on the road again

All preparations are finished and I am about to climb on my bike and head off to Sydney in a day or so. It is not a long ride at all, only about 300km of cycling but I intend to have a few days camping here and there along the way so it could take anywhere from 10 days to a month depending on what captivates me. For a change I may use an inland route, through rural farmlands ,instead of the usual coastal path I have ridden so often before. It may be that it is just too hot to go inland, as it is now in the hottest part of the year, where temperatures often top 40C or +/-100f  and higher and seldom going below 30 - 35C. Being peak season the cooler coast is busy with both cars and  people and the thought of free camping along rivers and the quiet of the countryside instead is very appealing.
 

I will mostly camp, as I go, in forestry areas , National parks and If I take the inland route - camp on riverbanks and waysides which always gives me a feel of adventure. I take all sorts of things  with me apart from my camera of course I am hoping to get in a bit of reading, take photos, fish, write a little, explore places that interest me and hopefully meet some locals along the way.  I will too of course have an mp3 player for my music - it has FM so I can keep up to date with whats happening about the world which is another bonus.

I have not been on multiply very much of late so far as creating blogs, commenting on blogs or photo albums etc. There has been too much happening in my daily life both with my time and head-space so have not really participated except for looking at what everyone is posting. Anyway when settled in Sydney I will most likely get back into the swing of things and motivated toward creating more posts. En route, I will find some internet cafe's and post updates on my progress and keep you up to date - make all you in the Northern Hemisphere envious the warm summer we are enjoying down here while you enjoy the ice and snow.

So in the words of one of my favourites, Willie Nelson I say farewell see you in a month or so ....

"On the Road again -
just can't wait to get on the Road again......."

Keith                              

Photos from Mia's Garden, January -09

Just testing my new camera around our garden.

A Very Merry Guru Christmas

From Garden to Garden,

and Heart to Heart,

from one Guru to another.

The Warmth and Joy of Christmas,

brings us Closer to each other.

To all Garden Gurus, both far and wide, across our home - Earth.

May we all have much pleasure this Christmas as we celebrate the

birth of the greatest Garden Guru of us all - ever!. Have a

wonderful festive family time!

Merry Christmas Gurus!

from

Gurus Keith and Milli

Frosty foliage and flowers

I took these photos two and a half weeks ago! Then my laptop died and I kind of forgot about them, oops!

The morning after I took my Frozen Desert photos there was still a lot of humidity in the air, combine that with freezing temperatures and we had a beautiful frost! In this photo in particular the frost looks more like sugar crystals than ice crystals. Some of my Japanese maple leaves fell down and landed on my mums, I thought it was quite pretty.

 

 

 

 

Here's a frosty echinecea seed head with just a few petals left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the same red rose that you saw in the previous post topped with snow.

 

 

 

These are my neighbors' red maple leaves that blew into our yard! I guess I can't complain too much cuz I took some nice photos of them, and later I used them to mulch some of my flower beds.

 

 

 

 

I've noticed that water on the back side of red maple leaves bead up, look out how the beads froze in this photo! Cool, yes?

 

 

 

 

Lastly, here's some Japanese maple leaves that had fallen on my sweet alyssum. I thought about using this image in my blog's title line/box, right under where it says "Amy's Ukalichick's Que Syrah, Syrah!" but above my greetin but not in the box that says, "Welcome to my site". Can anyone tell me how to do it? I haven't figured it out yet. EDIT: Never mind, I figured it out.

 

Thanks!

First snow!

Our first snow was actually yesterday morning, so although I took these photos yesterday I was too busy cleaning up from our weekend celebrations to post them. LOL! Better late than never, right?

I got up just before dawn so I could take some photos before getting the boys off to school. This is our swimming pool and deck--does it look inviting? Don't you wanna jump right in? LOL.

For a short while it actually snowed pretty well, which was fun for the boys who have never seen snow falling before. Earlier in the fall we had some flurries that melted instantly, but not like this.

 

 

I let Casey out on the balcony and he seemed to actually enjoy the snow! Can you Alan in the photo down on the ground? Casey probably would have stayed out on the balcony all morning if I hadn't picked him up and brought him in. And his little feet were so cold!

 

 

 

 

Should I prune my roses?  Back in the San Francisco Bay Area we don't prune roses until the end of January, but I don't know about my new colder climate.

 

 

 

 

 

Soon after the boys left for school the sky cleared up and I knew I had only a short time left to photograph the snow before it all melted.

 

 

 

 

Is this a bird bath or a bird ice skating rink? I feel like I should get a miniature Zamboni.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I continue to be amazed by how beautiful and healthy my sage looks in spite of the constant frost, freezes, and now snow!

 

 

 

 

My mums are looking tired, but they are pretty topped with snow.

 

 

The snow was all gone by 10am but it was fun while it lasted.

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed my photos!

 

Gardening on an Island

                                                                       

 

 

One has to adjust their approach to gardening when you live on this Island. First it is because of the non-existent topsoil, just a heavy yellow clay that bakes and cracks in the summer and becomes a sticky yellow porridge in the winter. Then there are the wallabies who, though they prefer grass, like to try their taste buds on maybe something more exotic, so there is a need for fencing. Our reliance on rain-water means that water often is used twice over, once for the washing of whatever, second for the gardens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then there are the Wekas, a native bird about the size of a small hen that The Department of Conservation have released here to breed and later have some of their progeny released back to the Mainland. Those birds can make their way under fences to scratch a garden into oblivion in the early dawn before the dog is awake to chase them away. There are rats and opossums too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Various gardeners overcome these challenges to grow more than shrubs or trees in different ways. Some build big chicken-netting cages, like a bird aviary and plant inside. Some make timber walled gardens. Some put up chicken netting around their more precious plants, but most of us plant into big tubs that are high enough to keep their claws out. Tubs also mean that we have imported good soil/compost for them and watering is monitored with minimum wastage.

 

 

 

 

I have given up hoping to harvest strawberries from either the garden or in tubs, because the Wekas smell them out. Instead they sit safe in their plastic bags, high on the terrace handrail.  The potted lavender is to attract the bees their way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

.

 

Island Gardeners

.

“This time I insist

I really do, please resist

introducing any tree or plant

that needs anything more

than a hole and stake”

.

But gardeners are surprisingly deaf

to listening to their common sense

- each week hidden kilos of rich potting-mix

weigh down your back-packs

- and the tree stuffed, oh so casually

into the bottom of a Woolworth’s bag

is not a Pohutakawa or Callistimon,

it’s another tender green experiment

and under your breath you’re repeating

over and over, this is the very last time,

it won’t happen again.

Some nice Hibiscus

I have heard about a place in Brazil,where they have cultivated,more then 2500 different kind of Hibiscus.
In my Nursery,i just had this few ones,you can see at this Pictures

Winter in Bavaria

Strange and unusual Flowers

Outside,the first snow is falling. - I have nothing to do,so i surfed around a little bit,to get a touch of warmth.
On my Way,i passed a link,where i saw the following amazing Pictures. I couldnt avoid,to share them with you.
If you want to know more about,you can copy the following Link:
http://www.funonthenet.in/articles/unusual-plants.html

Organic Treatment for a Feng Shui cure

One of the few things that I don't like about my new house is the dining nook.  It's placement in the kitchen fits in well with our entertaining style, everyone gathers around and watches Chad cook, but the nook itself is too small and feels like a pass through to the back yard. Its chandelier is uninspired and the window treatments are fine but a bit "sweet." On the feng shui floor plan it's located in the "Creativity" area, which makes these problems nearly disastrous for a photographer/ceramicist/artist.  I'm looking for the perfect chandelier but I haven't found it yet, and I can't put up new curtains until Casey matures a bit and won't climb them. In the mean time I thought it would be clever to make a rosemary topiary to enhance this area.

Putting a cooking herb in a dining nook seems like a natural enhancement. I love fresh rosemary but it doesn't always overwinter well in this climate so bringing it indoors is a good idea and making it into a topiary is creative.  It's still a young topiary so it's a bit sparse on top, but it will have a ball on top to match the ball on the bottom. Round shapes, the color white, and the number three are all good elements for this area. So, I'm training the topiary into round balls (I'll probably eventually add a third ball to the top of it), I put it in a round white pot and placed it on a three tiered round white marble table. I topped the soil with decorative pebbles, three relatively large pebbles surrounded by smaller ones.

Everything was great until the autumn sun lowered in the sky until it stopped coming through the window all together.  At that point, the topiary developed powdery mildew.  The general treatment for powdery mildew is to give the plant good air flow and sunlight, so I took it outside on mild days. But now the weather is colder so I had to come up with a more aggressive treatment. 

I looked at some of my older books on houseplants and they said the treatment for powdery mildew is to cut out and burn the affected areas of the plant and then spray harsh chemicals. Whoa! That sounds like overkill to me! First of all, I'm trying to create a topiary so I'm not very willing to cut out large sections of the plant. Second of all, powdery mildew isn't THAT serious of a problem.

So, I checked out some organic gardening websites and they said that the bad news is there is no cure for powdery mildew, but the good news is that it's easily kept under control and it's not a very serious problem. OK, that's more I like it. They suggested mixing 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda into a quart of water and spraying it onto the plant. If I had known the treatment was going to work so quickly I would have taken a "before" shot! "Before" it was covered with a white powder, the very next day it looks perfectly healthy! Woo hoo!