Gazebo Abutilons

Double pink Abutilon x hybridum

The Gazebo is our indoor/outdoor function area. It is used most often for wedding receptions. There are views onto gardens from all four sides. The garden on one of these sides is built inside the space and covered with a poly-carbonate roof. The feel of this garden bed is that of a conservatory although it is not enclosed entirely from the outside and has no temperature control. To achieve the conservatory feel we need plants that can withstand the cold winter temperatures in the mountains and then the sun that beats in on summer afternoons. Abutilons fill this criteria admirably. The only drawback with abutilons is their susceptibility to aphid and white fly. The insects have easy access to the garden and protection from wind and rain once established. We use a few methods to keep these critters under control. The abutilons are cut back during winter so there is less chance of overwintering insects and their size in summer is more manageable. We spray off the aphids with water and treat the sooty mould that is the aphid companion with a detergent spray and rinse. The white fly is treated periodically and alternately with Eco-oil and Eco-Neem.

Abutilon megapotamicum

With the exception of one, all of the Abutilons in the Gazebo bed are Abutilon x hybridum. This species name is given to abutilons of uncertain origin. They are cultigens not occurring in the wild. Abutilons are related to mallows and hibicus in the mallow family Malvaceae. The species abutilon we have is Abutilon megapotamicum. It has a striking flower but is weedy in the Sydney area.

Flowers for an Autumn wedding

The last wedding of the season approaches next weekend and the gardens are looking good. The lawns have responded to the March rains and autumn fertilizing and are looking beautifully green. Unfortunately I fear that it was too cold when we applied nematodes recently to combat the lawn grubs as a fox has been digging up grubs merrily. The Plectranthus ciliatus has been putting on a wonderful show and is worth keeping under control for this reason. This plectranthus tip roots readily from it’s hairy stems and so can be a little invasive but not hard to pull back. 

Camellia sassanqua Setsugekka

The windflowers and sassanqua camellias are flowering, the camellias will continue to flower well into the winter. We have arborists working on the Pyrus in our car park. They are pruning them back off the buildings, raising them a little to allow cars easier parking underneath and thinning them so that the winds will pass through. They have grown well in a less than ideal situation and have become wind sails; catching the wind and being rocked more than we would like in a car park. We save as much of the wood chip as we can and have started mulching our garden beds including the bed at the front of the Gazebo. Here we have laid cardboard down over a particularly bad patch of onion weed and mulched on top of the cardboard. A visitor told me I need to cover onion weed for 7 years! The Rosa mutabilis is in this section of the garden. It is still only small but I find the flowers and their fading exquisite.

Rosa mutabilis

Front Gazebo mulched

 

 

Re-purposing an old lamp post

The replacement driveway lamp post

This is an old property and there are quite a few redundant installations which included a lamp along the pergola pathway to our Gazebo. The lamp itself was in very good condition and matched the one in the driveway that had not so long ago been driven over by a truck. The decision was made to delete the pathway lamp and use it as a replacement for the driveway lamp, making all the old wiring secure at the same time. When the lamp was lifted off it’s base we found an older base underneath, very securely fixed into the ground. This base was centred on our pergola pathway both coming towards and going away from the Gazebo. The spot is in shade under Californian redwoods so a difficult spot to garden in but a great spot for a feature. We had a can of black spray paint, a square of salvaged timber and a sandstone look concrete paver all in reasonable proportions so Tom got to work and assembled it all on top of the metal post. The initial consensus was that a black pot would look great on the pedestal so a pot also received the spray can treatment.

Under the pergolas

It does look good too but I felt it didn’t set the right tone for a wedding venue so tried a cream pot, I think this feels more comfortable in the spot.

From the Gazebo

Then, in the window of an antiques shop in Katoomba I saw a lovely concrete urn which could look fantastic. Then the question will be should we respray the post underneath white or maybe grey? A bunch of these white Hydrangea paniculata would look lovely in the urn.

Hydrangea paniculata

 

Farewell to the summer holidays

The holidays seemed way too short this year. We swam, sat on the beach, had encounters with a tree snake and bluebottles, saw Christmas bells (Blandifordia nobilis) in the bush and generally wound down. This was followed by the  Australia holiday and hot weather and the garden got away on us a bit. We have been working hard this last week reining it in and tidying it up in preparation for our first wedding of the year this weekend. The lawns are causing the most stress of course as we try and supply them with their required 25mm of water per week in very hot weather. The garden has emerged looking lovely for the wedding and as long as the afternoon storms hold off it should be a beautiful ceremony in the deep shade under the Linden and a cool reception in the gazebo with all the blinds rolled up for a change!

Fuchsia magellanica and white iceberg rose

Rudbeckia with weeping elm and white crepe myrtle in the background

The iceberg rose has been planted in between a camellia hedge, the Fuchsia and a large Buxus sempervirens. It would not be a recommended planting but has proved very successful here. The rudbeckia are putting on their usual bright show but are not particularly long lived. I have been delighted to see quite a few seedlings appearing this year for the first time so we will pot them up in preparation for autumn replanting.

Tiger lilies

Nicotiana, cosmos and Celosia argentea

The tiger lilies seem to be naturalising in this spot among an old planting of Nandina domestica. I have not had such success with all the lilies I have tried. We replanted our entrance driveway bed with nicotiana this year despite warnings that it may not do well, susceptibility to powdery mildew I think was the fear. We planted them well apart and they have been giving a summery show. We did spray once with spinosad after finding a couple of caterpillars. There are a few of the Cosmos bipinnata “Velouette” down the middle and more recently we have added in the magenta Celosia argentea. So far so good!

November Garden

We have been hedge trimming and mowing in earnest this month and it was while I was in the middle of our double Camellia sasanqua hedge earlier in the month trimming back the top that I looked out through the cut leaf maple coming into leaf. The light was purple, maybe not quite caught by the photo. The roses are coming into bloom. We have planted some new ones this year and they do have lovely flowers but the established and reliable ones are giving the show, white icebergs and red floribundas.

Insect numbers are on the increase and a green butterfly was spending lots of time in the thyme, sufficient for me to get a couple of decent shots out of many taken. I have looked on the Coffs Harbour Butterfly House site and I think our green butterfly is a Macleay’s Swallowtail Graphium macleayanus.

Our current horticulture trainee Tom has an interest in woodwork so when an old stained glass window turned up in the builder’s skip we decided to have a go at upcycling it into wall art. With mirrors all the go in gardens at the moment we decided to back the glass with a mirror so that the colours of what turned out to be faux stained glass would show up. The section now painted with our turquoise paint had previously been rose glass paint and detracted from the olives and blues in the centre now highlighted by the mirror. The window was white so Tom sanded it back, did much filling with putty and oiled the oregon frame with linseed oil. We have hung it above a raised garden in our Gazebo function area.

Finally a shot taken this morning as we prepare for a wedding under the Linden tree. This Verbascum “Polar Summer” from Cloudehill Nursery is flowering nearby with Cercis canadensis, Stachys byzantina, Lavandula dentata and the Linden beyond.

 

Festival Highlights

Wisteria chinensis viewed  from our festival cafe with the golf fairway in the background

The Leura Gardens Festival has come and gone.The weather was very windy and cool for the first few days but still the tickets sales were very good and there should be at least as much money raised for the Blue Mountains Anzac Memorial Hospital as last year. We host the music in our gardens at lunchtime throughout the

Cantrice singing under the Linden tree

festival and so one of the highlights for me involved the music played or sung under the Linden tree once the weather had calmed down a bit. The Linden will not come into leaf until the end of this month.

Swing West Jazz Band

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fiona and Gillian braving the wind in the entrance for a tulip shot

 

Another highlight of the festival is all the gardening minded visitors including Fiona and Gillian who visited while the weather was still fairly chilly.

 

 

 

Fothergilla major “Mt Airy”

The exquisite blooms  spared  by the rosellas on the Shogetsu cherry

 

 

 

 

 

Leura Gardens Festival

The Leura Gardens Festival begins tomorrow and lasts for 10 days. The spring is a bit later here this year and for us this means that if the winds aren’t too strong our tulips will still be looking good.

Driveway tulips at their best

Tulips around the urn

 

 

 

 

The wisteria is not quite out but it should be flowering during next week. The continuing showers of rain have the lawn looking good and the azaleas are still colouring up.

 

Cyclamens with pink azalea in the background

We have been putting finishing touches to the route the visitors will take which includes displaying the Gazebo as a wedding venue. We have gathered an eclectic mix of plants as table centres.

Table centres ready to go

 

Bluebells

 

 

The bluebells are coming out right on time and the cyclamens are putting on a show under the Caucasian fir.

Cyclamens under fir

 

 

 

 

Corydalis flexuosa above the dry stone wall

163 mm of rain

Winter lawn after rain

We experienced an east coast low 2 weeks ago bringing damage to the beach side suburbs in Sydney but delivering much needed rain to the top of the mountains.

Camellia japonica “Nancy Bird”

The camellias are now flowering with confidence.

We hosted a winter wedding under the Linden tree last weekend and the gardens looked lovely after the rain. The day was cool, sunny and calm.

Winter wedding photographed by Sharon Ferrari

We have had an arborist in to remove some old birches plus a splitting and leaning conifer and now that it has rained we can weed and plant in the spaces. The birches removed were planted along a fence with a neighbour’s

Lichen on remaining birch

house close by and a path underneath. They had started to drop branches and so Council gave us permission to remove them. The arborist found them to be quite rotten. They did have beautifully lichened trunks which we miss. We have saved one birch that is in the middle of a garden bed and so is no threat to houses or walkers should a branch fall.

path and peony pots

renovation underway around the bench

We have put two potted bush peonies on the most obvious stumps and I am thinking of planting some tree peonies beside the path, making  a peony walk.

From Canberra swimming pool to secret garden

The swimming pool in Fiona’s Canberra garden was no longer in use with children grown up and away from home so Fiona decided to repurpose the area as a sunken native garden, using many plants endemic to the Canberra region.

The pool in use in 2006

The vinyl lining gone and the project begun 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Completed garden awaiting an umbrella and a garden setting 2016

Fiona reused much of the concrete from the pool sides to create her new terraces and steps and created a half gabion effect in her retaining walls, using mesh as the cage and existing concrete and pebbles for the fill. Netting holds the pebbles in place behind the weldmesh. The posts from the old pool were still in good shape so Fiona left them in place and retained the capping for stability around the curves.

 

 

 

 

 

Wall detail with Callistemon sieberi and Veronica perfoliata

The  soil in this patch of Canberra is  alkaline, helped along by all the concrete. Fiona only had subsoil clay to work with so  mixed it with coarse sand and compost to form the garden beds. The Canberra region has a range of soil types so not all endemics will grow. Fiona tries to select plants she hopes will cope but removes them after a couple of special treatments if they don’t establish.

 

 

The rockery over a vulnerable sewerage line with non damaging  hybrid Brachyscome angustifolia, and the endemics Bulbine glauca, Viola hederacea and Scleranthus biflorus

The stairs and path composed of old clay fill dug from the pool site, it’s a good colour and very alkaline so weed resistant

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The bog garden

The bottom of the garden becomes boggy in wet weather and Fiona has planted in some bog plants, seriously restricted on account of the sewerage lines. The bog circle contains Lythrum salicaria, Isolepsis nodosa, Baloskion tetraphyllum and a Juncus sp.

 

 

Scleranthus biflorus flanked by Kunzea ericoides “Snowman” with Chrysocephalum apiculatum and Acacia dawsonii all endemic in some form

Eremophila nivea “Blue velvet” a grafted Eremophila hit hard by frosts but recovered after hard pruning.  Acacia boormanii behind

We found native bees visiting the grey Eremophila. We think they are blue banded bees from the Amegilla genus. The Scleranthus is known as Canberra grass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the bluebells of Canberra Wahlenbergia communis

The floral emblem for Canberra is the bluebell Walhenbergia gloriosa. Fiona has a few species growing, the one I photographed volunteers between the pavers above the secret garden.

 

 

 

 

Fiona in her secret garden

The Gazebo Garden

The Gazebo is our garden function area. It is open to the gardens on three sides with a conservatory type garden on the fourth side. Clear blinds can be pulled down all around should the weather become chilly. In the Mountains that may happen even in summer. This is where we host our garden wedding receptions. Sometimes the wedding ceremony is in our garden and sometimes elsewhere. Out the front of the Gazebo we currently have a native daisy area with Californian poppies and hearts-ease volunteering. The brachyscomes look great but are not good competitors and don’t much like being disturbed so keeping them looking neat is a bit of a trial.

Brachyscome multifida and Californian poppies

 

Speedwell and rudbeckia

Rudbeckia fulgida

Leading off from one corner of this garden is an entrance path where we have been working on a water wise border containing salvias, achilleas, pelagoniums and geraniums. Currently a grey leaved Speedwell Veronica spicata and Rudbeckia fulgida are

the stars.

A burgundy dahlia among the leaves of the purple leaved  Maple. This year I pinched out all the growing tips of the dahlias in these borders in an attempt to stop them flopping over. They are flowering a little later than most about town, possibly due to this set back!

 

 

On a higher level at the back of the Gazebo is our newly named eco lawn looking great at the moment (with a fescue lawn beyond it) and a white perennial sweet pea.

Eco lawn February 2016

Lathyrus latifolius

 

The sweet pea  is planted with red bergamot Monarda didyma which hasn’t really got going yet but they should make a great combination if and when it does. The perennial sweet pea unfortunately has no scent. It is considered a weed in Victoria so we will need to keep it under scrutiny here.