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| | From:  lilyannie1 (Original Message) | Sent: 6/13/2006 11:34 AM |
Hi, thought I'll show you a bit of my garden. I believe in fung shei and try to adapt it into my garden but then when you are dealing with plants, they do not adjust to your beliefs! My garden is a funny shape, it measures 45ft at one side and only 30ft on the other, because they are built on land that curves round with the river. If you imagine this oblong shape with a distinct point at the longest side, I had to have something to 'hide' it, so I had a 12ft by 10ft shed placed there and at the end of this sharp corner, I made a brick/stone stand for my compost bin, raised so that I can collect the 'juices' from it - sort of making my own babybio. In fact most of the corners in my garden are blocked with something, the more opened ones are blocked with something sharp to stop the unknown forces at work. The far end corner (near gate) has a pointed Yucca which one of the neighbours gave it to us as a tiny shoot. Other corners have acer trees - my green one is producing seeds which I will try to pot when ripe.   My box plants - my Green Dragon guards the back of my house. You can see my potted lilies and I am curious at this 'lily' that the garden centre sneaked in the package. And finally, our Shark's fin marrows are in, amongst the shrubs. They are coming on SLOWLY due to that spot of cold weather a few weeks back.  Lily wondering if anyone has grown an acer from a seed. Please let me know? |
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What a very pretty garden you have Lily I love your dragon ! I have not been able to get to grips with the garden so far this year so its a bit overgrown and just one look at it makes me think, where do I start  The birds are enjoying it though lol. I recently bought a lantern which you can see on this pic. It's solar powered and it has a flickering candle effect at night. I call it my little bit of Narnia, imagining what the plants will look like heavy with snow ! |
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| | | From: Joe | Sent: 7/14/2006 2:56 PM |
A couple of views of my quiet garden  |
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Although I have a fantastic view of the city from my balcony. I envy those with gardens, that appear to be yes, residential or further out, for the peace and quiet they expereince each and everyday. I live right on a main thorofare. Busy is it's second word during the day.  |
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| | | From: Jìbbs | Sent: 7/16/2006 11:52 AM |
I just found these pics. They're beautiful examples of three different gardens. Lily's so ordered and tidy and neat, which I like, and Iced's gorgeous blue ceonothus growing all amongst the other shrubs, and Joe's typically English border all jumbled together and working so well. Lovely! For the first time in years I don't have my own garden, as we live in a second floor flat. However, we look right into the canopy of tree tops right outside the window and watch the birds and squirrels. Downstairs the ground floor flats have gardens and they are bursting with summer flowers right now, and we have a little drying garden to sit in. I've got a collection of house plants on the landing outside the flat which has two walls of glass, much like a greenhouse, so my heat loving plants are doing really well. I do miss my last little garden which I designed and planted. It had a little pond with a shingly beach and a tiny deck to sit and pond-stare, a summerhouse which I used as a studio, and a little patch of grass outside where  used to sleep in the sun. Oh well. Things have changed, and I don't really have the strength now to do gardening anyway. I mooch around the parks three times a day with and sit by the ponds and admire everything, feeling glad I don't have to cut grass or weed any more. |
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| | | From: Jìbbs | Sent: 7/16/2006 11:54 AM |
Talking of bonsai trees Lily, Zax bought me one for a present much against my will as I hated the thought of plants being tortured! I like it now. It's a Chinese yew and because his leaves look like the hair of a character in the Simpsons, we call him Sideshow Bob. Zax talks about him like he's a person! Bob had a lovely bath yesterday. Bob is big for his age even though he isn't (work that one out, his mind doesn't work like other people's  ) Hah! he'll never know I told you as he would never dream of looking in here! I'm going to look for a pic |
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| | | From: Jìbbs | Sent: 7/16/2006 12:04 PM |
| "Our Bob" is like the one on the right, but with longer leaves, as I don't prune him at the moment. |
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Well the potted lilies are in full bloom, I find that the expensive bulbs are better than the bargain packs - you pay what you get! Here is a glimpse of our Shark's Fin marrows, climbing up slowly towards shed roof - I'll call them marrows now because it is a vegetable. Four female blooms are already out BUT the male flowers are slow as usual. I managed to find ONE single male yesterday, it will open tomorrow so I am going to give it a good poke with my paint brush! Two of the female blooms have already closed so I am going to opened it up and brush some male pollen inside to see if it's not too late. They are doing quite well at the moment because my hubby is watering them at least three times each day and using chicken poo as fertiliser. Lily |
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I am curious in this perennial plant that I grew from a seed about 9 years ago. The flowers are yellow and the bulbs look like this. I thought it was a primrose of some sort. Does anyone know?   Lily |
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Hi, I have now sussed out that yellow plant, it is indeed a primrose, a Missouri Primrose. My greatest delight is seeing this plant flourish from a seed that I planted myself. Here is a glimpse of my Shark's Fin Marrows, the bees are busy but it is a gamble on them polinating because over two dozen female blooms and only three males < each opened on odd days. The blooms last about 24hours and then they closed up. Once closed up, the female flower will start to die if not pollinated. I have tried to polinate fresh (just a few hours) closed female blooms and these too have died. So I have learnt that you cannot 'rescue' these fruits and just have to have a good moan at the SLOWNESS of the male blooms!  <<<<< All 3 are female because there is a bulb attached to the flower. Lily |
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Thought I'll round this thread off by showing you the development of these Sharks Fin Marrows. I have learnt alot since we began to take an interest in growing these in 2003. Here is on what NOT to do and also add our disappointments. 2003 - The hubby got up in the middle of the night and urinated on the plants. He thought he was back in China, but Her Indoors has taught him to use the lavatory instead. 2004 - Yes he has learnt to use the lavatory BUT thought that the young marrows resembled a woman's boobs so he started to squeeze them! Each baby marrow is lined with tiny hairs that are like nettles, this is to protect them from slugs etc. So if this lining is damaged, it sends a message to the fruit that it can no longer protect itself so its shrivels up. So Her Indoors commands him to go and play with something else! 2005 - Our marrows were doing so well, hubby can use the toilet and found other things to play with, along can the vandals - young children who blocked our small river off and made themselves a diving pool - stripped the entire bark off some trees, frightened all the families of ducks away so my hubby has nothing to play with - he fed these every morning. Then, they saw our marrows and smashed many to pieces. So we threaten to throw chicken poo over them if they come near our property again. 2006 - The vandals stayed away - so far but there are not many marrows this year because of the weather. It is strange that by doing a survey amongst our Chinese community, most marrows grown this year - the plants have turned out to be 'sterile' - these plants though from the same batch of seeds grow extremely well, the leaves are huge but the flowers are males that are very stunted (just the bulb is visible) and never seem to bloom. As soon as we realised each sterile plant we destroyed because they were taking the goodness out of the soil. As usual with each crop the female blooms first and without the pollen from the male - no fruit <<< I cannot believe that I am still teaching my hubby this because there has been heartache on my behalf this year. What I have learnt this year is that you cannot pollinate a closed female bloom and NEVER trust the hubby's word! From the second lot of flowering I managed to find a male bloom and used it's pollen to fertilise this female flower that was hidden just behind the fence. This marrow will become OUR matured one because I want to retrieve it's seeds for next year so I will wait until all the leaves are withered, it is going to be the last to be picked.  Never trust my hubby's word! Why? When about a dozen blooms came out, the bees were busy so I left them to do the pollinating because my hubby says they were doing a good job. Then by evening I went to inspect, found only one male pollen -ness bloom. It was a gamble for the bees to use the pollen from THAT bloom to pollinate so many females. So my worst fears were confirmed, all the female blooms were not fertilised hence, no fruit. This is my greatest heartache this year because I had a chance - if I had got to that male bloom before the bees .....I have also learnt that timing is essential, I must get to the male blooms (very, very scarce at the start of each crop) before the bees. That dozen if I had did the pollination would have been huge now to co-incide with the fine weather in July but now I have to be satisfied with these. They have become so stunted this year and most have stopped growing - the skin is going darker and darker.   Lily - with such knowledge I can't wait until next year now. |
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Hi, I always wondered how does one obtain lily bulbs, thought they grew in the soil from an existing bulb, like having 'babies' Now I have seen the light, they form at the stem as shown here. I don't know whether its the organic feeds that we have been using on our plants but the magnolia strub is flowering again.  Anyone with some interesting news about their garden? Would love to learn more. Lily |
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