manure!).

I was kept rather busy on Friday. Apart from taking a slight break to drive the twenty five minutes to Christian's work to pick up some house keys after accidentally locking myself out (loooong story) and another trip to Bunnings when I realised I didn't have near enough plants to fill my empty pots, I accomplished quite a lot.

These are my pots out the front (please note the soil here is shocking and so I have a mainly potted garden). I replaced the miniature rose on the right after the last one succumbed to the intense heat we've been having lately and replaced the annuals I had in the small pots with some white Petunias. I also swept around and picked up all the dead leaves and it looks much better.


Out the front we have two garden beds my Dad built, the only ones we have. The beds have been built right up but the soil is still pretty bad. I weeded and then dug in compost and sheep shit and I'm hoping it will improve the soil a lot.
Apart from some bulbs that aren't out at the moment, I've ripped out everything from the beds apart from the Frangipanis.
We have two Frangipanis, one scarlet which is a very traditional shaped Frangipani...



and our white one which is not so traditional...
It seems to have the traditional shape with a smaller flower in the middle. My gardening bosses are coming round in a couple of weeks for a party and I'm hoping to get their opinion on it as I've not seen one like it before (not that I in any way, shape or form claim to be a Frangipani expert)


I forget what this small tree is called (something like Snow Bush I think...) but it sits to the right of my front door and in summer has thew most glorious pink leaves. This photo just doesn't do it any justice at all. The dog stake is new :)


This little guy is another of my new ornaments and he's sitting the rose closest to the door. When the wind moves him, he waves!


Just a general view of my front garden (please ignore the dead and uncut lawn!)


A while back I was doing a job of laying roll on lawn and there were six rolls left over. Our back lawn has been in a very sad state, full of weeds and so we let it die off this summer and our plan was to rip it up and start new with seed. Six free rolls of lawn though was too good an opportunity to pass up and so we laid it a couple of weeks ago. It seems to be taking nicely. Our plan when it is fully established it to rip up the rest of the grass, fence it off to keep Molly out and plant seed. Hopefully we'll swing it so the seed and roll on merge nicely together.


And moving out the back. I just hope you're not too thoroughly bored as yet ;-)
On my second trip to Bunnings I picked up several Gerbras because they were just so pretty and as they like full sun should do well in this spot.


Just a quick shot of some of my pots. Nothing much has changed here except a tidy up and a Petunia added. Boo wanted to see it though :)


Oh and this little man...


The opposite fence. This is a trouble spot for my poor plants and some things just don't do well at all. I had several pots, the gloomy graves of long lost plants, that needed to be filled and so I used up the last of my Petunias and my remaining Gerbra. The plant in the white pot on the far left is the Oleander and I hope it will go well there. It's a funny spot. Just out of sight on the left are my ferns and palms that do really well in the shade of the house but that one spot gets morning sun but afternoon shade. My Geraldton Wax carked it, I think due to not enough sun and the rose I used to have there just never flourished, possibly for the same reason. I'm hoping that being Mighty Tough and Super Hardy will help increase it's chances...


I can never remember what these two trees are called. Some kind of Elm maybe? My Dad potted them when he lived here and shortly after I moved in I repotted them in these massive pots (that Bunnings encounter was much more expensive...) and they have just gone berserk. I have strung up some solar powered fairy lights in them but unfortunately I have been unable to get a good night shot of them so you'll just have to use your imagination.


So there you have my garden. Still a lot to do but looking much better than she has lately.

Now my niece Darcie has grown up all of a sudden and next week will be ten. Ten! Can you believe it! It's scary to think that a whole decade will have passed since she was born. I feel old!
I told her I would take her shopping for her birthday and so she came over today (Saturday) and we went out with her mum, Jo.

Before we went out though I told her I needed pics of my garden and we inevitably got more than just the garden.

This is Miss Molly Moo wanting us to play ball with her.


Darcie pulling a face...


I don't think she realises that is the wind changes, she'll be stuck like this forever...


We were heading out to Carousel, a huge centre in Cannington but on the way I told her we had a stop off to make at our small local centre. She didn't know what was install but when she saw him, her face just lit up.

Isn't he beautiful???


However, after months of wanting a ride in the Snoopy kennel, Darcie came over shy and refused at first to get in. Eventually she did though and found that one of the down sides to being almost ten is that you're not the target group of shopping centre ride inventors.
It was a little small...


Oh the disappointment!


After that we headed out to Carousel and while there I tried to find this shirt. I bought it the other day from a surf shop ( I never go into them! Ever! I lost my surf shop virginity!) and was wearing it this morning when I rang Boo. I described the shirt to her and she said that she'd rather like one and so I figured while I was out I'd pick one up. Unfortunately, they seem rather popular and they only had XXL ones left :( So I will probably have to get one online but for some reason they don't ship direct to the UK so it'll have to take a roundabout way to get to her!

We were all pretty tired and the three of us traipsed around numerous toy departments, getting more and more exhausted each minute. I explained to Darcie that she didn't have to chose something right now and she didn't even have to get a toy/game/dvd but could save the money and use it to go to the movies or play mini golf in the future. This appealed to her but since she also had some money that Nanna had given her, she eventually got a skateboard from Christian and I (all broken bones will be entirely out fault!) and kept the money from Nanna for future use.

We then headed down to Scarborough to the beach to have fish and chips for dinner and to have a play on the playground and to chase the waves. Darcie was very eager to get down to the water...


I love this photo even though she is a little poser!



It was rather overcast and we'd had a few spots of rain and so the ocean was rather wild.


Look! Some freak with only four toes has been down this way! lol



Wondering if it's too rough for a dip...


Darcie and I just before we left to go home. As you can tell, it was rather windy.


And so I got home, exhausted and sleepy and had my first bath of the year! I love soaking till I get more wrinkly than a Nanna and it gives me time to read so now I'm feeling quite relaxed.
After I finish this post I'll probably have an early night and sleep cannot come soon enough!

5 comments:

Shawna said...

Love the pics of your garden! Good luck with the lawn--I've lived in lots of places where we've had to almost start from scratch because the grass had been taken over by weeds or just generally run down. I love the Frangipanis--I've heard the name before, I wonder if they'll grow here...

Darcie is adorable! I think she looks a lot like you, by the way. :) You guys look like you had a lot of fun on your outing!

Hieronymous Anonymous said...

Oh, your garden is looking fab! Although all those pictures make me miss it...

Glad you had a good time with Jo and Darc (I agree with Shawna here, you can definitely see the family resemblance between the two of you - you're both adorable), and that t-shirt *is* awesome. Don't stress yourself if you can't find one in my size, though, really.
xxx

DavePrime said...

Wow. That's a lot of garden! :)

You need a t-shirt that says "I'm addicted to Pot(s)." lol

Nettie said...

It's not actually that much garden at all Dave, the pics just make it look like it. Compared to most other places around here, my yard is tiny.

Nettie said...

Oh and Shawna, the Frangipani is a tropical plant so I don't know how they'd go over there...they may not appreciate the snow!