Happiness Is Right Under Your Nose

I've just come back from a bitterly cold weekend up the West Coast in Namaqualand. Howling winds, rain, icy temperatures and dramatic landscapes (some of what you can see on my instagram shots). But the most visual fun I had was with the smallest of things, and a new lens that allowed me get up really close and personal.

Dead Plant Society: Roll Call

2014...and so it begins
The Red Hot Chilli Peppers come to an early demise
as the Mystery Midnight Trimmer
leaves yet another branch on the deck...

How the mighty have fallen

I wish someone would fess-up so I can come to terms with my loss and move on.
(Revenge after all, is a dish best served cold)

After last year, any reputation I had as a gardener lies in ruins - literary and I have the deathlist to prove it. This year I'm turning over a new leaf so to speak, and I've been hard at work trying transforming my little garden graveyard.
So...
To all the plants I've loved before....(sung too Julio Eglesias)
I'm going to replace you all if it kills me.

Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween
from the Dead Plant Society

My gardens week in short

The last week in my garden started with rain.

And lots of it. 4 out of my 5 newly planted proteas have gone over to the dark side and joined the dead plant society. They clearly just don't dig my garden unless it's six feet under

I'm also saying a final goodbye to my little tomatoes - these are the last of them I think.

There are things, however, that do like these conditions!

And much to my astonishment the sweetpeas are at it again in a different bed?! Not to be left behind the gooseberries are clearly not going to be the wall flowers - they've just taken over all the other bald spots. I'm even potting them for the ceramics class!

The only colour in my garden at the moment.

And the week ended, yes, in more rain. Winter is truly apon us.

New Arrivals

Despite the success of 'The Dead Plant Society' I find myself compelled to spend more time with the living. It's a viscious cycle really.

About a year ago I planted this Wild Dagga. I had to really search to find the white variety as opposed to more readily available orange. Come to think of it I lost one of them to 'The Society'. Now it's started flowering and they are the most velvety soft looking pompoms ever!

My Irises have made it through four seasons and are back in bloom.

And last but not least I've planted some more restios.

Let the games begin!

The Dead Plant Society

Have you noticed how I've been avoiding my own garden. I've been doing a body count again after some summer planting.

Want to join the club? Membership to this elite society is only awarded postumously. Another criteria is that you had to have spent your entire life in one place.

The Membership role sofar:

The Silver trees

Butterfly bushes

The Rose geranium

A Lemon Verbena

Lavender

Magnolia

And then there's the unwashed masses that get given paupers burials in unmarked graves. Sometimes being a plant in my garden is a thankless exsistence.