Brighton Rock

I'm rubbish at growing things from seed. But I've been trying to get better, mostly in an effort to reduce the number of plastic pots I chuck away. So I always check out the seed shelves when I'm at a nursery. A coupla years ago, at Bunnings, I grabbed a promising looking packet of speckled snapdragon seeds, an old, presumably English variety called Brighton rock. I'd certainly never seen anything like them in the ready to grow punnets so I figured, for a couple of bucks they'd be worth a go. 

I managed to raise some in the fishtank-come-greenhouse and I planted them out into the garden where they did, absolutely nothing. For about a year and a half. Now, all of a sudden they've put on a burst of growth and begun to flower. Glorious, pink-specked yellow clusters of funny little dragon faces. Turns out they were totally worth the wait.

January moments

Cornflowers in the kids' corner.

Self seeding tomatillos to share.

Garden art.

And backyard lotus, one year on.

allium and roses

The gorgeous globes of the leeks have blammed into bloom. They're busy attracting insects and looking divine. I'm not sure why you'd want to pull them out before they flower. Unless it was to make something delicious, of course.

And here is a little something I threw together. Supermarket roses, sweetpeas and love in the mist seedpods.

And on the way out...

curry flowers and camouflaged crawlies

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the curry plant, after a winter of languishing miserably, put on the most tremendous flurry of new spring growth. And the new growth was topped with, for the first time ever, a burst of buds. Today, the first two flowers opened and my floral curiosity was assuaged. What little cuties!

And even better, as I was attempting to snap a pic of the little lovelies, I was lucky enough to spot (and photograph, badly) a stealthy little larvae of the green lacewing. You can kind of see it perched on the edge of a petal in the picture below, it looks like a dark blob. Anyway, I can't tell you how happy I am to see one of these guys in the garden. Although tiny, they're easily identified by the zippy way they scurry across leaves and by their fiendish outerwear. Lacewing larvae eat by sucking the bodily fluids from the aphids and whitefly they catch amongst the leaves. They then attach the dried, empty exoskeletal leftovers to spines on their backs to create a gruesomely awesome camouflage costume. Sort of like a bizarre cross between a trophy wall and an invisibility cloak. Harry Potter eat your heart out.

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Lacewings in general (order Neuroptera) are a pretty cool bunch.  Green lacewings belong to the family Chrysopidae. Their relatives in the Myrmeleontidae family, have a larval form known as antlions, which, for my money are pretty much the coolest pet a kid can have. Antions build conical nests in very dry fine soil or sand. The creature itself lies hidden under the sand at bottom of the cone which is cleverly engineered to have unstable sides that slip away at the slightest touch. Any small insect, usually an ant, that stumbles unwittingly into the trap is unable to gain purchase on the sloping sides and it slips down to the center and into the hungry jaws of the waiting antlion. Unlike its fashion-conscious cousins, the antlion has no use for the dried-out remnants of its finished prey so, once done eating it flicks the empty corpse fastidiously out of its nest. If you look closely at the outside of an antlion nest you can see the ground littered with black specks that used to be ants. 

In Queensland, where I grew up, you could find clusters of their cones in the soft dry soil under houses. Occasionally, I used collect them, gently scooping up the soil, cone and all and putting it in a container. Before long, my pet antlion would construct a new cone (really neat to watch) and lie quietly out of sight waiting for me to provide it with a steady supply unfortunate ants. It was a ghoulish but fascinating past time which I highly recommend to any curious backyard naturalist, large or small. 

But back to my current garden and the baby green lacewings, which I suspect arrived in order to feed on the horrible infestation of white fly and spider mites we have at the moment. I was actually thinking of ordering a batch of lacewing eggs (white blobs on stalks, picture below) from a company called Bugs for Bugs, who send out predatory insects via the mail to help produce growers and gardeners control the pests in their garden. I still might order some (nothing quite as exciting as receiving live insects in the post!) but I'm overjoyed to see the little critters showing up on their own. Their fascinating approach to fashion and murderously efficient eating habits make them a delight to have in the garden.  I'm also looking forward to seeing them develop into adults. 

Because it's not only the laval lacewings that are voracious predators. The adult green lacewings also gobble up backyard pests like aphids and whitefly. They're much prettier than their baby incarnation though. In fact, the aptly named, adult lacewings, with their delicate green bodies, gauzy wings and metallic poppy seed eyes, are one of my most favourite flying insects. And with a bit of luck I'll soon have lots of them fluttering around, feasting on pests and laying their eggs on the underside of my plants, so the whole cycle can start again. 

If you're curious to know more about the lovely lacewing, the Australian Museum website has a great info page, just click on through. 

Lacewing eggs. Photo from blackgold.bz

What a little cutie! Photo from scienceblogs.com

Occasional verse #6

The poppies for Remembrance Day,

Harboured a little stowaway,

Tucked out of sight, until we slept,

Then from her hiding place she crept,

And set to work, amidst the flowers,

To weave her lovely silken bower.

Next morn, when I came down the stairs,

I spied her sitting sweetly there.

But there the lady couldn’t stay,

The flowers were for school that day.

I picked her up and begging pardon,

Returned her gently to the garden.

Prettiness

Op shop vase with love in the mist, calendula, parsley (the world's most underrated cut flower), coriander, sweet peas and perennial peas. Grabbed in a rush from the garden, on the way home from the vet. So much loveliness.

five minutes of flower photos

It's been a dry and dusty few days here. Not unpleasant, but not much rain. We were on our way out for an early morning shop and as we left the house my handsome husband pulled on the windscreen washers to remove the layer of grit that was obstructing his vision. Only, after a wipe or two, it ran dry, leaving the windscreen a smudgy mess. He pulled over, fortuitously, outside the garden and while he refilled the windscreen reservoir with a watering can, I ran around taking flower photos. I couldn't help myself. Best pit stop ever.

and so it begins...

This time last year, my true love and I were packing for our honeymoon. We had originally hoped to be wed in the community garden but space restrictions and a growing guest list meant we moved the ceremony across the road to the velodrome (arguably an equally wonderful venue) and settled for post wedding champagne in the garden instead. 

As a result, I spent the months leading up to the wedding, beautifying our plot in particular and the garden in general. And I think now I will always associate the garden in September with the lead up to the wedding; planting, pruning, watching and guessing what would be out when.

Magically, the weeping cherry at the garden entrance burst into bloom just a day or so before our big day. Interestingly, this year it's not yet flowering. I can't however, recall what the sweet peas were doing last year on my wedding day. I had a sweetpea from the florist in my hair and they were in the bouquets and in the table arrangements but strangely, I can't remember if they had started flowering in the garden or not. This week, however, exactly one year on, I noticed the very first of them, waving sweetly in the breeze.

Spring Bling

First day of spring and the garden in general is blossoming. The orchard is awash with pink and white with an under-carpet of sunny English marigolds. Brassica and rocket are bolting all over the place in a blaze of yellow and white. Pink pigface spill over and lavender spikes form a cloud of grey blue at the entrance.

Our plot has been soooo slow it's been quite depressing but things are finally starting to happen there too. A few flowers here and there to keep the spirits up... calendula for the most part - I hacked them back today in the hope that they'll bounce back even better in a couple of weeks. Nigella, chamomile and sweet peas are finally getting their act together, the poppies have buds and the broad beans are cranking at last. Cosmos springing up here and there too. Tiny self-seeding speckled lettuce were relocated from the patch where they'd sprung up in a bunch and popped throughout our plot (and the garden in general) to add a bit of leafy colour as well. Fingers crossed for a good few weeks of growing and it might even look good for the wedding on October 5th.

 

The Darling Blooms

Of course, it's not all about poppies down at the garden. All sorts of things are looking pretty. Quite a few of them even make their way into vases in my house. As previously mentioned I tend to hang onto bunches of flowers longer than necessary. Call me morbid but I like watching the way they change at they fade and fall. 

Stars of the garden and the vases this spring have been the sweet peas but the poppies, broccoli and kale, lavender and lately the flowering spikes of the rainbow chard have been putting in a sterling effort. Here, for your viewing pleasure, are the pick of the bunch for 2012.