Garden

Delicious zucchini flowers

 

For ages I have wanted to cook and eat a zucchini flower and have been
frustrated that it is not possible to buy them (or not in a shop
anywhere near me). So I decided that I would have to grow my own. My
plants are now at the flowering stage and this week I picked, cooked and
ate some of the beautiful yellow flowers. I dipped them into a very
light batter and quickly fried them. Inside the batter, the flowers
melted into a custard like consistency and they were delicious.






I now know why it is not possible to buy them. The flowers are
incredibly delicate and would not last a minute if they were on a shop
shelf.






They really need to be cooked and eaten as soon as they are picked.



I made sure that I picked only the male flowers so that I will get the
added bonus of lots of fresh zucchinis. Yum.

 

22 November 2008

Singing
the blues

 

There is a lot to be blue about in today's world. However, sometimes
blue is good. It is jacaranda time in Perth and the streets of some of
our suburbs are awash with blueness.






I love the way the trees are making a canopy across the street and on
the ground a blue carpet is created as the flowers fall.






In my own garden blue is making its presence felt.






The agapanthus are beginning to flower and looking very pretty next to
the pink of the roses.






Good old lobelia is always reliable for a touch of blue.






So although we are surrounded by doom and gloom, there are always some
blues worth having.

 

07 November 2008

Rose tea

 

I once saw a table decorated for a wedding which really inspired me. The
table was oval shaped and covered with a crisp white tablecloth. In a
circle in the centre were about ten or twelve beautiful old teacups and
each cup was filled to the brim with tiny rosebuds.







I have always wanted to recreate it, although in a much more modest way,
but have never had enough rosebuds, or even pretty teacups. This morning
as I was having my coffee in my fresh new courtyard, I looked at my
rosebushes and saw that they were covered in tiny buds and I immediately
knew what I wanted to do.






There is something so innocent and sweet about these tiny babies.






They are so perfect, they are almost not real. I can assure you they are
and if you look closely enough you can probably see an aphid or two.

 

04 November 2008

Before and after

 

I have spent the good part of the last two weeks sitting in various
medicos' waiting rooms following which I have been prodded and poked,
punctured, pricked and pictured. I have caught up with all the gossip
magazines (and do not wish to see another one for at least six months).




As it has not been possible to give my body the makeover of which it
apparently is in desperate need, I decided to makeover the courtyard
instead. It was looking even more tired and desperate than me.






Isn't it amazing what a coat of paint can do.




If only it were that easy to give me a makeover.




Now we are ready for summer.



And, just because:

 

17 October 2008

A
memorable meal

 

Some years ago my mother returned from a holiday and announced that she
had eaten a 'memorable' meal in a restaurant where she had been staying.
When we asked her what she had eaten she said that she couldn't
remember!




I have eaten many restaurant meals - some of which may have been
'memorable', but very few of them can I now recall. One of them,
however, has stayed with me for a few years and I have tried to recreate
it at home without much success. It is more of a dish than a meal and
perhaps because it is simple and humble food cooked to perfection that I
remember it so well. In a small Greek restaurant in Melbourne I ate a
plate of perfect broad beans which were served as an entree. They were
cooked simply and served with lashings of olive oil, lemon juice, salt &
pepper and dill and they tasted divine. As mentioned, I have tried to
recreate this at home, but have not been able to match the flavour of
those beans. Then it occurred to me that if I grew my own I might have
more luck.



I planted my packet of seeds




and within days the tiny plants had appeared.






They grew




and grew




and my mouth started to water in anticipation of my memorable meal.



Then the flowers appeared




and a ladybird




and then, at last, broad beans. It was time for my memorable meal.




I picked, I spent hours painstakingly peeling off the tough outer layer
on the beans,




I cooked, I used only the best organic olive oil, the juice from the
lemons on my own tree, freshly grated pepper, the flakes of the best sea
salt and a dusting of dill leaves. They were to be eaten with tender
chops from a lamb which had been grown on the farm of a friend in the
wheatbelt. The scene was set for a memorable meal..........



The night air was pierced by an almighty scream. I had lavished so much
attention on the broad beans that I had forgotten to watch the chops and
they were pouring out enough smoke to activate the smoke alarm. Instead
of sitting down to my memorable meal I was rushing about opening all the
doors and windows and poking the alarm with a broom handle.



I did eventually get to enjoy my broad beans which had been months in
the making but, sadly, they were not memorable. However, I am not giving
up. Tomorrow I am going to pick only the smallest and most tender beans.
They will be too small for their outer layer to have formed and again I
will cook and oil and juice and dust with dill. They will be eaten
without chops and smoke alarms, and they will be memorable. In fact, I
am hoping they will make me smile.

 

26 August 2008

Spring has sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where the birdies is

 

It is still August, but we have been having the most incredible Spring
weather all month. All the sun has brought out my primulas. They would
have to be one of my all time favourite flowers.











The roses are sending out their lovely new red leaves which promise so
much beauty when the flowers appear in a few weeks.











The azaleas are blooming.






The jasmine buds are fat and popping open sending out their fabulous
perfume.






I even have my very own Arum lily.






All things considered, it has been a very short winter this year and I
can't say I'm sorry about that. Give me sunshine and warmth any day.

 

02 May 2008

Surprise, surprise

 

I never cease to be amazed at the surprises which can appear in the
garden. This week, I had two of them. The first one was actually in
Mandy & Michael's garden.









I have no idea what this plant is called, but I think it should be
called the cobra lilly.









It looks very menacing with its dark hood over that serpentine tongue.
The colours too are very unusual, aubergine, cream and green.








The plants appeared almost overnight and are very low growing, almost
like a ground cover. I can't say that I particularly like this little
plant, but I have to admire it for its ability to appear so quickly from
nowhere and because it is so different.








My other surprise was in my own garden and is a much prettier one. I
planted an orange stephanotis about five or six years ago in our
courtyard and had visions of sitting outside on hot summer nights,
sipping cold white wine and enjoying the gorgeous fragrance wafting
through the air from this plant. As with most of my visions, this one
has never come true. The plant has grown tall and looks very green and
healthy, but it has never flowered. This week as I was looking out the
window I noticed some white blobs on the plant. Hoping for the best, I
immediately went outside and there they were - flowers at last.









The only disappointment is that it seems that it will flower in autumn
and not summer and so I won't be enjoying its beautiful perfume on a hot
summer night. Instead, I will enjoy it during the day as I sip my coffee
and enjoy the incredible autumn weather we are having at the moment.

 

26 April 2008

Good value

 

Hydrangeas really are a plant which go on giving for months and months.
From the first colourful show in early summer through to autumn, I have
been enjoying the blooms on my two potted plants.








The flowers have faded and dried slowly over the summer months, but they
have held their shape and now although pale in comparison to their
original colour, they are still beautiful and very autumnal.








Today I picked a few of them for the house and thought they looked so
good, I went back for more.


















I am hoping that these will now last for several more months and when
the plants in the garden have been pruned and are merely bare sticks, I
will still be enjoying the flowers.

 

11 April 2008

Tiny edible forest

 

Last week I threw a packet of rocket seeds onto the garden and within
three days tiny green shoots had appeared. This morning when I looked
again, I had a miniature forest growing.








My plan had been to have a plentiful supply of rocket to put in our
toasted sandwiches over winter. At this rate, the rocket will be eaten
in our autumn salads and be finished by the time winter arrives.


Now that I know how easy it is to grow, I will be planting a new packet
of seeds every couple of weeks and I will never run out of those lovely
peppery leaves.

 

03 February 2008

A study
in grey

 

The family came for dinner last night and I didn't have a flower in the
garden which I could pick for the table. The heat has been merciless and
although some roses are still flowering, if I don't pick them very early
in the morning, by midday they are shrivelled and brown. The few plants
which have survived the heat are my herbs so I picked lots of them and
put them in small glasses which I lined up along the middle of the table
where they provided a wonderful sensation of coolness (albeit of a
deceptive nature).



Just looking at the lovely cool grey of these sage leaves and their
beautiful texture makes me want to lie amongst them and soak up their
scent and softness.



I love grey plants in the garden as they make such a wonderful contrast
to all the green. This is centaurea cineraria and is so hardy I doubt
that any amount of sunshine and heat would deter it.






This is wormwood which is a lovely soft and fluffy plant and is
apparently used to make absinthe.





This one is an Australian native and I don't know it's name. It looks
like silver sticks, but grows as a lovely silvery clump and this piece
reminds me of a giant stick insect.



What list of grey foliage plants would be complete without lavender,
although these leaves look more green then grey,

and
some of the salvias. I am sure there are probably hundreds of others
which I have never heard of.



I bunched all these grey lovelies together in a vase, put some cool grey
shells next to it and thought this arrangement made a very good
substitute for colourful flowers, especially when I am trying to keep my
cool.



The grey foliage even looks good with a backdrop of our new grey "lily"
fabric.

 

16 January 2008

The good, the bad and the ugly........of summer

 

There are plenty of things to love about summer - one of these would
have to be the gorgeous stone fruit which are so plentiful. I had to eat
these plums standing at the kitchen sink, otherwise the juice which
dribbled all down my chin and arms would have then covered the floor.
When I uploaded this photo, I suddenly noticed that the blue summer sky
is actually reflected in these plums. How very serendipitous! Peaches
are beautiful to eat but, for me, the nectarine wins hands down and
there is no furry skin to deal with.


That glistening golden flesh is like a taste of paradise and something
which I dream about during the winter months when our fruit selection is
so limited.

Another good thing is an early morning visit to the beach for a quick
swim before the day gets too hot and then, if the sea breeze has
arrived, sitting in the courtyard of one of my favourite cafes for a
coffee.



Of coure, there is also a downside to summer and for me that would have
to be the lack of energy I feel. Some days all I can do is hibernate
inside out of the heat and read. Now the Australian Open Tennis has
started and, for the next two weeks, I have even more reasons to stay
indoors. I send my apologies to the garden each day as it is really too
hot to do much more than water it. However, for a person who is normally
energetic, this lack of activity is beginning to depress me. Very soon I
will have to pull myself together, remove the dust cover from the sewing
machine and get back to work.



And now for the ugly side of summer.


In the heat, my cherry tomatoes have literally cooked on the vine. I
know how they feel!

 

20 December 2007

Life's a bowl of cherries

 

If there is one fruit which says Christmas to me it is cherries. When I
was growing up in Melbourne cherries were cheap and plentiful and we
children would eat them by the handful. In Perth they are neither cheap
nor plentiful so when we have cherries in the house each one of them is
savoured and enjoyed individually rather than by the handful and their
scarcity makes them a real treat.



One of the fabrics I have used in the cot quilt has cherries on it so I
thought I would put the fabric and the real thing together and see what
happened. The one thing which I noticed immediately was the way the real
cherries reflected the light in exactly the same way as the cherries in
the fabric. Life imitates art.



If cherries are the fruit of Christmas, hydrangeas are my flowers of
Christmas.

Again
I go back to my childhood and I can remember that my mother would always
pick huge bunches of hydrangeas and put together wonderful arrangements
of them together with agapanthus and shasta daisies. When I saw the
hydrangeas on the mantelpiece, I knew that Christmas was not far away.



I
have only two small bushes in the garden and I am reluctant to pick the
flowers as they last so much longer on the bush. They are such an old
fashioned flower, but what a gorgeous display they make.



I am pleased to say that the tooth is fixed and the quilt is finished
(pictures to come). However, I am not feeling smug. Happy, satisfied,
pleased. All of these, but never will I feel smug again. I have learnt
my lesson.

 

18 November 2007

Trip to
town

 

We drove into town today for a good coffee and a fossick through the
local shops. This tiny little shop crammed full of goodies was my
favourite




and I bought a bagful of these wonderful old pegs.


My mother will probably fall off her chair laughing when I show her.
Somehow I doubt that in another 30 or 40 years people will be buying
today's plastic pegs in second-hand shops. But, then again, you never
know. I guarantee that if the women who used these wooden pegs all those
years ago were told that one day they would be described as 'gorgeous
old pegs' and would be collectible, they would fall off their
chairs laughing.



We also visited some beautiful gardens which were open as part of the
Festival of Country Gardens. I will let the pictures do the talking:













After seeing these amazing gardens I was tempted to rush back to Perth,
sell up and move permanently to this lovely part of the world.

 

16 November 2007

Getting the hang of relaxation

 

I wish it was possible to scratch the screen to release the perfume of
the honeysuckle.

It
is filling the garden with the most beautiful aromas.



I think I have reached a happy compromise. I work in the garden for a
while and then retreat to the shade of the verandah to read a few pages
of my book and to renew my energy then, restored, I can go back to work.



I am surrounded by very un-city like scents and sounds which combine to
make me think I am relaxing. Certainly the droning of the bees amongst
the flowers is a very relaxing sound and as I work in the garden I can
hear in the background the distant hum of the tractor bringing in the
hay. It has a very soothing sound and conjures up pleasant images of
replenishing the hayshed before the hot, dry summer months set in and
the green grass disappears.



Next to the back door there is an enormous pot of rosemary.

Out in the paddocks there are lots of these:

Mmmmmmm makes you think. Only kidding! While I was picking some rosemary
in the evening to go with dinner (not lamb), I found this beautiful
little bug.

She
seemed very relaxed considering I was poking a camera into her
territory. If she can do it, so can I.

 

15 November 2007

Time to
relax

 

We have come to the country for a few days R & R. The first thing I did
when we arrived was to go out into the garden with a pair of secateurs
so that I could fill the house with flowers. At this time of the year
the roses are looking fantastic so they were the first to come inside.

I
didn't try to separate the different colours, I just picked as many as
would fit into the bowl and put them all in together. They take my
breath away every time I walk past them.




There are three different types of lavender in the garden, French,
English and something I know only as "Bunny's Ears". Their perfume is
filling the bedroom.



When I had filled all the vases in the house,
I started to fill up the coffee mugs.

The trees and the roses in this garden reach to the sky.



Unfortunately,
so do the weeds.



The next thing I did was to settle myself into a comfortable chair on
the verandah with a pile of books and magazines, a cool drink and my
ripple blanket, the intention being to work my way through that pile of
books and double the size of my blanket.


Before I left Perth I told myself that this is where I would spend most
of my time. However, you will see that I have my work boots on just in
case the call of the weeds became too insistent. The grass seeds in my
socks were collected from the paddock when I visited my friend Buzzer.



Sure enough the weeds won and I spent the rest of the day with my head
down and bottom up in the garden. A small price to pay for the joy of
being here and being able to enjoy such beauty. However, I am determined
to make an impression on that pile of books before I leave -
particularly Jane's
book. It arrived recently in the post and I have not had a moment to
look at it. I am hoping that I will still be in relaxation mode after I
have opened it and that it doesn't inspire me to start baking and
getting busy with a new project. As I suspect the latter, perhaps I
should leave The Gentle Art of Domesticity to last. In the
meantime, there are more weeds to pull. Sometimes I wonder if I really
do know how to relax.

 

15 October 2007

Seduced by Seduction

 

It was me, wasn't it, who just a few short months ago, after an
exhausting pruning session, declared that I was never going to plant
another rose. Deep down I knew I was only kidding. Today, after a lovely
birthday lunch at my favourite cafe at Cottesloe beach with John and
Mum,

we
detoured home via a garden centre where I succumbed and bought
Seduction.


I already have one bush in the front garden, but you can never have
enough Seduction.



The spot I had in mind for it in the back garden is currently occupied
by Eglantyne, a David Austen rose.



She is very beautiful and the bush looks extremely healthy, but she
gives me only about four or five roses all year and so I decided she had
to go. Mum was horrified at my plan and queried why I would remove such
a beautiful plant and on looking at her again I had to agree. So
Eglantyne had a lucky escape and lives on for at least another year.
Instead, the bird bath has to go as it is taking up the only space left
in my garden where Seduction will fit.



It can't go far however as the doves drink from it every morning.

My other purchases at the garden centre were an obelisk which will
provide good support for my Sparrieshoop rose
and some 'Happy Roses Health Tonic'. The label makes rather grandiose
claims and I am expecting miracles to occur. Eglantyne will be receiving
a double dose!

So it was a good day for me, and a good day for the roses (particularly
Eglantyne).



While on the subject of roses, this is Pierre de Ronsard which is
looking particularly beautiful this year following a very heavy prune in
the winter.



Melissa is now making her cards using cut cloth fabric. I can't wait
until she joins the team.

 

09 September 2007

Spring Memories

 

The garden is starting to look like Spring and I could not let the
beginning of the new season pass without a few pictures of flowers. I
have always loved daisies - they are so simple and unpretentious and
come in so many varieties. These little ones self-seed themselves in my
garden every year. Any flower which does that is more than welcome.


These primulas have also self-seeded themselves this year.


They always remind me of my childhood. My mother was a wonderful
gardener and grew masses of them every year. During Spring, I would trot
off to school clutching a bunch of primulas for the teacher in my hot
little hand. I wonder what state they were in when I arrived. They are
so delicate and we had quite a long walk to get to school. To me, Spring
just wouldn't be Spring without primulas in the garden.


The native violets are just starting to pop up their little heads so I
leave them to it and let them ramble anywhere they fancy. They make a
wonderful ground cover and do a good job of stopping the weeds.
The jasmine is also flowering and its perfume fills a corner of the
garden. The perfume from the jasmine......
......combined with the perfume from the blossoms on the nearby orange
tree make a heady combination and I stand between the two and sniff to
my heart's content. Luckily I don't suffer from hay fever.


The lime tree is also blossoming and baby limes are starting to appear.
This looks like a great crop but I doubt they will all remain clinging
to the branch. I suspect it will be a case of survival of the fittest.



The brilliant blue of these pansies is filling the courtyard with
wonderful colour.

When
I was very young I had a book called 'Peter gets his Wish', in fact I
still have it, although it is somewhat the worse for wear.


The story is about a little boy who loved going to the park to look at
the beautiful flowers, but of course he was not allowed to pick them.
When his family moved to a house with a garden, Peter decided to plant
his own flowers which he could pick and he planted a bed of pansies
which had 'little smiling faces'.



This
is one of the few possessions I have which has survived many house moves
and de-cluttering sessions. I could never bear to part with it. This
little book must have made a huge impact on me all those years ago
because I have been planting my own beds of smiling faces ever since.

 

13 August 2007

The
Lily Man Cometh (apologies to Eugene O'Neill)

 

Forgive my excitement, but every weekend at about this time of the year
I look forward to seeing the 'lily man' who sets up his van in a local
car park and sells beautiful lilies for just $5 a bunch. This year he
has been 'missing in action' because of a redevelopment of said car
park. So when Melissa sent me a text message on Sunday to say that she
had found the lily man in another location I immediately got into the
car and went to buy a bunch. I know that some people are very
superstitious about these flowers and won't have them in the house, but
I love them. I used to think they were a simple flower with no
pretensions, but I have changed my mind. I now believe the lily has
multiple personalities. She can be simplicity itself;




or she can be mysterious;



she can be extremely haughty and look down her nose at the other
flowers;


she can put on very superior airs and graces;


or
she can have the appearance of coming from another world.



And, of course, she can be a bit frisky!





Whatever her personality, there will always be a place in my home for
the beautiful lily.

 

28 July 2007

Lemony Loveliness

 

My lemon tree is laden with fruit which is very pleasing as last year it
had some sort of hissy fit and I didn't get a single lemon.


Some TLC in the form of sheep manure and citrus food has paid off and
now we are enjoying lots of lemony loveliness.

I
love lemons and use them with so many things. Roast chicken stuffed with
chopped lemons, garlic and basil is divine. Lemon with lamb also works
very well. Lemon rind and parsley will go on top of tonight's Osso Bucco
and who could go past a delicious lemon tart.
A bowl of lemons on the table gives a room a lovely sunny look and on a
rainy day can bring the sun inside.



Surrounded by so many lemons, I was inspired to get into the kitchen
which has resulted in two jars of preserved lemons (not very pretty to
look at but, in a few weeks, delicious to eat),

a luscious bowl of lemon curd



and, to stop me eating it by the spoonful every time I open the fridge,
a batch of lemon curd cup cakes.



Having said that there is still half the bowl left to tempt me and I
think I will give it away because I won't be able to resist it. That
burst of sweet and sour lemony flavour in the mouth is irrestible.
After all that activity there was only one thing left to do



and we did! Yum.

 

15 July 2007

Flower
Power

 

One of the first things I always do when I return home after having been
away is to go out into the garden and start to sweep, cut back and
generally tidy up. Inside, the house might be centimetres deep in dust,
the washing piling up in the laundry and the fridge bare, but the
outside always comes first. My mother is exactly the same and Melissa
also does it - it must be in the genes. This week I just had to prune
the roses before doing anything else (well, I did manage to get some
food in the fridge). This is the very last of the season's roses. She
looks a little overblown but is, nevertheless, still beautiful.

Now
the garden looks horribly bare and depressing. I have only one little
corner which has any colour
The only good thing about pruning roses is the thought of all those
beautiful blooms to look forward to in the spring. I have told the
family that if I mention taking a trip to the rose farm to buy another
rose they are to hide the car keys immediately. My fingers are covered
in blisters and my arms are scratched. Fortunately, I quickly forget the
pain. It's a bit like childbirth really - the outcome is worth all the
agony!

The next thing I have to do is buy some flowers for the inside of the
house. I always think that a house which hasn't been lived in for a few
weeks has a very lonely abandoned look and feel about it. The best cure
for this is fresh flowers - some for the inside


and some for the outside.
Now all I have to do is think of how to overcome the bareness in the
garden. I know it is winter and we have to have some 'downtime' in the
garden, but when it is 22 degrees and the sun is shining in a brilliant
blue sky, it doesn't seem right somehow not to have flowers everywhere.