October 2007 in the Southern Hemisphere

[Maggi Young]

I thought you folks prided youreselves on being always ahead of us here in the Northern Hemisphere? Isn't it time you began your November pages??

[Joakim B]

Maggi The Southeners might still be ahead of us since there was no pics of November here only talks about old pics so they are saving it all for us to enjoy in November. They know how desperate we are getting soon for pics that will take us away from the darknes that are about to come over us.

Kind regrds from Sunny!!!! (atleast know) Sweden
Joakim

[Paul T]

Joakim,

No need to wait any more.... I've just posted a couple.  Tomorrow morning I'll hopefully add some to the Iris thread, plus a Pleione and some Rhododendrons in their respective threads. 

Off to bed now as nearing 11pm and have to be up before 6am to take my wife to a friends place so she can go with her to a big craft show up in Sydney.  This way I get to have the car all day instead of it being parked and the friend's place and me being stuck at home.

[Joakim B]

Paul going up at 6am is small price to pay to keep tthe mrs happy and still have the car . The bed waits for You at home after or You have an early start to take even more pics.

The ones You talk about already made me happy
Joakim

[Paul T]

Paul going up at 6am is small price to pay to keep tthe mrs happy

Very true my friend, very true!! 

[Paul T]

Well, got my wires crossed a little..... we're leaving here at 6am, not getting up then.     So got up at 5:15am rather than 6.    I shall post some more pics when I get back.  By then I should be awake enough to do so.    Not at all liking this 5:55am that it currently is here...... just unnatural!! 

[Paul T]

Howdy again All,

A couple of pics from mid to late October....


Miniature Achillea species only 6 or 8 inches tall.  Still haven;t been game to plant it in the ground due to how invasive some of the other species are.  No idea what species this one actually is.


This is a pic of one view of my side garden in late October.


Barely recognisable as one, this is Rhododendron lineariifolium.  Flowers from Autumn until Spring I find here, although main flowering is spring.

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Wow - quite spectacular view of your garden Paul - all looks healthy and lush - I would have expected it to be less "green" considering your climate.

What's the white tree flowering on the right ?  That's a real eye catcher ! 

Would love to see some more general views of your and the other Southerners' gardens... any chance
 

[Paul T]

Luc,

I can post some more general pics of my garden for you, as you asked so nicely!!    My garden this year looks the best it ever has, mainly due to a major cleanup and mulching a couple of months ago when I agreed to open my garden for the local Horticulture Society at rather short notice (3 weeks.  Never again on that short a time frame, I was pooped!!  ).  It was a lot of work but the garden will handle this summer much better than it would have otherwise.  AS a result I have taken a bunch more "general" pics of the garden than I would normally do.  It is actually quite a small corner block, but some of the pics make it look quite large. 

Oh yeah, and the white "tree" is actually a standardised Wisteria floribunda.  I have 4 Wisterias that have all been standardised onto rose wheels.  They're grown to about 5 feet tall as a single trunk wrapped around the pole, then allowed to branch out.  It does give a tree effect.  I have a pic of the Wisteria floribunda 'Carnea' in full flower which will show you what it actually looks like as a specimen.  It is the most established of the lot of them.  There's 3 different floribundas, one sinensis and then there are two Wisteria longissima and a Wisteria floribunda 'Nishiki' (strong white variegation, with purple flowers) associated with the pergola near the fernery.  As well as the Wisterias there are around a dozen different Magnolia, a dozen or so Acers, assorted Azaleas and Rhododendrons and a couple of Prunus.  Those all together, along with the various Roses are the main backbones to the garden.  Most of the larger shrubs have Clematis growing on them as well as a bunch of obelisks and arches.  That covers the main larger items other than a couple of large gum trees and a rather large Photinia that we've cut the bottom 6 feet out of so that we can have gardens under it.

So there's a basic description, but I'll find a few reasonable pics to post as well.  Unless the powers that be would like to shift this all into a general southern hemisphere "gardens" thread that sits outside of the montly "flowering now" tag?

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Whatever "the powers that be " decide Paul, I'll be looking forward to the pix !
Thanks for your explanation - and I should have recognised the Wisteria if only I had looked a little closer

[Paul T]

Luc,

Here's a few more general pics of my garden...


Front garden around sunken water bowl.


Same pic (approximately) 2 weeks later as things progress


View of side garden, different angle to the pic posted earlier where you asked about the "white tree".


This is the Wisteria floribunda 'Carnea', although it looks rather bleached in the pic.  I find it always looks paler in pics than in real life, although it is a pale pink anyway.

[Paul T]

And a few more pics....


View along the wall of the house near my side garden.  This is just to the left of the side garden pic in my previous post.  The flower in front is Rhododendron 'Kallista'


Same area of garden as the last pic, but from the other angle.  There's a pond in the background of it, and I took a clear pic of that today which I haven't got off my camera as yet.  Plenty of water irises in flower now, that weren't there when I took this picture.


Not a good pic, but it's my front garden.


Almost out to the road in my front garden.  This is just to the right of the previous pic.  The clump of grass (actually a Dierama to the bottom left, is to the bottom right in the previous pic.


View from behind the sunken waterbowl garden.

[Thomas Huber]

Booaahh Paul    I love this cultivated wildness in your garden, it looks really wonderful!!!

[Paul T]

Thanks Thomas.  I'm assuming that "Booaahh" is a good thing?  I like the term "cultivated wildness".    Sort of makes it all sound deliberate!!  It comes from trying to fit twice as much into the garden as really should fit there.  Would be much easier if I collected less different families..... there are just too many things I want to grow.  What I need really is acreage, and a permanent water supply to go with it.  I reckon a nice 4 or 5 acre block, with spring-fed dam or permanent creek would do me nicely.  There is unfortunately the small matter of having the money to buy such a place of course!!

The big thing with my garden is that it has been engineered to flower at all times of year.  There are always SOME flowers in teh garden, even at the quietest seasons.  There are major flushes of flowers and foliage a few times during spring, then in summer and again in autumn.... then the little things come through like Galanthus and Hellebores and stuff, not as eye catching as the big flowering things, but so much fun to notice as they appear.  I really don't know what I'd do without my garden.

As well as the pictures I have shown I also have a fernery area and a back yard full of a couple of thousand pots (also a good few hundred in front of my garage as well, part of which is the area where I intend to put the Crocus and Iris reticulata etc garden.  I'm only trying to show you the better views, although some of hte pictures make my garden look huge, when it definitely isn't.  By framing the pictures just right I can cut out all the nasty bits around them!! 

[David Nicholson]

Lovely garden Paul, I enjoyed the pictures.