Spring Garden in Orange

I have spent the majority of this winter primarily doing two things; being ill with one of the many bugs that the twiglets pick up at daycare (on what seems like a daily basis) and gardening. If anyone has any top immune building tips, please share them as nothing I'm doing seems to work!

Each week has been packed with either pruning, planting, moving things, laying irrigation, spraying, re-organising beds, leveling and the list goes on.

It has felt like an endless and rather thankless task, as none of the results are seen immediately, however now that spring has sprung it is a different story.

My bulb planting frenzy has brought a lot more yellow to the garden, a great calming colour apparently & something we certainly need much more of in our household. 

It is so much fun seeing all the bulbs pop up each week and bringing a burst of colour to our otherwise barren winter garden.

I definitely plan on planting even more bulbs next year as they are such an easy flower option and once planted require no effort whatsoever.

The fruit trees are covered in blossom right now and the little apple tree we planted last year is covered in fruit buds so exciting times ahead.

We have also added a dwarf mandarin and a full size cherry tree to our little orchard. Some of our bigger fruit trees don't have too long left in them (despite our best efforts to improve their health) so we are future proofing our fruit supplies!

In the front garden, we have planted 5 iceberg standard roses that run along the front wall and we have ripped out the old ones that to be honest, I never really liked and were pretty unhealthy anyway.

A plum gorgeous has gone into the corner of the garden, these plants have beautiful maroon leaves and bright pink flowers in summer. We have pulled out all the irises from their shady corner and moved them to sunnier garden beds where we can expect more flowers.

It feels that with all our hedging efforts, we have laid the foundations for what could be a really awesome garden one day.

Flowers and shrubs look at their best when balanced out by green structured plants as a backdrop. It is slightly annoying we didn't know to do this from the beginning but hey, better late than never.

The Slowest Growing Hedge

The photinia hedge we planted three years ago to give us some privacy has unfortunately proved to be the slowest growing thing ever! I can assure you, that I have fed and watered the hedge and tried to stimulate growth as much as physically possible, however there has been a complete lack of results....until now!

When we planted the hedge it was at the level of the wall (and the smaller plants only came half way up the wall) so as you can see there has been a small amount of progress in that the hedge is bushing out and is now just over the top of the wall. Only another 5 years and we might have the beautiful private hedge we initially hoped for!

What do you think - is there much growth at all? At least it looks pretty with the lovely red leaves and makes a nice contrast to the yellow flowers and green shrubs in the flower bed in front.

It does feel like the front garden beds are slowly filling up and becoming something nice to look at rather than an eye sore. It won't be long before, we are able to take out the agapanthas and just have lovely yellow flowers and shrubs instead.

The top tip I got from our gardener friend Doug, is that we can make more impact in a garden bed by having lots of repetition rather than trying to plant an array of different things. So I am now reviewing the things that have grown well so far in the front and I'm now just filling in the gaps with more of the same whilst sticking to the yellow and green theme.

Having a good layer of mulch also helps against the weeds and makes everything look a bit more neat and tidy. What do you think? Would love your feedback!

Some good friends of ours very kindly let me raid their garden and split some of their clivias which grow really well in shaded spots and under trees. The plants all survived the 3.5hr drive home from Sydney and seem to have taken well to their new location. We already have beautiful orange flowers in full bloom and they should spread nicely into the space over time. It certainly beats having a corner of weeds which filled the area previously.

On the good advice of a Life A L'Orange reader, my camelia is doing much better now that it gets more sun, you can see from the photos that the stems can barely hold the weight of all the lovely flowers.

The bulbs and pansies have been really lovely this year and the sunshine and decent amount of rain means that everything is truly blooming - I feel I am finally getting some results for all the effort over  the last few years.

It is amazing that when a few things start to go well in the garden, you do get a second wind to get on and do more! Our other big plan, which I think I have may have mentioned before, is getting the lawns sorted out. However that is a fairly epic project and so far the lawn has resisted all our attempts to improve it and the weeds seem to thrive on weed killer. Perhaps I can find a professional to help me with lawn maintenance?  

Hope you like the garden progress as much as I do!

Early Spring in Orange

Mr L'Orange and I escaped for a well needed break to the South Coast of NSW last week. It was totally relaxing and the weather was a good 10 degrees warmer than Orange so we were both happy.

Our first daffodils are out

When we got back to the ranch, we were shocked to find all the fruit trees in blossom and the spring bulbs out a good month earlier than usual.

The weather has continued in the low twenties ever since and we feel that winter is truly behind us, lets hope so! The fruit trees are looking the healthiest we have ever seen them and are completely covered in blossom.

I got busy and thinned out the little lemon tree, so that it gets the chance to grow upward over the next few months rather than remaining the clumped little bush it had turned into. I had no idea what I was doing, but it does now look more like a tree so I'm hoping I've helped rather than hindered.

Dog A L'Orange with Lemons

It was also a good opportunity to harvest all the remaining lemons from the tree, there were so many!

The good weather has meant the garden has gone a bit berserk in terms of growth so we are kept occupied with weeding, cutting the lawns, watering and feeding all the plants.

Spring in Orange

Pretty much overnight, our bare sorry looking fruit trees have come out covered in blossom. To our surprise every fruit tree this year has been jam packed full of blossom, even the dodgy one at the end that always looks diseased.

We have our fingers crossed that this means a bumper crop of fruit come January. Will have to look up some plum, nectarine and apricot recipes.

The bees are having a field day at the moment, pollenating everything in site and quite literally setting the garden humming. 

The start of spring and better weather has us all in a good mood and has also encouraged a lot more Sydney visitors!

Upoming Guest Blogs

Dearest Readers,

I've been busy scouting the brightest and most exciting talent from the Central Western region to feature as guests on the Life A L'Orange blog over the net month. Expect to see some juicy guest blog features very soon.

I don't want to give too much away about the guest bloggers just yet, but here are a few clues:

 * best selling author from the area
 * excellent cook

 * award winning winemaker

On another note, it really feels like spring is just around the corner, after a lovely sunny day with temperatures of 16 degrees. There is now blossom covering the trees and yellow daffodils and snowdrops springing up all over the place.