What a difference a bit of water makes!
Adelaide, where I garden, in fact the whole state where I live has had higher than usual rainfall this year. The long-term average for our city is 545mm – but the reality has been that over the past decade we have seldom achieved that, in fact last year we received only about 350mm for the year. With our Mediterranean style winter rainfall cutting out around August.
But this year it has rained, and rained and rained – over 750mm already.
The difference it has made to the garden can hardly be imagined. While we irrigate the garden; rainfall with its infinitesimal amounts of nitrogen delivers completely different outcomes.
I’ve been a lot more active with my camera than usual because this is probably going to be a once in a lifetime event in this climate. I keep wandering out into the garden and being swept away by the verdant greens.
I’ll share some of the images below.
We had a cypress hedge between the garden and the street but removed it this year as moths were girdling branches and causing unsightly gaps. We replanted with a sterile, non-fruiting olive to create a hedge in keeping with older gardens in the suburb, but as the ground was bare we chose to underplant with poppies and knautia. With the extra rain the poppies have been traffic stopping.
The combination of Malus ionensis plena (Bechtel’s crab), with Valerian and watsonias in just the right shade of pink has looked particularly lovely. I have a mirroring crab across the garden but in this area I have a slightly paler but equally integrated watsonia. Out of shot the bed is underplanted with roses Scentsation and Papa Meilland.
Roses Mr Lincoln, Papa Meilland and Oklahoma (rose nut note – same parents different breeders, all equally dark and sensuously scented) and Valerian, Lychnis coronaria and Gladiolus byzantium look well together – unfortunately I couldn’t get the rose to face the right way but I can assure you it smells as sweet.
The wisterias have enjoyed the extra rain too.
As the wisterias have faded the roses have come into their own. The floribunda Gold Bunny puts on an amazing display and repeats throughout the year but only in spring do the Californian poppies provide a supporting display. I’ve culled and culled over the years until I’ve now got a strain of butter yellow, sometimes pink-backed that echoes the softer faded petals of Gold Bunny.
This year’s display of Dendrobium falcorostrum has been particularly good. It really needs a repot but breaking up this clump is pretty intimidating.