better late than never

This morning, as I was waving my father and step-mother off from their three day visit I thought I'd just bend down and pull out a few weeds that were poking through the paving in front of the front steps. Then, while I was there, I weeded a few long bits of grass that had straggled into the front bed. That reminded me that yesterday I'd read it was time to summer prune the roses. And oh, did they need it.

The poor things performed valiantly for us this season, but the couple of scorching days we've had, coupled with nighttime rain, and the fact that I've basically ignored them for the past two months meant they were looking straggly, spotty and altogether unwell. So I went all along the front picket fence and pruned them back by a good third. Now they're just sticks again, but I did give them a big meal of chicken manure and a lovely water, so hopefully they'll get inspired to grow and flower again. I've still got the roses up the side to prune - another day perhaps - although they're not looking anywhere near as sickly as the front ones which are exposed to all natures whims and fancies.

Yesterday was a blisteringly hot 39 degrees with unconscionable humidity - so we hired a ute and shoveled four tons of lawn underlay into our courtyard. Not sure if you've ever been introduced to lawn underlay before, but it has a really, really high percentage of chicken manure in it - so it's dead stinky. However, while the whiff factor is high, and we did nearly kill ourselves working in the heat - the area's now ready for the turf men to come and lay some lovely Sir Walter buffalo in the courtyard. Bliss. We also bought 10 lovely lilly pillies to form a three to four metre high hedge behind us, so the pool shall now be surrounded with a delightful patch of green. With the carpenter starting on Tuesday, and apparently knocking over the pool pavilion in a fortnight, we've just got a spot of painting and planting to do before I've got some lovely backyard shots to share with you.

Yay. About to pop a bottle of rosé in the fridge to celebrate.