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One of my bean plants has flowered! I planted King of the Blues and soybeans.. and I think this must be a KoB flower.
My mango fruit is growing larger and the olives are also increasing in size. Yesterday we planted out some climbing wisteria and a small bamboo. The garden is slowly looking less neglected. I planted some sweetpeas and they are so cute! I have never seen them except on the seed packet, and they were much more charming than I'd expected. Hope everyone has a good new year. Xx Shiukopuppy
My boyfriend and I have decided to go back to Japan to see more gardens among other things.
When we were last in Japan, we tracked down a rural bonsai nursery. It was an adventure.. We visited the tourist centre with some printouts from Japanese websites with maps to bonsai nurseries. They managed to locate one near us and we had to catch a train into the countryside and navigate our way through a country town. The map was in Japanese and I was relieved that I could remember enough Japanese to get there. Eventually we found the bonsai nursery and had tea with the owner who showed us books with
his bonsai at various shows. We discussed bunjae (korean bonsai) and penjing (chinese bonsai) as much as we could with my level of Japanese. It was a sort of pilgrimage for my boyfriend who is passionate about bonsai so we were happy! ^_^
This time, we're going to visit a bonsai community near Tokyo where he can admire the trees at various nurseries and buy some more bonsai tools/books. Last time we were there, my partner learned the kanji for 'bonsai' and was able to buy lots of books and magazines for me to translate. This time, I hope we can meet some more bonsai enthusiasts. I have tried to grow bonsai but I don't have the magic bonsai touch.. but I enjoy choosing the saplings and looking at the little accessories - bridges, fishermen, etc.
Could this be a mango? I've never really seen a mango tree and it looks like the flowers are as confusing as they were on my olive trees (which had lots of tiny flowers - most of which did not set fruit). I hope they are better than the hard and odourless mangoes at the supermarket.
My lettuces are doing well and I have enjoyed them in a few salads. Most of the zucchinis have flowered which means that I can look forward to eating them in a couple of months. In the floral garden, the bottlebrushes and grevillias keep flowering and the snapdragons and marigolds are vibrant.
Hi all! I hope you're having a good xmas. I've been so busy lately and I haven't had time to play in the garden - how depressing! I spent the whole of winter looking forward to this season.. but we have gone away for the last 6 weekends.
Anyway garden updates.. I bought a dwarf mango tree. Will try to keep it alive in my cooler district. I have a broken heart as a possum ate all of the leaves on my young avocado tree and I'm not sure if it will grow back. Our coffee plant is growing vigorously but I haven't seen any sign of berries..! Tomatoes, currants and grapes are also fruiting.
Here is blurry picture of a young olive: 
Well I have been enjoying my pink bottlebrush flowers but they (and the rest of the garden) are not used to the rain and are not doing very well.. The eggplants, snapdragons and other bottlebrushes are getting rust or rotting down.. This area is usually very dry. I bought some new eggplants but they were eaten by possums.
The good news is that I have lots of tiny limes, lemons, mandarins and olives. I'll take some photos of them soon because they are so cute! I'm visiting my parents house again and have been checking out their balcony garden. Their coriander went to seed and as soon as the seeds are ready, we'll dry the seeds to be used in curries. Yum!
Behold the overgrown herb garden! It's dramatically different to the winter garden. I've planted lawn chamomile around the borders to make a herb lawn. The flat leaf parsley has become prolific - sprouting very large leaves. The basil has recovered from its planting shock and is settling in. The lemongrass (all over the place) is growing steadily and the coriander just went to seed again. I planted out some Thai basil and shiso this week and am growing more parsley and coriander in the greenhouse for later. I bought a Vietnamese cookbook to try some recipes with the Vietnamese mint that I've grown. Our pomegranate is flowering so I'm looking forward to seeing the fruit later! And that's about it!
The lettuce bed is happily growing.. In the corner, I've also planted soy beans and 'king of the blues' beans. I'm going to use the cut-and-come-again method this year, so I've planted fewer lettuces including cos lettuce, mesclun french salad mix, red & green salad bowl mixed, coral, rocket, beetroot (for the leaves) and green mignonette. I constructed a shade cloth roof to stop them from going to seed and will be adding my chinese broccoli seedlings when they get big enough. Am enjoying spring weather!
The tomatoes have gone in! I planted out the tomatoes that I bought at the nursery (Roma) and a mixed seed packet with yellow, green, red tomatoes. I also planted some
seed of white, black, yellow and red cherry tomatoes. I have waited patiently, following Peter Cundall's advice to keep them in pots until flowering. I still have to wait patiently for the peppers and eggplants to grow enough leaves to plant out as well.. The cucumbers are vigorous and I planted some zucchini from the nursery as well.
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