outside, outside

This is one place that Older Grandson loves to be.

For a few weeks, our backyard was a construction site so going outside wasn't very practical. It certainly wasn't a safe place for a very active two-and-a-half year old and his now-walking fifteen-month-old younger brother.

Although we are nowhere near finished with the landscaping, the construction is over and I give you …. (drum roll) … the long-awaited deck!

To give you some idea of scale, the deck is 5 metres long and 3.5 metres wide (16.5 feet x 11.5 feet). The photo was taken before the step was added to the left end. The stepping stone path has been realigned to go past the deck and join up with that paved area on the left (where the clothesline is).

The deck has been painted and new dining furniture has been purchased and installed.

So this is what it looked like last Saturday.

This is real life at our place. The washing is on the line (you can only see WM’s work shirts), part of the furniture is uncovered because we had morning tea on the deck, the cordless drill is on the deck because WM is installing the new umbrella, the tub on its side in front of the covered barbecue is there because that’s how Older Grandson left it and his mummy forgot to take it home!

And for those who might be curious, the two shrubs in the neighbours yard are Australian natives – the one on the left is a banksia and the one on the right is a form of grevillea. The nectar in the grevillea flowers is very attractive to many species of birds, but my favourite are the rainbow lorikeets – a small parrot, native to eastern Australia. They have just returned from their winter migration and it’s good to see them again even if they are very noisy!

The little bridge over the dry creek bed replaced our Japanese-style bridge.

It has been stained a similar colour to the deck (same stain, different timber) since this photo was taken.

Finally, this is the view from the clothesline through the flowering cherry to the miniature rose garden and swimming pool. The “lattice” you can see in the middle of the photo is the back of a bench seat in the rose garden and the two white arches above it are the “handles” for the swimming pool ladder.

Quite a lot on a small suburban block!

late spring in his front garden Part 2

Are you fully recovered now?

And are you enjoying your tour?

You know, a lot of people say Australian native plants are boring but they obviously haven't looked closely enough!

Before we cross over the bridge to the front porch, we'll make a detour along the narrow path that leads to the meter box. In this part of Australia, the electricity company has a meter installed on the outside of each house and every three months they send someone to "read the meter" so that we can be charged for the amount of electricity we have used. That's the theory anyway!

Anyway, we're not here to discuss the failings of large utility companies, let's rejoin the tour.

The little path I mentioned leads off to the left of the bridge (as we face the house); on the left of the path that small plant with the tiny seed pods is leptospermum scoparia; we shall meet another version of this plant in a couple of minutes.Before the path makes a sharp turn around the side of the house, on our left we see a very old westringia, commonly known as "native rosemary".

It is the plant in the foreground with the grey-green foliage. (The plant in the background is a bottlebrush, not in flower at this time of year). The Westringia plant was here when we moved in nearly twenty years ago, so it is old and gnarled, and almost devoid of foliage. It won't be long for this garden.

It has light mauve flowers, a colour common to many Australian species. It does look a lot like rosemary, doesn't it?
Turn around now and head back towards the bridge. The rest of the plants in this area are not in flower and not very interesting.

To the left of the path, you will see this graceful little shrub, not much taller than knee height. Aren't those flowers dainty? This austromyrtus dulcis - the Midgen Berry! The name doesn't do this plant justice. Those tiny flowers are so cute but you have to bend in close to see them. Don't worry about the native bees -- they have no sting!
Now we are back at the the bridge. Crossing the bridge, to our left, we see another low growing shrub, under the bedroom windows, a species of leptospermum scoparium, known in Australia as "tea tree" and in New Zealand as "manuka". This is the flower that produces the seed pods shown above. As you can see, it's a tiny flower - that's my thunb nail (again) to give scale.
 Now that we're over the bridge we enter the front porch. To our right is another small shrub; a species of melaleuca. Larger versions of this genus are known as "paperbark". This one comes up to my lower thighs. Isn't the flower gorgeous? It's one of my favourites - both for its shape and its colour.
Well, here we are on the porch. There are other plants to see in our front garden but they are not in flower at this time of year.

Please come back and visit us again - the bottlebrushes are spectacular in summer and autumn.

late spring in his front garden Part 1

WM is the gardener at our house. The front garden completely covers the space between our house and the footpath, except for our double driveway. We have no lawn on our property at all! When WM does the mowing of the the footpath (we call it the "nature strip"), it takes him less than an hour to get out the mower and edger, do the jobs, then clean and put the tools away! Too easy!!

Because most of the plants in the front garden are currently in flower, and because most of them have teeny, tiny flowers, I will do this "tour" in two sections: today and tomorrow. The front garden is completely planted in Australian natives so many of these plants will be "exotic" to most of you!

We begin our tour at the garage doors. To the left of the driveway (looking at the street), is this magnificent stand of "kangaroo paws" so named because the shape of the flower looks like the tiny front paws of Australia's most famous marsupial!These plants in flower are over five feet high. The plants themselves come up to my lower thighs.To the right of the driveway, on the fence line (no one in our street has front fences), is the letter box. Between the letter box and the driveway is a low growing but wide plant which I call the "spider" grevillea
- again because of the shape of the flowers although it is much prettier than any spider I have ever seen.

There is curved bark-covered path leading from the letter box to the front door. To the left of the path and quite close to the grevillea is a very bright stand of everlasting daisies (a native of Western Australia). The plant itself is short, barely eight inches tall. The bright flowers' petals feel like paper, which gives rise to one of its common names - paper daisy; although in florist shops it is called "everlasting daisy".

If you want to pick it, it's best to choose young flowers,
as the older ones can look quite scruffy.

Lest you think that all Australian native plants are yellow, look at this plant opposite the daisies, on the other side of the path.

I call it star flowers for obvious reasons! It's certainly easier than "isotoma axillaris" and prettier than "Rock Isotome"!
Following the path towards the house, we come to the little wooden bridge built over a dry water course (man-made). It once flowed but because neighbourhood children were attracted to our garden as a place to hide and play, when the lining of the creek wore out we chose not replace it.

To the left of the bridge is a very low growing ground cover called scaveola. It, too, has the mauve flowers so common in our garden.The flowers are very small, about the size of my little finger nail and roughly resemble the shape of fans - hence their common name.
I will leave you on the bridge, just a metre and a half from the front door, to catch your breath. Relax and enjoy the view. Feel free to wander around and take a closer look.

I hope you'll join me for Part 2 tomorrow.

rain coming

I couldn't resist this photo opportunity.

I had a similar opportunity last week but missed it.

The sun shining on the greens and golds of the garden and background trees against the ominous dark of those rain-laden clouds coming in from the south.

Getting a photo of Tomodachi ("Tom") was a bonus.

rain approaching 5 April 2011

spring cleaning in autumn

We spent the day at DD and SIL's new home. Well, it's new to them but the building itself is about fifty years old. It's had quite a few owners and some have left a little bit of rubbish behind them.

Today the four us filled a two cubic metre (70.6 cubic feet, 2.6 cubic yards) skip bin with broken bricks, concrete and pavers, plus timber (lumber) and the loppings from several trees that were too big to go through the mulcher.

GS#1 had a wonderful day - he had a picnic in his own backyard with Grandad and Grandmum as well as Mummy and Daddy, and he got to play outside for several hours and to explore places he's never been allowed to go before. His favourite "toy" for quite some time was the whipper-snipper! Children find the strangest things amusing! He was not fond of the noise of the chain saw or the mulcher though and decided it was time to retire indoors when Grandad decided to use either of them!

Unfortunately, my camera-crazy SIL and photo-mad WM were both too busy to think to take before-and-after shots. There's still a lot of work to be done but we can all be proud of what we achieved today - the backyard looks better (though nowhere near complete) and a full skip is testament to how much work was really done!

I expected to spend the day looking after GS#1 so took plenty of knitting but got caught up in the madness that is garden renovation! Not one stitch knitted today! I'm exhausted and off to bed.