In the summer garden...

[hazelrunpack]

We ended up with more than 20 inches...and I took some pics...just haven't had time to process them and post 'em. Maybe tomorrow... Tonight, though, I'm basking in your roses and pansies and petunias.

[Love4himies]

Originally Posted by Goldfields

Love4himies, I'd swap those deer for the the thousands of locusts that could arrive from up north and eat ALL my garden.

I am wondering how much quicker this critter can eat my garden than those locusts DH took this from our front steps this morning

[chico2]

A L4 that's adorable,they can come here and eat my garden anytime
I'd take deer before locust for sure..

[Love4himies]

Originally Posted by chico2

A L4 that's adorable,they can come here and eat my garden anytime
I'd take deer before locust for sure..

I would too, they are so wonderful to watch, just like horses

[Goldfields]

Love4himies, that fawn could NOT compete with locusts on this scale.
http://www.mailtimes.com.au/
Just hope that if the swarm leaves there it heads away from us. There is a swarm so huge up near the border of New South Wales that it shows up on the weather radar like a fairly stationary storm.
Halls Gap, where the boys are in that photo, is in the Grampian mountain Range just 30 miles from us. See one of their stories is that snow might fall there this weekend. I just love this crazy Spring and Summer we are having due to a La Nina weather event.


We have had kangaroos in our front garden but the only deer I've seen here was a solitary male that just came and stood on the corner of the forest before disappearing back into it.

[Goldfields]

Okay, I figure you have seen enough snow, time for more colour again. An orange Daylily, another sunflower, and the David Austin rose, Tamora.

[Goldfields]

First rose here, with resident mosquito and other little flying insect, is Seduction. (We have so many mozzies due to our wet year, I feel like I'm in the Canadian wilderness. LOL.)
Next is the David Austin, Golden Celebration.
Have to include another photo of Gold Bunny really doing its thing. I love the frilly petals on this one.

[Goldfields]

I'm hoping these Xmas lilies will last a few more days.
Next another David Austin, Lady of Megginch, then Cabana, one of my favorites.

[Goldfields]

Next is the beautiful rose, Adolf Horstman. Then the gorgeous DA rose, Brother Cadfael. My one gripe about this one is that certain weather conditions cause it to ball and not open.
Can't get away from the sunflowers. Each year I plan on planting more of them, each year I feel I haven't planted enough.

[Goldfields]

A change now, a pink Zinnia. These are great but if I grow them again I have to figure out how to prevent slugs(?) eating the leaves.
Then the always superb Makybe Diva, followed by a yellow zinnia this time. And that's enough sunshine and flowers for today I hope.

[hazelrunpack]

Very colorful! I think I'm about ready to post some snow pics...I have lots, though, so I'll try to split them into smaller groups and post a few a day.

So what makes a Dave Austin rose a Dave Austin rose?

I never had slug problems with zinnias...well, not that I noticed, anyway. There might have been the odd one in there. Slugs love beer. If you take a small bowl or margarine container and set it in the ground with the lip level to the surface, and fill it with beer, the slugs will actually crawl into it and drown. Hey, what can I say? The dang sots!!! Serves 'em right!

[Goldfields]

You asked what makes a David Austin rose a David Austin rose. He is an English rose breeder who, for 4 decades, has crossed a selection of modern roses with some of the single blooming old roses.(To quote an authority.) A new type of rose that combines the quartered form and rich perfume of old roses with the repeat flowering characteristic of modern roses. He mentions that one DA, named Gertrude Jekyll , has a scent that is true damask and that after 400 years, Attar of Roses is again being made in England for the perfume industry and Gertrude Jekyll is the maker's choice. I have that rose, when it blooms again I must smell it. It's a sign of having a bad back if you don't stop to smell the roses. I was delighted when I made the effort to smell Fisherman's Friend, it has a wonderful perfume, and Sharifa Asma - Wow!

@your comment about drunken slugs. This is one Aussie couple who never touch beer, I don't suppose wine would do it? Thanks for the tip.

[hazelrunpack]

I don't think wine would do it, but give it a whirl! The good part about it is that if the beer loses its fizz, the slugs don't seem to mind too much...

Were you able to open any of the snow pics I posted?

[Goldfields]

Hazel, I started to look at your photo's but simply ran out of time, sorry. Had to shop yesterday and apart from that every spare daylight hour seems to be taken up with watering, or picking up fairy grass seedheads. I'll show you what happens if you don't pick them up and bag them, your garden disappears under them. The dam is full of them, hardly any clear water for the ducks now. It's not just a year of plenty here, we have had too much of everything. Rain, mosquitoes, the fairy grass and the locusts. Oops, nearly forgot the mouse plague. Anyway, ordinarily, when we get average rain, I would be finished mowing and weeding, but now I'm trying to do everything at once . It's hard yakka. Can't leave the fairy grass to mount up though, it is a terrible fire risk, very inflammable. I shall hopefully find time to view your snowy scenes soon and would love to right now, it is quite hot here. Hope you and yours have a great Xmas, and that wish extends to anyone else who might read this.

[Goldfields]

Oh, forgot to mention that the locusts are here now, here's a shot of some warming themselves on the concrete.

Re the fairy grass. I have to get every bit of it out of the area where my shelties are exercised because with Dundee unable to blink or shut one of his eyes, and who knows he may be blind in it, I can't risk him getting a poke in it with the brittle stalk of a grass head. It built up both sides of the gate on Thursday so after an exhausting day in town I had to bag the rotten stuff up and it seemed to take forever.

[hazelrunpack]

That sounds awful, GF! Hope you get some time tomorrow to enjoy Christmas!!

[chico2]

OMG Goldfields,I've never even heard of fairy-grass but I can see how it would cause a problem.
Those Locusts look huge,I am sorry you have all these problems,kind of hard to enjoy the summer.
The kitty is beautiful though
MERRY CHRISTMAS!

[Goldfields]

I must show you how bad some are getting the locusts. On the map here

http://www.countryenergy.com.au/content/stormtracker

the towns of Mildura, Swan Hill and Albury mark the border between my State, Victoria, and New South Wales. The rain shows up green, BUT that patch of "rain" to the left of Albury is not rain, it is locusts and has been there for probably a week or more. It is 3 or 4 times bigger than what you see, because with a dull overcast day they don't swarm much until it warms up. Yesterday had them down almost on a level with Bendigo. ( I live incidentally about under the H in Horsham.)

I don't know what's worse though, the cloud of mosquitoes I was walking through this morning when I checked the garden, or the cloud of locusts that fly up. The dogs hate seeing me approach them with the Aerogard, poor babies, but I can't see them covered with mozzies, especially their dear faces.
The ducks have evidently accepted the fairy grass in the dam, judging by the photo here. You know, I once drove up near Albury to have a bitch mated and there was countless miles where fairy grass seed heads were blowing non-stop across the road. That's okay, but if you stop the car your hot exhaust will set fire to it. A bus set fire to it on the highway over near Horsham and started a big grass fire . Dreadful stuff!! My cats can hardly get away from it, I imagine all the places they may like to sleep in the garden now are full of the rotten stuff.
The locusts are big and fat, Chico. A V line (railway) bus pulled into a car wash 40 mile from here and his whole windscreen was so covered in yellow muck from splattered locusts that they said you couldn't tell it was a V line bus. Worse for him because it's a flat windscreen, a lot glance off our station wagon's sloped windscreen. Added a rose photo taken this morning to show that the leaves are being eaten by locusts. (top right.)

Thanks for the lovely Xmas wish, Chico, gorgeous cats!
Hazel, if only it would rain I could get out and finish mowing the nature strip. The grass grew too high in one part and now has fairy grass stuck through it, which I can't mow while it's so dry.
Did I mention that I hate Summer? LOL. Not as much as our neighboring farmer though, who is out frantically stripping a crop on Xmas Day, ahead of any rain.

[Goldfields]

Do you think this bee on the sunflower made it back to the hive with that big load of pollen?

The red rose here is a mystery rose, given to me when a friend of my sister decided to cull some roses. He couldn't recall its name.

Third photo is a corner of my garden that is going wild. Agapanthas, Cliveas, Echiums, Belladoona lilies, white lilacs and a rose running rampant, but I like it like that.

[Goldfields]

I should be outside working but I spent the morning filling stock troughs and making sure 8 big fodder rolls were put where I want them in the paddocks, I needed a rest. Lovely weather I hate to tell you all, 24C and sunny.
Two photo's here of DA roses, the white one named Lichfield Angel, and the other is the fragrant red, Fisherman's Friend. Then another pretty double Hollyhock.

[Goldfields]

Just Joey is having its second flush of flowers. Sun Blessed is never so extravagant, and the Sweet Peas are getting towards the end, sad to say.

[Goldfields]

Beautiful blue Nigella, a different Penstemon (named but I'm too lazy to go out and see what it is, sorry ) and a late Iceland poppy(and friends) near one of our birds baths.

[Goldfields]

The next photo is included because of my garden helper in the background. The rose is Our Vanilla, the helper is little Miss Gemma. Looks like the sunshine was making her dozy. Oh, but wait, what's this behind the white butterfly bush? Another garden helper, dear old Perkins. I wish I had a mauve or purple butterfly bush, I think they might possibly be more fragrant than the white. The butterfly bush is behind the iris bed though, and in that I have lots and lots of different coloured carnations, so on a warm day the perfume out there is divine.

[Love4himies]

Oh, that fairygrass looks dreadful and all those locusts . Is there nothing that can be done to control them?

In spite of the locusts, your garden does still look so beautiful.

[Goldfields]

All that Fairy grass in the dam, Love4himies, will have to be raked out by yours truly. I pick a really windy day so it keeps coming to the side, then rake it out and bag it. These are before and after shots, I cleaned up the Fairy grass this evening that was between the sunflowers and a long L shaped garden bed. Also did a bed that is around a big old tree stump and contains maybe 20 roses, watering both gardens as well. Totally bushed tonight.

The Government actually put 43 million dollars into fighting this locust plague, so it could have been a lot worse. Trouble is that now the farmers are harvesting crops and I don't know if that clashes with when the locusts should be sprayed again or not. They will all lay eggs again.

[Goldfields]

Time for some more sunny images.

[Goldfields]

Sorry, that last rose was a David Austin named Lilac Rose, and next we have Windermere(DA), Chaucer(DA) and Sutters Gold.

[pbpatti]

GF, thanks for sharing more of your lovely blossoms. The weather in Edmonton today has been a very pleasant +2 and the sun is/was out.

You have a friend in one of the pictures that you did not introduce to us, who is the beautiful Cockatoo?? patti

[hazelrunpack]

I noticed the bird, too, patti!

And I love that last rose!! Very distinctive petals, GF!

[Goldfields]

That's Cocka- Girl, who was Cocka-Boy for 8 years until she started laying eggs. She is a sulphur crested cockatoo, 35 years young, in her prime seeing that type of bird can live for 100 years. She is a sweetheart. I reared her with a spoon and she hasn't a mean bone in her body. I taught her gently not to bite. Well, I tell a lie, she won't be intimidated by dogs. If they come near her she is so wicked, she will wait for a male dog to go past then grab between the hind legs. And for the female cattle dogs she aims for the soft skin at the bottom of the flank. If a puppy play bows to her she will grab its foot. Anyway, she barks, pants like a hot dog, gives orders to the dogs, calls my husband etc. - a chatty soul. Oh, she's scared of other birds we've tried to cage with her, but they have been galahs and corellas, she seems a bit interested in wild sulphur cresteds that come courting.

Sutters Gold is nice, Hazel, I agree. It often has more gold than that, but then some roses change with the weather.
Here's a bloom just out, an Oriental Lily.