Artslim
 
It was the first beautiful sunny day I’ve had to spend time in my garden since I returned to my country home in northern Victoria a week ago.  

I had a lovely day, I began by blogging about Tesselaar in the Dandenong Ranges in my Gray-Nomad  blog, then I began weeding between the clumps of pansies and spring flowering bulbs that have emerged and digging last summer’s mulch into he top soil to add organic matter and lighten the fairly heavy mostly clay content soil I started out with. 

I moved a Margarite that had grown rather large through winter, out into my back courtyard garden, planted tomatoes in the courtyard and then set about planting my summer flowering liliums. 

I planted 25 Lilium Triumphator which is described by Tesselaar as haing ‘voluptuous white flowers with a beetroot red throat.  An O.T. Lily hybrid with glamour and fragrance.  Hardy and wonderful.

OT Hybrids are the latest in Lilium breeding from Europe. A cross between an oriental and a longiflorum, OT's have been bred for a long vase life and floral arranging. Ideal for cut flowers and gardens, tall strong stems topped with multiple flowers and a soft scent. Grows 110cm tall. Flower during the summer months.

In front of these, still well to the back of the garden i planted clumps of three to five White Christmas Lilies then in small groups wherever I could find room, just back from the front border, and between my roses, I planted the bright colourful, oriental liliums.

A general tidy up, and the garden early spring clean up was complete.  Tomorrow I am planting herbs, and vegetables down the side of the house and in the courtyard, between the roses and perennials and I plan to plant mushrooms to grow on my outside deck.

Because I bought these liliums direct at the plant farm the Lilium Triumphor was marked down to ¼ price and all the other lilliums were all well below the cost of mail order or nursery purchased plants and much healthier, straight from the grower to the gardener and back into the ground without any set back.  Liliums do not have a dormant period, it’s important to plant them quickly.

My other concession to economy was to not buy any of the gorgeous, fragrant but more expensive Asiatic liliums.

I will be paying a visit to the zucchini growers in the Goulburn valley soon, they grow the plants in coconut core and once they harvest, they put the coconut core aside for people like myself to collect for free to use as garden mulch.

I'll need to clean out a few unwanted items from the garden shed to sell on EBay, my house keeping allowance doesn't stretch to lilium buys but lilium buys do so much for the inner me, not to mention the joy I experience when gazing at flowers in my garden, there needs to be a balance between budgeting and being too frugal, life needs to be lived and enjoyed and I thing a few hours next week selling some over stock will be rewarded for weeks of beauty during summer for many years and the anticipation of watching the liliums grow.   

This is the smallest garden I've ever had, in some ways I'm grateful for that, it's my retirement garden, great exercise when i want it, but I'll never need to be a slave to it.

It was a very satisfying day. J 
Picture
Lilium delphinium and paeony. art fridge magnet by Kathy Shell.
The flowers in my cottage garden supply subjects for me to paint and enjoy.
 


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