Horticultural happenings

Having been away for a few weeks, I was itching to get out into the garden this weekend to take care of some overdue tasks. The weeds have gone feral while we were away, a whole bunch of plants need pruning or light trimming or something, plus I want to deal with a snail plague and a minor case of scale on the citrus before it gets out of hand.

Of course, the weather has turned absolutely vile and I have no hope of doing any of it today. Instead, I'm stuck indoors thanks to violent storms. Luckily, I managed to chuck some snail pellets around on Thursday night. The rain we've had since has brought all the little snails and slugs out to play, and they've been enjoying the "treats" I left for them. Nothing gives me greater pleasure than the sight of a bunch of dead snails:

Our fejioas have put on phenomenal growth while we've been away, and all four have burst into flower.

Let's hope we get a slightly bigger crop than last year's....

In other news around the garden, I'm finding I've made a few bad decisions when it comes to plant placement. These kangaroo paws have quite tall flowers, and tend to hang out over the path. After heavy rain such as we've had the past couple of days, they like to have a little lie down...

The bed along the rear wall of the house is really narrow, so I'll be moving them to a wider spot and replacing them with a dwarf variety, I have a couple of those further along the wall, and they don't get in the way of pedestrians at all. Live and learn...

Whilst a lot of our plants are still coming out of their winter shabby-ugly stage, the good old cannas are already putting on a spectacular show. These are outside the dining room window, and just gorgeous:

Tomorrow I have to take care of that scale and the weeds (should be easy after the rain), do a little pruning, and go around the garden taking note of the other jobs that need doing. We need to oil the deck and merbau screens before summer and give the bamboo screens a coat of sealer, but I'm sure there's a lot more to be done.

Once we have the (slightly late) spring maintenance out of the way, we can relax and enjoy summer in our outdoor "rooms".