Sunday, November 26, 2006

Things are looking.......



This David Austin rose Lilac Rose has always flowered well but now it has started producing these huge flowers. I have had it for several years but we moved it this last winter to a sunnier spot. It has never produced flowers this size!

The flowers start as a pale pink tight bud and as they open become more lilac hued. In fact, the colour is similar to that of a bridesmaid's dress my cousin chose for me (+ 3 others) to wear to her wedding but let's not go there!

The roses do have delicious honey-like scent - beautiful. It's showy and blousy (it's a double) before all the petals fall off. I love seeing the soft pinky lilac petals on the ground.

I have even managed to strike cuttings from this rose. The plant was doing well until a possum or wallaby ate the soft young leaves. It's now wrapped in a cone of chicken wire......hopefully it will recover enough to grow, if not flower.

I like Roger Phillips' web site. Lots of pictures of roses and some information. Good for identifying them. He has a similar one on mushrooms and other guides should be available soon.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Garlic- does it keep fires away?

I dug these up over the weekend. Got quite alot done but it was strange gardening while bushfires were burning about 5kms north of my house. The sky, particularly since Saturday night, has been full of smoke from backburning operations that were started to contain the fire, the sunlight was a golden 70's Kodak orange and fine ash occassionally would rain down. All of this was happening whilst I gardened away! We weren't (aren't) under any immediate or real threat but it was an odd experience. Nero-esque!

Garlic tops flopped and leaves started to yellow so I pulled them up. I had hoped for bigger heads of garlic but at least the heads have separated into little cloves, rather than the original cloves just getting bigger. This made room for some tomato plants that I've grown from seed (started indoors) - Brandywine + Tigerella....I can't tell which is which....will have to wait until they fruit. Better labelling next time.

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