Planting Citrus Trees

First day of school holidays.  Ye Gods.  Its been a long day.

We headed over to Dural to collect some straw for the chooks, then lunch at Maccers - what me? bribe my children into good behaviour? as if.  Then I accidentally stopped at Swanes - the big plant nursery - and may (am not admitting to anything here) have bought a Tahitian Lime and a Honey Murcott Mandarin, just to finish off my citrus collection.  Next up, stone fruit.

The spring roses are starting at Swanes - they have acres of beds - and we spent a happy half hour choosing our favourite roses.  I love Blue Moon - when I was a small screamie I lived in a beautiful Elizabethan farmhouse in Kent (in a little village called Underriver - my pony, Misty and I used to go and have sleepovers at my best friend Eloise's house, with her and her pony, Jerry - yes it was that wonderful).  The house had a traditional walled garden, filled with formal rose beds surrounded by low box hedges.  There was one Blue Moon rose there, and I remember waiting for it to blossom every year, and being utterly entranced.  I used to sing it songs I'd made up - yes, no television has much to answer for.

But I digress.

Here is a terrible photo of the front garden - a new camera is in the pipeline - not only am I using my mobile to photograph things, but when I email them to myself they keep getting lost and turning up three days later.  This is the only one that has arrived so far from the ones I took today.  I know its pretty indistinct, but in the foreground there are three citrus trees that will form a screen to protect the espaliered apple behind - no you cannot see an espaliered apple because despite my best pruning techniques, that particular apple has refused to grow any side branches Whatsoever.  It got dug up and chewed several times by Next Door's Dog, and I don't think its really recovered.

sigh.

Anyway, I noticed today that the strawberries are starting to develop flowers, the spuds that are helping to kill off the last of the lawn, are going nuts, and the lemons on the Eureka lemon tree are just about perfect to pick.

Not bad given it was just grass this time last year.