It has been a while since the last garden update; we’ve been busy with other things. Nonetheless progress has been made. The fence is now a sort of sagey bluey green, the summer house has had three coats of the same paint. This took a while between showery days. I decided I’d put masking tape on the windows. Goodness knows why as previous painter of the shed liberally applied brown preservative to windows and walls alike. By the time the third coat was on, the sun had baked the masking tape to the windows, so now I have to try to scrape it all off. The bird table also has touches of blue. The raised bed is built and planted and I finally have a base for the sundial that I have had for ages.
My helicopter chair and umbrella are in situ ready for when I might possibly have time to sit in the garden. The grandchildren also, with permission, rehomed three gnomes to the local gnome reserve but I am actually getting quite fond of some of the random inherited ornaments. The war on winter jasmine has now become an ongoing and not very successful war on convolvulus. How does the wretched stuff grow six inches in one day?
Morrisons just had some patio trees on sale. Sadly by the time I returned with a larger vehicle they had fewer, so less choice but I acquired a pear, an apple and an olive, all of which, I hope, will grow in pots. I also added a couple more clematis and another companula to the basket. Some garlic, chives and a strawberry plant are other recent acquisitions. I have moved the poor wind-blown geraniums back to the relative shelter of the back garden. The beans and peas are growing and nasturtium, marigold and wild flower seeds have germinated. The hanging baskets are starting to flower, not very fast as I’ve had to put them in a position where they get zero sun, still at least they won’t dry out. I really have pretty much run out of room now, although there are still at least five ‘must have’s that at present I haven’t.
Next jobs on the list, apart from window scraping, are moving the shed (again) so we can put a solid base underneath and repairing the summerhouse roof. The felt is purchased and now ‘all’ that is needed is free days when it is also dry.
The History Interpreter - Janet Few 
Very interesting as usual, Janet, I like the sundial.
I always say, don’t alter a garden until you’ve been at a new place at least 12 months of seasons, as you don’t know what grows how!
My new neighbours kindly let me know they’d landscape their yard. Sadly they nuked their entire back yard which included wistaria and many fruit trees which my late neighbour loved to plant, such as a tamarillo! This will make their house hot in a hot Australian summer without shade. They at least kept the camellias which they saw flower in the front yard. I explained that nearby one bush was a pretty magnolia recovering from a butchering a few years ago, so they saved it. However there was a different species of well established magnolia right there too, but they just pulled it out. It could’ve been sold to a nursery.
Most native birds like lorikeets, wattle birds, magpies, & ravens and sometimes galahs like to visit my garden, instead of the McMansions & town house which continue to replace demolished houses in my neighbourhood.
From my kitchen window I can now see over to four houses away, across the wasteland. I suppose those people can now see towards my place. As I’ve been here over 30 years I find it sad. Despite council rules about not destroying trees of a certain size, & limiting the percentage of the house coverage on a house block, developers just factor the fines into the building cost.
In April I had the strange experience of leaving my street with its coloured autumn leaves to go straight to apple, cherry and apricot blossoms, and spring bulbs of Europe & England.
Denise