Mulberry Jam

I  have a penchant for pretty sounding names and I keep singing the praises of salvias, so buying one of these delightful plants was always going to happen.

It's name is salvia involucrata 'Mulberry Jam'.
It grows to a metre in height and produces these gorgeous dark pink flowers from January on into  Winter.

It arrived in the mail yesterday from Lambley Nursery.
The arrival of a box of new plantings is food for the soul....for me anyway.
There was also....

  
......this beautiful primrose yellow foxglove (there's that pretty sounding name thing happening again!) with claret speckles in the throat.
I bought 3 of those.
I will need to make sure I plant them in dappled shade  if I can find some.  I have tried foxgloves in the rose garden before but it always seems too hot for them and we end up with droopy foliage.

This is  Mandevilla laxa or Chilean Jasmine.
It has giant jasmine-like flowers with a delicious fragrance. Can't wait to smell it for the first time. Unlike other mandevillas this one tolerates frost....we shall see. 
Better be mindful of where this gets planted too. It's a climber just like jasmine.

I am very excited about this one. It will be a new plant for me. I love that it can grow to 2 to 3 metres tall. Another way of adding height to the garden.
The pale yellow is a perfect foil for the pinks and greys and mauves.
It is called Verbascum olympicum Greek Mullein.

They all arrived yesterday in a box packed heavily with newspaper....

And after a drink they will be as good as gold.

My garden wanderings tonight showed that these hellebores are blooming happily. They really are the most exquisite little flowers.

Amy bought this for me from a secondhand book stall. (thank you darling) Some more food for the soul if the front cover is anything to go by.........can't wait to start turning the pages. Couldn't think of anything nicer on these cold nights.

Simple things...

 Sometimes it's the simple things that always stand out for me. I adore this little jug and couldn't resist buying it today. It cost $5.

Seems ages since I have blogged.
We have been at Mum and Dad's for 6 days.
We have been 'sharing' them for the last couple of  weeks and will continue to do that until they both get back on their feet....literally!!
Mum celebrated her 86th birthday while we were there......

...and Dennis has constructed a ramp at the back door to make things a bit easier for them both.
A true masterpiece in ramps!!!
You will notice his sidekicks supervising all proceedings and offering words of advice.
Thankyou Den....you did an amazing job under such close scrutiny!

And the coasters couldn't have been more perfect. Thanks Den.

I forgot to take a photo of the completed structure......I will make sure I do that when we return in a few days time.

Very happy customers.

First doughnut.....completely devoured in a matter of minutes!We love this little boy.

Our planning  for the rebuild is still in progress but we are more than happy with how things are going.
We fit in what we can in between trips!

Jonquils and roses...and a little bit of Bali.

You have to love it when you see this and it's not even the first of June.
 These were the only ones out in flower this afternoon and  I was compelled to scramble down on my hands and knees to smell them. 
I have a feeling that these may have been left in the ground when I dug up a huge clump and separated them. Mmmm...... 

....and seeing these beautiful green shoots bursting through fills me with anticipation for what is to come.

 I am trying to incorporate more grey foliage in our garden. 
There are two clumps of this tough little ground cover plant near our front entrance which faces North. Grey leafed plants are often drought tolerant and this is a little trooper. It has a mauve flower in Summer and a dense mat of soft grey scalloped leaves. It is quite old fashioned I think but I love it's toughness and greyness. I am going to try propagating it.
It is called Marrubium supinum scallop shell. I bought it from Lambley nursery ( but please just come and take some if you want to.....same with everything else).

These two roses are still blooming out there in the cold. 
The pink one is a climbing Pierre De Ronsard and the other is Abraham Darby...two stunning roses that I adore.

 Gorgeous cousins....Benny is up the tree.
Sam and his groomsmen looked so handsome on the day of the wedding.

Oh dear...I think Gareth must be chasing Indi....

Just wanted to sneak this one in again....little Bali boys.

Bill took this photo of us before we started melting!

Can't believe how hot it was........I think Winter may have just arrived here now. We have so many wood piles, we won't know where to start!!!

Winter garden, wintersweet and persimmons

Whilst looking through some garden photos, I came across these gorgeous blooms. They were picked in late May......24th to be exact ...just a couple of days ago.

 But that was 2012.

 Amazing really. I remember picking them by the bucketful and giving them to anyone who happened to be passing by.

The grass out there is just as green, but no bucketfuls this year( is there such a word as bucketfuls???).
 The rose garden has been mowed for the first time since the fire. 
Bill picked up his new mower on Monday and it has been given it's first tryout.
The grass looks a treat.

Happy boys today.....our temporary fence is still upright and has kept those little boys enclosed.
 The draftsman is coming tomorrow with our project manager and then I think we will be ready to go. 
The rebuilding seems to have taken ages in the planning but we have had so much going on that we haven't been at all concerned.( and  we (I ) keep changing things...!)
 Bill will be very happy to have a shed though!!!


I have been devouring this Diggers catalogue for a couple of days now. Even the words Winter Garden conjure up some loveliness to me.

....as does Wintersweet 

............and persimmon...

Do we need two more trees to care for and water??
Course we do !!! 
I am sending off the order tomorrow just so I can say those glorious sounding names.....and there just might be something else in there that takes my fancy too!
Thank you David B.

We miss this little family.......

Mum went home from hospital yesterday....2 weeks after her hip replacement operation. She will go ahead in leaps and bounds now. ( perhaps not too much leaping!)

Gardening day and more Bali bits...

 More Bali garden loveliness....

You've got to love the gorgeous Balinese women!! Sue, Jo, Elissa and James just wanted to sit and have a quiet,cool drink and within seconds this is what happened....they pounced!...feet, hands, nails, bracelets, massages.... 
Amy managed to capture the moment.

Some more wedding bits....

Sam and Kiann left these messages on our tables.

And the table decorations looked soooo elegant in their simplicity.Thank you for your photo Leeanne.

These little cuties........

  

...are now these little cuties!!. 

Everyone looked so gorgeous....


The weather was perfect for gardening today.

I dug up a big clump of kniphofia and split it into 10 plants ....I absolutely love doing that. Replanted them in groups of 5.
It is called Trevor Nottle. I bought it from Lambley Nursery along with this smaller one which I also dug up and divided into clumps today.

The soft buttery yellow looks lovely with the pinks and the spikes add that vertical element to the garden. They were burnt in the fire but have started to shoot again and it was this new growth that I have divided. Hope I haven't put them under even more stress!!

Planted some orange corms of watsonia from Dennis and Raylene. 

Planted the" hot chocolate" rose.

Dug out some old iris rhizomes to make room for more rose planting. 

Planted out some lilium bulbs from a pot. 

Some more Mum news....
She was transferred to Horsham hospital on Friday night. She is recovering very well and we couldn't be more pleased.

Our builders will be back tomorrow for our final review of "the works".

Bali colour

 I loved the colour of Bali.
 And of course there were gorgeous sarongs for sale everywhere......I bought this one at our hotel lobby shop for $7 and wore it at the pool every day. 

The water saved some of us (me) from melting .....

...and Waterbom Park just across the road was a huge hit.

The gardens at our hotel were tended everyday. The brightly coloured tropical flowers were thriving in their humid conditions. 

Tonight I also picked some brightly coloured flowers from our garden....Just Joey, Mme Isaac Pereire (deep rose pink and very fragrant ) and an orange unknown.

These three lovelies are heading home to WA from Bali tomorrow. 
It will probably be Christmas before we see them again.

Bill is itching to mow!!!
We don't have a lawnmower yet and we don't have anywhere to store one.
So he took the trailer to Bunnings today  hoping to find  some throw out packaging.
 Covered with a tarp, this will be a  perfect 'shed' for the moment.

Tonight's garden wanderings also revealed this pretty Winter iris. I'm thinking of digging up a clump and planting some around the frog pond. Mmm  on second thoughts it might be too late.....not that that's ever stopped me before!