To all Blog Followers & Fellow Gardeners....

Aussie Sugar Pot

Spotted in the Blue Mountains Botanical Gardens; a flowerpot sugar bowl with a homemade wooden lid.  Such a good idea and ideal for open gardens!!

Tea Pot Competition!

And there was me thinking that teapots in the garden was just a little English eccentricity until I saw these in Owaka, New Zealand!  Trust a Kiwi to think BIG!

November Down Under

I s'pose a Brit was always going to be wowed by anything that flowers in November so, true to form, here's one enjoying Rhododendrons and Azaleas in Hanmer Springs New Zealand just south of the earthquake affected area.  These colourful Rhodies had just enjoyed a light shower of rain before the sun came out and it was just like a UK spring day in May!!

Photos don't do justice to the height of the trees in this picturesque little spa town with its myriad of natural hot springs.

Hanmer Springs main street!

Peonies & Yuccas in flower

Kiwi Wisdom?

Excerpt from Kiwi Gardener

Saw this interesting quote in a gardening magazine in a cafe in Rotorua. I often use Bay in soups, stews, casseroles and sauces but didn't know it had magical properties!! (And, yes I did spot the spelling mistake!)

Autumn to Spring in 24 Hours!

A natural forest of tree ferns

Roses in November

A bad picture of a swarm of bees

Unusually, this is a post about gardening down under. Here in New Zealand - just a few miles away from PTC, we are wowed about what thrives here.  Just growing wild on the roadside verges are Arums, Nasturtiums, Impatiens, Daturas - to name but a few. At the botanical gardens in Auckland are masses of roses all in full bloom with not so much of a hint of black spot, mildew or rust!  Even a Wisteria is blooming in November - I ask you!!It's just not fair! As for tree ferns - they abound e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e!! Huge natural forests full of them. The other weird thing is the fact that it's spring here. It was autumn when I left home and I left all the trees dropping their leaves.

 

Datura alias Brugmansia candida on the roadside!

Here, we even saw bees swarming

Tulip Tree = Pure Gold

Woodberry Hill

Liriodendron Tulipifera

PTC & a gilded lawn!

Not much one can say about this post except, if there's room, this is a tree and a half!  Our garden is not big enough for this beast and already it has been pollarded. See Rabbits Outfoxed for the full story of this particular tree

Growing Gold!

Crocus sativus - saffron crocus

As weird as it sounds, I harvested my very first saffron stigmas! So far only 3 as only one flower has opened. However: this is the world's most expensive spice and gram for gram  more expensive than gold.

In 2014, a single gram, (that’s 0.035 of an ounce) of this sought-after spice was selling for up to £75, making saffron more expensive than gold.  The reason for this is the fact that each flower has only 3 stigmas and harvesting these precious stigmas is so laborious.  Strange that we eat this crocus when the corms, seeds and leaves of the Autumn crocus (colchicum) are deadly poisonous.

With only 6 corms, somehow I don't think I'm going to be an overnight millionaire! However, I might have enough for a very small dish of saffron potatoes!

                                                                                                 Anyone for dinner?

More Autumn Colour

Too many colours to show in one post so, here's a collage. More photos can be seen here: And then the sun came out! I figured we need to make the best of some sunshine when autumn can be so dark and dank!

And then the mists lifted & the sun came out!

Back to Brassicas

January King

Bold Brassicas

Whilst other trees and plants are dazzling us with their colourful leaves, things in the vegetable patch are look a tad more somber! It would be more than a little worrying if the brassicas turned orange or red. Having said that, the chard is looking pretty colourful even though the cabbages remain merely green! We have January King's, Hispi's and some Purple Sprouting. They do get full marks for clinging on to water droplets! Chris gave us a rather agricultural bird scarer which spins round. Hopefully it'll deter thieving pigeons!

Dewy droplets

Pigeon prevention!