Garden update - orchids and butterflies
The lady slipper orchid is beginning to flower again! I have a few dichondra in a hanging basket, and like the way this is becoming the "hanging garden"! I never tire of these beautiful flowers, and the fact that they are growing in my garden fills me with such pleasure. The vine needs to be cut back so that it doesn't take over the entire garden. I want light to be able to get in, and it also strains the branches of the weeping tea tree it scrambles over.
In other orchid news I cut back the plants around the back fence, letting in more light and neatening it up a bit more. Often when one does such a thing though it can still look a little messy for a while until new shoots start to fill in the bare areas. All my orchids need a bit of TLC, but they have survived the neglect pretty well. My phalanopsis has two flower spikes! yeah! They all got a good dunking in some seaweed solution.
This little butterfly was happy on the pepper plant.
There are tons of bunches of yummy peppercorns, which I find happily wait until I am ready to pick them. Mmmm I think I see some steak with peppercorn sauce in my future!
I dug up the turmeric that had taken over my asparagus bed and planted out the tiny little plants that I have been growing from seed. these are Mary Washington. It will be nice to have an entire bed given over to asparagus. I dug a sheet of tin into the end so that the pepper plant does not encroach into the area.
The cucumber is still producing even though it is struggling with downy mildew.
Lots of little green tomatoes which I hope are going to start to ripen soon. I put a wire grid in front as the plants kept falling into the path.
I do hope your garden is bringing you much pleasure.
Lovely to see you back Gill, hope you had a lovely holiday with your family.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful slipper orchid. I had never seen a pepper plant, very interesting.
Hi Sami, Yes it was lovely, and now I am planning to go and see my other daughter. this time in Spain and France. that pepper plant is quite fun to grow.
DeleteHow lovely, you got itchy feet now :) You seem to be like me with family spread all over the world.
DeleteSome very interesting plants there. No use trying to grow cucumbers here at this time of year but I still have a few tomatoes growing that have escaped the frosts this week. It was 0C the other day :-)
ReplyDeleteHi Nanna Chel,
Deletewe have to grow what we can before the heat and humidity set in. Oh that is cold....., stay warm!
So good to see a garden-y post from you! We're having a very hot, dry summer up here in this hemisphere. Great shot of the butterfly!
ReplyDeleteHi Alison,
DeleteI really feel there is not much going on in the garden, just ongoing maintenance. This is supposed to be our dry season, but we are having quite a bit of rain. That silly butterfly had its wings open until I took photos!
I love to see butterflies in the garden, to me it signals a healthy garden and one which has lots of good food sources for them. Great that your garden is still churning out cucumbers. No cucumbers here now. Plenty of beetroot instead! Meg:)
ReplyDeleteHi Meg,
DeleteOh yes some of my plants really get chewed up by the caterpillars, but I know what comes next! It is all part of the cycle though, because this year the lemon leaves have been decimated, but there are lots of baby lemons! gosh I wish I could grow beetroot.
ReplyDeleteWonder of pictures.
janicce.
thank you, I also enjoyed the photos of your grafted fruit trees, bearing fruit when they are so small - wish I could do that!
DeleteI really enjoy seeing your garden on the other side of the world. A pepper plant - here Ontario Canada- it means a sweet pepper plant, but for you it is a genuine pepper plant. Orchids outside! And looking so happy and healthy. Fresh lemons - yum. It all seems very exotic to me. But your cucumbers look just like mine :)
ReplyDeleteHi Jenny, yes we call peppers capsicum here, unless they are the hot peppers, which we call peppers. All something to get used to! My lemon and lime trees are just covered with flowers and baby fruit, I think because we have had a few chilly days this winter. Not what anyone else would call chilly mind!
DeleteYou have such a fruitful garden! I will be getting back to mine soon thought it pretty much shuts down for winter, except for the citrus which need a bit of chilling to get sweet.
ReplyDeleteYes the winter is our main growing season, and we have had a few chilly days here which means my citrus in fruit salad alley is doing well.
Delete