Yesterday I did a planting blitz and put in a Kakabeak (clianthus) in the rock garden along with a Ceanothus blue sapphire, to have natives beside the house. Lambs ears and snow in summer complete the ground covering.
There are now a few clumps of red hot pokers in my flaming bush bonfire bed.
Also I moved the Chinese Toon pink flamingo to the backyard by the rose border. It has no leaves yet but when it does it is spectacular, and it needs more room as was getting squashed by the arch.
I bought a bag of mulch which I will spread by the lemon tree, which isn now accompanied by a yellow Chinese Lantern. (Abutilon)
I noticed the white ornamental kale was completely eaten by bugs but they didn't touch the purple ones. Salvia has remained unscathed but it seems the chickens like to eat the lobelias? I scattered a packet of snow peas seeds by the fence along with a packet of salvia blue bedder in case..well you never know. My scattergun approach might work.
I moved the birds nest fern further back to where its more shady as it was getting a bit sun scalded and it now has a pink hellebore as a ground companion. The doodias I moved to the front as they don't mind a bit of sun.
All this rearranging seems a bit like tetris to me or a giant jigsaw puzzle, which plant goes where? But once they are all in the right spots the picture becomes clearer. Also, like a jigsaw puzzle there are still some gaps that need to be filled, but slowly and surely its coming along. Perhaps I can start a new trend for 'Jigsaw puzzle' gardening like the person who invented 'Square Foot Gardening' and write books on it.
Mum found a gardening book for me called 'Trees and Shrubs for Flowers' by Glyn Church that had wonderful photographs by Pat Greenfield. She said she picked it up from the side of the road, along with some cookbooks. I never would have thought Mum showed much interest in what I was doing but then she mentioned she liked strawflowers because they dry well. Well I am going to have to find them but I haven't seen them in the shops and my attempts at trying to grow them from seed have come to nothing.
Well I better go out there and mulch before the sun gets too hot and evaporates all the dew.
