A winter walk around the garden July, 2016

There's not a lot going on around the garden at this cold and wintery time of the year. There is a bareness, a naked view of the bones and structure of the whole scene. I love to prune bare trees at this time, when I can see the structure and future shape of just the branches.

Im not going to ramble on much today - I just thought I'd take you around the yard to see what's going on in the dead of winter. We are fortunate that we don't actually get snow here, but frost and zero degrees at night is normal in our winters (we also get to 45 degrees celsius in summer!)

So we'll start from the front of the house which is normally lush with wisteria and roses

I need to get cracking on rose pruning - there are literally hundreds, many are large climbers and old fashioned shrubs, including an extensive display of David Austin's. If you want to see an array of some of our most beautiful roses, go to the Featured Post -It's Rose time at Bloomfield Cottage

The Camellia hedge is looking great after some good rain to perk it up. These blousy Sasanqua's are first to flower, then the more formal Japonica's follow.

The pond always looks nice, even in it's winter state. We don't feed the koi fish much at all at this time of the year.

I have been busy though, building a new raised garden with some sandstone my husband bought home some time ago, and of course I tidied up the whole pathway whilst down there. 

Looking back the other way. I love the hidden pathways around the garden :)

I've also been busy in the vegie beds. 

All the Broccoli, Kale and Brussel Sprouts are netted from the pesty cabbage moth - no sprays used here. The soils are all freshened up with lime, cow manure, horse manure, and organic seaweed.

I don't have a lot in the glasshouse at the moment, however the orchids are all starting to flower.

This patch of succulents seem to thrive on the cold. In fact, it's tips turn quite pink with the cold weather. We are going to use little florets of this succulent for my daughter's wedding tokens, done up in little glass terrariums!

And of course, winter is the beginning of bulb time here. These are the first to come up and flower in the middle of winter - Erlicheer jonquils, always a cheerie sight with a strong fragrance!

Daffodils and Tritella's coming up in clumps under deciduous trees.

I can't believe how much new growth some of the roses have already - much too soon. It makes it very difficult to spray with lime sulpher after pruning, as it will burn the new delicate foliage. It is an important step at rose pruning time as it cleans up any over-wintering blackspot and fungal spores.

And as you can see, I have loads of roses to prune in the diamond beds. These are the Hydrid Tea roses that I use for showing and cutting.

And because Cleo followed me around everywhere while I took photos I thought I,d put one in of her for good measure.

See you next time ..........

Meet our Miniature horse Hunter

Isn't he just gorgeous? Well that's a mothers view of course. And to be honest, he is always very popular at 'open garden' days and family functions. His name is Hunter and he is a miniature horse,very much part of our family. The dogs are great companions of his too, often found sitting with him while he crops the lawn.

He is 13 years old this year, which is probably the adolescent stage of his life, as mini's can live 30 years and more! That being said, a horse is a lifetime pet and not just a whim, so it was a big decision based on whether I was prepared to look after him for a very long time to come - because we all know that children grow up and leave home and the pets usually stay! When my children and I went to first view him at a property near Goulburn, NSW,  he was only 6 weeks old and truly the cutest little thing we'd ever seen, frisking about his mother. Then, when he was weaned at 6 months old, he was delivered to our Bloomfield Cottage property where we had prepared his own fenced off area and built a small manger for protection from weather and feeding. He was the same size as our golden retriever at this time and was very popular with all the neighbourhood children!

He has been a great companion while I'm in the veggie patch as his corral is right next to it. He will whinny and neigh his hellos and we often have a little nuzzle and a kiss on his soft nose. Hunter always gets little treats from the veggie patch but usually we tie him to a strong stake around the lawn so he can crop at leisure - he is definitely not to be trusted anywhere near the garden beds or the roses - which I might add are his favorite.

When he was little, the girls used to comb and platte his mane with beads and all sorts of pretty ribbons - poor boy. But these days his grooming is left to me and I just brush him occasionally and trim his tail and fringe. We don't cover him with a blanket in winter, so he grows this amazing thick fluffy coat to keep warm. If you run your fingers through it you cant feel his skin at all it's so thick.

He got quite sick once, about 6 years ago, and we rushed him to our local equine veterinary hospital. We had the vet out the week prior because he wasn't eating or pooping - very bad for horses! They operated immediately on him and removed two large 'stones' from his stomach that was blocking all functions. We kept them as a reminder to keep his diet plain and regular and he has been fine ever since. The stones feel like pumice stone and smell of chaff. The vets are not sure what causes them
but they usually occur in the spring, which this did.

He is a wonderful part of this lifestyle living, and his manure is always greatly appreciated in the gardens and worm farm. Like all animals he is wormed regularly - we don't put that manure in the worm farm though.

Hunter is just one of the many animals we have at Bloomfield Cottage that makes this a fulfilled and busy lifestyle.

See what comes out of this odd little cocoon...........

I found this funny cocoon thing the other day. Iv`e never seen one like it before - and I can tell you that over 30 years of gardening, iv`e seen plenty of weird insect eggs, sac`s and cocoons. But this one was a slightly corky little thing, with a tiny hole in one end. Such a cleverly built little thing, which was securely attached to a branch of wisteria.

Have you ever seen one of these before? Well I hadn't, so I cut it off the branch and bought it inside. I put it on the window ledge in the kitchen in a vase of water so I could photograph it, which I did some days later. My daughter said 'yuk, what is that' and I said I don't know, some sort of cocoon.

'Don't leave it there - what if something comes out', was her initial response. 'Oh it's not going to hatch overnight' was mine.

So it sat there on the window sill for a good 10 days, until one morning, I came into the kitchen to find hundreds of creepy little insects all over the window glass and bench tops. 

Luckily my daughter and husband were still in bed! Thank goodness they hadn't yet traveled too far around the kitchen, and were still isolated to the window and sink area. As you can guess, I raced for the insect killer spray and quickly sprayed the crap out of them! I had goose bumps and the creeps!

After gloving up and finding the old dish cloth I removed all the dead little bugs before my family saw them! Ha, nothing worse than your 22 yr old daughter telling you 'I told you so'.

Well she was right, and I learnt my lesson - don't bring any suspicious insect nests in to the house!
I'm still not sure what they were, but I suspect they are a hatchling of a wasp or perhaps grasshopper? I'm so glad I only just caught them crawling about everywhere - imagine if I got up and the nest was empty and they had all disappeared throughout the house! There were hundreds of them! Argh, that doesn't bear thinking about.

Please leave a comment if you think you know what the little critters were. I searched the net but there are just so many weird little cocoons. I've since found two more cocoons outside - which is where I will leave them - lesson learnt.

Deaddie insects. 

Summer rain storms and damage 2016

Summer for me, is not about much actual gardening, it`s all about the watering - trying to keep all my treasured plants and shrubs alive in our scorching heat. No-where near the coast, and at the foot of the Blue Mountains, means we live in a hot dry dustbowl sometimes. So summer is all about time consuming watering - mostly by hand. We have lots of irrigation and rain water tanks, but it`s never enough in this heat, you need a strong jet of water at the base of each plant, drippers and sprays are just not enough. However.....

We are forecast to have a very rainy (and thundery and lightening) week, which the dogs will hate. I just wish I`d already gotten all the fertilisers sitting in my garage thrown about before the rain :[  It`s mid summer here and was 41 degrees today, it`s been hot and dry, but a big storm blew in mid afternoon, offering a cooler wet week with some gardening respite.

In fact, a rainy week is the perfect time to pack away the Christmas tree and all the decorations and tuck into some indoor chores and healthy cooking - and do a bit more blogging! I`m sitting on my verandah enjoying the temperature as it cools and the rain begins....

The very next day, a really nasty storm hit our suburb leaving loads of damage and power outages. Sadly, a man was even killed when a tree fell on his car.

The mini tornado came in sideways with gale force winds and driving rain and hail, wreaking havoc and destruction all over the place . Here is our contribution....

                            All along the back pathway is smashed of all places! You can`t even get through up there. We are still getting periods of high winds so more damage is likely. It will be out with the chain saw when the weather clears up, then time to sharpen the hedgers.....

A good deep soaking is just what all the large trees and shrubs need though, and Iv`e put in a request to my husband, for a trailer load or two of stable manure to top up the veggie gardens after the rains are done and the soils are saturated. I`m glad I got all the boundary and garden edges weed-sprayed before the rain, otherwise the weeds would have taken over with the rain and humidity. It doesn`t take long for nature to grow out of control if you don't keep on top of it at this time of the year.

The 48m camellia hedge along the driveway, is the next to get the big prune - it`s over the fence in parts and with all this rain it will shoot up quickly. After a quick inspection of the camellia hedge today, I was horrified to see it budding up already! it`s very early, still mid summer, and not even pruned yet! If I want a good floral display this Autumn I need to get cracking.

So Iv`e got my work cut out for me with fertilizing, manuring, hedging and chain-sawing!

and thanks for visiting Bloomfield Cottage

A Wedding at Bloomfield Cottage

Last weekend was our first wedding at Bloomfield Cottage!  It was only a small gathering as the actual ceremony was in Thailand a few weeks ago. However, for all their relatives that couldn`t make it O/seas, and to actually make it legal in Australia, a small ceremony was performed right here in our beautiful garden setting.

And no - the bride didn`t wear her wedding gown for us, but looked lovely in a soft flowing floral - perfect for a garden wedding. There was quite a bit of cleaning (and de cob-webbing), moving of furniture and potted plants, mowing and watering to keep everything lush for the day in our hot weather. Only days earlier we had a scorcher reaching 42 degrees! 

The tables are set and guests are starting to arrive.

The bride and groom supplied a lovely High Tea style luncheon and as the day warmed, so the Champagne and beer flowed. The gardens were looking lovely even though the first flush of roses had finished. There were still plenty of spot flowering roses though, with Weeping Dorothy Perkins - surrounded by The Fairy roses still showing off beautifully. And of course the stunning Cape Chestnut - Calodendrum was a pretty pink backdrop.

So now Bloomfield Cottage has a Wedding to add to our impressive list of occasions celebrated in this beautiful setting. Over the years we have celebrated 16ths, 18ths, 21sts, 50ths, Melbourne Cup Luncheons, Neighbourhood get-togethers, Halloween, Easter Sunday brunches complete with 9- holes of golf or Croquet, Open Gardens and many happy Christmas`s. And next year we are hosting our daughter`s engagement to add to the wonderful memories and good times shared here.

Congratulations to the Bride and Groom and to Bloomfield Cottage for hosting this special gathering.

It gives me such pleasure to share our beautiful garden from time to time, and with you, on this blog. Till next time....

It`s Rose time at Bloomfield...

My favorite time in the garden, is the first flush of Spring roses. Coming up to our Open Day here at Bloomfield Cottage, the weather has been fickle. Considering it is still only mid Spring, we had a couple of extremely hot 38-40 degree days, then it dipped back down to a comfortable 22-23 degrees with a light shower or two. Consequently many of the first buds got scorched, and overnight, nasty little Thrip turned up, running amok in the rose petals!

Most visitors probably didn`t even notice, but the day before our Open Garden, was our local Rose Society Show, in which I was taking part. So on Friday night, as I walked about the roses trying to select some blooms, I was almost in despair! They were all marked! I couldn`t find a thing worth showing. I was quite depressed as I trudged back inside - not one rose in my bucket.

Now Iv`e got a lot of roses, and to not find one worthy, well I cant tell you how cranky I was. So the next morning I got ready early and bucket in hand went out for another look. Thankfully overnight quite a few roses had opened up. They weren`t spectacular, but at least I managed to scrape together enough to display for judging. Here are a few photos of this years beautifully grown, displayed and judged roses by various members.

I only managed two Third Places in this years C grade, but I did win First in the vegetable and Photographic section. However, no time to celebrate - I had an Open Garden to ready for the very next day! Thankfully the weather was cool, overcast, and there was even a bit of misty rain to start the day, which is just what was needed for a gentle garden day. Everything looked perky and happy and the cloud cover made for perfect photography. 10am they started wandering in. The urn was bubbling and morning tea laid out. Some quiet garden music was playing softly and the plant stall ready and waiting.      
                                                                                                                                                                    We had a lovely day talking to all sorts of garden lovers and enthusiasts, some budding photographers and lots of friends who dropped by. So here are some photos of the day for you to enjoy ..... ( I did sneak a few pics in that were taken up to two weeks later as not everything was in flower on the day)

Well that`s it for another year. Hope you enjoyed it as much as my visitors did.