A big thing in my city is Zoo-doo. That's the fermented leavings of elephants, giraffes, hippos, etc. from the local zoo which they sell to gardeners as a side business. Avid gardeners from everywhere come to load up. Surprisingly, it doesn't smell too much. I helped a friend load up one year, six or seven garbage can's worth. Her garden was spectacular  😆 

Mondays are a good day for gardening here, as our rubbish collection day is Tuesday. It's satisfying to fill the green bin (garden and food scraps) for collection. 

This morning I've finished the pruning (including my favourite little rose bush,The Shire) and was just tidying up when the predicted wind and rain hit.  Now the clouds have moved away, and it's sunny. 

Tempted to do a bit more, but I'm taking care not to strain my back.

Two months later, my back is strained, I got busy being in another show, and my poor garden is neglected. I've sprayed the aphids on my roses, the Lawnmower man planted my two new trees yesterday, and I'll buy some flowers seedlings to fill the spaces. I'm going away for a few weeks, and my house sitter will be stuck with the gardening. I have to let my back recover, for travel!

It has been an undisclosed amount of years since I touched my compost pile. Well today was the day! I had my husband take away one side of it and I started digging out some nice compost from the bottom of the pile and spread it all over my raised garden beds and then kind of turned it in. It was a lot of work but I hope to spread a bunch all over my fairy garden and my front flower garden as well. They've all been deprived of nutrients the past year or two because I don't fertilize properly. Poor plants.

But I will have to think long and hard on how I want to garden this year. Where I live we have had drought conditions for so long that our primary water source is depleted to the point where watering restrictions last year became pretty strict. I can water food gardens, but everything else is once a week. Now last year I did collect enough rain water to keep my plants alive all through the summer. I may have to be super assertive with collecting rain water this spring as we head into our typical storm season. 

Part of me did contemplate mingling food plants with flowers.....  

Well done, fantasia, that compost must be lovely and rich!
Today I weeded the flower bed that I can see from my sofa. I'd bought some Gazania seedlings and a potted Delphinium, and I added these to the various flowers in the bed. It already has Salvias in deep blue and white, and some tumbled petunias in deep blue and red.