In the Garden : Winter 2008

Posted Thu, Jun 5 2008 21:35 by bill

It's winter

but still a lot of activity in the garden. The orchard is quiet, a lot of pruning jobs awaiting. But my Meyer lemon is just about to produce it's 2nd crop of lemons... enough to keep scurvy away over winter ;)  The Meyer lemons are really sweet for a lemon:

I saw some camellia sinensis plants for sale the other day, so I just had to grab one. Hopefully in summers to come I'll have green tea from it along with my lemon grass and lemon verbena :)

I

n the vegie patch things are slowing up.  I pulled out the tomatoes plants last weekend, and have just about caught up on weeding. There's carrots and beetroot still, as well as silverbeet:

 

and celery:

 

and the wild broadbeans are in flower:

 

Some of the wild Pak Choi is flowering and adds some nice colour to the veggie patch (as well as seed for the next lot):

 

 

Elsewhere in the garden, some of the wattles are beginning to flower:

 

And the honey proteas are also in bloom:

 

The New Holland honey eaters love the proteas :

 

On a sadder note one of my big pine trees is sick:

 

I planted this tree from a seedling many years ago. That white strip on the trunk is a 1 foot ruler I balanced there to give some perspective to the size of the tree:

 

I've started watering the tree in case it's just because the winter has so far been very dry.  It looks like there is still some life there, but it is shedding a LOT more needles than any of the other pines :(

 

As I went to take some pictures of the pine, the local kangaroos of course just had to get in the photos.  This is the big buck that comes in every so often to serve the girls then goes away. He usually hangs around only for a couple of weeks at a time.  The girl roos are showing large bulges in their pouches at present. I think some of the joeys are hopping out at night, but so far have only spied a tail sticking out of a pouch. "They" say animals know the season ahead, but I'm not sure what this lot of breeding means ;)

 

The weather has been reasonably mild, a couple of cold nights, and a couple of good rains, but overall still much drier than usual.

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Comments

# re: In the Garden : Winter 2008

Friday, June 06, 2008 7:54 PM by Julie

Wow your winter garden is 100 times more amazing than my summer garden. Soryr about the tree. I know how you feel. A tree that I have blogged about in the past (because I love it so much) got hit by lightning a few years ago. It finally showed signs of getting sick last year and now 1/2 of it's dead but the other half is fine. I'm always so sad about that. BUt at least it's still standing.

# re: In the Garden : Winter 2008

Friday, June 06, 2008 8:38 PM by bill

Thanks Julie :) Loosing that pine will be a bit of a bummer, especially as it has been around for so long. It's kind of cool to see something that big and know you planted it from a little baby seedling (like the circumference of the trunk is 6 foot !!)  I've lost a few plants this last year or two.. the prolonged drought taking effect; some were old protea bushes over 15 foot in diameter.

But that's life for a gardner, plants die and new ones replace them. It's a lot easier to accept of course when they are anuals ot start off with <g>.

I'll be replacing the dead proteas with some banksias and wattle I think.  As to this pine, I'm not sure, time will tell whether it survives or not. But at least the other ten or so I planted at the same time are all looking strong :)