More gardening - Thursday 20 - Friday 21st August 2026

Up again by myself - to do more gardening/tidying up

Came up on the Thursday, and left on the Friday afternoon

There has been a lot of rain, - the cellar was flooded - so I had to jiggle the sump pump float (yet again) to get it to empty.  The plumber wasn't available unfortunately

But at least with all the rain - the weeds (including the dreaded couch grass) are easy to pull out

The daphne and hellebores are heady with scent - which was really lovely

Given that nothing had still been done about the stumps etc - I decided to tackle them myself

Hardest one first - ie the large palm near the fence 

Actually, it proved too hard for me - I was able to get under it a bit - but not enough - so left it, and tackled some easier ones

Didn't take photos of them all - but pretty much got them all out except for the palm

It was a lovely sunny day - and those orange flowers that I don't actually like that much were out in abundance - and actually looked quite nice

And given that there was still more rain (previously) - the plants are growing very well - in fact the right hand path (facing the house) is getting very overgrown

  

And there was water on the back veranda - which I swept off

One of the tulips that I'd bought from the Melbourne Garden show has come into flower

And I checked on the 2 x passionfruits that I bought last time? from the Bridgewater nursery, and one of them is still definitely alive - yay, and the other still has a greenish tinge near the base

  

My self imposed tasks were to fill the bin  (which I did), and also to prune the roses.  

I replanted quite a few of the cuttings - who knows with a bit of luck they might strike

Whilst pruning the roses - I got a bit of a fright from a hibernating? lizard

I also dug out and replanted one of the lavender bushes from one of the tear drop garden beds.  Shane or one of his guys had trimmed it back in conjunction with the wormwood bush (they are similarly coloured - but very different leaves) - anyway, they were too similar to keep together - so I replanted it out the front - hopefully it will survive

And I pulled out all of the "weed" little palm trees from under the Hoop pine

And tackled more of that bloody couch grass - as I said earlier - at least its easier while the ground is moist