Gardening fun

I got out in the garden this week. The job I had been putting off could be put off no longer - it was time to prune the roses. It had rained all day the day before so it was the perfect opportunity to get rid of the weeds.




My daughter came along to help.

The rose bed is shaped like a giant boomerang, out in the paddock surrounded by grass. I put it out here before our house was built, because I certainly didn't want the builders driving all over my flower bed. One of these days when our landscaping is complete I might move them closer to the house.
First we pulled all of the grass out of the rose bed. This was necessary in order to find the roses! After a while I told her that if the grass would not come out of the irises or the lambs' tongues, then to pull those out too. I did ask her not to pull out any roses!
We worked at this task all morning.



















It was a nice sunny day and I'd brought the car up with a haybale in the boot so we put the radio on and listened to the easy listening hits of the past from Canberra's 2CA.

BJ the shih-tzu hopped in the driver's seat to keep out of the sun. Maggie the kelpie just kept bringing us her ball. Nothing stops Maggie from playing fetch!

After we'd weeded half the bed, we came down to the house for our lunch. We put some more layers of sunscreen on and then went back out to finish the job. Pickle brought the camping stools with her this time, but I was more comfortable sitting on the ground on my bottom.

Each time we pulled out a weed, we just chucked it aside onto the grass around the bed. We had to thump each weed first to dislodge the dirt from the roots, otherwise there would not be much left in the garden. Later on the weeds all got chopped up by the lawnmower.

The next part of the plan was pruning. I just gave them a light prune, chopping out any dead wood and anything that appeared to be growing towards the centre of the bush.

I saw once on an Aussie TV show (might have been Burkes Backyard) that at a famous rose garden an experiment was conducted. Half of the beds were pruned in the painstakingly slow traditional method, using the secateurs and carefully observing the "rules".

The other half were all simply sheared off using a whipper-snipper. Would you believe the rough job came up with the most bounteous and plentiful roses?! So I don't usually fuss to much over the art of pruning. Here where I live we get heavy frosts in springtime, so it is quite normal to do the major prune in September rather than in the middle of winter.

Once the bushes had all had their haircuts, it was time to spread out the 2 bales of lucerne hay. Mulch is essential for keeping the soil moist through the summer, and it also does a great job of feeding the plants in the bed.  I was meaning to cut along the edges of the bed with my spade to make it clear where the bed began, but in the end I couldn't summon the energy required. Below are some photos of the finished job.

This little slender and spikey plant to the right is fairy's fishing rod, with the most delicate pink flowers.

To the left you can see the violets growing throughout the irises. I just "borrowed" the originals of these from someone elses' garden... You can see a rose in the middle with a label on it, that is the new rose from my in-laws which I planted in memory of my grandfather. It is called "olde fragrance" and I am looking forward to smelling it.







Lengthy shadows at the end of the day.

And just so you know why it was worth all of that hard labour, here are some of my roses from last year.

In shop news, this warmer weather has made me think about sunfrocks. Here are two which have recently been added to the shop.

These were both made with this sweet vintage pattern. The white cotton dress used to be a cot sheet, and the pink one is some destashed seersucker which I found at Vinnies.

 This little dress is a black and white striped seersucker. I thought I would give it extra swing by cutting it on the bias. Well, it certainly did swing! I had some dramas attaching the frill, but it it turned out alright in the end.

This cotton seersucker is so light and airy, just the thing for a three year old on a hot summer's day.

I am still getting ready for the big FashNTreasure market in November, and have ordered some size dividers from Etsy store His Glory. Zina, the shop owner, is very kindly making the dividers in my shop colours of green, yellow and orange, and is putting Australian sizes on them for me. I hope my stall will look very professional and that it will be easy for my shoppers to find the size they are after. 

Of course I still have lots of sewing to do to prepare. Better go get on with it I guess.

Thanks for reading my blog!