Some New Colour

Last weekend was very busy again. We travelled all over the place on Saturday, Mr W got new slippers and a new bath robe, DH got a spray jacket to help him stay dry while travelling to/from work on the train and bus, we purchased a new whiteboard for soccer and even picked up some delimanjoo from Cafe Delice at 5 William Street in Fremantle.

On the way home while DH was buying more chicken feed, Mr W and I visited the garden store to buy plants for our front garden bed.

I think my ultimate plants would be a shade tolerant Sacred Bamboo (Nandina Domestica) because they really say Japanese garden to me. Having said that the bed is very narrow and we do already have the Flowering Plum and a Japanese Maple tree which give a fair amount of red foliage in our yard.

We looked all around and came up with these. They are Dahlinova Hypnotica and I think they are really sweet. I am no botanist by any means but they seem very chrysanthemum like. Even the label on the plant stake has a Kiku shape on it.

Of course the plant stake had precious little information printed on it, except that they tolerated shade so I don't know how long they will live or how big they will grow, what zone they are rated for so they are a pretty big gamble for us as we aren't known for our green thumbs.

Mr W and I planted them out. I asked him for some help, we try to do many things as 'family projects'.

I planted the first one in the middle of the bed and he did the rest. Of course he raced along (hoping to go for a play with his mates) so a few stems go broken and some petals we crushed or dropped of the flowers.

Here are some close ups of the flowers. I think I've really had Chrysanthemums on my mind lately, thinking about Japan so much and after participating in the Stitch for Japan project. When I looked on the Fides website this morning I noticed that there are lots of other colours available in this range. Perhaps something to think about if you are wanting to add a little colour in your own garden.


On Sunday our team had a soccer match. I had canteen duty before the game, I've never made so many cups of coffee in such a short period of time. Miss D, Mr M, Seth and Mum came to watch the team play. The game was a real battle, and several of our players came off with varying injuries - thank goodness we took the ice packs along. The other team were bigger, stronger and probably more skilled over all, but our boys never gave up and came away with a 3:2 win. We are so proud of them all.