Update

Well dear friends, I promised you photos after Sunday of the shelves in my studio.  So here they are:

Aren't they looking good?  And here's a photo of my minis on the shelves.

What's that you say?  You can't see any shelves?  Just a bare wall, you say?  And no minis on the shelves either? Let me look again.  Yup, you're right.  It looks just like a bare wall to me, I can't see any shelves either,  That's because there aren't any!

But it's not quite that dire - the sink cupboard is finished except for the door that will cover part of it, and th e sink unit being put into it.  So are there minis on those shelves?

No,  are right again, that's not minis on the shelves, it is tools.  Not my tools - my brother's tools and my hubby's tools.

But some of my quarter scale minis and my Fairfield are in the cubby.  Yes siree, they are - or at least they were for Sunday, to make room in the house while we had guests.  Here they are:


Two rows deep and several layers high on the desk (and under the desk too).






This is the large table that takes up two thirds of the right side of the studio, it has tools over half of it and under all of it.  I have boxes of minis on the rest of the top and all across the front of it behind the door.





A trestle table is set up in front of the stack of timber for the shelves, with the big drop saw under it as well as heaps of large boxes of minis.







The Fairfield and the Town Square on on the trestle table along with some containers - I've tried my best to keep relevant things together but it hasn't always worked so well because the menfolk decide that certain boxes can be moved to make way for other things.




Nicely arranged and organized, aren't they?  Not!  Don't know how on earth I'll ever sort it all out again.  And the thought of bringing it all back into the house is rather daunting too.

You might detect a certain note of, shall we say - cynicism in this post?  I wonder why?! Sigh.  But it was nice to have those boxes out of my lounge room and dining room as you can imagine - and I was able to vacuum my floors properly too, so the house feels clean for a change :)

Sunday (yesterday) was an enjoyable day, made even more so by the unexpected and most welcome addition of our youngest daughter Kirsten, our two granddaughters Grace and Chelsea, and the 'bump', or Herbie as Kirstie calls her unborn baby.  She is 17 weeks pregnant with her fifth child.  It was also great to have my Mum here and show her what we have all been so busy with these last seven months.  It is difficult for Mum to get out and involves hiring a wheelchair taxi, so we tend to visit her at the nursing home rather than have her here too often.

Mum was really interested in seeing the Fairfield that I've been talking about, and of course the studio and the paved area.  I get my love of pretty gardens from her too, so we had a good discussion about what I had planted in there.  My brother has no time for gardens - he gets that from my dad.

And the garden is making pleasing progress even if the studio isn't!  On Thursday Peter and I spent the day clearing up the building mess from the back yard and the cubby (what a job!), and planting some more plants.  The mandevilla will now climb up in front of the verandah post, and hopefully will enjoy being out of the pot it's been in for the last couple of years and will bloom profusely with it's pink flowers with a deep pink throat.

 The scaevola is putting on some growth and is a really pretty colour.

A lot of the buds on the philotheca 'Winter rouge' are bursting open into their pretty star-shaped flowers.

The little marguerite daisy has been blooming ever since we put it in.

Even the little Federation daisy has recovered from being butchered when being transplanted from it's pot and is blooming away, sweet little thing that it is.

The lavender is putting forth some blooms now.  Is this an English lavender?  It's my favourite kind.

 And the Lavender Sidonie has recovered from the shock of being planted out into the pot and is blooming away beautifully.

I have deadheaded the dianthus and they are looking a bit bare now but hopefully will give another flush of flowers.

Isn't the  Diascia looking lovely?  It's filling out just so well and draping over the sides of the pot beautifully.

The paving was finally finished on Friday, with all the half bricks that needed to be cut being put along the edges of the rows.  Peter and I had planted the gardens on either side on Thursday. The lovely camellia sasanqua 'Little Jen' has virtually finished its first flush of flowers but there are quite a few buds that will hopefully come out soon.  This is a pretty little camellia with a weeping habit and blooms for a long period.  It should look nice against the grey of the wall.  To the right of it that tiny plant you might be able to see among the sugar cane mulch is a ground cover with white flowers on it, then there's a dwarf buddlea under the window.  It only grows to about 80cm high and wide.

 When this stick with a topknot of  leaves grows up it will be a beautiful Chinese Tallow tree and provide some shade for this paved area as well as spectacular autumn foliage.  It is supposed to reach 8m height and 3-5m width. We had a good talk on Thursday, the tree and I, and I explained just what is expected of it.  At the moment it is only about 5ft tall but the branching at the top promises to give good shape later on.  We really could have done with the shade yesterday, it was so hot that it was actually a bit unpleasant to sit on the paved area for long.  We'll have to buy a cheap temporary gazebo to put over the table and chairs for a while I think.

The cinerarias in the middle of the wheelbarrow aren't looking their best at the moment - I have deadheaded them and more flowers are coming up from underneath.  Our youngest granddaughter Chelsea also did some deadheading on Sunday.  She loves the garden and is often out among the flowers at her house.  They will look better in a couple of days.  But the violas are still gorgeous, draping over the sides of the wheelbarrow beautifully even if they don't look quite as good as they did a couple of weeks ago.

Not a bad show considering that it was still winter when these photos were taken!  Yesterday, Sunday, was the 1st September and so the first day of spring.

I love pretty flowers but I'm not a good gardener.  Hopefully with these plants being outside the cubby and with me passing by every day I will notice what needs to be done and will take the time to do it, deadheading and weeding and watering as required.  It will encourage me to take breaks from sitting for too long like I do indoors.  I have a kitchen timer that I want to set for every 30 minutes and take a 5-10 minute break to get up and walk around - I am far too sedentary.  Since I've been more active working on the studio I can fit into clothes that I haven't been able to wear for three years.  They are still tight but I can wear them.  I need to do more activity even when I am able to mini again.  Not only to lose weight but also for better health.

Here's a quick overview of the front of the cubby as of Thursday.  First the left side.  The pickets still aren't fixed in place on the verandah - you can see that they are all uneven.  I just put them there to see the effect again (changed them from the right side to the left) and they have moved.  And you will notice that the window and door trim still isn't done.  Sigh.

It's starting to look quite pretty though, with the plants.  The hanging basket will be lovely soon, when the blue lobelia start to bloom and contrast with the white flowers in the centre.  And the sweet peas are supposed to be just perfect for hanging baskets but I don't think they know that they're supposed to hand down :)

I'm really looking forward to the climbing mandevilla being in bloom up the left post..  We do have other little plants that I want to put in among the larger plants too, or along the edge of the garden to hang over the sides of the railway sleepers.

Now the whole front.  sort of anyway - there was still a trestle table with some long lengths of melamine covered compound timber shelves on it when I took this photo on Thursday, blocking a complete view of the right side.

And here's a view of the paved area at the side.  Our garden table and chairs need a complete sanding and re-oiling, they are rather neglected at the moment.  We like the grey aged look but they do need attention.  So does the garden bench that we've moved to the paving from under the jacaranda tree- I have my eye on a wrought iron bench for under the tree.

As you can see there is quite some way to go yet even though the paving itself is done.  The lattice screen on the left will be reduced in height to about 6 foot, and three more panels will be put in so that it goes all the way to the back fence to screen off Peter's shed and the area behind it where things like wheelbarrows etc are stored.  We have planted the first of the star jasmine plants that will grow up the lattice but it's hard to see in this photo.

The front of it needs to be made more attractive and will have a frog pond to the left and a step put across a large part of it.  It's quite a high step at the moment.  We're also looking for some sort of rail to make it easier for Nathan to get up and down.  I've put some thin plywood over the window for now until I buy a blind, to prevent the heat from spoiling my minis.  I think I'll get a traditional shutter for the exterior too.  And as I said, we need some shade - maybe a sailcloth or gazebo.  Today Peter and I will be planting some lilly-pilly plants across the back fence.  They will grow up to cover up the ugly fence and to provide a screen from the back neighbours as well as some nice greenery as a backdrop.  The new growth is a lovely bronze-red too, so it's very attractive.  We might even spray paint the fence the same dark grey as the trim on the cubby to tie it together and make it a nicer colour.

So - I am learning patience my friends!  There's still a lot of painting I could do on the cubby, and it needs to be done before the weather gets too hot.  And there's still some gardening to do before the weather warms up too much too.  And hopefully the menfolk will get the shelving done soon as well.

Studio slowly getting there.....

Hello friends!  I figured it was time to let you know how things have been going on the studio, fondly called 'the cubby' by us all now.  Well they have been moving on, but very slowly.  I've promised people photos several times now but there's not really much to show yet.  By next weekend however there will be, I promise!  No, it won't be finished but it will be usable, sort of.

My darling hubby has been sick with the same bug I've had, then working quite a few night duties so progress did slow for a while but he has started working on the upper shelving on the rear wall.  My brother was here a couple of weekends ago and started the paved area beside the cubby, where we will have our outdoor furniture and bbq, and Peter and our nephew Mark (who lives with us) have continued on it since.  Mark got most of the paving finished today.

My brother terry was back today (Sunday) and we were all at the hardware store by 7am and bought a whole pile of things for the the lower shelves across the back wall.  They will be the height and depth of a normal kitchen bench.  Terry then worked on them today and will be hopefully finishing them one day  this week while Peter finishes the upper shelves.  I cleaned one of the old desks that I am re-using; it has a laminate surface and I want it to be white to freshen it up.  So I did it with a spray that you use on all sorts of surfaces so they will take paint and started to give it it's first coat of white.  It looks much better than the dark brown now and we'll add a timber top to match the benchtop.

Tomorrow I hope to finish that coat and do a second one.  Maybe I'll be able to start the second desk too.

There is still a lot of painting to do on the cubby itself, both interior and exterior but I have been out of action for so long with this second lot of bronchitis and laryngitis that we have pushed ahead anyway because I want to have a family bbq here on Father's Day which is next Sunday.  It is to celebrate Peter's birthday which is this Wednesday, my brother's birthday which is on 10th September and Father's Day which is this coming Sunday.  My mother will be coming and that means we've hired a wheelchair taxi to bring her here.  So the date is firm and the paved area must be finished for the furniture and bbq to go on.  And it also means that I need to have all my boxes and containers out of the dining and lounge room that have been sitting here all packed up ready to go into the studio because we can't move around properly here, let alone have extra people here especially when Mum is in a wheelchair.

I was more than a bit devious in putting on this bbq because I knew it would be the spur needed to keep everyone working to get things done, and it worked :)  Hopefully the shelving in the cubby will be finished enough that I can stack things in there reasonably well and not just have to shove boxes in there and re-pack/unpack them all later!   Peter is working 2 nights this week, so we have to make a big effort on the three days we have available, to get everything ready for Sunday.

What a difference a door makes!

It's been quite a while since I gave an update on the studio, because even though we've been busy there wasn't much to see.  I have been painting, painting, painting until it seemed it would never end.  But there was nothing to show for it because it was all painting in preparation for future use.  I was becoming very discouraged and down about it, and quite frustrated (to put it very mildly indeed) about the lack of apparent progress.  We had reached the stage where it was difficult to progress much further until the ceiling was completed.  Peter and I couldn't do that by ourselves and my brother Terry has been so very busy that he has been unavailable. In spite of promising a couple of times to come and help it didn't eventuate.

Peter built a cabinet for the sink that will go into one corner.  It is ready to have the counter top put onto it.  I can't find a stain colour that I like though, they are all too red or too yellow, too dark or too light for the effect I want.  We haven't put a door on yet until we can get the two desks around here from storage and work out whether the placement I have worked out for them will in reality be okay.  And I can't get my old desk out and strip it off to re-finish it because it has a large dollhouse sitting on it and I have nowhere to put that until there's a suitable surface in the studio.  And I can't finish off the shelves until the ceiling is finished......And so it goes on and on and on in circles!  Can you see why I was so frustrated?

In the meantime I painted.  And painted.  And painted.  How can such a small building need so many parts to be painted?!! And because I am doing all the painting myself and by hand it takes forever.  The days start off at around anything from 3-4degC up to 7degC, many of them lately with a heavy frost.  By the time the frost melts or the heavy dew dries enough to work outside it is around 9am and I can go out and remove the tarpaulins that have covered things overnight.  Some days it has been windy - the cold westerly August winds came early and they are bitterly cold.  And when they blow the paint dries almost on the brush.  But by about 11 am the sun is pleasantly warm, with the temperatures in the teens and the day is lovely - unless the wind is blowing.  By 4pm though it is time to pack up and call it a day, and the sun sets around 5pm.  By then it is cold again.

Peter bought the composite wood covered with melamine that we are using for shelves across the back wall.  I wanted this because I've had my fill of painting.  They are cut to size and ready to assemble into the shelves and we were ready to do just that this Sunday but when we arrived home from a business meeting at the church on Saturday night my brother Terry was at our place, ready to help us for the next couple of days - whoo hoo!!

So on Sunday we got the rest of the ceiling installed. And with that step the room became a room instead of a shed.  It also means that once we do the trim around the edge of the ceiling to cover the join between the ceiling and the wall we can go ahead with putting up shelves.

On Monday he hung the door and installed the windows.  The door doesn't have the hardware on yet because we had the wrong tunnel lock for it but we've changed that today so it will soon have a working handle, and a security lock (deadlock) as well.  The windows will have their handles put on when we have done the interior stop pieces etc.

And here it is now.

The railings aren't fitted yet, Peter just put them there this morning to check the fit.  I want them to be lower than they are in this photo.  On the garden seat at the right you can see the fancy pickets, one of which will go in each section.  The rest of the pickets will be plain white ones.  The exterior trim on the windows and doors still has to be done too, obviously, as does the corner trim..

Peter and I can now go ahead and add the trim to cover the join between the wall and the ceiling.  I will give Peter the honour of punching in the nails in the ceiling and painting that - I'm not permitted up ladders because of my problem with dizziness.

We can add the architraves around the windows and doors.  I've already painted those, they'll just need touching up afterwards.  And we can add the skirting boards after I paint those too.  They will just be simple strip wood ones, nothing fancy.  Then finally we'll be able to lay the vinyl flooring and I'll be able to start moving things in there.

Things like finishing the gardens, bedding in the railway sleepers properly, doing more planting out, and finally landscaping with some sort of gravel or crushed granite for a path and area under the seat and around the garden beds will be ongoing projects, as will be the completion of the exterior.  Once I can get the furniture out of storage I will be working on re-furbishing that, then on moving my minis in there and getting them organized.

Inside walls painted....and progress in the garden

After a record amount of rain in June, we had a week of wonderful sunshine last week.  Cold nights and cool days, but blissfully sunny!  And we made the most of it too.  On Monday Peter, Nathan and I undercoated the interior walls of the studio (which we call 'The Cubby' because our neighbours and my brother have agreed looks just like a large cubby house).  On Tuesday Peter and I did the first coat of colour and on Wednesday we did the second coat.  It is a pale yellow, chosen because it is fresh and light.  We used the same paint we used in our bedroom.  I keep trying to take a photo but it keeps coming out white!

Today my brother and his oldest son came to help Peter put the ceiling up.  Peter and I were outside early this morning painting the sheets of plywood with undercoat - it will make it easier when it comes to paint the ceiling.  We got half done, so I don't know when we'll get to finish it.

Out of interest I googled the effect of colour on us.  Here is what I found about yellow (this was after I had chosen it by the way).
It says:'Yellow is a cheerful and uplifting colour.  It symbolized wisdom and means joy and happiness.  Yellow is full of creative and intellectual energy, therefore it helps to memorize and recall, think clearly, make decisions and come up with new ideas - that is why you should always use yellow notepads.  It also encourages optimistic attitude and helps to build self-confidence'.

Wow! That sounds perfect for a creative space like a studio, doesn't it?  Note to self: buy a stack of yellow notepads ;)

I want to have touches of blue in the studio (blue is my favourite colour and I love yellow and blue together). Here's what I found about blue:
'Blue is the calming colour.  It represents the night and makes us feel calm and relaxed.  Lighter and softer blues make us feel quiet and protected.  blue inspired creativity, clarity and mental control. Light and dark blue combined, help to convey trust and trustfulness.  Blue is also believed to help memorizing information - use blue paper for writing down speeches or other information you need to know by heart.'

I love the crispness of white to accent the yellow and blue, and plan to have all the woodwork in white for the shelves and trim around windows and door.
' White brings peace and comfort'.

The exterior will be done in a light grey, with a darker grey called 'Bilby' for the trim, and white for the windows.
'Grey is often associated with independence, self-reliance, self-control and self-criticism.  It relates to isolating yourself from everything, remaining separate, uncommitted and uninvolved.  Grey may lead to loneliness.  Also grey can have a cooling effect when placed next to more vibrant colours.  It can make the vibrant colours stand out whilte muting their vibration. Grey evokes authority, practicality and corporate mentality.'

Hmmm.  well, the independence, self-reliance and self-criticism part certainly applies.  The isolation part also applies - The cubby is somewhere I can go and be to create and build away from the hassles of the house.  I certainly won't be lonely because my menfolk will find their way up there, that's for sure ;)  I chose grey because I want it to be cool - our summer sun is pretty fierce in Sydney even though The cubby is on the south side of the house and not on the sunny north side.  I'm doing my best to make it as cool as possible for the summer whilst getting as much sun and light as I can during winter by facing it north and having a deciduous tree on the west.

My favourite colour nowadays for woodwork is a light to mid brown.  Sort of honey coloured.
'Brown is the colour of our mother earth.  Brown can alleviate insecurities and bring a sense of stability and comfort.'

I don't have the luxury of buying new furniture and fittings for the studio but anyway I have lots of second hand stuff that is perfectly fine, it just needs re-purposing to make it suitable and fresh looking. I have been planning on stripping back an old table I've been given and staining it in this honey brown.  I also have a well-loved old desk that Peter and I rescued from the city in the early 60's when his mother's office was getting rid of some furniture.  We stripped it back then and stained it walnut and it served me well all through high school and my first stint at university.  Now it will be stripped back once again and re-stained this lighter colour.  I have also been given two large desks with returns (detachable) from a deceased estate.  they are finished in a walnut laminate and I am looking to find a lighter laminate to re-do the tops and will paint the body of the desks in white.

But before I can get moving on doing the restoration of this furniture I have to let the menfolk put the ceiling up in the studio so they have room to move.  This happened today (Sunday) when my brother was available again to help Peter do it.  He also brought his oldest son Paul to help. He will also assist in hanging the door and installing the windows in the front wall.  Then we can get the glass for the windows and Peter will glaze the windows.

In the meantime I have been moving forward with the garden as well.  Some treated pine railway sleepers have been placed in their approximate positions ready to be partly dug into the soil to hold them in place.  We filled most of the area so marked out with soil and I have planted some shrubs.  Three large concrete tubs are raised on a couple of courses of bricks to raise them to the level of the soil.  Here's a view of the garden on the left front of the verandah - it should look nice once the building rubble is cleared away and the plants have recovered from the shock of being put into the soil and bushed out a bit.

 The largest of the three tubs has a lavender 'Sidonie' in it. This is a small-growing lavender that produces tall, elegant, rich violet-blue flowers all year round, intensifying in the colder months.  It is supposed to be 'a fast growing shrub surrounded by soft leathery foliage to a height of 80 cm' so will fill the pot really well.  For now I have put some pretty white violas around the edge of the tub to fill it up a bit.

 The smallest of the tubs has three burgundy-coloured dianthus plants in it.  They smell gorgeous!  As we walked past them in the nursery the smell was enchanting.  I hope it wafts in through the windows, along with the lavender.

 To give further contrast in growing habit and foliage shape I chose some Diascia for the medium pot. We have this growing in a large pot at the front of the house and it cascades beautifully over the sides of the pot and just keeps flowering and flowering even though it gets the full force of the sun all day long in summer.  I just cut it back when it looks a bit too weedy and off it goes again.  I have three plants in this pot and I think I managed to choose a medium to dark pink, a white and a light pink but I'm not absolutely sure of the colour of the third one.  It will be a nice surprise when it blooms :)  These plants have pea-shaped flowers, which are one of my favourites.

In front of the pots, in the corner is a fan flower.  The label has disappeared and I can't remember what it's name is. This little shrub will fill the space nicely.  The sun washed out the colour a bit - it is a nice dark mauve, nearly a light purple.

Beside that is a Federation daisy that blooms with lovely pink double daisies in spring and all through summer and into autumn given the right care.  Planting this from the pot it has been in for the last four years broke some bits off it and we dipped those into honey and stuck them into another small pot as cuttings.  Hope some at least take.  At the moment this poor bush looks rather sad and folorn, I hope it picks up soon!

Further to the left, at the corner of the garden is another lavender.  This one is the same as one I have out in the front garden so it will probably grow around a metre high and spread for about a metre too. I hope will enjoy this position and grow into a lovely  bush.  I love the smell of the flowers.

Then I have another Federation Daisy called 'Crazy Daisy' pink.  Federation daisies are an improved version of the Marguerite daisy, and are usually smaller and give improved performance in our Australian conditions.  I love them.

Behind this  and tucked in front of the battered old wheelbarrow is a Myoporoides 'Winter Rose'.  This is a small growing native (to 80cm).  It flowers for a long period of time from winter through spring.  an abundance of deep pink buds opening to reveal a pink star-shaped flower which fades to white.  It is covered in buds so hopefully they will open soon.  I love star-shaped flowers too.  In fact you will notice that all the plants I have chosen for the gardens are among my favourites.

The annuals in the wheelbarrow have survived the torrential rain we've had for weeks and have coped with having the shade cloth removed.  Lots of them have come into bloom in the last week since they were planted. The alyssum seed that I sprinkled over the surface is even coming up everywhere so I am hoping that I'll be able to prick some of it out and transplant it when it is larger.

Behind the wheelbarrow and along the side wall of the cubby I have a small Buddlea to plant.  It is a dwarf variety.  I've never seen a dwarf variety before and it is perfect for the space.  Then I have this lovely camellia to go in.  The position will suit it, I think.  It will be protected from the westerly sun but will get the morning sun - just like the faithful one that blooms year after year in our front side garden.  I fell in love with it's drooping growth habit.  It's called 'Little Gem' which suggests that it might not be a big tree when mature, but it doesn't matter what size it is.

It was hard to get a proper photo of it because the sun kept washing it out but here is a closeup of some of the flowers - aren't they just gorgeous?

As well as those two plants I have a flowering fruit tree - I think it's a plum but can't remember.  I do know that I want to get it into the soil soon because it is bare rooted and we've had it for a week.  But I'd better get the wall on that side painted first!

On the other side, the right side of the verandah,  I have also put the railway sleepers to mark out the bed but they too still need to be settled into place.  Here you can see the struggling violet bed, mulched with sugarcane mulch on one side.  One of my fairy statues is sitting where I can see her from the verandah.  The poor old bird bath is looking rather manky after the rain, it needs a good clean out.  I'll have to place it on a couple of bricks to provide a stable basis for it because it has gone off level again.

Here is the rear of the same side of the violet garden, with my other fairy figurine.  It says 'There are fairies at the bottom of my garden'.  I've left it clear of mulch where the violets are planted so they can get the runners into the ground - yes, they are there even though you can't see them clearly in the photo.

The rest of this bed is still lacking soil because I am thinking of making a small frog pond there.  But that will take some time to get into gear.

So now I've raved on heaps (again) - hope it's not too boring.  Can you tell I'm excited?

Nearly ready to paint

It is hard to get a photo of the interior of the studio at the moment, it looks far too boring.  But Peter did the first layer of jointing compound on the gyprock on the interior walls yesterday, after he woke up from sleeping after working the night before.  I did contribute a small part by doing the holes where the screws have gone in but he did all the tape where the pieces are joined together.  He is trying very hard to get it ready for painting. We were hoping that we'd be able sand it today and put on the second coat of jointing compound but it wasn't dry enough.  I wanted it to dry in time for us to undercoat it and hopefully put on the first coat of colour on Sunday. 

I'm becoming really excited even though we haven't put the ceiling in yet and still haven't had the electrician in to wire up the power points and light - it is proving difficult to find one to come.  It will be quite a big job, because we will need to have an extra circuit added to the fuse box and cables run from the studio down the back yard underground to the house, under the house and then up to the fuse box.

I've had the paint we bought for the exterior cladding darkened a couple of shades because it just looked virtually white in the sunlight.  It is Dulux Ashville but now that the tint has been doubled it is nearly the same as the next darkest shade, which is Silver Thaw.  Here is a scan of the colour chips but they look much more blue here than they do in reality.  I knew they went well with the dark blue roof but in real life they just look grey.

 I've done the door in Dulux bilby, which is a darker grey with a touch of

brown and a touch of blue to it in some lights.  Again, this scan of the sample chip looks far more blue than it does in reality.

Still not sure whether to go an even darker shade.  The next shade is called Babbler which is appropriate because I seem to be babbling a lot about the studio at the moment ;-) 

On Sunday Peter will sand the posts so I can paint them as well.

I've also been working a bit on the garden that surrounds the jacaranda tree just outside the verandah of the studio.  For years I've been trying to grow native violets in it and they've struggled a bit on and off, with grandchildren trampling over them when they climb the jacaranda tree, or my nephew putting all sorts of things on it when he mows the lawn - he seems to regard it as a storage area for hoses, pots and whatever he wants to move out of the way.  Now it

This is what they are supposed to look like - wonder whether mine will ever get a chance to  look half as good?

has suffered badly from the menfolk again trampling over it during building no matter how I protested, and from building rubble being dumped on it.  So I've enlarged the area somewhat, rescued the few remaining bits of violet I could find, put new sugarcane mulch over the area and planted a new plant that I had growing in a pot to boost the population.  If anyone dares to walk on it now - look out!!  I've also laid down the law that my nephew is to stop emptying the birdbath that is in this garden and leaving it upturned.  He seems to have a real set against having water in it - what does he think we bought it for if it wasn't to have water for the birds?

I have also planted out a Grevillea 'Robyn Gordon' in the area near the end of the verandah.  If this one is anything like the one near our kitchen window it will grow to a good size and flower virtually all year round - it is hard to cut it back because it is always in bloom.  All sorts of birds love it, honeyeaters of various sorts, wattlebirds and rainbow lorikeets to name just a few.  I am really looking forward to watching the birds out of the studio window and  getting them so used to my presence that they'll be happy to be in the grevillea whilst I am on the verandah as well.  I've used this photo before, but here is the one near our kitchen window, with the lorikeets having a great old time.  This one is supposed to be upright but is actually a prostrate form so we have propped it up and even then it grows to about seven foot tall and spreads the same because we prune it back to that so the one we've bought for further up the back will probably grow at least that size too.

There are more plants that need to go in this area between the studio and the fence, to provide shade from the summer sun.  I am looking for some deciduous shrubs or trees that grow high enough for our purpose but don't spread too much for the area.  I also have some native iris and some grasses for lower growing plants that hopefully will help attract birds as well.   I want this area to be quite thickly planted and to be a 'no-go' zone for people traffic.

I dug out some old concrete pots that I've had for over 30 years.  Usually when I plant them up I paint them to spruce them up and I was giving them a good wash intending to do just that.  Then I thought about how in miniature settings we go to all that trouble to distress things like pots to make them look more realistic and I wondered why I was sprucing them up when I had some perfectly fine distressed pots - naturally distressed without any trouble on my part :-)  So I left them and saved myself the effort.  Mind you I might still paint them - if they look just too distressed!

So I'll stop babbling - for now at least.