Fernery and pond

fernery and pond
Originally uploaded by margoc

Our pond has really settled well and we've been developing a little fernery in the alcove by the house to give the area a sort of theme I suppose.

We bought a tree fern last weekend and have put it near the lattice (I'm sure you can spot it at the back there). This one was harvested from Victoria and is about 2 feet tall (when measuring the core).

I'm wondering if others in Canberra have set up tree ferns too - what success have you had? Have they been fairly self-managing? Do they require a lot of attention in particular? We also bought a native fern (just to the left of the tree fern in the photo here), which is in fact a water fern by name, but said to be a hardy plant.

So, we'll see how our semi-wet/semi-dry fernery goes over the next month as we move into Autumn and Winter.

Summertime: corn and snake beans

corn and snake beans
Originally uploaded by margoc

Well, boy it's been an explosive start to the year really, from a gardening perspective in this case! January was hot to begin with then as we headed into February, the rains came! Just lovely - we've hardly been hand watering at all!

Our small lot of corn have taken off with the cobs almost ready to pick. We planted some snake beans beneeath them and they've started climbing over the corn and shooting lovely purple flowers, ready to fruit as well.

Our tomatoes are like a jungle - cherry, roma and everything else in between! There's potato plants among them - if we could only just find them.

And our pièce de résistance has been the fruiting of our old passionfruit vine which covers our back patio frame. Hoorah! Lots of fruit dropping off, presenting themselves graciously to us and they are lush and perfumey to eat too.

A bit of TLC and you really (literally) reap the rewards!