A zesty start to the new year

Happy New Year to you all!!!

How gorgeous are these peppers picked straight from our garden!  They tasted delicious stuffed with cream cheese and smoked prapika, then roasted on the bbq.

May all our 2014's be as filled with colour, zestyness and zing.

in the garden...don't you love it when a plan comes together

Just a few weeks ago the garden had a really dull mid winter look, but finally the ranuncula corms I planted have started to flower!   They look sensational against the fine foliage of the lime wave grasses and pick up the red tones in the last of the autumn leaves.  This is exactly the look I was trying to achieve - a modern meadow.  Now I just need more!!!

See what the garden looked like in summer, the orginal modern meadow inspiration, and my final choice of plants.

After months of being attracted to pastels and minty colours I am loving how this vibrant pink sets of the fresh green leaves.

The grasses are really sensational but I am waging a war against the curl grubs which are determined to eat their roots.  I have finally resulted to using pesticides (which I don't like).  There are just to many and I have lost about a third of the grasses I planted originally.  If anybody has a more environmentally friendly solution let me know.

a handful of sunshine

Sometimes you just need a little bit of sunshine to brighten up your day.  This gorgeous capsicum was hiding in the veggie patch.  Amazingly Miss J found it before the caterpillars.  

We then spent a happy 15 minutes looking for caterpillars and telling them "night night".  No more caterpillars... but hopefully lots more capsicum's.

little letters...to the veggie garden

Growing and eating our own produce has been incredibly satisfying.  It's pleasure to think 'I'll just go and get the herbs/spinach/tomato' take a few steps outside and pick what you need. 

Dear tomatoes you were fab.  We loved you all, every shape and colour.  Next year I will learn to trellis better and plant more of you.  I had no idea your fruit were so heavy.
Dear watermelon, you love I love watermelon (lalala)...you were a delight.
Dear passion fruit, you have put out lots of shoots but you were supposed to be bigger by now, grow faster!
Dear spinach you are a star.  You grow and grow and we can never eat you all.
Dear zucchini you were a flop.  You got mouldy and your fruit fell off, you are not invited back next season.
Dear strawberries thanks for trying.  Next year we will try let your fruit ripen before Miss J eats it.
Dear rainbow chard you win the prize for prettiness and hardiness, tasty too.  Welcome to the all star list.

We are still getting a few last tomatoes and watermelon but its time to plan the winter veggies.
Miss J visits the watermelon plant several times a day to point out "tiny" and "fatty", her names not mine.  I think she is going to enjoy seeing pumpkins growing.

Let me know if you have any recommendations, and please feel free to add little letters of your own.

Summer garden...before and after

Don't you love a before and after?  I was admiring my summer borders and it struck me that this garden is not quite a year old.  Looking at the lush border its hard to imagine that this garden was ever not here.  And yet a just over a year ago there was nothing, just excavated sand and lots of rock.  

No trees or hedge, no flowers or grass, no garden beds, not one green thing.  A lot of blood sweat and tears from the Voice of Reason turned the scabby space into a neat lawn with deep beds.  There was a lot of levelling and a lot of wheelbarrows of soil.  A lot!!

13 Months ago: the area is levelled and beds constructed.  Lawn about to be laid. 

12 Months ago:  Exactly a year ago today.  The lawn has taken and the plants are in!  You can just see the small hedges against the hedge, new pear trees, sedum and crocus.  Everything looks tiny!

7 Months ago: the trees colour up prettily for autumn.

3 Months ago: (left) California poppies and red hot pokers light up the spring garden.  The ornamental grasses are in and everything has spring fever and is shooting up.

As it is today (below & above right): The sedums are bursting with flowers, still green but about to turn to pink.  The grasses, crocus and star jasmine are settling into each other well.

The pear trees and hedges have grown about three feet and are giving us privacy from the neighbours.  So satisfying to look out on our green oasis now and think - we did that!
(all images by Eva Burgess)

Instagram almanac at my place

I have had a busy week in the garden, taking out the old rocket and spinach, and making way for zucchini, squashes and tomatoes.  The sugar snap peas are almost finished.  Little Miss J has loved them, gobbling pea after pea straight from the plant.  

We are trying strawberries, just hope Miss J leaves them on the plant until they are ripe.  

It is so satisfying eating from the garden.  Last night we roasted beetroot straight from the soil, sweet and nutty, and almost every day we have a mixed salad of rainbow chard, spinach and lettuce leaves. 

I love walking straight through the greens section of the supermarket because we simply don't need any.

We are finally enjoying some flowers.  The California Poppies are flowering, the salvia is in spike, and the sedum is growing in.  I love deep pink and burned orange of this California Poppy variety - called Jelly Beans.  I hope it self seeds and comes back on its own next year.

The crazy pear trees have finally decided to blossom.  I have been worried because all the neighbours trees flowered weeks ago.  Hopefully some regular nitrogen will stimulate some good leaf growth for summer.

I picked these succulent clippings from a neighbouring garden on a walk with Little Miss J.  They are hardening off for a few days and then I am going to plant them in the tough hot spots on the sides of the house.  The weeds seem to have been thriving in these spots so hopefully there is enough soil for these lovely succulents to get a hold onto.

The hooks are up on the wall as planned.  Just as well as summer seems to be here at a last and the towels and swimming costumes always seem to be wet.  Much tidier with this system. No more towels draped on the pool fence or puddling soggily on the deck.

What's is happening in the garden at your place?

DIY trellis.....a good idea if I say so myself

I think I have been a bit clever.  
In fact I am enormously pleased with myself.  

We needed a trellis for our newly planted wisteria, and all the ones I saw at the garden centre were: 
1 - ugly
2 - expensive
3 - the wrong shape.  

Not even intensive web trawling gave me any ideas.  

Tadaaa! My solution!

Eye hooks threaded with long pieces of bamboo.  It looks pretty, it took me half an hour to put up ten pieces.  Each piece cost $1.50.  See why I am so pleased with myself?

As usual I could not have done it without help from the Voice of Reason.  His first tip was to pre drill a tiny hole in the fence.  This makes it much easier to get the eye hook into the wood.  His top tip was to make a handle by putting the long screw driver through the eye, see above.  Made it much much easier to twist the eye securely into place. 

Couldn't resist this white variety even though I had planned all blue.  Now I just can't wait to see them grow!

(All images by Eva of Build House Home)

Piet Oudolf inspiration again

I am a huge fan of Piet Oudolf's gardens, wild and textured and colourful.  In the nursery today I spotted a beautiful Lomandra Lime wave grass and it reminded me of this Piet Oudolf picture below.

Photo via Flickr, if anybody knows the original source let me know

I have already planted these exact salvias (Salvia nemorosa 'Caradonna' which I managed to source from Lambley Nursery) but the Sesleria grass I have seen in Sydney has been a little drier and browner.  I like the zestiness of this green, I don't want brown.  The Lime wave (bottom left) may be a great solution.  Plus it is hardy enough to survive the plant love of Little Miss J, as well as being an Aussie native and very drought tolerant. Tick tick tick - this is the one!

I will have the gorgeous crocus towards the front (center above) and the Sedum Autumn Harvest (above right) coming up every now and then.  It could work!  I am itching to get to the nursery and get planting!!  Its so lovely to have a garden again!

don't you love.....a lucky mistake, or two

I finally got round to testing some colour samples for painting the garden fence.  Painted three Colorbond swatches, didn't like any of them.  Sigh!!!  Does this happen to you too?  In frustration I poured them all into a single pot to make an under coat, and ta daaa, a new colour was born.  Its a little battleship but sets off the olive leaves and lanterns really well.  Eventually the grey will only peek out through the sky flower creeper and the green will soften the faded industrial edge we have now.  

Luck number 1.Luck number 2 was painting the darker colour around the strip of Dune Spray.  The thin strip reminds me of french linen or traditional fouta designs, and breaks the darker grey up just enough to stop it being overwhelming.  

Really pleased with the way both greys tone in with the weathered screen behind the fat lady.  Now we just need some greenery!

Don't you love.....fire in the garden

I am thinking that flames in winter, in the garden, would be good.  In fact I am a little obsessed with the idea.  I have red hot pokers in the garden beds, how about real flames on the pool deck.

Would be awesome to sit out there in the evening and still be toasty.

Images via John T Unger Studio, Lambley Nursery, Paloform

The orange and blue of flame and water is really dynamic.  Would go well with my lantern and pool colour.  I saw an amazing Kadai fire bowl, hmmmm, wonder if I could diy it into a giant fire pit.

Well I think this funny.  Discovered these fire bowls called the Brad Pit (left) and the Angelina (right from Chiminea).

The pool area coming together

Its funny how sometimes things just come together.  Last week I placed an olive tree and my old Mexican lanterns in the garden around the pool deck and everything suddenly made sense.
Finally I know what we need to do in this space.  Another olive on the other side of the deck will frame the seating area and add the height we are missing.  The fence needs to be covered in this gorgeous blue flowering creeper (Thurnbergia Grandifloria photo by Jean Pawek), or perhaps wisteria, or maybe both.  That will be a great starting point.  Sometime in the future I can add daybeds, cushions and other nice to have bits.  Wouldn't a fire pit be great! 
Can't wait for summer to arrive so we can enjoy with family and friends, cold drink anyone?

Autumn leaf mulch

Autumn leaves spread thickly over a sheet of newspaper is a brilliant free organic mulch.

It will keep the weeds down, enrich the soil as it decays, and its pretty too.

And the baby thinks its the best fun ever.