Open Garden Scheme: Two Tasmanian Gardens

 Entrance to an open garden at Castle Forbes Bay, Tasmania

Last week my mum and aunt came to visit me in Tassie (from Sydney and London respectively), and we drove down the Channel to see a couple of open gardens that were open as part of the Australian Open Garden Scheme.

The first garden in Grove illustrated how non-flowering trees and shrubs can create amazing textures and colours in a subtle, yet exciting way.  Many of the trees were turning shades of reds and yellows, and there was a crazy mushroom growing near a stream-like pond.  Like many Tasmanian gardens, there were a couple of rows of fruit trees (apparently it used to be an orchard), and a beautiful hilly, native bush backdrop.

The guy who owns the garden had planted a memorial garden to his son with his wife, who sadly passed away just as it was being finished.  The memorial garden was populated by roses, and was a pleasingly symmetrical and formal space in the middle of the otherwise rather casually composed garden.

 Swoonworthy artist studio, Grove

The Castle Forbes Bay garden was more flower-based, although they had an impressively extensive treehouse.

The roses smelled amazing.  I'm not usually a rose fan, although I was tempted by these gorgeously scented specimens.

 A three-way grafted apple tree

 A greenhouse for vertically-grown tomatoes, capsicum and cucumbers

The husband was fuchsia-obsessed, and not only gave me propogation hints, but also cuttings of a number of his specimens.  It's amazing - I never knew there were so many varieties.

I've planted the fuchsia cuttings in individual pots after dipping them in rooting powder (you can also use honey), and I've placed the pots underneath a cheap mini-greenhouse so that they don't dry out.  I referred to the Gardenseeker website for help, which has a page on how to take Fuchsia Cuttings.

After the gardens we drove to Cygnet for lunch at the Red Velvet Lounge, which was the perfect Autumnal Sunday arvo treat.  We then continued on to Fleurtys at Birchs Bay, which has an extensive sculpture walk throughout the natural bush grounds.

In all, fantastically inspiring day.

Photo Credits: Thanks to Nola James (photographer extraordinaire) for supplying most of these photos.

Sunflower-Guzzling Bees

 

My sunflowers are out and happy.  Happier still are the multiple bumblebees that seem to be constantly attached to the sunflower 'faces'.

Here's an 'update' frontyard shot:

 

 

I also have to share my finally flowering sweetpeas.  Only two plants out of the entire packet actually sprouted (ripped off!).  They tried to climb some dead flower stalks at first, and I had to unwrap their tiny tendrils and curl them around some wire which I hung on my front fence (in the laziest of fashions).

Then there's the lavender that my mum planted from a cutting when she came down from Sydney a couple of months ago.  She introduced me to the world of stealing stalks of other people's plants.  Who would've thought cutting a chunk of lavender, sticking the end in honey, and then sticking it in the earth would yield a brand new plant?! Brilliant.  When she planted the stalk, it was a mere twig.  Now it has branches and flowers...

Lastly, is my 50c Chickenfeed seed garden, which is in the small planter box built into the house at the top of the front stairs. I wouldn't have thought seeds from Chickenfeed would actually grow, but at 50c I thought it was worth finding out.  I picked the 'blue mix'.  It turns out that the Chickenfeed seeds were much much more effective than the expensive sweetpeas.