I’m so pleased to have asked Alice to mind my bird bath whilst we were travelling. Paul gave it to me for a Christmas Present many years ago, long before the replica piece became overly popular. It’s been the centre point of my gardens wherever we’ve lived, and this garden is now also shaping up around it.

I used to have a woman’s weekly garden book showing garden patterns. The stand out garden in the book for me was a large, lacy blue, plumbago surrounded by a solid border of blue agapanthus. Finally, I have a chance to re-create that pattern in a garden of my own. The Plumbago is just starting to flower, and three of the transplanted Aggies have blooms just starting to open. By next summer I’m sure it’ll be living up to my expectations, with the added bonus of being set off by my lovely bird bath.

While much of our new garden is slowly growing, the border of stepping stones and Sweet Alice has taken off with astounding speed. I just love it!

Another couple of plants I gave to Alice are still florishing. One is the Cane Begonia which I started from a cutting from our friends Bruce and Wendy’s, from their house in Churchlands. It’s still growing strong for Alice, and she’s passed a couple of cuttings back to me which are just starting to shoot. Another is the Elephants Ears which we purchased from the underground car boot sale at Warwick when we first moved into Granadilla Street in 1998. Alice managed to get me a couple of baby plants from the Elephants Ears which are now thriving in her courtyard. It’s thrilling to have plants that come with a history.

A Pygmy Date Palm has been a staple in many of our gardens, so Paul has again purchased one for our side tropical garden. This little side garden area is shaping up to be a quiet and cool place for our morning coffee. In fact we often eat our breakfast out there, and find opportunities to go out there to soak up the developing ambience several times at least on most days. It still has a way to go to equal our past gardens, but it’s well on the way. So far we’ve added a couple of Golden Cane Palms (last photographed in this blog when we planted them at Kelv’s up in Katherine), and an urn with a bright red geranium to add a contrasting splash of colour. The rest of the plants are ones rescued from the existing garden which have been re-potted, trimmed, and fertilised.

It won’t be long till the baby Elephants Ears are big enough to be potted up and take pride of place along the fence line, and Bruce and Wendy’s Cane Begonia’s won’t be far behind.

It’s wonderful to have a garden that has associations with years gone by. I’ve always loved my gardens, and this one is shaping up to be no exception. It brings us both a lot of pleasure!