Paper Removal

Spent some time sitting in the sun removing paper:

Although the sun went behind a cloud as I took the photo, so you will just have to believe me about the sunniness.

It was quite a peaceful way to spend an hour or so. I used the tweezers from my Swiss Army knife to get the pesky little bits that get caught in the corners.

Sweet Peas for Jenni

Five stems of sweet peas, five different colours:

White, light pink, light purple, dark purple, and dark red.

I meant to take these with me today to give to the friend who gave me the seeds, but forgot! So the photo will have to do. It doesn't smell as nice as the real thing, though.

What's in Flower - Last Day

Today is the last full day I will own my house. Many plants have started flowering since I did my "What's in Flower" post for September, so here's a round-up of what is flowering on the last day in my garden:

Yellow gum, Eucalyptus leucoxylon 'Eukie Dwarf'':

Thickleaf aeonium, Aeonium arboreum:

One of the plums still has blossom:

Dusky coral pea, Kennedia rubicunda:

Grevillea "John Evans":

Callistemon:

There are two others with lots of buds but no flowers at the moment.

Flax-lily (Dianella):

Not sure exactly which species of flax-lily this one is.

Only buds on the Cordyline stricta:

This one is not really mine, it grows through the fence from the neighbour's garden. When it finishes flowering I usually cut it back to the fence line.

I've always called it a "may flower", but Google tells me it might be a dwarf flowering almond, Prunus glandulosa. What would you call it?

Jasmine (Jasminum officinale) flowers still looking and smelling wonderful:

Rosemary, not quite in focus. Sorry, it was a bit windy when I took some of these photos.  But at least is wasn't pouring with rain as it did later in the day.

French lavender, Lavendula dententa:

The lavender which grew as a seedling also is a French lavender.

It has much longer stems than the other one. I've taken a few cuttings from it.

Spanish lavender, Lavendula stoechus, has just started flowering:

Verbena "Candy Cane" has one branch where the flowers are not candy canes at all:

I've taken cuttings of this, so it will be interesting to see what colour flowers I get.

Fringe flower, Loropetalum chinense var rubrum,

Bethel sage, Salvia involucrata 'Bethelii', is almost finished:

I've taken lots of cuttings from it, as I haven't seen it for sale anywhere recently. I don't remember where I bought it originally.

If I had known exactly where the bulbs were, I would have dug these freesias up while they were dormant and taken them with me. The huge one (flowers up to 50cm above the ground) with a tendency to strange numbers of petals:

and the unusual variegated one:

Pink Spanish "Bluebells", Hyacinthoides hispanica:

Snowball buds, Viburnum opulus var. sterile:

Red valerian or kiss-me-quick, Centranthus ruber, also only buds at the moment:

Indian Hawthorn, Rhaphiolepis indica:

And finally ipheon stars, or spring stars, Ipheion uniflorum:

The light purple ones are also still in flower, but they tend to look white in photos anyway.

So that's it for my old garden! All these plants except the plum tree and the jasmine were planted by me, or came up of their own accord since the garden has been mine. I'll miss this garden, but look forward to creating a new one from scratch next year.

Spring Cleaning

On Thursday three guys came with a truck and took away some furniture I had sold. No photos, I was too busy being amazed at how inefficiently they worked.

On Friday, two more guys came to collect stuff I am keeping, and take it to where it will be stored:

I'd definitely recommend "Man with a Van", they were fast and efficient!

Early Saturday morning, evidence that it must be spring - about 5 hot-air balloons floated past, although they were very low and losing altitude. They looked like they were about to land in the next street!

After that excitement, we sorted out the cuttings I've taken of new spring growth from my old garden:

Hopefully some of them will strike.

Later, it was back to the old house to meet the rubbish-collecting guy:

Sadly my old lounge suite had to go to the tip. I tried to sell it, and tried to give it away. The rubbish guy said it was the heaviest lounge suite he'd ever moved; they built them to last in the 1930s.

Sewing at 2am

Last night I couldn't sleep. My mind was thinking about all the things still in my house, the things I need to do before removalists come today, the things I don't want to keep but haven't been able to even give away.

I tried reading to take my mind off everything, but found myself reading a page several times to try and understand it. I was reading the words, but my mind wasn't concentrating on the book.

Eventually I got up and went to my sewing machine, and made another "Wild & Goosey" block section:

Just one was enough. The gentle process of choosing a fabric, stitching it into place, trimming the seam, then choosing the next fabric, took my mind off everything else that had been churning around. The loungeroom clock struck 2 as I stitched the last seam, and I was able to go back to bed and fall asleep.

Wild and Goosey

For the first time in a while I sat down at my machine today and did a little patchwork:

Very little!

The Wild and Goosey pattern is designed by Bonnie Hunter, and was published in Quiltmaker magazine last year. Here's Bonnie's blog post about it at the time, where you can see what the finished block looks like:
Wild and Goosey Time with Quiltmaker.

Andee at The Modern Diary has been making one block a week between all her other sewing, and gradually is accumulating enough to make a quilt. I've been admiring hers for a while, and when she recently posted a link to the pdf file of the paper-piecing pattern at Quiltmaker, I downloaded it. You can find the link in Andee's post here:
Wild and Goosey Check In and More.

So today I took a short sanity break from packing etc, and used some little scraps to assemble these two sections (less than half of one block). Don't hold your breath as you wait for them to become a whole block!

Hello World

The first flower on my sweet peas is almost open.

I'm still here, but life is a bit of a blur at the moment. Settlement on my house is in just under two weeks. After that I should be able to return to regular posting.

Shot Cottons

This selection of Kaffe Fassett shot cottons arrived in the post today:

Colours look better in real life! It is a kit sold by Craftsy to make a quilt for their "Continuous Line Quilting" class. I was intending to just use fabric I had, but then they marked the kit down by 60% a couple of weeks ago. That was a bit irresistible! The postage was a bit steep, but even so it was a pretty good deal. Sixteen different fat quarters (US size), 2.75 yds (2.5m) for backing, and .5yd (45cm) for binding, making a total of 7.25 yards or 6.6m of these lovely fabrics. The shot-ness (different colours depending on how the light hits it) should really come to life when they are quilted.

What's in Flower - September

This is the last of these monthly garden round-up posts from my old garden. By this time next month, it won't be mine any more.

Here's what is welcoming spring.

Jasmine (Jasminum officinale) flowers looking and smelling wonderful:

Ipheon stars, or spring stars (Ipheion uniflorum) in three different colours:

Light purple (this colour is nothing like their real shade).

Darker purple (not blue as it looks here).

White.

Violets (Viola odorata):

A puzzling freesia:

 Freesias have six petals, so what is going on with this one? If it isn't a freesia, where did it come from?

Fringe flower, Loropetalum chinense var rubrum, with its leaves looking much greener than they do most of the year:

Bethel sage (Salvia involucrata 'Bethelii':) is almost finished:

Arum lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica), not planted by me, but it appears between the other plants from time to time:

Verbena "Candy Cane" starting to flower again after a rest over winter:

That answers the question I asked back in January. I'd seen one Australian website describe this cultivar as an annual, and a UK one call it a "half-hardy perennial".  I think we can safely say that it is not an annual.

Masses of lavender:

Rosemary seems to never stop flowering:

Crassula ovata just about finished

Mexican sage (Salvia leucantha) also just about over:

 Shocking photo, sorry. It was blowing around but I thought I did have it in focus.

The very last of the Bergenia:

Vireya "Clare Crouch":

Blood plum:

I was obviously cheating when I included the buds of this thickleaf aeonium, Aeonium arboreum, last month, because they still haven't begun to open:

Another plum, not as tasty, but OK for jam:

Callistemon:

Dusky coral pea (Kennedia rubicunda):

Grevillea "John Evans":

Another callistemon with redder flowers. Only a couple of open ones, up very high. Lots of buds though!

And I know there are white jonquils and some flowers on my yellow gum, but somehow I missed them when taking the photos.

Happy spring from my old garden!