Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to start the fernery, since the neighbours cut down their camellia bush and privet tree, the south side of the house hasn't been getting all day shade anymore and now has the harshest afternoon sun.
But determined to have a garden, I battled on. Now the area is mulched with river stones on top of shredded library papers. I have installed a soaker hose and double tap for irrigation. Margaret gave me three ferns that had sprung up on the side of her house. I am considering mulching the bed again with charcoal left over from the barbeque, that now has a fine array of plants in their early stages of growth. Beth's donations are also doing well. They survived the chicken siege.
Such botanic diversity! In a 1 metre by 5 metre area I have the following plants -
Bromeliads
Wandering Willie
Fruit Salad Plant
Impatiens
Jade Plant
Begonia
Granny's Bonnet
Dumb cane
Jasmine
Cabbage Tree
Spider Plant
Aeonioum
Cuphea
Bird's nest fern
Hen and chickens fern
Boston fern
Ponga fern
Silver Fern
Mirror plant
Rosemary
Maidenhair Fern
And several others. All I need is a climber to complete the picture and thinking of a native clematis although probably a ficus primula would be better but I got that one growing by the steps instead. I see you can espalier camellia but ours is in the wrong spot. Mum hacked it back and it responded by growing even more bushy. I suppose I will need to take some photos later to record my progress. I guess its hard for people to like you on Facebook when you've got no photos to show anyone and can't say 'look at moi' "look at moi' all the time, people have got to take time to read. But I think to myself, well, if they wanna see my garden for real they will just have to make the effort to come and see it for themselves, and that's how I know people are genuine readers who care about plants rather than rubbernecking Facebook busybodies.
I'm too busy gardening to take pictures of the bunny that look like Socks. (If Socks was a bunny). I'm sure if I did post a picture and labelled it THIS IS THE BUNNY THAT LOOKS LIKE SOCKS THE CAT REINCARNATED. It would get many likes, especially if I posted a picture of Socks right next to it. But it's Dad who takes the photos, not me. I will be in the middle of doing something and Dad would have spent all day on the computer organising his photos with captions and everything, and he's not even on Facebook. He will say 'Come look at this' and all it will be is a photo of Martha when Martha is sitting right there where I can see her in the flesh. I think five months working 8 hours a day at a photo library computer keywording is enough to put anyone off taking photos and captioning them for life. The world already has enough photos. I am not going to add to the pile and demand everyone see them.
