How the grounds first looked

...when I moved in. Ghastly. These were taken on September 8, 2015. We've come a long way in 4 months.

The Google shots - taken soon after all the trees were cut down :

And shortly after...slightly greener...pot in place....

Bougainvillea No. 1

From a tiny leaf or two on a twig, bought from Bunnings reject plants for $4 in the winter of  2015. Then, the leaves fell off and there were just two sticks. I despaired, but kept it, on Mum's suggestion. you never know what's going on under ground.

Mum spotted the change first - suddenly, there were buds as the weather grew warmer! and then... flowers, and lo! we have a growing baby plant. I'm so pleased.

I transferred it from the lovely red pot into the ground during early January 2016. So far so good.

And with her new mulch collar, as of 19 Jan 2016, to try to keep the roots moist during the end of summer.

Mulch collars

The planties look much more 'protected', or something!

Rissons sells these big bags of sugar cane mulch for less than Bunnings does! Whilst it wasn't the one I used for the above photos, I bought one of these today 13 Feb 2016, to refresh what had already been put down (but which the chooks have scratched away! I suppose it's almost a month since the first lot went down, so time for renewal?).

Le Honeysuckle

18 Jan 2016

My honeysuckle has buds and flowers!

I might call this Le Max, in honour of Max the StumpGrinder - he's a sweet guy.

2 Feb 2016 - and it's looking pretty good (below), with flowers! I hope that means a whole lot of new climbing growth. Henrietta (left) and Dorothea (right) scratching around for wormies.

Guest Bedroom

Which is a mess at the moment with all my clothes from winter and from overseas in bags all over. However, here's a few pics of the cats on the bed when I first got it (the bed frame) cut down by Andrew the neighbour, and made the bed up. It needs a mattress but hey ho.

I bought this gorgeous tray today so guests can put their jewellery on it, all in one place (sandal shown for size purposes only ;-).

I don't really fancy doilies but I might put one in the middle of this to cushion blows of jewellery hitting the tin surface, but this covers up the design. (Solution: put it up on the wall as decor).

Anyway, as mentioned at the top, this is what the room looks like today. Embarrassing - but I am too lazy to do anything about it right now. Need to put the Christmas decs away too. Sigh.

Red grape vine

The first bougainvillea

I have three.

The first came from Bunnings - $4 as stock they wanted to be rid of last winter. It went down to a couple of twigs, but Mum insisted I leave it to see what would happen.

And then..and then! Leaves, and then flowers! And here we are - it's all growing well against the front fence, whilst still quite small as yet.

PS - and with her new sugar cane mulch collar as of 20 Jan 2016