Mid-Summer II: Gardening

Dirkie was very eager to start gardening as this is something that he loves.  However, during the end of winter and the beginning of spring it was still too cold outside for small plants to grow and for seeds to germinate.  Thus Dirkie came up with an idea to start germinating seeds and bulbs in the garage (which is centrally heated) under growing lights.  Dirkie is rather proud of himself as he made a successful set-up in the garage; growing lights, timers for the lights etc.  See the photo below.  Note that the plants on the left in the photo Dirkie bought from a nursery, planted them into pots and simply kept them alive in the garage.

 

Amazingly the seeds and bulbs that Dirkie planted under the growing lights germinated very quickly.  See the following photos.

 

 

 

We were very happy to find Clivias at a nursery, a plant which is indigenous to South-Africa.  They seem to be happy outside for now but will have to be nursed in the heated garage during the winter season.

 

We had to buy some gardening tools as Dirkie went “bossies” in the garden and did not have a lot of tools to work with.  The first thing on the list was a wheel barrow.

 

The grass in the backyard was starting to grow out of control so we invested in a teeny-weeny electric lawnmower.  We underestimated ourselves with regards to the size of the lawn in the backyard and the lawn mowing capability of the lawn mower.  When the lawn was mowed for the first time Dirkie had to empty the collecting basket of the lawn mower no less than 21 times.  We also had to buy an extension cord of 30 m long just to reach the end of the lawn near the water. 

Now to show you what Dirkie has been up to in the garden.  To say the least, the sorting out of the garden was a mammoth task as the garden was neglected for two years.  Dikie collected 16 bags of garden rubbish (dead leaves etc.).  This photo shows part of the driveway.  The bushes needed some trimming and care.

 

The following two photos were taken just opposite from the one above.  Here Dirkie cleaned the beddings, trimmed the bushed etc.

 

 

In this photo Dirkie dug up a large rock to use as a garden feature.  Thank you skattie for your help in getting that thing out of the ground!

 

And, finally, in this photo the beddings are all cleaned up; a blank canvas for an eager gardener.

 

Here follow a few photos of the beddings that were made.  All the rocks Dirkie managed to dig up from the garden.  They are quite beautiful and mostly made of grey and red granite.  The plants that you see all came from the seedlings and bulbs germinated in the garage.  The logs Alex “by accident” misplaced into the car’s trunk when he drove by a construction site busy cutting down a tree.

 

 

 

 

Today the plants are all well and happy.  The beddings have a somewhat wild appearance as seen below.

 

 

 

After the beddings at the driveway were completed, it was time to tackle the backyard; making beddings etc.  The following picture was taken from the balcony after all the work was done.

 

The following photos are of new beddings that Dirkie made in the backyard in which he planted some of the bulbs that were growing in the garage.

 

Our balcony is also now alive and colourful with potted plants.

 

 

So we are doing well, the garden is doing well and in the next blog you will read that, what we call, our children are also doing well!