Wonderful to be alive!

Red Rhodie just coming out.

Delicious it was too!

I put rosemary in here to keep the weeds down and soften the hard edge. It needed help so in went a whole lot of red geranium cuttings. Starting to look better. I tucked in some yellow sedum, a type of succulent underneath. Will grow low and the yellow will compliment the very blue rosemary and the red G.

One of our white chooks, Dumb and dumber we call them and Big J also known as Julia. They are standing on a chook fodder cage I made out of rigid mesh. I sowed and planted their favourite foods in here. They grow and as they poke their heads through the chooks eat them. But the chooks cannot scratch and kill the plants, so they have greens all year round.

These are our Blueberry plants, all 8 of them. Loaded with fruit and in need of netting. Soon precious!

Blasted Choughs!

They are mad about our windows. Not to try to fly through but to attack reflection rivals. This one is on a decoy mirror we put away from the house. It goes at it for ages.

Crumpet and baby doing well.

Serena getting ready to lay an egg.

Plumpet and her brood are doing really well. She is taking them out to mix with the big girls now. A few altercations, mostly Plumpet getting belted up by her grown up brood. Seems strange but there you go!

See the Lavender Aracauna in the front. Starting to get its head crest of feathers. Lovely grey legs it has too.

Thanks for looking.
Dayla

bird netting for fruit trees

Polypipe cut at 7 metre lengths and threaded over star pickets makes the structure. We read about it on Scarecrows blog.

The pipe was rural water pipe for drainage. Star pickets 5'6".

We think 7 metres was the maximum you should cut it at as some of the pieces have bent over a bit under the heat and/or weight of the netting. We could drill holes in the top of the pipe and thread wire through. Tying off lengths the same distance apart as the star pickets. This would keep them evenly spaced and upright. But our step ladder is a bit too short for M to reach the top.

Here it is with the net put over. Took a couple of weeks to sew up the holes as it is second hand vineyard net. But it was easy to put up with just 2 of us.

We tied lengths of baling twine to the side at various intervals. The net was laid long ways. I was over the fence pulling the net up and M fed it up and over the hoops with and ingenious device I made out of a small bucket type container wired onto the end of a long stake, so it wouldn't snag the net.

Yesterday we worked like dogs and mowed and mulched and planted out lots of small stuff in here. The plan is to make it a food forest and get rid of the grass entirely.

We planted lots of herbs and flowers in here too, to help with insect attracting, diversity and colour.
We may need to bring the hoops closer together next year but we'll see how things go for now.
Time to think about netting the blueberry patch now.
Seeya,
Dayla

more chooky pictures

Have I mentioned yet that I love chooks?

Silver campine chick at 8 days old.

3 silver campine chicks

little lavender aracauna peeking out

So cute!

Julia on the left and grandma

lucky

Serena

the ranga, she lets me carry her around. She is a nice chook.

more soon, hope you can stand it.
Dayla

I love my garden

A wonderful show from this mollis azalea. It is such a pick me up after a long cold Winter

This one looks like fire in the background. Fairly hidden it is.

This is my original cymbidium orchid. The flowers were so unblemished this year. The plant was undercover almost as soon as the buds appeared.

Pear blossom and butterfly. We will have a handful of pears from our tree this year. First time!

Veggie garden a few weeks ago now. Fabulous azalea peaking through the back. I cut the rhododendrons back last year as they were smothering it, and now am being rewarded with a great show.

We put this old swing frame into the veg garden and will use it as a climbing frame for some smaller pumpkins, cucumbers and tomatoes. Good for throwing a net over too. What else are we going to do with the thing anyway?

looking across the garlic crop, it is doing well.

The garden out the back door. It has really come on this second year. The ajuga with the purple spikes on the ground was stunning. Orchids really love it here too.

I took a photo of this just before I cut it down. Wisteria on a tree is bad news for the tree. Above ground and underground. It has such an extensive root system and are very hard to kill. Can take years of cutting and painting with Glyphosate. So we pulled down what we could and am retraining it away from the tree and onto the boundary fence where is can go along and look lovely there.

Dayla

photos of the garden

Our house. This time next year it should be much closer and turned 90 degrees. Making it solar passive.

pink azalea

driveway garden

I love this view.

Goodenia ovata is a local native plant. We have lots of them popping up all over. I love em!

Hibiscus in the background coming into leaf looks delightful in the bright sunshine

Babianas growing in a window box.

red and white azaleas are eye catching. This bed will have to be demolished to make way for the truck to pick the house up. We will do it in Autumn so the plants don't die, hopefully!

lots of colour

I never tire of this view.

Dayla

Crumpets turn at being a mother

Here is Crumpet and her chick.

In the bath together

Our fabulous Waratah!

my desktop picture

yellow evergreen Azalea

So delightful