Saturday, April 14, 2012

Out In The Garden....

Hello!!! Thanks for stopping by. For those of you only interested in crochet, please be advised that this is a gardening post. I'll be posting on my current crochet projects later in the week.......

To be honest, it's been a while since I did anything in my garden. I did salvage a few last veg from my little veg boxes but nothing spectacular. My box of strawberry plants amounted to absolutely nothing and I'm not sure what I did wrong. I'll try again next Summer but they have one more season to prove themselves before I ditch trying forever!

This Summer has been unseasonably hot - I know that here in South Africa we should be used to hot Summers but where I live in the Natal Midlands, we generally have a far more English climate with plenty of Summer rain and very cold Winters. However, this year the whole country has had lower than average rainfalls and my garden has suffered as a result. True, I could water religiously every day like other people do but there's nearly an acre of garden to look after and our main flower bed is the size of a small country so watering would take me hours!!! Not to mention the cost! That being said, what did manage to flower did so very well and I really can't complain too much.

After a bit of tidying up there were a couple of empty spots in the bed so I decided to plant one of these -


Isn't it beautiful? For those of you that don't know this plant it's called Dierama but it's common name is Harebell. It has the form of a grass with these stunning pinky purple flower bells that sway and bob about in the breeze! If the one I've planted does well then I intend to plant many more on some woodland terracing that goes up the side of our drive. I think huge clusters under the trees will look really pretty. What do you think? Here's a close up of the flower itself - like tiny ballerina skirts.....


Another newbie to my garden are my beloved Cannas. We do have a few of these in the garden already but they're the orange and yellow ones. These new plants are the bright red Cannas and by far and away my favourites -


This is how they look after a few years at which time they can be dug up and divided (quite brutally with a spade if you're that way inclined!!!).


And finally, my mom bought me four plants of something I have long wanted in our garden because of it's structure and form. Zebra grass!!!! If you've never seen it, here's a look -


Planted en masse it really does look effective. Unfortunately I couldn't find a pic that shows this but the one below sort of does the job -


Again I'm thinking of planting lots of these on the woodland terracing as they really do brighten up a dark area and the movement when it's windy is quite enchanting to watch. There is another version which is a much darker green (almost black) with cream stripes but it's very hard to get here and that variety doesn't grow very big.

I hope you've enjoyed my latest gardening ramblings. Maybe this time next year I'll be able to show you the actual plants in situ!

Til soon.
x

5 comments:

  1. Love the zebra grass - it is very unusual!
    Liz @ Shortbread & Ginger

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  2. Laura, you had me fooled for a while - I thought those plants were actually photographed in your own garden!

    I had some Zebra Grass once, but it didn't thrive in my dry sandy soil. I think it prefers boggy conditions, doesn't it?

    It's interesting to read what you say about the unusual weather you have had - it seems to be a worldwide thing. Having said that, we are back to "typical" April weather here: blustery, with sunshine and showers. Some places in the UK have had the first significant rainfall for several months.

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  3. Lovely to hear about your garden. it will be interesting to see when the plants you are putting in get settled! Joan

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  4. what a lovely garden post. i look forward to seeing your plants grow.

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  5. I love seeing what people grow in their gardens in other countries. Those dierama flowers look a little like penstomens. Wish we didn't have so much frost here, we could grow so much more! xx

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