Soon after moving in to our little nest but before the Zo Babe made his entrance, B, O & I spent a lot of time in the garden getting ready. I wanted lots of flowers to greet the new baby – never mind the winter weather.

One of my projects was to prettify the front of the house. Here is the real estate agent’s photo from just over a year ago:

That big bushy thing by the front gate had a nasty bug and a funny smell. It did hide the split-system airconditioner but No Way was I having disease at the front door – so I chopped it down. Just like most first home owners there wasn’t a great deal in the piggy bank for me to play with, but I knew exactly what I wanted and where to find it.

My sister had introduced me to the wonders of native plants soon after we moved back to Australia (drought tolerant, fast growing, bird and butterfly attracting and p r e t t y), and took me to State Flora nursery in the Belair National Park. It’s been my nursery of choice ever since. There are *lots* of reasons for a nice long visit to Belair National Park in a good pair of walking shoes (especially in October: wild native orchids! everywhere!) so I try to sneak in a little look-see in the nursery while we are there on other business. The gardens around the nursery are really inspirational – I’ve never forgotten the sight of a trio of hardenbergia alba bushes in full bloom near one of the cubby houses. That is what the front of our house needed. To start with, anyway. Tube stock are only $2.95 each, and will out-grow more established nursery plants, often inside of a year.

6 tiny little shoots came home with me one day, and made their way into the ground while we chatted with our new neighbour Lottie and her lovely pooch Heidi.

← Here they are one year later
and there’s that one year old baby Azaro, too.

While I was looking through our photos for this post I found this photo of me sneaking up on the baby tulips, taken in secret while I was on my morning prowl. I’ve asked Orlando to take photos of the tulips for me as I suspect I’ll be in China when they are blooming.