don't let it fool you....


its evil inside... :p

Love the look of that garden Criosphynx, I'll bet you've got some treasures tucked away that I'd like here. :thumbs up Yes, I catch rainwater, at the moment(because one 1,000 gallon tank needs relining) we have room for around 11,000 gallons, though we only use it for the house and emergencies, like during the drought when the dam was low. The house dam is for the garden and the toilets. It was flood filled this year, which is wonderful seeing the channel system they filled with in the past is not being used. Just being connected to the pipeline means a much bigger water bill, even if we don't use it, but we desperately needed this and they have to recoup the money spent on it.
Sweetie of a dog you have.

thanks everyone, I'll give Critter your compliments. Shes a fuzzy little beast.

[QUOTE=Goldfields;996449]Love the look of that garden Criosphynx, I'll bet you've got some treasures tucked away that I'd like here. :thumbs up Yes, I catch rainwater, at the moment(because one 1,000 gallon tank needs relining) [B]we have room for around 11,000 gallons,[/B] though we only use it for the house and emergencies, like during the drought when the dam was low. The house dam is for the garden and the toilets. It was flood filled this year, which is wonderful seeing the channel system they filled with in the past is not being used. Just being connected to the pipeline means a much bigger water bill, even if we don't use it, but we desperately needed this and they have to recoup the money spent on it.
Sweetie of a dog you have.[/QUOTE]

:eek:

wow! Impressive. Makes my 400 gal system look like a joke :p I'd imagine you have a much bigger property size than I do tho, being that theres more people in my local county than in your entire country...we are crammed in like sardines here :p

We have 5 acres, and lease another 5, Criosphynx. When we first shifted here we didn't have much storage, but our very kind neighbor used to let us get rainwater from his place, he had 17,000 gallons. Over time we decided to be self sufficient. During the long drought, when our dam went dry, the same neighbor loaned us a water tank so we could cart water out here from town for our stock. I don't know what we would have done without him at times.
My garden would obviously be bigger then yours , which to me only means a lot more work and more time needed for mowing, weeding, watering etc.. Sometimes smaller sounds very good to me. :D Dense populations sound okay too, I was City born and reared and tho' I have been here for 36 years, I still miss the City. :(

Not much of March left now, almost a third of the way through Autumn here and no sign of it yet, no autumn leaves for instance. There isn't a great deal flowering, though I noticed that the roses are preparing for an Autumn flush. So far just the old faithfuls that repeat flower a lot. Iceberg, The Dark Lady and Crocus Rose.

A Twilight Mist bud, some snapdragons, and Belle Story in the evening sunlight.

[QUOTE=Goldfields;997835]Not much of March left now, almost a third of the way through Autumn here and no sign of it yet, no autumn leaves for instance.[/QUOTE]

:laughing: It all balances out I suppose. I still have a good 60cm snow, some years the grass would be poking out already by now.

That's a lot of snow, it'll be a while yet before you see Spring then. :( Your dogs must love it when they can finally have a run or roll on grass again. It's fairly warm here today(26.3C right now) and I was out watering , weeding, and planting perennials I got in the mail this morning and some pansies. I have bulbs to pot yet but will do it when I have the dogs out for exercise. Right now it's cool down/have a cup of coffee time. My evenings are taken up grooming dogs, the shelties are doing their big change of coat before Winter, or I'd pot the bulbs then.

Being a failure in the rose dept, I am still wondering how you do it with so much wet weather...we get a rain and poof there's black spot everywhere.

I noticed some black spot on the picture with Toby & the gauia (not sure what they are..we don't have them here) ....so why there and not the roses...are you spraying with some miracle spray....if so I must get you to send me some...I need more help that you can imagine...we are having a garden wedding here late this summer and need to get my roses looking like yours!

Shirley, when you say so much wet weather I have to explain that usually it is temperate to semi arid here, a 16 inch average annual rainfall(if we are lucky). Sydney would have 70 inches or more, and Queensland measures their rain in feet, not inches. Roses do NOT do well in Queensland. Or for some they don't anyway. What's your rainfall and when do you get it mainly?
Is your Black Spot a problem all the time?
Yes, the Gaura has some sort of problem. I'd only just bought it, don't know much about them myself, so don't know if this is Black Spot like roses get.
Do you remove all the rose leaves with Black Spot on them and put them in your trash? I know that sounds like a huge job but rose people here do it, then if they spray to try and stop or prevent it, they use a rose spray that just covers Black Spot, Powdery Mildew, Aphids, Caterpillars and two spotted mites. I need some for Aphids so I can let you know what we have here after I've been to town next.
Do you feed your roses? I think roses need to be strong to survive some of the onslaughts and flower well, so I use Seasol, a Seaweed concentrate which stimulates root developement , promotes healthy growth and enhances flowering, plus Dynamic Lifter, an organic plant food containing composted manure, blood and bone, fish meal and seaweed feeds. (I'm quoting from containers.) Dynamic Lifter is in pellet form and stinks in a way that dog find overwhelmingly appetising, hence my having to keep them out of my rose garden, or have low tree gaurds or low fences around garden beds. Seasol is a liquid you dilute, and I make sure it goes direct to the roots using a watering spike and bottle. Sometimes I'll use a specialised rose food, another thing I'll have to get you the name for. I also dig in aged horse manure when planting them.
Golly, that is important, nice roses for a garden wedding, it might be interesting if you tell me what you've tried so far on them. I could run it by a very knowledgeable friend over in Western Australia, she knows far more than I do and has hundreds of roses.(lucky thing.):)

Just had another thought, Shirley, did you know that some roses are prone to getting Black Spot? It'd be interesting to know what your roses are, my sister or that friend I mentioned can tell you if there are any baddies amongst them. I rely on my sister at times, she has 2 or 3 hundred roses and will tell me if a rose I have on my wish list is a poor doer, has too many thorns, puts out huge long canes, gets Black Spot easily, or just doesn't thrive etc.. Then I grudgingly delete. LOL

This is Twilight Mist again, the rose that was just buds in my last group of photo's.

[QUOTE=Goldfields;997879]That's a lot of snow, it'll be a while yet before you see Spring then. :( Your dogs must love it when they can finally have a run or roll on grass again. It's fairly warm here today(26.3C right now) and I was out watering , weeding, and planting perennials I got in the mail this morning and some pansies. I have bulbs to pot yet but will do it when I have the dogs out for exercise. Right now it's cool down/have a cup of coffee time. My evenings are taken up grooming dogs, the shelties are doing their big change of coat before Winter, or I'd pot the bulbs then.[/QUOTE]

:laughing: Yep. Right now they are restricted to a deep race track shovelled around the yard. The sun has been out a bit lately and is making the snow firm enough they can walk on, so I have to keep an eye in one place where the drifts are high enough the the chis can walk over the 3ft fence. :rolleyes: In the mean time I am enjoying your fall pictures and those of the lucky Canadians whose spring has at least begun.

How many Chi's are using this racetrack? That is so funny, I could just picture them getting the zoomies around it. :laughing: That must be such a problem for dog owners when their fences disappear into the snow, is it the same with livestock on farms? Or are they too heavy to walk on hard snow?
In the garden this morning ....
Best Friend, Bright Eyes, and a variagated geranium.

:laughing: No, I don't think anything with a hoof could float on it, hope not! We get quite a wind, the drifts can get so bad even 6-foot fences can be useless. 4 of my chis are reliable racers, but sometimes all 7 go around it together at top speed. The old grandma dog likes to cheat and will turn around half-way, come back the way she came and look up at me like she's the coolest kid ever... which she is, of course... Sometimes I put out agility equipment along the path, but that's pretty limited right now as parts of the path are getting too icy for speed.

That sounds a whole lot more entertaining than I even thought. ROFL. Especially the grandma who cheats. I've always loved oldies more than pups because of how knowing they are. What a clever old girl. :) It'd be great fun to see them going over the agility equipment, they're a wonderfully agile little dog, aren't they? The breeder I got Jedda off warned me how they'll take a leap out of your arms if you aren't careful and boy, was I glad she did, I very nearly had her go 'splat' one time she tried to jump from shoulder height into a puppy pen. I managed to grab her in mid air. Totally fearless.

Very pretty, GF. Love the geranium, too! I can actually grow those....sorta. Never had much luck wintering them over, but if I don't forget to water them, I get blooms for a few months. :thumbs up

Chi racers, eh? I think video might be in order! :D

Afraid not, Hazel, slightly-faster-than-dial-up just doesn't cut it for movies... I should take one, though, before the snow melts, even if it's just for me. :)

Thanks, Hazel. Its not very often my camera co-operates and lets me get a photo of anything that shade of bright red. Funnily enough all the geraniums I put in the ground died. I seem to have more luck in pots.

[QUOTE=SamIam;998978]Afraid not, Hazel, slightly-faster-than-dial-up just doesn't cut it for movies... I should take one, though, before the snow melts, even if it's just for me. :)[/QUOTE]

You should--and then you can post it after you get an upgrade.. And upgrades do happen, even in some of the least likely locations :D--we used to have dial-up out here in the boonies and just got DSL last year :thumbs up


[QUOTE=Goldfields;999056] Funnily enough all the geraniums I put in the ground died. I seem to have more luck in pots.[/QUOTE]

I have more luck with them in the ground! Don't know if I don't feed potted ones enough or if I feed them too much.... :o

Oh, do they like to be fed, Hazel? Duh! LOL. I probably starved mine then, if they didn't die of thirst first during our drought. :( I'll give them some Dynamic Lifter perhaps. I'm a beginner gardener really, haven't got into composting yet, am still scared of the creepy crawly things out there, and have a heck of a lot to learn about everything. :) Oh, when I say that about composting ... I suppose our manure heap is just compost, because after all, everything gets tossed on it, stable straw, grass cuttings etc..

:laughing: Maybe they don't like to be fed, considering my luck with potted geraniums!

I always feed the ones in pots--the soil depletes pretty quickly. :D Do you not feed your potted ones? Maybe I [I]am[/I] overfeeding, then :shrug:

Oh darn. My sister told me today that she doesn't feed her geraniums but I didn't ask her whether they are in the ground or pots. I think it's in the ground though. I might just leave mine alone until they look like they need something. I buy an expensive potting mix to start with, it's got everything in it, but you are right,stuff gets used or leached out. I'm being cruel to the poor things really. LOL. I planted some bulbs recently and was kind enough to give them some Dynamic Lifter
I was thinking of you today, wondering can you tell me something about Rudbeckia.(yellow coneflower.) It's a native of North America so wondered if you grew it, and if so, do I need to save seeds and resow, or would it just self seed? Does it die down in Winter?

Kronenberg, which I think is a great rose.
Twilight Mist, getting lovelier as it ages IMO.
Seduction, a rose that seems to vary a bit.

The yellow coneflowers I used to have were [I]Echinacea [/I], just like the purple coneflowers are. But there are lots of rudbeckia species that grow here, too. Some, which I've never grown, are commonly called 'coneflowers', but some are called black-eyed susans. I have some of the latter growing in the hummingbird garden--but they're perennials. I can't get plants that need to reseed--mine never do. :o Some Black-eyed susans are biennials...for some reason I've had more luck with biennials than annuals. Like the biennial gaura, for instance. That one lasted a long time! I have to remember to look for it this year, though, since it didn't bloom last year. :fingerscr that was just because of the rain and second year plants will have a chance to bloom this summer!

I Googled them just now and it says they are a tough herbaceous perennial. That's good. Looking at the Google images, I could fill my garden with them, I love them. :) I just bought a yellow and an orange Echinacea type coneflower, now just bring on Spring.

You know Hazel, the funny thing I have found about Geraniums...the less *love* they get, the better mine do. I'm not knowledgable enough to speak about species but, whenever I got a donation of geraniums for my guerilla garden they were almost always half-dead straggly, one-leafed wonders. I would put the poor things in my mostly toxic, mostly clay and rock and sand and dog-pee soil :D and they would THRIVE.

Seriously, take 'em out to the back forty, beat em up a bit, then plant them. They'll just be so darned grateful to still be alive they'll be eager to please & grow like mad.

Can't do it. Too many rabbits and deer in the back 40! :laughing:

[QUOTE=hazelrunpack;999876]Can't do it. Too many rabbits and deer in the back 40! :laughing:[/QUOTE]

Now, Hazel how many times have we told you....the babbits are just as ascared of you as you are of them...

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I absolutely love the rabbit. :laughing: The only geranium I have that is thriving here is in the shade and growing above a tail off our septic tank. (Eeewww.) I put them out in full sun, they died, yet I know they should stand full sun. Now I keep them in pots so I remember to water them.
I've been out giving the roses a good drink of Seasol and regardless that I washed my hands, they still smell of seaweed. 40 done, so maybe another 100 to go. Not good for a bad back.:(