A small celebration

This is just a quick little celebration as one of my two monstering deadlines is almost over. So I might fit some gardening in, except for this rather lovely rain.

But my main celebration is that I have learned how to use the macro on the digital. So here is my very dark red Sparaxis, with minimal yellowing in the throat, which is my pride and joy.

And the buds on my Iris are getting bigger, the roses are about to flower, and I have my first asparagus. And long lawns. And lots of weeds.

Colchium Leaves

This is posted for Zoey - the Colchiums are the two clumps with the widest leaves, in the foreground.

I hate Orange Sparaxis

I really do - I hate orange sparaxis. And I have them everywhere. This year I am going to try and reduce them a little (and cut the bulbs off before I compost the rest).

However, over the past few years I have noticed the seedlings are coming up in a range of colours. A few years ago I separated out quite a good red, and this is the result:

Then, last year I noticed a deep red that is almost black - so I managed to collect them, and have them growing on. And now there are more popping up. I do like these - even if, back there somewhere they have an orange parent.

Here's one very dark red, although the shot does not do it justice.

I wonder do other people have a most disliked plant (not a weed), in their garden????

The Wisteria in Flower

My Wisteria is in flower - all the way up my very tall weeping birch.

And the fence doesn't really look like this - it is the camera!

White Daffodils

A few of you have commented on my white daffodils. I do actually have two different all-white daffodils. They both come out with a very light yellow trumpet that quickly goes very white (if there is such a thing as "very white") in one, and remains very faintly yellow in the other.

The King Alfred-type is at either side of this four, and the other in the middle.

The pure white one is to all intents and purposes a white King Alfred on a shorter stem, the other a slightly smaller, lighter-weight flower.

I got them both years ago from a specialist grower at a field day - he wasn't advertising them, but I had been asking around everywhere for them for years, and he actually had some with him.

How did I know they existed????

Make a coffee and pull up a chair.

Years ago, in the late 1950s, we lived in a quite remote bush area. There were basically only two women there, my mother and an older lady, who lived seven miles further into the bush. Plastic flowers had just come on the market, and my mother had a bunch of white plastic daffodils. The lady for "further out" appeared to visit, and as Mum could see her slowly coming in the very long driveway, she grabbed the bunch of daffodils and rushed out the front door and quickly pushed the white plastic daffodils into the garden.

This lady looked at them carefully as she went inside, but didn't say a thing - she knew there was something going on, but she had not at that point heard of plastic flowers.

I always remembered that, and wanted white daffodils.

I finally got them, just on fifty years later.

Daffodils in my Garden

These are the daffodils currently in my garden. The early ones, like King Alfred, are totally finished. That one at top right isn't a King Alfred - I think it is St Patrick's Day, sort of almost greenish, although that doesn't show in the picture.

But I am quite proud of my two pure whites.

Although my favourite is that little one at bottom left. It grows like a weed in my garden, and reminds me of a drift of Fairies.

And the one at bottom right, with an apricot trumpet, is one a Dear Friend gave me. Isn't it wonderful how we associate plants with the people who gave them to us.

Looking Better

Looking Better - I didn't get completely finished, as one of the furtherest beds is too dry to weed.

But the rest is looking better. It isn't just the weeding - it is the tipping and spreading and digging compost too. So Tank #4 has been emptied, and Tank #1 has been started. Then I am going to be out of compost for a while.

And the lemon balm is gone - but it had to go in order to get full access to bed that is more in the sun than some of the others.

And my flowering tobacco is having another attempt in the front lefthand bed.

It is Spring

It really is spring, and here is the sad state of the kitchen garden after winter. It is what happens when one area is ignored while I work on another (the front).

Actually, it is looking a tiny bit better than this, as another of the beds is almost cleared of chick weed.

I have Tuesday and Wednesday booked for working all day in the garden (with a trip to the tip in there somewhere). So my aim is to post a picture of this towards the end of the week that is radically different.

Tomato seedlings are in the nurseries, but I reckon I still have a few frosts to go, so cannot plant yet. But I have some parsley to put out, and basil seedlings to coddle on under the verandah. And maybe now is the time for some spring onions. So I had better get busy.

But at least I have done my daffodil census, and know where the clumps are that I want to keep. All the rest can go out as I work through on a maintenance sweep again. Just need them to have time to die down - surely someone would like a few to plant for a massed display.

Although right at the moment they look fairly wonderful, even if they are just those ones that have reverted from the fancy ones that have to get lifted every year to retain their "oddness". There is a lot to be said for old-fashioned types.

And my white daffodils are coming out now, and are really beautiful.