My winter photo

 

Over the years my daughter Maya has taken pictures of me in my garden, usually in the middle of winter, starting in 2009, our first winter in this house. My husband had died the previous month, so the look on my face that year was a bit not me. But over the years things have improved, on my face and in the garden.

I did not realize that the winter photo had become a tradition until I looked back and saw that I had done it most years (except for 2012).  I have never made the photos public, because in them I am wearing my worst clothes, clothes which I very often wear in the garden.

2009

2010

2011

2013

2014

2015

2016

 

Purple garden, five years on

Sadly, this is one of those areas which was my pride and joy eight years ago, but has been overshadowed by the newer areas. This is all I can find from the blog over the years. My poor neglected purple garden!

The purple garden

Purple garden looking much more purple!

Irises. A hailstorm cut them to ribbons some days later!

The purple garden

Pink Garden…4 years on

This was made four years ago, and like the other areas of the garden, some things have thrived for a season then died. Some areas have progressed and others are a bit neglected.

The pink garden

Herb bed, five years on

Okay, so putting up the carport put my herb garden in rain shadow, so now it has less herbs and more tough plants. Never mind.

How the herb bed was from Aug 2009 until Dec 2011.

The herb bed after the carport was erected.

How it looks at themoment.

Finished at last.

By the carport

Yellow garden, five years on

In the beginning

The yellow garden, my place

Where the wall meets the yellow garden.

First spring flowers in the ‘yellow garden’

Irises in the yellow garden

Pigfaces are also much loved here. They come from south africa along with gazanias, diosmas, proteas etc.

Now

Yellow garden now

Yellow garden again

Yellow garden highlight

Beautiful blue plumbago

I love bulbs

By the tanks

The yellow garden

Gardener in a dry land – five years on

Five years since my first post! I got started on my garden in earnest in January 2011, and started blogging in May that same year. For four years, 2011-2014 I put in loads of hours getting the garden off the ground. I have been a bit off the boil the last year or two, since I started a creative writing course, but fortunately gardens happily grow without you.

My main complaint about this place is that things take forever to grow here, but these photos will prove that this is not true. They just seem to take forever.

 

 

hello readers

Please excuse the lack of blog posts lately. My writing course has taken all my spare writing energy.

But I have not been completely slack – I have been having fun with Instagram. I love how instant Instagram is, I can just snap and share, when I was taking weeks sometimes to get my photos on to the computer etc.

So feel free to watch the garden grow HERE

 

 

Havoc

Monty Don has done it again, this time he’s made me go mad with the clippers (I have 3 different ones, secateurs, hedge trimmers and a heavy duty lopping one).

This has happened to me before when I’ve been away and have read someone else’s gardening diary be it Monty Don or Kate Llewellyn, and last week I sat there reading The Ivington Diaries at my mother’s house while it rained and was foul all week. It was a wonderful proper winter week, sometimes the sun comes out when we head to Adelaide to see some rain. And as I read I was itching to get back home and get gardening. Only trouble I was up to the bit where he was trimming hedges when I got here…

Think I ended up with more vegetation on the ground than on the shrubs!

Gardening has always been like that for me… and writing and blogging too. Months of almost nothing interspersed with frantic activity.

A rainy Sunday in Quorn

We get so few of these as most of our rain falls in the night. But a lovely day, soft rain without a breath of wind. Perfect to sit on the outside sofa and watch the cats and local birds do their thing.

Happy Easter!

There is not much happening in the garden thanks to there being almost no rain since early January, but despite the dryness this Easter Lily has popped up out of nowhere to give us a lovely surprise.

This made up for the non-appearance of my naked ladies after the rain in January, even though they flowered just about everywhere else around here.