Greens for Bunnies

I was in the pet shop buying bunny nibbles today, and the pet shop lady was feeding the bunnies kale and greens.

I can do that too!

So I did.





Maybe some dock too?

Plants that grow really well

Must be called weeds, right?

This is my thriving crop of convolvulus. Rampant. Smothering.

Annoying.

Flowers from weeds

This is a shy little number. Its a weed of some sort, but looks like a plant, grows in the shade against my house, and has these hidden flowers. An arum of some sort, seems to like it in my garden, and I've decided to go with the flow rather than fight most of these weeds. If they want to grow then that's OK, right?

More autumn 'weeds'

 

 

 

 

Most plants flower in spring and summer, so in autumn there isn't all that much with colour.  Lots of dead seed heads and dying foliage but no actual flowers. 

 

But I have got 2 indestructible flowering plants on the go right now.  The red one is pineapple sage.  I first grew this from a cutting from a friend 25 years ago, and it has been transplanted all over the garden.  It does tend to get very bushy and quite large.  When my kids were little they liked to pick the flowers and suck the nectar at the base of the flower.  Can't say I have tried it though.  Its a herb, so can be used for a pineapple-y taste too.

 

 

And this one is a Japanese anemone.  Completely indestructible, even if you want to remove it, so needs to be introduced with care.  Very sweet and lovely flowers though (no, no scent), and makes a really good ground cover - in a tall kind of way.

 

So you want messy, in-tune-with-nature then?

 

My only operational garden at the moment is the tiny strip out the front of my house, between the house and the little hedge by the footpath.  In spring I planted it with everything I could squeeze in - 2 tomatoes, beans, sugar snap peas, capsicum, 2 types of basil, 2 types of thyme, radishes (didn't do at all well though), Lebanese cucumber, apple cucumber, lettuces.  Looked gorgeous for a while. Then everything grew, and it looked abundant and luscious..

 

 

 

Now it is autumn, and it looks .. well .. autumny. All the beans and peas have finished, the 'wild' stuff is taking over.  You can still see a couple of tomatoes.  Things are starting to die back.  And flower.  And go to seed.  So, this is how a garden looks, for real, in autumn.  Wouldn't win any House and Garden shows.  People on a garden tour would not be impressed.  If I had uppity neighbours (I don't, my neighbours are lovely) they would be leaning over the fence tutting.  I think that autumn messiness is all part of nature's cycles, part of setting seeds in the ground for next year.

 

 

One of the most prolific 'weeds' I have in my front garden is this pretty flower.  It arrived on its own probably 20 years ago, and has never left, reliably pops up every autumn.  It is a native NZ hibiscus, quite small and very lovely.  An excellent reason not to weed until it has finished flowering.