Up the garden path

It all started with sixteen buckets of flat polished pebbles.      
     
After dismantling a display at work, I was asked if I wanted the polished pebbles for my garden. 'Sure, I can always use more pebbles', thinking to spread them around a mondo grass garden. When I bought them home from work, little did I know it would turn into a major garden project.

One evening after a glass or two of wine I found myself fossicking through the buckets and sorting colours, admiring the pattern in this one, the gloss of another, the incredible flat and smooth surface of them all. O oh. Isn't it amazing how many incredibly great ideas people have after a glass or two !! But as it turns out, I had a brilliant one of course. Yep, a pathway.

Later that night I started doodling patterns for a pebble and concrete pathway through a new garden bed I had recently added. After sorting through all sixteen buckets (with the occasional help of my daughters) that's right, a bucket each night before dinner, ha ha, we finally got all the colours sorted out. It's at this point your probably realising I am a bit obsessive compulsive.

I laid out all the pebbles in the exact colour and pattern beside the newly dug out path on sheets of cardboard, and then ordered the mini concrete truck to deliver my redi mix. When it arrived we threw in some colour pigment. THEN it was battle stations. I enlisted friends, neighbours and family to quickly but neatly transfer the pattern of pebbles into the freshly troweled concrete, pressing each into the concrete slightly. And voila! Everyone that helped then wrote their name in the concrete circle in the middle. Great job team.

                                                    The pathway has weathered nicely

The occasional pebble has popped off - 

Just glued them back on with liquid nails.

It's a bit bare in winter, but when spring arrives so does the colour.

It's only a little path, but it adds interest to my garden, beckoning the visitor to investigate an area they may not otherwise. If you squint a bit you might notice a golden shape lounging in the background behind the statue. You guessed it, another one of those projects under way. A garden 

sculpture of a mermaid who has her own story for another time...perhaps when I have finally gotten around to mosaic-ing her!

Garden Ornaments - the personal touch

When you have a big garden you need more than great plants and design, especially if you want to make it interesting for visitors. In saying that, even in a small garden, it's the quirky things we place lovingly in odd nooks and crannies that personalise our gardens to us. Some people feel the need to pop frogs or gnomes all over the place, or more recently Buddhas in their Spiritual Balinese scapes.

I'm no different when it comes to whimsy and I confess - statues. Often it can be a fine line between careful artistic placement, and an obsession! I once went to a house that was covered in shells - over walls, pots, paths, even the fountain, urgh!! There is also a large property near me that I call the 'Watchers House' cause it's got wayyy tooo many life sized statues - It's down right creepy!

 Only a few years ago, everyone was obsessed with water features. Every garden had to have one, and when they cracked or leaked or went murky green, well, they generally got turned into mini gardens for succulents! And lets not forget those colourful glazed spheres with water gently cascading over the ball, drying out on a hot day and running the tiny pump motor dry. I'm all for a tasteful pond or fountain in the right setting, they add great appeal, it's just that, not EVERY garden needs one.

Like choosing plants and pavers and yes, water features, garden ornaments speak loudly of your own personal taste and style. Soooo, I'm going to show you some of mine. Just don't judge me too harshly.

Winter blues.....

Winter can be a very drab time in a seasonal garden. Here in Sydney's outer west, we get quite cold winters with some late frost. I know, it's not as bad as snow and freezing conditions, but it can be our undoing when we plant tender and sub tropical treasures that grow well the rest of the year.
I love the seasonal garden from the soft and pretty spring, to the often harsh and hot summer where our perrenial's flourish. Autumn is my favourite season. The heat is gone leaving gentle days, warm soils giving their last generous burst of flower before the leaves start to turn and drop. Then before your ever really ready for it, winter is here! The trees are bare, the roses are now just leggy sticks, the wisteria leaves have made a massive mess around the verandah and everything has lost colour, lushness and interest.
But wait.... through the dropped leaves of all my deciduous trees the bulbs are poking up. They awaken every year and delight me with their bold heads full of fragrance. The jonquils flower first - a very heady scent if bought inside, then towards the end of winter the daffodils take centre stage. It is always exciting when you first see the bright green tips of hyacinth and tulip foliage emerge from cold soils, and it usually heralds the beginning of other forgotten bulbs emerging through frost. Tiny crocus around a sleeping Japanese maple, freesia, ranunculus, babiana and anemone. All these little treasures I had forgotten were there and yet they present themselves proudly every year to remind me that winter is not as bleak as I thought.
I might just go out and see what else is making itself known - it's just like a treasure hunt. The hardest part is waiting oh so slowly to see what colours will emerge this year.

THEY'VE ARRIVED........

They don't look like much, and yet, just picking up the box from the post office made me grin with excitment. What can elicit such emotion? Why my bare rooted roses of course, ordered over two months ago. They're now soaking in a bucket of water with some seaweed emulsion to stimulate root growth before planting. I've got six new ones to plant and a freebie for good measure. So now I've just got the hard bit - digging and improving the soil for my newest beauties.

Finally I've been to the Chelsea Flower Show...

It's the middle of winter here in Sydney, Australia. I've just gotten home from my first big holiday to the UK and Europe, where it is of course - summer. This grand adventure had been timed to visit the Chelsea Garden Show, and because I am a member of the Royal Horticultral Society, we got tickets to one of the two days prior to the general public admission. What a fabulous event! Not only was it a celebration of 100 years of Chelsea, the Aussies finally won grand champion in the landscaping category!
The British certainly do take gardening to a whole new level. With a shorter growing season than Australia they pack a whole lot in with vengeance. It is always such a treat to see so many of thier lovely tender plants that I can only dream of growing in our extreme hot summers. Peonies and clematis were without doubt the belles of the ball, and given that they had such dismal cold weather that went right through spring, it's a wonder they had anything to show at all!
Practically everything was hothouse raised and many a grower grumbled over their hard won blooms, but to the many like me, that came from far and wide, it was without doubt a spectacular display at every turn.
So now I'm home, it's cold and wet, but I'm planning and dreaming of my spring display....

Clematis

u

Peonies

Hucheras

Lavender

Everyone loves a Rose catalogue!

Who doesn't love flicking through a catalogue whilst sipping a great cuppa. What's even more exiting for gardening junkies is the annual arrival of assorted rose catalogues offering every kind of rose imaginable by post. Well of course there's no more room for any more.....every year this is my mantra......and then I get down to the business of where I can squeeze just a few more in.
Who can resist the glossy pictures proclaiming chaliced shaped blooms with a myrrh fragrance or large pink rosettes of old world character with a delightful fruity scent. So of course I've ordered 5 or 6 roses - not many compared to my 40 and more I've planted the last couple of years. Now I just have to wait till the middle of July to receive my bundle of bare rooted sticks (fancy getting excited about that) and start digging yet more holes. Oh dear, another catalogue has just arrived in the mail. Well I definitely don't have any more room for any more....or do I?