This is a wonderful project and your directions are super! I took the liberty of linking your posts with the photos to this thread. Fairy House 4 Fairy House 3 Fairy House 2 Fairy House 1 I considered putting all the photos here, but they're pretty big and might give some of those on dial-up a fit, waiting to load. I decided not to link directly to your photobucket site, either, leaving that up to you. I know there are those who don't like to click and go away from this page. The trick is to RIGHT click on the link, click on 'open in a new window' and see it without leaving this site. Close the window when you've viewed the photo post. Nell

Yes Floral_uk is right. Could be the South for example which requires a completely different strategy. If I sowed seed where I lived I would battle to get any flowers at all as they only flower in their second season. So you need to start seedlings the year before plant them out Autumn then they will flower in Spring early summer the following year. As we don't have a suitable cool enough summer to start them off I could only sow in winter and they would die when Spring arrived because of the heat and humidity. If I had a cool green house with fans, air-con and a mister I could of course but thats an awful lot of trouble for what is an annual bedding plant in our "zone". So Im lucky the Dutch do it for me. I tried foxgloves (grown in Japan) for the first time this year but they appeared on the market too late to work, only now sending up miserable flower spikes which is too late. Foxgloves have the same growth, "biannual" as Campanula medium. If that helps you Amanda. They don't live much beyond two years but in suitable climates will happily self seed. I just thought I should say that this year we had quite a stable cool dry winter season and I've had Campanula medium, the same plants I bought in bud last year in early December "Autumn" flowering and performing stunningly well for more than four months! They very slowly open their buds, keeping the open flowers for ages and ages in mint condition, well well after all the buds have opened. Winter is our dry season so watering is required, not excessively, just to keep moist. I think the lack of rain actually is a big plus for the longevity of the flowers and the fact I planted in shady conditions. Our humidity is never much bellow 60% even in the dry season. We are in our fifth month and the temps have gone into 26-28%C, this week 30-31%C with 80-90% humidity and still there are flowers! It's truly remarkable. Much smaller flowers but the plants haven't wilted yet. Sure they will and very soon, though. What I did after three months and a half of solid performance was remove all the spent flowers that had partially formed green leafy seed capsules, this made them produce many smaller new buds, the ones still flowering now. I would love to get the crisp white ones next year but I haven't seen them here at all. Maybe "Bells of Holland" the shorter variety only come in pink and purple. Highly recommended as a winter annual or bedding plant in sub-tropical climates if you can buy them already established, in full bud. Choose the plants where the buds are not open, just a sprinkle of the larger top buds open. Our temps don't fall much bellow 10- 15% in winter and not much higher than 20-23 %C so for Canterbury bells it's like one long mild late Spring early summer. For Southern gardens in the USA including parts of Florida, right up to Miami with no frost, winter is the time to enjoy! Plant producers and buyers for retail take note. They outperform even things like busy tizzies and bedding begonias. I planted in the shade with only an hour or so of passing sun a day.

I always seem to have lots of dragonflies in the gardens, and there is no water in the yard except for bird baths (although there is a pond about 1/8 mile away). They fly around trying to catch insects. They love to sun on the stepping stones or wood chips. They also like to perch on the seedheads of perennials. I try to encourage a healthy population of insects by having an organic yard and growing many native plants. Insects are bird food as well as dragonfly food!

Ooh, Dara - how exciting! I'd never heard of the Heritage Rose Australia before - I must look it up! I would love to join fellow rose lovers and view gardens on the tour - perhaps not the whole thing but certainly the part in Perth. (And thank you so much for the compliment about my garden :-) ) Marlorena - yes, that little tree is a frangipani (plumeria) - it was one of the earliest things I planted when we first moved in the house. There had been a native peppermint tree growing in that spot which inexplicably just turned brown & died, so I had to replace it - and a frangipani was recommended. It's got beautiful pink flowers, although it's not really fragrant. Oh, and I'll share my photos of John Clare next! :-) Karen - I love that phrase "fat and sassy" - haha! And yes, Golden Celebration has one of my favourite fragrances. I think Jude is my favourite, followed by Golden Celebration and Windemere. Ingrid - we get hardly any rain in the summer months but we do get rain in winter - so I think that's more than you? It must be so hard for you to cope with the drought conditions. We do have water restrictions in summer - we're only allowed to run the drip irrigation twice a week - but we can water by hand as much as we like, and in the last month, I've been out there almost every day carrying buckets of collected waste water from the kitchen & bathroom out to the roses. Rosylady - yes, I think you're right! I'm very lucky that the previous owners chose the light stone walls and had the house painted white. It's actually brick but covered with a white plaster coating, and it does keep everything light and bright. In fact, in mid-summer, I find it a bit too dazzling to look out sometimes as the sun reflects off the walls and there's a terrible glare. But it does help all the colours stand out! ~ HY