The Garden of Woz...

[GoDawgs]

I have never seen pussy tail plants before. Gorgeous! I see that your native Aussie plant has made it's way across the Big Pond and that Baker Creek has seed. I might have to get some next year.

[Whwoz]

Noticed the first of the Red Banana Shallots was up today with a couple of other varieties of the multiplier onions also starting to show top.

Have had three seed orders turn up in the past fortnight, mainly bee fodder in the form of Salvias, Delphinums, Marigolds, Cosmos, Cornflowers Sweet William, Phlox, Larkspurs, Asters Canterbury Bells and some of the Sunflowers that we saw at Tesselaars. Would much prefer natives over these exotics but we do not have equivalents within the native annual flora. Starting to build up a collection of native perennials, added 3 Rose of the West mallee's, Eucalyptus rhodantha and two Fringed Lillies, Thysanotus tuberosus today, along with 10 different pansies. Seemed to be Pansy season in at the B store today, lots of them about.

Also getting some fresh seed of peas, beans, a couple of watermelons, a couple of white fruited bell peppers a few more tomatoes - need to look up Petrusha Ogorodnik and Mushroom Basket tomatoes. One of the Beans is White half runner, be interesting to see how tall these get.

[MissS]

I see that you have been doing your homework on the plants that the bees will use. The bees are not native here either so we to have to import varieties to keep them happy. They do seem to like many of our native trees and shrubs though. Plants evolve so that their blossoms are appealing to the local pollinators for survival. If you introduce a new pollinator then you need to bring in some food sources for them too.

[Whwoz]

Chives:

About a week ago I had to cut back the chives due to the black aphids that were on them. They are recovery well

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[Whwoz]

The onion bed as it stands at the moment, with the walking onions at the back about 18 inches/450mm tall and the shallots and potato onions in front of them

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The Red banana shallot that is the most advanced and yes I have a sprinkler set up so that they get watered every third or fourth day.

[Whwoz]

Strawberry Guava

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Have not grown or tasted these before. 2 plants were obtained about 13 months ago and one has two crops on it, new fruit about 1/4 inch across (top photo) and the larger fruit about an inch across in the bottom photo. they must be getting close to starting to ripen, looking forward to it.

[Whwoz]

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Self sown pansy seedlings , one of several patches where all that is small and green is pansy. hoping that they are not too cold sensitive, most years we get down to -3/27F with our occasional frost. the lowest we have been down to was -7C/19F

[Whwoz]

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The latest additions to the pansy patch, with a couple still to flower

[bower]

Gorgeous pansy colors, Whwoz.

You probably wouldn't get a hard freeze of the soil at -3C, eh? Unless it bottomed out there for days.
The large flowered pansies don't overwinter here, but this is when they have flowered their heart out in the first summer.
WRT seedlings, I would suspect the ones that haven't flowered yet, would survive winter better than those that bloomed.

[Whwoz]

@bower, the lows are generally associated with frost only, no freezing of the soil here. Frosts are generally followed by beautiful weather with temps getting up around 15C/55F and hardly a could in the sky. Sub zero for only a couple of hours most nights. We may grumble a bit about the cold (for us, all relative) but enjoy the days after.

WRT pansies, some very nice colours about at the moment, may get some more in next couple of days.