Autumn from the balcony

Claret ash  on the left and sugar leaf maple behind the fir

Dave and Lexie have been replacing pavers on one of the main access stairs to the Fairfax garden.  The detour into the garden while the mortar dries is via the balcony around the Olive Tree Restaurant. This has proved very serendipitous. Many of our deciduous trees are now very large and the autumn colour tends to happen above our heads. The view from the balcony gets us on a level with the colourful canopy.

sugar leaf trident maple

Cyclamen hederifolium

The sugar maple (Acer saccharum) is spectacular this season, it looks like it is alight! There are several varieties of Japanese maple in this bed not showing up all that well and behind and over the road a pin oak turning red and a plane tree. Under a cut leaf maple is a colony of Cyclamen hederifolium. As the colony expands I remove the competitive sparaxis. The steps down into the garden from this balcony lead past the Luculia gratissima with its beautiful scent and lovely flower. The scarlet oak is Quercus coccinea.

Scarlet oak and Luculia from the balcony

Luculia gratissima

The new turquoise bridge

Our Monet inspired bridge

bridge close up

We have a new bridge! The old red bridge had become too rotten and it has been completely removed. Our carpenter Dave has built a replacement. We decided on a level deck for safety (especially for brides in high heels) but Dave has curved both the upper and lower rails. We have followed up on the thoughts in the blog A little bit Monet where we wondered about extending the waterlily theme to a Monet bridge. It is now a reality.  Monet’s water garden was Japanese inspired so this theme introduced to the gardens in the 1960s is still referenced but through a French perspective. The French perspective references the travels of Lady Fairfax and the naming of the property Sospel in memory of the town above the French Riviera where she spent part of her honeymoon.

Autumn begins

Fuchsia triphylla Gartenmeister Bondstedt and Virginia creeper

38mm of rain a couple of weeks ago heralded the beginning of Autumn for me. As soon as the weather cleared up we mowed the lawns low and fertilised, over sowed and topdressed where needed. The fertiliser we are currently using is Katek Supergrowth, a granular chook poo based fertiliser. We over sowed with what is currently available as the Mountains lawn mix. It contains tall fescue, Chewings fescue, perennial and annual ryegrass and couch. I would prefer the couch was left out but we already have it in the lawns we were working on so let it go. Another38mm of rain about now would be excellent! We have begun digging up perennials that have not done well where planted and transplanted or potted them up. We were digging up struggling heuchras and generally renovating a bed at the rockpool when Lexie discovered an old sandstone garden edge under 5 cm of soil.

cut sandstone edging from the 1930s

The sandstone has been cut to the curve and I think it  dates from the 1930s when the rock pool was created. The lovely maple draped over the edging has been dying back but seems to have had a good year this year. The section of the garden that was formerly the Fairfax driveway and  under what was two 80 year old radiata pines  and more recent conifer plantings has taken some years to come around to anything like a garden. One of the radiatas was dead when Waldorf took over the property so we cut it down and arranged the rounds in a rustic semi-circle. There was one Viburnum tinus on the boundary so we filled out the boundary with a few more. Then the geraniums went in and are proving up to the task, followed by the double white wind flowers and finally the incredibly robust plectranthus. There are some Camellia sassanqua “Jennifer Suzanne” in there too but they may be up for transplanting soon.  We only get a show from the wind flowers if they receive sufficient water, it all worked out this year.

Rustic windflowers