Self care by growing a garden

[Former-Member]

Are you a gardener @Ali11 ?

[Ali11]

@Former-Member When there's time, but gardener is a loose definiton of it

[Former-Member]

Out of necessity rather than for leisure perhaps @Ali11 ?

[Maggie]

It's not the right time of the year for this, but it's beautiful.

[Former-Member]

Did a little more tidying in the garden today. A couple of small plants moved and some weeding done. Have another bed ready for mulching.   🐞

[Smc]

Spent most of today getting pleasantly grotty. 😛

I've got a raised bed with a juniper plant in it. Supposedly you need male and female plants to get berries (really mini cones) but no-one told my plant that apparently. It has a few young berries forming. But the soil has dropped away from around its roots due to inadequate edgings. At some point I need to build a proper edging, but for now, I've placed large pots and short (30-40cm?) bits of colourbond along the leaky edge, and filled up the pots with assorted composts, manures, soil and topped off with potting mix. I've planted them with dill plants, white Printanoor garlic, lime aquilegias, a delphinium, pansies, and some sweet pea, Heartsease and peony poppy seeds.

Also topped up the soil near the juniper, planted an apricot hollyhock, some unusual "Autumn Princess" Dutch Iris bulbs and more pansies. And a salvia.

I need to do a bit more topping up on the other side of the juniper plant. It should be a very happy little conifer by the time I'm finished. 🙂

Autumn Princess Dutch Iris

[Smc]

Wanted to continue working on the raised bed today, but ran out of time. I did get some green waste together to use in another "garden in a big pot". This one's going to have sprekelias and some dill plants, maybe a few other flowers too.

While shopping this afternoon, I did grab a few more plants too. A Tulbaghia, a mini lilly pilly, and a native violet at the department store; and punnets of poppies, Chinese cabbages, snapdragons and carnations at the hardware store, plus the big buy, a young lemon myrtle. I'll have to protect it from frost.I have had a tree before and kept it going through a couple of winters before it succumbed. With care, I'd hope to keep it alive much longer than that, but I'd be stunned if it actually grew to tree size. It prefers a bit more of a tropical climate than I can give it. The leaves are lovely, and have a gentle lemon flavour and fragrance.

[Determined]

Darling was delighted to get some more flowers planted into big pots today.

I couldn't help but cringe at her usual lack of symmetry. Don't know why it bothers me so but I was able to smile and say that's nice 😊

[Determined]

We have another large pot like this that darling managed to break in half digging out existing plants. Hoping I can repair it with some bond-crete or similar.  

[Smc]

Am waiting on the triangle becoming a picture @Determined. 🙂 I rarely plant symetrically, but I do like a sense of asymetrical visual balance.