Blooming where we are planted

Sunny, Kerry and Jamie flew back from Korea on Tuesday after Sun Ja's funeral. Thanks to everyone who send kind and loving messages to our family on her passing.

🐝🍓🐝

If you've been wondering what I've been doing during the silence here on the blog, here's a clue - it's the end of winter, todays temp is supposed to be 29C and my seasonal dormancy is coming to a close. I've been taking cuttings, sowing seeds and generally getting ready for spring. 

In the foreground above are some almost ready to plant fuchsias that were sent as cuttings by Kristiina a couple of months ago. I can also see a passionfruit vine slowly growing leaves, and many salvia cuttings. I love salvias.

I divided this bromeliad yesterday and discovered a tiny sedgefrog living in it. I checked this morning and she's still there. 😀

I bought a couple of new plants but most of my plantings will be cuttings taken from what we have growing in the garden or from seeds collected over the past few years.

This years garden will be different. We've cut back a lot on our vegetable garden in the past couple of years and now we're moving into the next stage. Another garden bed is being removed and we're moving towards flower beds.  We'll still grow tomatoes, capsicum, lettuce, cucumbers, spinach, cress, basil, parsley, chillies, oregano, Welsh onions, thyme, bay, mint and a few other things but they'll mostly be in containers; our traditional vegetable garden beds are almost gone.  We've grown out of our traditional gardening ways and need to modify what we're doing because of our age and a couple of health problems that make us both dizzy.

Curly cress and perennial spinach growing in water saving pots.

So this year looks like becoming another phase of growth for us because I've been thinking non-stop about what our new garden will be, working out what we want and need in the garden and hoping our choices will be enough for us - both horticulturally and philosophically.  Of course, we'll still grow our fruit trees, berries and vines (I'm drinking the last of the fresh orange juice as I write this)  as well as the planted listed above, and I hope that never stops.  To tell you the truth, it's not so much not growing food that is causing me to cling on to my garden, it's the gardening itself. If we can cut back on the heavy work, I hope this more cautious and gentle approach will keep us actively engaged in the backyard, and all that means.

Two new cuttings potted up this morning - one is a tall (2 metres) salvia, similar to the chia salvia, and the other is a soft but very tough winter-flowering pink shrub which I don't know the name of. We have both these growing in the front yard. They'll provide height in the middle of the beds. They should be ready to plant out in September just after we harvest the final potato and garlic crops.  😳

It's tough, there's no two ways about it, ageing is not for the faint-hearted and we just have to adjust and get on with it.  I hope all the planting - albeit slow and careful planting, will lead us into yet another phase of blooming where we are planted here in our home and backyard.