November has arrived; almost a summer garden.

Today I picked the first Gladioli I planted for picking.

The kitchen garden provides now many Zucchini, green, yellow and mottled.

I try to cook this vegetable in many different ways.

 Preferring the Mediterranean way, my favourite taste.

Mixed with other Vegetables like sweet potatoes, 

Aubergines and tomatoes, rosemary, parsley and thyme.

Baked with parsley, thyme, olive oil and Parmesan. It was very tasty.

This was tasty too. 

1 slice of home made bread cut into cubes, 2 cups Zucchini cut into cubes, add enough melted butter to the bread cubes, mix into the zucchini cubes, add your favourite herbs add a little olive oil and  grated cheese on top, preferably an Italian cheese. Bake in the oven 180 C (360 F) until soft and browned on top. Around 30 minutes.

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06/11/2017

 While I am waiting for the milk to cool down to make yogurt, using the time to show of a few more beauties after some rain last night.

Jut to pretty not to show...




Roset Delizy, first I thought it was a different one but the open flowers show the yellow heart.




Amelia Anderson also a new old rose I planted this August. I have already a few more on my bucket list  to order next winter!



Mr. Lincoln I love in my garden for its looks and its fragrance.







The lovely Marie van Houtte.

14/11/2017

The Butterfly Garden;

Salvia Meigan's Magic.

The butterfly garden evolved over a few years from an ugly strip of rough grass along the driveway.

Now, it is flourishing with bugs, bees and butterflies.

Salvia African Sky.









Turns and twists of  a spider Daylily.

Caterpillars are a must have in the garden  if you love butterflies.Ts




Butterflies are the ballerinas in the air, glissade, grand jeté ...Ts



A lucky butterfly may live around a fortnight! Ts




Coreopsis

As a child I read once a story that flowers accepted only  the same coloured butterflies, Yellow flowers  for yellow butterflies. I felt sad because I loved to see a yellow butterfly on a pink rose.




Tea Rose Perfumed Delight; lost the original but fortunately made two cuttings. Both flowering now.
Last year I have seen swarms of dancing butterflies, hundreds, it was an awesome sight. Ts



More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!
~William Wordsworth, "To a Butterfly"







Blue sky,  sweet fragrance of flowers, dancing butterflies, magic.Ts

15/11/2017

An early morning walk along the Butterfly garden.



One of the spider Daylilies growing in the "spider" border along the drive way.




The perfume of Gardenia tells you where the plant is hiding.  I received a Gardenia from dear friends very early when I established this garden, probably 25 years ago. The original plant is still growing and flowering in the upper terrace garden. This is a cutting I made for the butterfly garden a few years ago.





Spider Daylily, very floriferous,  the flowers are around 25 cm across,
they are huge attention seekers.





Salvia microphylla Peru Blue, has underground rhizomes. It is a great plant to grow.
 This Salvia  does not have any star allures.

Let us, then, be up and doing,

With a heart for any fate;

Still achieving, still pursuing,

Learn to labour and to wait. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow from his poetry Psalm of Life.

19/11/2017
A rainy day, on and off;

It gave me enough time in between to do a bit of weeding, as weed lift out easily when the soil is wet.   l also spotted a few of my own Daylily seedlings flowering this year the first time.



Trixie a vibrant red with a pretty green, well formed  heart. Slightly pleated petals.

Aria, a triangual form, nice pink with a deep green heart and darker feathering around the heart. Nicely recurved and slightly frilled.




Allegra, I think this one has turned out pretty well. Nicely recurved, round, double and a really nice colour well proportioned.

A garden, doodle book is fun to make.






26/11/2017
Rapidly arriving in Dec🎄ember. Summer,  Christmas


The garden inhabits a big variety of plants,  this brings myriads of Insects.




 A symphony of warm scents and the contented buzz of insects.






Buddleja





Euphorbia millii, many different ones are available, they add a lot of interest to the garden.





Buddleja lindleyana is a deciduous shrub native to some provinces of  China, where it grows in rocky scrub alongside streams and tracks at elevations of 200 – 2700 m.
It is quite hardy in my garden. It suffers a little when the dry times are around. It grows with underground rhizomes. It is an absolutely beautiful plant.







Hibiscus from Torbli. Every plant as usually a little story attached. This one I brought home as a cutting from her place called Torbli,when I visited my  middle daughter.




I am  fascinated by these weirdly relaxed flowers of the spider Daylilies.





I call these "Golidilocks"!




 “We're all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness.



If I were a flower I would choose to be one as quirky and eccentric  as these.😊

Last day of November; 30/11/2017




Birds  have a mayor role in my garden. I love to see and hear them in the morning. Galahs are very cute, entertaining full of caprioles. They always come in pairs.

Checking out the food bowl. Hopefully there is  a little food left.

(Big Bird protects birds from flying into the window.)





The vegetable garden is now planted with Pumpkins, and Melons.  Still have beans and Zucchini.  I have not been successful with my tomato seedlings. Summer is mostly to hot and humid for non  tropical vegetables. Strawberries are under protection and grow well.  Poisonous sprays are all banned from the garden.






I let some of the Fennel bulbs go to seed.  Seed is used for next winter plantings and for cooking.

A native basket fern,  Drynaria rigidula.

  
Plants always grow  and hang into the pathways. this path leads to the upper garden and the veg-garden.



Salvia Belize.




Lagerstroemia.





African daisies, Ostespermum, are tough, like it dry and many pretty hues of colours.



Daylily seedling  "Sunbeam".


  And the roses....today pink

Irene Watts got a bit wet from an earlier shower.




The delicious Roset Delizy




Wonderfully perfumed Sophie's Perpetual.











There is a lot of blue around the garden in November, as widely planted Agapanthus are flowering at this time of year.

 It was quite a happy garden in November as we had enough sun and rain to keep all the plants flourishing.


“A garden to walk in and immensity to dream in--what more could he ask? A few flowers at his feet and above him the stars.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables


See you around in the Summer garden. Tomorrow is the first summer's day. I wish you all happy days of gardening. For the cold climate visitors many great garden books to read when the wind blows and the snow piles up.

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©Photos my garden,Text Ts Lavender & Vanilla