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Saturday 25 April 2015

Four Day Weekend, Again!


After the Easter four day long weekend i kind of got use to it and booked another one.  Truth is, i had accumulated time in lieu for overtime worked in March and so i thought I'd use the mid month lull to have some time off.  Who am i kidding, what lull?   I ended up working till 10pm Friday to have everything ready for Monday morning and then had to work like a Trojan to catch up when i returned on Wednesday. Was it worth it?  Absolutely.

I already posted about going potty in Tottenham on the Saturday morning so you know i had a new pot and some leftover Clivea to transplant.    

These front garden beds on the blind side of the house (usually this is just a strip but because of an easement we have 2-3mtrs width) were completely filled with clivea gone mad.


It was so beautiful when in flower but it had really overgrown the path and this is our only access to the back yard for a wheel barrow or bins.  I put an ad on Gumtree for free plants and i was inundated with calls. They came, they dug and they left me with a big mess which we forgot about because we couldn't see it - out of sight, out of mind.  Not any more.


I've removed the old fashioned shear curtains on all the windows and so we now have a view.  I  had better make it a good one as it really draws your eye when you walk in the front door.  We will have to sort out a privacy screen from neighbours as well.

My new pot and balls.  The balls add colour and interest and don't need weeding or watering.  There is about 5 clivea plants in the pot, so it wont take long to fill out.  
I'm thinking that the this path needs a good wash down with a pressure washer and then painting.  What colour do you think?   A shade of grey or do i go crazy and make it a shade of red?

Once i had done the bed outside the window i needed to plant out across the path because it was in view from inside as well.


You can see all that free mulch (still half the pile left) is coming in handy.   These wall pots were generously gifted from my sister Glenda when she moved house.  I've planted Seaside Daisies, Lobelia and Alyssum so they will fall gracefully and fill the view from inside.   The potted palm just got moved from elsewhere.  Do you play musical pots with your garden?  Doesn't cost a thing except a bad back.

So now both sides of the path are neat and tidy.  Oh dear, now the next section is looking worse for wear. After a few house of hard labour moving plants from here to there and repotting you can see it all coming together.


Oh no, the mould is really evident.  Wish i knew how to chop a triangle out of a photo.  Its looking much worse in the photo.  



As you can see, this garden is in full view of the dining area.  This is where i use to have the bantam chooks running around under the palms.   You can also see two things.  Its gorgeous but its also in need of a pressure wash.  Look at that mould.  This is the North side of the house and so this pergola has a fairly heavy shade cloth in "wheat" to give us protection from the Summer sun.  Its very effective, but as soon as it gets a bit wet, the mould arrives.


My beautiful pot is still waiting for its final resting place.  It could end up a water feature.  Perhaps i do have a pot fetish?

Today i found another bargain to add to this garden.  It was $60 reduced to $20.

The sign said woman praying but Rob thinks its a mother strangling a child.  Huh?    
So enough of gardens.  I did take some time to go for a drive with Tom.  Adding more hours to his 120hr target as a learner driver.  This Tuesday he will start with a professional instructor to finish off.  Its taken ages to find an instructor that will let him use his car.  Its what he feels most comfortable in and he will use it for the test, so he should learn in it.

We started out for Echuca on the border of NSW (big trip for one day) but he felt unwell an hour out so stopped at the closest town, Castlemaine.   Since having Idiopathic Inter-cranial Hypertension when he was about 10 he has suffered from occasional vertigo and feels unwell when going up and down hills and tight turns.  Just getting out of the car and walking around makes him feel better.

Castlemaine is an old gold mining town and you can see that in its time there was significant wealth in this small regional town.  Most of the dates on the buildings are around 1855-1865's.

Castlemaine - Link



You can see in the picture below the gutters are all extremely wide and made of bluestone.  Tom tells me that's because they carried a lot more than storm water in the past.  Ewww!


Sometimes it pays to look up.  What beautiful windows.  I would have loved to look inside.

For all my veggie garden friends, look here.  Its a kerb side veggie plot open to the public.

It would be great if the cities would follow the example of some of our smaller country towns.  It was full of veggies.  
Of course there had to be a lunch break.


The lentil soup was delish and i cant even find words to describe the almond meal and raspberry/cranberry cake. Tom wasn't so impressed with his gourmet meat pie (give him a plain $2 pie from the servo any day) but the custard almond danish revived him.  He felt so good on the way home, he sung me to sleep (ummm am i suppose to be supervising?  He has done 100 hrs)

So why was Tilly looking very guilty spread out on the back of the couch?


Because when i left, the bed was made, neat & tidy.   She's usually jumping up and down and being hysterical when i walk in the door but this is how i found her and my bed.   Hmmmm someone is a naughty girl.

Oh  i forgot to show you my other pot purchases from last weekend.


This white mosaic pot costs $5 and the ball 3 for $15.   The plant is Coleus Henna suitable for shade to semi-shade so I've got in the big pergola.

Those who know me know that i have a coffee addiction and so i couldn't go past this pot.

This oversized cup yet to be filled was $20
I am sure that if this didn't have a hole in the bottom of it, i would have been presented with this full to the brim with coffee for breakfast by either or both of my men as a joke.   Do you remember me saying what great service i received from the owners of the pot place.  I would have grabbed the outside plain one but she said "No, there's a really nice one inside and promptly emptied the shelf of these quite heavy pots to get this one out.  Lovely colouring.

Before you start think I've become Rockafeller, my entire garden makeover including pots, plants and ornamental lady came to $150.  I won $160 last week on Powerball with a ticket paid for from a winning ticket the previous week. Thank you Mr Tattersall.

Thanks for Visiting Living In The Land Of Oz

21 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your win. I'd say your winnings were very well spent. What a transformation! Looks fab (and if you didn't point out the mould I wouldn't have noticed). Castlemaine is a beautiful town with so much history. Glad you enjoyed it.

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  2. How amazing to live where clivia is an outdoor plant! And thanks for the garden tour.

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  3. I was thinking the same Boud. All those plants are indoor plants here in Canada, wouldn't last five minutes outside, other than in the middle of summer.

    Love all your pots and balls, very nice. Liked the look of Castlemaine, my sort of town.

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  4. I was thinking the same Boud. All those plants are indoor plants here in Canada, wouldn't last five minutes outside, other than in the middle of summer.

    Love all your pots and balls, very nice. Liked the look of Castlemaine, my sort of town.

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  5. Lynda, thanks so much for that photo of the wicking bed design - I followed the url on the sign, and it leads to a brilliant pdf with plans for building wicking beds - which I have been researching, and these are the best plans I have seen xx

    PS Don't paint the concrete - it shows up all the dirt and will make you eternally irritable. Ask me how I know..

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    1. How very observant of you Jo, im glad i could help. They were really productive beds. There were lots of small eggplants growing that looked so decorative.

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  6. It is all looking lovely, Lynda. We have lots of clivias growing here too. They look beautiful in spring and during our Carnival of Flowers it is lovely to see the different coloured ones in the parks and gardens. We have one of the darker ones and lots of the normal orange coloured ones. Now that I think about it I think we bought a yellow one last year at a Carnival garden. Where on earth did that get to I wonder?

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    1. Your yard is huge so im sure id lose things to. Mine is quite small so im on top of things. Yes, ive looked at a few different colours but ive only scene the orange is mass displays.

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  7. Lovely plants and lovely pots Lynda. Now you are not going to believe this, we are about 10.000 miles from you and we have just bought the same statue, the only difference ours is in stone, I will post a photo later in the week. We paid 25 euros for ours, I tried to beat him down but he wouldn't budge on the price. The seller says it's a copy of a famous French sculpture, he called it 'Mother and Child' I shall try to Google some info on it.

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    1. How unreal was that. Mine is cement and its So heavy. Yes, it looks like a mother and child which is why Rob said it looked like she was strangling it around the neck. Ha Ha Men!!

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  8. Very interesting about the wicking box. I had to look it up! All great photos, actually, and i love that you can have such a nice view from your own dining room.

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    1. Wicking beds are becoming quite popular here in the world of self sustainability. Plant growth is faster and there is no evaporation so water usage is lower. Great for droughts or people on limited water. In comparison to normal beds the plants perform 50% better. Better still, the beds are high so no bending over.

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  9. Hi Lynda, thanks for stopping by and saying hello. Lovely to meet you :) You have a great blog here. I've been enjoying reading and looking at all your photos. Love your pots and what you did with your side garden. A sweet little dog too. I look forward to coming back.

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    1. Thanks for responding, we both have a lot to catch up on. Its like a newly discovered book.

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  10. Your palms and tropical flowers are gorgeous. I have a dragon tree in a pot that we put on the patio in the summer. We can pretend we live somewhere exotic then. The gold mining town was interesting. If you like coffee have a go at making the icrcream I did last Saturday. Easy peasy to make.

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    1. You know those odd food phobias that we have that don't make any sense at all? I drink so much coffee, its a joke that i have an intravenous drip line BUT i hate coffee in food. Not even chocolates. Yuk! Ice-cream i love but not with coffee. I know, it doesn't make sense.

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  11. wow your gardens are looking great! mould? i had to look twice before i saw it & i agree, don't paint it, it will only irritate you later, looks good when first done but doesn't last long, better off mixing the colour into the cement before laying.
    you have a good eye for pots, the ones you picked are amazing, love the 'coffee' cup pot.
    true right! coffee in food yukkkk! give me a good plunger coffee to drink any day, i only drink 1-2 cups these days now.
    what a lovely idea for a fence, wall hanging plants, you just need more of & it will be green all year!
    thanx for sharing

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  12. Thanks to all of you for taking the time to comment. This is why i blog. Not for views but for interaction, for conversation, for friendship.

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  13. Hi Lynda, I came back to thank you for visiting me and leaving such a nice comment. Also to answer your question about the flower collage at the end of my post. I did it using Paint Shop Pro. It's a program I have been using for several years and I always go back to it for a lot of things. Have a great weekend :)

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  14. I am always impressed with how much care Australians seem to put into the grounds of their homes. You have a lot of plants and animals we don't have here in the Blue Ridge mountains. That's always interesting to me, especially the lizards. My kids are long since grown and gone, but I remember the throes of drivers education.

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    1. Not all Australians do Harry. Im really disappointed with the homes around me. There are lots of rental homes and so they dont care. I feel like putting a little note in their mail boxes telling them they are devaluing the homes and making the streetscape poor. Do you think they would care? I spend more time working on the outside than i do on housework inside. That's just the kinda girl i am. Thanks for your visit Harry.

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