Thinning Water Lilies

Here's how to thin water lilies  -- notice that none are growing on the corral side of this tank.

Garden Tour

The Garden was looking quite good today and I had just got my little palm corder out so I decided to do a little video of the gardens. I hope you enjoy it xxx

A few Photos of Autumn in South Australia

I understand how different it is in the Northern Hemisphere to come to terms with us being in Autumn down here in South Australia but it is a fact and I hope you like this little bit of Autumn colour to enjoy along with your Spring colour.
Milli. 11

Hens and Chicks

In the late winter our beautiful hen, Lois, died and our other beautiful hen, Francine, became ill but luckily she recovered.  I don't want to talk about the illnesses, other than the one cool thing that came from it was when we took Francine to the veterinary hospital we saw this gorgeous golden eagle with a broken wing in this photo with my son.

The eagle is expected to make a full recovery.

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As I said, Francine recovered with lots of care from us, and this is the first photo of took of her upon her recovery.  She followed us out front as we were gardening and I thought she looked lovely in this splash of sunlight under the Japanese maple trees with the crocuses.

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Chickens are flocking birds so we knew we had to adopt some friends for her.

Bonnie is a Buff Orpington, same as Francine and Lois, Kendra and Debbie are Silver Laced Wyandottes and will grow up to have black edged feathers with white centers.

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At first I had hoped Francine would raise the chicks but she's not mentally prepared to do that, so we're hand raising them just like we did our first clutch of chicks.  She's interested in the chicks so as long as she remains non-aggressive toward them we'll allow "Supervised Visits."  These also make for good photo ops!

Yes, being this close to Easter I can't resist putting Easter Eggs in the photo!  Can you see Debbie and Kendra on the right side of the photo?

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Here's Francine getting up close with Bonnie

Although Francine looks intense, I like to think she's saying to Bonnie,

Happy Easter!

Early April at the Rockin' Heart

Finally getting the yard in decent shape. 2 college girls cleaning the flower beds sure helped. Our weather is very up and down. Record heat one day and near or at freezing the next night. I know I'm jumping the gun on putting some of the potted things out but took advantage of the time this morning before the winds hit. It is dry and windy. Red flag fire warnings for next 3 days. We are really dry.

Water Harvesting

I thought you might be interested, I finally got the water harvesting system set up in the side yard today.

I can now collect 1350 gallons of rain water to irrigate my fruit and veg during the summer.

The water is collected in these 2 barrels and pumped up into>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> These 2 tanks, the top tank fills first then has an over flow which transfers the water to the lower tank.  I'm gona grow a clematis over these as they are not very attractive LOL.

I still have to put in the water distribution system around the garden, when that's done I should be able to water the whole of the fruit and veg garden automatically by opening one tap on the lower tank. With water as expensive as it is today this will save me a lot of money on watering my crops.

March zone 8/9

Her first bud of the year. I moved her to a sunnier location last fall, hoping she performs well this year.

Just a few things startign to bloom and grow

Basics for all ornamental pruning

http://extension.missouri.edu/publications/DisplayPub.aspx?P=G6870
Stumbled upon this while reading about butterfly bushes. Did ya know there's a yellow one? But that's off topic.

It sprung, Spring did

Paperwhite. Someone had forced bulbs late last year, missed this one and gave it to me thinking it may be dead.

Just a few shots I took while tending the yard.

Winters End

Harbingers of Spring in an English Garden 25/2/2011