More harvest than festival

~~~~ Lavender ~~~~

Yesterday was lavender harvest festival day here at Frog Pond Farm. Well, to be honest it was more harvest than festival!

In fact I'm not even sure that it's meant to be harvest time! But anyway that's what happened here.

A good result from those tiny little seedlings planted back in August last year.

Oh my goodness, look how green it was back then!

You have to look very closely to see the seedlings. They are either side of the beds lining the pathway.

~~~~~ THINKING ~~~~~~

I was born in the Year of the Snake.

I have to think about things before acting.

I have to consider all possibilities..

I have to contemplate.

We've had months of thinking.

Months of mulling . Months of eyeballing. Months of trying different options.

A crab apple walk, a lavender walk, a gate at the end, a seat at the end, move the seat and the archway and on and on it went...

For some reason we seemed to think that we needed a focal point looking out from the garden room.

Not so, we decided.

We have finally settled on this.

Drawing to scale was not a priority! 

( Mmm..... on second thoughts I probably should've asked Bill to draw it!)

There is no focal point.

It couldn't be more simple really.

No wonder everything else just didn't seem quite right. I must have kept thinking about the big picture. The need to keep the whole rose garden as one.

They are quite big beds but will easily be filled with cuttings and clumps of what we already have.....repeat plantings to make it cohesive.

As a result, Bill has been out there measuring......no eyeballing this time. 

Not so for this original sight line. Must have been me who did this lot.....eye balling!

So we'll fix those too.

We will fill the beds with as much compost/mulch etc that we can gather and let it sit through Winter.

It seems such a pity after going to the trouble of grassing two biggish spots there.

~~~~~ Tough Trees ~~~~~

Our chinese pistachio trees are looking gorgeous.

They are the toughest of small trees and produce the most exquisite colour in Autumn.

~~~~~ Climbing iceberg ~~~~~

Climbing iceberg looks so fresh and healthy at the moment. Another resilient performer under very dry conditions and without a drop of additional water.

Definitely worth it's place on our pergola.

~~~~~ Pink Belladonna Lilies ~~~~~

Massive clump of pink belladonna lilies.

Originally one bulb given to us many years ago.

Now over a hundred new bulbs. I'm reluctant to replant them though. They are a weed in some areas of Victoria although we haven't seen them anywhere else on our property.

~~~~~ Amy update ~~~~~

Amy's friend Heidi has been in Cambodia this week visiting her on Amy's week off.

She wanted to take Heidi to see Angkor Wat in the evening for the sunset viewing. Looks like they have arrived in plenty of time.

She also wanted to show Heidi her school. 

They visited the local village and went to Savanna's house. Savanna is the Khmer teacher at Amy's school. She was cooking rice cakes and invited them into their home to try some with the family.

And just to make you smile, click on the link below to see a bit of chicken dancing practice for the New year celebrations. 

Amy dancing with the kidlets

Propagation heaven

Especially when it's Autumn.

I've been propagating everything in sight!

The cuttings are all tucked away in their plastic houses lined up along the potting shed veranda.
I have resisted peeking inside, thinking that while there are water droplets they must be okay.

This little batch were successful and grew roots. I have potted them up and they are now holidaying in the...........

......magnificent mini glass house!
 They are sharing accommodation with the potted lemon seedlings, twelve red carpet rose cuttings and 26 Royal Dumble red salvia cuttings.

Bill made it out of bits and pieces from his stash including the piece of glass, so the box was really made to fit the glass.
And then while he was on a roll, he made this.....

.....a potting table made from pallets.
It couldn't be more perfect.


Prior to the building frenzy, Bill had been out gathering horse poo from our paddocks which he then put through the mulcher. We will use it everywhere. It's a great soil conditioner.

I dug a clump of daffodil bulbs from the roundabout bed and planted them en masse around our Frog Pond Farm sign.  There were 84 of them altogether all growing on top of each other. Once again that would have originally been just five bulbs many years ago.

More multiplying..... this time a plant called Phlomis russeliana.

(The photo is from Lambley nursery. )
The stems grow to 100 cms tall and are covered in  gorgeous pale lemon flowers.
I planted one in Spring 2011 and today I dug it up to separate. Now I have 20 plants! I will let them grow on in the pots and plant them out in Spring  en masse.

This is Artemisia absinthium. Also known as True wormwood. 
It has created a perfect grey leafed plant in the rose garden.

I took lots of cuttings from it and planted them straight in the ground here at the back of the bed.

It's always a struggle to get anything to grow here at this end of the house.

This year I will keep it simple........
               * Red flowering carpet rose ( already there and does fairly well but have taken lots of cuttings to plant en masse)

                *Lavender ( will be different)
                *Wormwood ( will be different)
...and this exceptionally tough ground cover called                   *Marrubium ( already there so dug up bits with roots and repeat planted)

Grey, lavender and red...en masse.


I adore liliums.
 They are quite expensive to buy as bulbs and I wanted to try propagating them this year.

I hadn't been game enough to dig them up before, so held my breath as I dug in......

It was very exciting to see what had been going on down there!

 The little bulblets were everywhere. 
I couldn't believe my eyes.
They all got planted back in the ground en masse.
Can you just imagine the display if they all grow!!!!

I had researched growing the scales from around the bulb ( they peel away just like an onion). It said to put them in damp vermiculite in a ziplock bag. They start growing roots apparently.
So I did!

They have gone into the mini hothouse.

Darling little boy. He keeps sending Bill text messages with scary faces!

Feeling good

 It's been a whole week since I've been in Blogland.
A whole flu-ey filled week.
It feels good to be up and about again.

It feels good to see signs of Autumn everywhere.

It feels good to smell the smoke from bonfires in backyards again.

It feels good to be thinking of plants and gardens and propagating and digging and composting and  making plans. 

It feels good to get my nose back in a book again.

It feels good to know that Amy is still loving her time teaching those little kidlets in Cambodia, in spite of the incessant heat.
They all have a holiday this week. It's the Khmer New Year.

Mmmmmm..........( the scooter is called Sheila apparently...on loan for two weeks!)

It feels so good to feel good.