Yay For Self Seeders

There are some plants that come back year after year, putting on a colourful show with absolutely no help from me. These are the self seeders that pop up around the garden, taking over any bare spot they can find. They are all easily removed if need be.

Forget Me Nots in blue and white,

Geranium Palmatum,

this Verbascum whose full name I don't know, which also emits a sweet perfume if the weather is warm. 

The unopened flowers look like little tight parcels.

Nasturtuims. Cocky loves their flowers, so I throw a few in his cage and  he chews off the end with the sweet nectar inside. 

I am still yet to try them in a salad.

And I was surprised when Cerinthe Major decided to spread itself around. It makes an attractive plant even before the flowers appear with pretty mottled blue green foliage. I often see our local Eastern Spinebill feeding in the flowers too.

Maples & Geraniums

Japanese maples have always been a favourite small tree with their lovely fine leaves. The two  grafted varieties I have are doing well in a sheltered spot, their leaves all fresh and new at the moment. They do get a little bit of dead wood which I usually just break off in winter while they are bare. 

This one is "Filigree"

The purple one I don't have the name of  but has the bonus of turning fiery red in autumn

Luckily some of  my Geranium Maderense  survived being moved to another part of the garden. One lot did not, probably too big and then not receiving enough water through last summer. It can be a bit tricky distinguishing G.Maderense from G Palmatum which I also have, especially when young. G.Maderense has the interesting habit of using its leaf stems for support. As it grows the leaf stems start to point downward and end up keeping the whole plant propped up ready for a big head of flowers.

 These ones settled into their new location.

The wet and windy weather we've been having kept me inside looking at online nurseries and adding to my wishlist.

There are a couple of pretty Corydalis that would go nicely with the ones I have and some perennial Sunflowers that I'm yet to try.

I only bought my first ever Grevillea last year, intending to keep the local birds happy. The idea was to have the smaller flowered varieties for the smaller birds, and I started well, but that idea went out the window when I had to have "Ivory Whip". And now another has caught my eye - "Purple Haze". Onto the wishlist with that too.

A Bit Of Calm Please

 Well that's not good

The Echium that blew over in the wind yesterday looked okay while it lay on the ground, but as I stood it up today it made a cracking sound at the root. I tied it to a stake and later when I came back it had drooped. I've given it a good watering, there's not much else I can do. Thank goodness the wind has dropped. Our power wasn't affected but others still don't have any a day later.

I have more Erythroniums flowering; pink ones this week. The paler coloured ones are possibly the seedlings.

They enjoy the same conditions as my Lily of the Valley, which are starting to bloom, and all grow happily together under the rhododendrons in a sheltered woodland type of setting.

Windy, Windy Weather

Well, what a crappy day, regarding the weather that is. We've had 31mm of rain overnight and still getting more in patches, but it's the wind that is causing chaos. I decided to survey the situation between showers and found my Lavatera arborea variegata had split at the base and fallen over. Last week I had thought about taking off a branch which had  already split. It had been growing so well and was just beginning to flower. I may decide to leave it as is and hope it sets seed. Usually I have odd ones pop up nearby.
Another casualty  is my Echium pininana.  Disappointingly it has blown right over. This is the first time I've grown one and was most impressed when it started to head for the sky and some flowers began to pop open up the stem. I will make an attempt to stand it and put a stake in just as soon as the wind calms down. I'll just hope the roots aren't too badly damaged.
                                                            2 days ago.....

and today

Meanwhile the Wisteria is blooming beautifully whilst securely tied (I hope) to its pipe. I really need to get rid of the excess  hideous bright blue twine spoiling the whole effect. I may get only a short time to enjoy its colour as the rosellas usually swoop in and chew off the flowers, leaving a mauve carpet beneath.

I picked up plenty of dead branches from under the trees while I was out there. That's about the only way the wind helps out, pruning off old wood high up, where I can't reach.
The rest of the plants laying over will most likely stand up again and carry on. Tomorrow will be better.

Some Warmth In The Air

With the warmth comes lots of growth. Some of the trees already have new spring leaves, but there are still some that are just starting to sprout. I find that a bit of a relief to see the new buds, and know the trees have survived another year. After one particularly dry summer I thought we might lose our Liriodendron. When its leaves came back the following spring they were very sparse. A few years on and it seems to have recovered. We weren't so lucky with our Davidia or a Betula a few years ago. They had been growing over 25 years quite happily, but suddenly died and left a big gap when they were removed.
At least with flowers I can quickly find something to fill the empty spot left after a death. A tree is a different story.

My Livingston daisies are bright and colourful in the sunshine. They need the sun to open and be pollenated by the busy bees. The setting sun and cloudy days see them sulking, their flowers closed up.

My Babianas are another bright pretty flower and have done a lot better since I moved them.

The birds are enjoying the sunshine too, the blue wrens have their mating plumage on, and some of them have started nesting. Our grey thrushes have come back to their usual nest in the greenhouse. With a little bit of renovating it must have been good to go. She doesn't seem all that pleased to have someone taking photos though.

Slow Saturday

Today when I wandered in the garden I noticed my lunaria flowering away happily, but curiously they are all the white flowered variety. I always had purple, and plenty of them, but not any longer. There are odd plants about, so far without flowers, maybe there will be purple ones amongst those.

My Bloomfield Courage weeping rose was in need of a pruning this year and I may have been a wee bit savage with it. This rose misses out for years on end and then I take to it with secateurs and saws. The trunk on it has become larger over the years than the pipe supporting it. I never imagined when I planted that tall thin rose it would become so thick. Spring has seen new growth sprouting out all over, in a matter of days it's taken off like a rocket.

The tree peonies are lovely at the moment with their huge blooms. Surprisingly all that rain we had didn't damage their flowers too much. I have no idea of its name but this one's colour is quite striking and it produces several flowers reliably every year.

The erythronium has opened out since yesterday. They have such pretty little delicate flowers and although some of them do multiply in my garden, it is at a very slow rate. 

The daffodils didn't fare so well with all that rain and many are laying over. They might stand up again if we get some sun, but they're just about finished for this year anyway. There is still the odd clump of very late flowering varieties still to come, such as Twin Sisters and one I'm keen to see, Sundisc.

I moved my Cantua before winter, not knowing if there was enough left of it to grow. It had been smothered by other larger shrubs and there was very little live wood on it. I only remembered having that plant after seeing one flowering in the garden of a local house last spring. Of course mine hadn't done well, let alone flowered, for some years in its unsuitable position, so I set about saving it. So far it has put on a decent amount of new growth in its new sunny position, and maybe next spring the wood will be mature enough for some flowers. 

Rain

Today's weather gave me the idea for starting a blog.

I tipped another 2mm out of the gauge this morning, which takes our total over the past couple of days to 60mm. Everything is soggy and tanks are overflowing.

The Cheeky Scrubwren name comes from the wrens hopping about the garden. And they're all cheeky. They frequent our garage, coming in through the open brickwork on one wall and scoot about under our feet. I wouldn't be surprised to find a nest in there somewhere. Last year bits of dried grass and feathers fell out every time we put the roller door up or down. I don't think that location would have proved successful for their breeding programme.

Even though it is a day to stay inside, I did go out and remove the pods from my variegated clivea. The seeds are now in pots and hopefully I'll get some variegated babies.

The sun has poked through this afternoon so I ventured out and discovered an erythronium I had planted back in Autumn is up and starting to bloom. It's about a metre away from where I thought I had planted it, and no marker of course, will I ever learn? I also neglected to write it's name in my book, so not sure which one it is but the flower is a lovely yellow.

And the 3 pots of veltheimia bracteata, with their glossy leaves are blooming well under the verandah