Garden Excitement

I am very excited to be telling you that I have had a fantastic morning going through the whole of our garden with a professional today. 

Olive trees should all reach over the fence this year - fingers crossed.

After 4.5 years, I now know all the species of tree and plants in the garden and how to help them have a happier and healthier life. This has been seriously overdue!

The Italian Courtyard is starting to come together

Surprisingly, we got a big thumbs up from Jeanette Scott, whose parents have owned orchards and land in the area for years and is the guru of all things plant, tree and garden. According to Jen, our trees are looking really healthy and with some serious pruning over the winter (with the assistance of my new found professional gardener) will be looking fabulous and have fruit we can actually reach next year.

Juicy juicy plums

I now have long list of jobs that include feeding, mulching, thinning, some chainsaw action (stand by Mr L'Orange) and then spraying and pruning in the winter. 

My hibiscus plants also need to be moved as they are trees rather than shrubs (bit of a misunderstanding on my part) and need more space and sunshine. Will be sad to move them but imagine them big and beautiful in another garden.

We also had a look at the Darling Cottage garden which whilst beautiful and established, requires quite a bit of maintenance to keep everything looking neat and maintained. So much for my idea that it would be totally low maintenance! 

I think I'll be spending the weekend spraying white oil, feeding all the azaleas and camelias, then trimming everything back before it grows even more out of control.

Lawn Update - Utterly tired of the useless effect of 'weed and feed' on our lawns we have now purchased some hard core weed killer from the Agricultural Store to try and get the many broadleaf weeds killed off. Will report on the results next week.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.