The budding garden

The garden is looking quite respectable at the moment, no doubt due to the plentiful rain we have had all winter and up to yesterday even. Or maybe it's because I have at last listened to my mother, a very capable and successful gardener, and given the plants some food! The months rush by so quickly that it is very easy for me to forget to cast a few pellets of slow-release fertiliser around the garden every so often, but this winter I actually did the whole garden twice.

As a result, the small patch of agapanthus in the front garden has 25 buds swiftly rising out of the greenery which will provide a display worthy of Garden & Home in a week or three. The hibiscus that I planted next to them about 30 years ago, and which is embarrassingly stunted through neglect, lack of water and having been driven over by departing guests a number of times, is showing me what can happen if you pay it some attention and has many magnificent golden-yellow blooms. I will feed it again tomorrow!

Even the bougainvillea is bursting its bracts - this one has never 'flowered'! The coprosma trees are now getting very old and losing their leaves in the top branches as they die off. I am training the bougainvillea, jasmine and a very decorative deciduous creeper over these trees as they provide perfect supports and the creepers can really go wild!

The clivias didn't enjoy the cold winter (they aren't happy under 10 degrees Celsius) and the flowers weren't as good as last year, but new plants continue to shoot up and growth from the seeds I throw around under the trees is very successful. Bromeliads are multiplying in ever-thickening growth and I will soon be able to transplant them to fill all the shady parts of the garden. They are very rewarding, needing no care, being basically air plants and can be grown successfully in the branches of trees as well. The different varieties flower in stages and as they are all mixed in together, there is almost always a new and interesting flower to admire from this most interesting species (genus? not all that clued up on the technicalities!).

I've just finished the watering from our free underground water supply (although technically not free, as we have to pay for the electricity we use to pump it out - you can't win), and now it's time to relax as the sun sinks into the sea and enjoy the scent of the buddleia and jasmine which grow below the sundeck. Cheers!