Simon paints the pergola!

He came over at 7am. I am grateful he is willing to do it. It was a lovely shady morning for about 2 seconds before the heat hit. He left after about an hour as it was just too fierce.

I am so excited by the way it looks already, I have taken photos of the one tall pole from all different angles!

And I arrived home from work last night to this - wow! Looks so much better. I can only imagine how good it will feel to get vines (jasmine) growing over it to hide the rough edges and look so pretty. For me, this reno business is such a long process (money issues) but every bit of help is fab, and I know my ideas will work.

The 'before' look: painted is much softer.

And...the height of ugliness shot (below) - part-paint, ladders, paint cans scattered, car covered, container, orange barrier, ugly power pole, half-baked lawn and no paving. Sigh. Perhaps things have to look bad before they get better.

Tiina riding out the heat

All of this week, it has been around high 30's - 40C.

Poor cats have had a hard time of it. Here is Tiina, hazy with heat-sleep, on the threshold, making the most of breezes.

New lily up

This is as close to the 'naked ladies' lillies that I've been (wish I could find some of those bulbs!).

Very surprised and pleased to see this flower this morning. Supposed to be 40C in Ipswich today. It's already fiercesomely hot. I watered the front before I went to work, just to try to ensure their survival.

Making a garden is a long term project. I've been here 3 years and have really just begun to get things to a place where I can see the potential of shaping things, and know that new plants will grow. It's so very satisfying.

We've had a bit of rain recently, and another one came up 23 Nov 2018.

2 Dec 2018: Seeds of newest pink lily - they feel like filaments of paper. I've scattered them all over the garden bed.

A couple more came up in early Dec:

John's Garden #7 - parterre redevelopment

It's been over 3 years that I have been dithering about this part of the garden - I call it John's Garden or John's Jungle.

I have decided that I would like to use this area for some formal parterre. I'd like some ball topiary, and murraya hedges in squares, like so

I could maybe put in some more mini-murraya to make crosses, like this: 

There are trees inside the patches, but that's ok. I will need another few star-jasmine's to fill

in the spaces inside the borders. I could also have some white lavender in the spaces too, to cut down on weed growth.

Will use these white long bricks to demarcate the areas.

The container

Oh how I want this gone.

There's another one in the street. It looks to be a more permanent fixture, whereas mine is only temporary.

Painting needed

Simon reckons he will paint the back frame for me. Right. We shall see what transpires.

Side views of front

Unfortunately, the house infrastructure is looking worse. I need to find funds to fix things.