Rajah Progress

I've now made all the units for the next round of Rajah Revisited. 

Laid out on the cutting board ready to assemble:

They are still attached to their paper foundations, if you are wondering what the white behind them is.

One side assembled:

Still with their papers, so not pressed yet. But I think it is going to be OK.

The poor peonies are already starting to lose their petals, but here are a couple on the plant that still look good:

And here are a couple inside, which will look good for longer:

Popping Peony

The warm weather over the last couple of days has the buds on my Coral Charm peony popping open:

And then a rain shower this morning has weighed them down and will shorten their life.

I've cut off about a dozen of the buds that haven't popped open, and put them in the fridge. Hopefully they will allow me to enjoy the flowers for longer than those still on the bush.

Peonies

This is my Coral Charm herbaceous peony about a week ago. I think there are 25 or 26 buds, so it will be an amazing display. I will have to put some in the fridge again this year, to enjoy later.

 

Today both my tree peonies opened their first flowers.

One of these is Vesuvian, and the other is an unknown variety rescued from a garden about to be bulldozed in Melbourne. Apart from blogger not wanting to let me enlarge one of these photos, they look pretty much the same. They are both very dark red, and hard to photograph well.

Quite luscious looking! I remember which bush is which, but I would never be able to tell by the flowers. (The first photo is the rescue bush.) Both of them have multiple buds about to pop open.

My other herbaceous peony, "Lady Bird" which was planted last year, will have white flowers, but it is still very small and doesn't have any buds this year. You might think that is enough peonies, but someone succumbed to an online special offer and purchased an extravagant number of herbaceous peonies this year, so in future years there will be many more peonies to enjoy.

Early Morning

Very early this morning a small flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos paid us a visit:

Instead of being destructive in the garden as they have been so many times before,

they stuck to the grassy areas, and helpfully pulled up thistles:

Meanwhile inside, a couple of peony buds I took out of the fridge earlier this week are opening up nicely:

Peony Farewell

The last of the Coral Charm peony flowers this morning at 6:44am:

And the same flower this evening at 6:35pm:

In between was a hot and very windy day. Northern parts of the state were declared as "Code Red" fire danger. Here we were only at "Very High", because until yesterday you would hardly know it is nearly summer. We've had cooler and wetter weather here; we are not baked dry like many places further north. Have a look at our temperatures for the last 7 days, with the colours I used for my temperature quilt:

21/11/2019    37.1    magenta
20/11/2019    31.4    red
19/11/2019    20.4    yellow
18/11/2019    25.3    orange
17/11/2019    15.3    green
16/11/2019    13.0    aqua/teal
15/11/2019    15.7    green

We've had a bit of everything!



Although the peony flowers on the bush are now finished, it isn't the total end. I have a couple in a vase that I brought in before the hot days:

And there's another 5 buds that I cut and put in the fridge a couple of weeks ago. I'm hoping the internet is right when it says you can store peony buds in the fridge, and have them open when you take them out.

Coral Charm

Today was the first day of our exhbition. A very busy day catching up with friends from the city, doing white glove duty, and talking to people about quilts. And apart from this photo I took on my way to the car this morning, of the first flower opening on my Coral Charm herbaceous peony,

I took no photos at all! I will have to remember to take some tomorrow.

Twin Peonies?

Two peony plants:

On the left is one grown from a piece of root rescued from a garden in Coburg four years ago, and which had its first flower last year.

On the right is Vesuvian, which I was given for my birthday in 2016.

Neither of them look like they are flowering, but in fact there are several flowers on each plant. On both of them the flowers are hidden under the leaves.

Mystery peony flower:

Vesuvian flower:

The difference in colour is because of the angle of the sun on them. In real life they appear identical. What would be the chances of them both being the same variety?

Another plant where the flowers are under the leaves (although in this case that's a good thing as you look at it from underneath):

Wisteria flowering on the pergola.

First Peony

First open peony flower of the year. This is on the peony I rescued in Coburg, which flowered last year for the first time.

The plumber came early yesterday morning, and dug up the pipes to discover that a pipe had split quite near the one that split the first time. Last time he said that the split was caused by soil movement. Presumably the same again. But perhaps the area around it should have been filled with sand rather than clay, both originally and when he did the last repair? It definitely will be this time! Fortunately he used quicker setting glue this time, so instead of 24 hours of no water at all, it was only 6 or 7 hours. And I missed a lot of that because I was in the city. Running water - luxury!

For My Records

Uninteresting photos just so I will remember what I planted, when I planted it, and where I planted it!

"Cinnamon snow" hellebore:

"Duke of Burgundy" hellebore:

"Lady Bird" herbaceous peony:

Still Peony-ing

This is the last of the nine flowers on my Coral Charm peony:

I cut a couple and brought them inside to enjoy as the colour gradually faded from coral to cream. They are beautiful to the end.

And look what has happened:

This is Vesuvian, which I didn't think was going to have any flowers this year. But one bud was growing unnoticed, and this evening it opened!

Bees Like Peonies

Three bees in a peony flower.

Neither of our bee hives made it through the winter, which was very sad. But these bees are probably ours anyway, as we have two newly-established hives which came from a bee keeper in Geelong.

Charming

Coral Charm peony flowers opening:

Popping Peonies

Early this morning as I was going to let the chooks and ducks out, a dark red something in the corner of my eye caught my attention. When I lifted the peony leaves out of the way, this is what I found:

The unknown peony bud I posted last Sunday has opened! This plant grew from a piece of root dug up from the garden of a house in Coburg which was demolished three years ago. I couldn't remember what colour flowers the peony had, as it is probably nearly 10 years since I saw it in flower. But as soon as I saw it this morning, I remembered. Or maybe my brain is playing tricks on me, and I only think I remember it. Either way, it is a gorgeous flower!

My Coral Charm peony buds are much more obvious, being on the top of the bush rather than down underneath the leaves. And here's the first one just starting to open:

Peony Update

I haven't mentioned my peonies since the last one started to grow in the middle of September. But here's how they are going today.

Firstly, the herbaceous Coral Charm:

 Last year this one delighted me with one beautiful bloom, but this year there are nine buds!

Further along the bed are the other two:

Closest to the camera is the tree peony, Vesuvian. Although it is meant to be a tree peony, so far it has not sprouted from the previous year's woody stem; it sends up new shoots from the ground each year. So it isn't getting any larger, but at least it is still alive. It seems to have only one very small bud, so might not flower this year.

Behind that is the peony rescued from a house about to be demolished in Coburg.  I didn't know what sort of peony it was, but it seems to be another tree one. It behaves like the Vesuvian, anyway. And it looks like this year I will finally discover what colour flowers it has:

I'm excited about that!

A Touch of Pink

Since my Coral Charm herbaceous peony appeared above ground a month ago, I've been anxiously checking the two tree peonies every time I walk past, looking for signs of life.

Today I wasn't actually looking, but as I walked past I thought I caught a tiny touch of pink out of the corner of my eye:

Tiny new leaves about to pop out of the split bud at the top. Hooray! It's alive! This is my rescue peony, so I have no idea what sort of flowers it has yet.  It did grow a bud last year, but it never developed into a flower. Maybe this year?

The remaining tree peony, Vesuvian, will be getting an even closer look every time I walk past it now. Is it alive?

Hidden Hellebore

Since last winter this hellebore has become a bit overshadowed by some digger's speedwell. But this morning I was doing some weeding and found that it was flowering under cover:

Further along the same bed, my coral charm peony is going gangbusters:

but there is no sign of life in either of the others yet.

Signs of Spring

Flowers around the garden today.

A profusion of red hot pokers:

First daffodils:

Anemones:

More jonquils:

Thryptomene:

And the first sign of one of my peonies:

Changes

Most of the peony's petals fell today:

The colour change of this flower since it began opening ten days ago has been amazing, from deep coral to almost white.

Elsewhere in the garden, the first nasturtium flower opened in one of my hanging baskets:

There's always something happening in a garden!

How Big is the Peony Flower?

Jeanette asked in a comment how big the peony flower is. It is not easy to take a photo holding the camera in one hand, the flower in another (because the weight of it needs to be supported), and a ruler as well. A couple of photos taken this morning with my hand in the shot might give you an idea:

 It is huge!

This evening, after another warm day, its colour has faded more. The petals are becoming limp, so this might be the last chance to get a photo of it with a ruler:

Not a brilliant shot, but if you might just see that the flower is about 20cm across.

Growing Things

Zinnia seeds germinating in the greenhouse:

Triffid-like giant echium, grown from seed last year, now over 2m tall and still growing:

Friesia rose:

Coral Charm peony: