:: pansy ix ::

Another of the sweet, irresistible wee pansy faces popping up all around the clothesline - making hanging the washing a pleasure...and an undeniable 'Spring' flower..

....today I'm feeling the energies of Spring, the waxing sun and the stirring of much sudden growth in the garden, getting out and planting 60 sweetcorn plants and more sunflowers in between long spells resting and reading (for an annoying lurgy has most-inconveniently struck!).

...and I am definitely not feeling the waning energies of Autumn, being celebrated with pumpkins, hunkering down and warming food as is the Northern Hemisphere with their focus on Hallowe'en...

...so it is a weird time for me as we are commercially surrounded by urgings to partake in this 'Hallowe'en' festival...and I found myself creating a little cute homemade treat for the inevitable 'trick or treaters' that have indeed come by this evening...

Give me bunnies and chocolate eggs, Spring flowers and the hopes and wishes of the warm Summer months to come, don't give me goblins, witches and the goobeldy-gook of Hallowe'en!!

:: xerochysum brachteatum iv ::

Strawflowers or fried egg flowers?! Somehow I get the giggles when I look at this pair, which have been giving me an eyeful for quite some time now...LOL!

:: geranium x cantabrigiense ::

One of the unexpected 'wee' treasures I picked up at last year's Spring Fair Plant Stall at the Christchurch Rudolf Steiner School...

...a sweet creeping groundcover miniature geranium in this very lovely shade of violet...had no idea what colour is was when I bought it - so happy now it is flowering for the first time under the apricot tree.

:: malus iv ::

apple blossom down the driveway

...another  great gardening day after all the rain stopped and the wind subsided a little...lupins hacked down and shredded for the chooks, the digging in and over of that bed has started and about a zillion of those 'little garden' seedlings Miss P had raised are all pricked out...

:: digitalis ::

And the foxgloves are out...!

:: echium iii ::

the halo of pink stamens around these echium, which seem to be everywhere is so pretty...but even so I couldn't resist playing with the saturation...LOL!

:: rosa xxv ::

The days of Spring are passing in a blur of busy garden activity and I am watching right now as the stunning blossom of the Jonathon apple out the front window is being torn from the boughs before I've even taken my photo!!

Such as it is - much to do and fitting it in between the fits and starts that is Spring weather...I am inside in between showers that really are pretty short-lived today - should perhaps have just donned a raincoat and been done with it...it is nice and warm inside with a cup of tea...LOL!

In the last ten days the mutabilis rose has opened its buds to the warmer air and I am struck by the wow of colour happening - I planted stoechas Lavender below - so much brightness suddenly after the almost invisible palette of Winter!

:: citrus x limon ::

The texture of flowers ranges so much - last week the rock rose was so crumpled and fine, it seemed delicate enough to tear...and here is a lemon blossom, waxy, matt and almost plastic-like.

:: symphytum x uplandicum ii ::

The first pendulous flowers waking up from comfrey's long Winter sleep...gently unfurling downward into these lovely pink 'drops'...divinity in the garden!

:: iris ::

Happy 100th birthday Nana Joy what a remarkable day we have as a family today to celebrate.

:: ranunculus ii ::

Stunning ranunculus in my parents' garden.

:: pieris ::

Purely ornamental and in a few ways, the 'lily-of-the-valley' shrub has tiny buds that hang with promise through the cold of Winter, the striking bright red new leaf growth and then the emerging 'darling' white racemes of tiny, bell-shaped flowers that co-incide...sigh!

:: cistus ::

I give an overly dramatic gasp each time we pass by the shrub that has these (in my opinion) incredible flowers - and Miss P (because we pass by this plant on the way to school if we walk) dismisses my exclamation each and every time!

Finally, I have walked back up the hill where these lovely rock roses live and remembered to stop and admire properly and take the requisite photograph!

Don't you think they have just a splendid amount of crumpling going on?

:: pittosporum ::

Not one of my favourite plants at all.  A fairly 'blah' group of New Zealand native evergreens, which seem pretty non-descript, really and much over-use in landscaping, IMHO!!  I'm sure the birds love pittosporums and they provide necessary habitats for many creatures.

This photo is terrible, too - on my phone it looks interesting and is sharp and in focus - but when bringing it across to 'photos', it has ended up fuzzy and lacking clarity...hmmm...

...everything in life is a learning, right?

...it still has a kind of groovy composition and I love that the light affected the colour of the right hand flower so much - they are both the same, dark, velvety-red as the one on the left!

:: echeveria iii ::

Miss P brought a tray of her favourite succulents and cacti with us from Northern Hawkes Bay and began a new hot and dry garden here in Christchurch, along the driveway, outside the living room.

Each Spring we are delighted by an ever-thickening border of these lovely echeveria plants in flower with their spikes of coral-pink-with-yellow flowers,  a bit like street lights for fairy-sized beings...

:: clematis ::

Delving into the information about the clematis, the most interesting thing is the etymology and even that isn't very interesting - the name derives from the Ancient Greek for 'climbing plant'...hmmm...

...it is pretty and at our place is sprawling languidly along the length of a weathered grey fence, so indeed is a lovely feature during Spring...

...maybe more interesting is why it caught my attention today...?

...well, I was working away, filling barrowloads of sawdust, actually as we have a giant sack ('fadge') of untreated saw dust lying across the driveway next to the clematis at the moment...why, do we have one of these?

...well, it's about worms, actually, and drainage, too, and less weeding in the vegetable gardens...

...many moons ago we had a wonderful Mandala-design vegetable garden at our previous property in the country and the paths we made were all dug by Aaron and wwoofers and then filled with sawdust, which was trampled to compact it lightly.

The paths were in effect 150mm deep drainage channels between the garden beds that over time became attractive to worms and also kept weeds to a minimum and slowly added carbon to the neighbouring soil.

When gardening permaculture-style, one of the principles is to find multi-purpose solutions to problems - and this, I believe is one of them!

:: lupinus ii ::

Of all the hundreds of blue lupins planted in a 10 square metre bed in our vegetable gardens this Winter/Spring, there bloomed one stunning pink one!

:: borago officinalis ii ::

A fulfilling day spent in brilliant Spring sunshine today - got to make the most of the weather when it is so up and down! 

First a drive out to the violin repairer in the country, which was utterly refreshing and so great to remember actually how close the country is to the city...

...picking up a dead possum off the side of the road (fresh and relatively tidily slipped into a bag, not smelling at all!) as a bonus for our hen run composting - great blood and bone to add to the mix...

...a library visit, replenishing the various genre of books it feels good to have about...

...an almost never lunch of spelt pikelets and cups of tea and reading said books in a lingering fashion at the dining table...

...and then four glorious hours in the garden in magnificent sunshine - YES!!!

Finally the borage or starflower is blooming - out of their spiky bud cases and hanging ethereally under the apricot tree. 

I always love to find out what uses plants have, other than what seems obvious to me. In the case of borage, it is used in the kitchen in other countries - boiled and then sauteed with garlic as a vegetable in the Aragon and Navarra regions of Spain, as a green sauce in Germany and as the traditional ravioli pasta filling in Liguria in Italy - wonderful, and when I'm feeling a little more brave, I may just try that too...borage for courage, they say...!!

 

:: Rheum rhabarbarum ::

Best known for its laxative effect and association with custard, Rhubarb holds a place dear to many hearts. 

But in Medieval Europe it was so costly to bring across from China that it was two or three times the cost of other valued herbs and spices, such as cinnamon, opium and saffron...

...the account of a trip by a traveller of the times: "The best of all merchandise coming to Samarkand was from China: especially silks, satins, musk, rubies, diamonds, pearls, and rhubarb..."

:: pyrus ::

Along with our 13 apple trees we also have 3 pears - one almighty mature, late-fruiting brown-skinned one and these two - a Doyenne du Comice and a Williams' bon chretien or Bartlett pear.

These smaller trees we are espalliering to form a vertical wall outside the sleepout, for what reason I don't know, other than they look rather pleasing just there...

...and especially so at blossom burst - enchanting creamy-white blossoms!

:: ranunculus ::

A scattering of ranunculus bulbs in Autumn is now beautifully resulting in these delicate, papery, jewel-bright flowers appearing randomly in the garden...

...the name apparently comes from the late Latin with the unusual meaning of 'little frog' - go figure!

:: freesia ii ::

Sitting here at the dining table, supposedly, mindfully doing one thing at a time - that would be eating the wholesome salad for lunch ;-) - but actually creating a blog post too ;-) - my nostrils are being tickled by the delicious scent of these beautiful freesia, as the Northerly breeze is literally forcing the smell in the door! 

Not minding a bit!

:: malus iii ::

A malus mystery...

This is a fairly 'giant' bush/tree/shrub of the malus family which is smothered in these delicious-looking blossoms each Spring...maybe a kind of crab-apple gone wild? 

...although there doesn't seem to be any 'product' or fruit come late Summer/Autumn, that I've noticed...

...probably a hedging plant that has been allowed to just go for gold!

In any case these stunning blossoms are just amazing eye-candy for me each Spring and whatever it is, this plant is gorgeous!

:: cynara cardunculus ii ::

One from the harvest trug today - the very shapely globe artichoke.

I was quite surprised to see the first flowerhead steadily pushing skywards in what seemed like the coldest part of August, but two months on, it seems like just the right thing at the right time.

I'd planted these artichokes for a few reasons - and planting for more than one reason always seems like a good plan to me - for their perennial nature, their grey-green foliage and its striking, sculptural form, because they are food and ... because of the artichoke's wonderful powers of filtering and slowing down the wind in a windy South-west-facing corner of the garden...

...these ones are probably a bit further on than their best, as I've just discovered by doing the necessary research...but I'm sure I can coax them into behaving nicely for our dinner plates this evening!

When the next batch come on I shall be that much wiser ;-) !!

:: malus pimula ii ::

what are the chances that this five-petalled apple blossom would be surrounded by five perfectly pink buds?

:: lavandula spica ::

Our front garden will eventually be filled with lots of perennial plants - the ones that stick around year on year and give structure to a space, like the lavender I have been jamming in wherever possible.

These lovely floral shrubs grow relatively without any help and need little or no feeding and only really want for a bit of airy sunshine, they provide flowers for bees to forage in for weeks and weeks, provide a great, subtle 'grey-green' foliage colour that blends with our pink house well and they smell lovely too.

I really have no idea about lavender varieties, and have planted a few.  We have inherited some very gangly and previously uncared-for 'grosso' lavenders, which have remained, even with their contorted shapes, as their scent is truly heavenly and I can't bear to part with their strange, leggy, woody, mishapen forms until I have replacements growing happily!

Looking up the etymology of the name, lavandula, it appears most likely to have come from the French, 'lavandre', which is turn came from the Latin 'lavere' - to wash - and lavender is certainly a commonly-used essential oil and scent in many items associated with washing and cleaning.

:: malus pimula ::

We didn't intend planting 13 apple trees on a 600m2 residential property...some things just happen, well, organically...

...we bought 8, which we thought was LOTS and then we were gifted 5 as a thank you!! WOW!!

Where oh where would we fit them all, you may be wondering??? Well, yes, indeed - a question to ask...

...6 of them have prime spots where they will be allowed to spread out and upwards and give us shade (and a little) privacy during the Summer months while the others are neatly being coerced into growing against the fences as espalliered trees - thanks to Mr A's kind attentions.

Unlike the prunus family, which have all but finished their pretty, ruffly Spring blossom display, the malus sprout their leaves first and then produce their delicate pink and white blossoms.

I came across this apparent and funny original form of the proverb "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" - " eat an apple on going to bed and you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread", and dates back to early 19th Century Wales.

:: tulipa ii ::

Spied in the garden of one of our neighbour's - a stunning fringed pink tulip with luscious underplantings of mauve pansies and lavender...yum!

:: pansy viii ::

Definitely a pansy explosion happening around here - this one is not one of the self-seeded varieties - it is an 'antique' pansy - such pretty colours going on...

:: sophora microphylla ::

Our national flower here in NZ, although, unofficially, is the beautiful golden yellow Kowhai - we are lucky to have one in our backyard and its flowering is eagerly awaited not only by the humans, but also the tui, kereru and bellbirds. Tui in particular will fly miles to get a taste of the delicious nectar.

:: camellia v ::

a striking example of a beautiful 'ombre'-toned camellia spied while out walking...plus insect!