The first of the sunflowers are starting to bloom. I love the colour – it is so bright and magnificent. 3 months ago

I learnt the hard way that it is a very good idea to label your flower beds, even if you have told family members where you’ve planted some flower seeds. My dad forgot and he accidentally applied weed killer on my bed of cottage-style flowers which its foliages were starting to develop. To be fair, I am sure there were weeds growing amongst the flowering plants but I was just going to wait and see when they had grown a little more…! Ahh, I was so sad! I am going to get into the habit of labeling flower beds now. 5 months ago

The first of the Crown Princess Mary has bloomed! Yay. Not fully in bloom just yet but will be looking very nice in a day or two. 5 months ago

The first Kathryn Morley rose has bloomed :-)

This goal is deemed done but as there are still other flowers to come into bloom including another rose plant (Crown Princess Mary), the cottage style flowers and sunflowers, I’ll keep updating this goal. 6 months ago

I planted a mix of cottage-style flowers into the garden the other day. The seeds looked really really interesting (first time I inspected an assortment of seeds so closely) so I took a photo.

So far the solution in the previous entry seemed to have worked in getting rid of the powdery mildew on the rose leaves. What a relief! But now I see one or two orange spots… Hmm! 7 months ago

Got some natural remedies for the powdery mildew on my roses from this website:

http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/sqfoot/msg071222323580.html?10

The one I used was the Powdery Mildew Manager with 
2 litres of water, 
1 tablespoon Murphy’s Oil Soap and 
2 tablespoons baking soda. I used Dr. Bronner’s soap instead of Murphy’s Oil Soap (not available where I live). The mildew seems to have disappeared but will check again tomorrow to see if it has worked or not… 7 months ago

So I realised yesterday that the white spots that have been appearing for some time on the leaves of Crown Princess Mary were mildew and not water spots. (I can’t believe I thought this AGAIN after experiencing the same thing on my zucchini leaves early this year…!)

This one doesn’t get much air flow compared to the other plant which gets blown around by wind quite a bit (not to worry – the plant is staked!). It is planted near a fence and to make things worse, mum parks her car right in front of it which is probably not good at all in terms of ventilation.

So as an immediate solution, I cut out the leaves that looks most damaged – which were the younger leaves or off-shoots which were closer to the base of the plant. I cut these back to make the plant look a bit more ‘leggy’ providing plenty of room for air to circulate through.

It looked better already this morning and I even looked for some natural remedies online and read that watering the plant with 3 tablespoons of vinegar mixed with about 3.7 litres of water would give the leaves a good ‘wash’ to prevent the mildew from spreading. I didn’t think 3 tablespoons seemed much to begin with but I could definitely smell it even after adding the water so I trust the recipe!

Fingers crossed it will work. 7 months ago

I started a vege garden at the start of the year and now I am interested in planting roses!

The two rose plants I bought last weekend are Kathryn Morley (light pink) and Crown Princess Mary (white-yellow).

I can’t wait for the first roses to bloom :-) I wish to grow and arrange roses like in the photo (the photo is not my own). So pretty. 8 months ago

The pot chrysanthemums I have planted in the garden in last few years are flowering like crazy – and it’s New Year’s Eve 16 months ago

Since the house we are curently living is only a rental and we expect to be here for about 6 months more, I’ll wait until we find a more permanate place before starting up a garden. 17 months ago

There are a few gaps left in my small patch, so I bought a packet of nasturtiums, remembering them as reliable self-seeders from my childhood. It said “Plant in already-watered ground” so I waited for it to rain; it rained but the ground is still dry two inches down.

I planted the seeds, and hoped for the best. I’ll trust them to germinate when the weather is right. 1 year ago