Finally , a beautiful day in Melbourne !!!!!!

Its a beautiful day in Melbourne today , these are the days when you appreciate living down here so much , and not having to go to work today , i am outside with my daggy hat and tidying , tidying , tidying . Am very happy to report that the newly planted Blackberry Nip is looking good , no buds yet , but some good growth , as soon as i get a flower she'll be up on this page for sure ....

BN Is one of my favourites. My only gripe is that it's a floribunda and I very rarely get a stem long enough to put in a vase. The scent is amazing. I would have more if I had room!!

I'm glad your weather is nice....we all appreciated when the weather is kind to us.........right now we having 100 + kph winds and rains and cold to boot. So far my BN has had two flowers so far....

Those gail force winds are forecast for tonight here , Neptune . RosyTeesh , i'm not a fan of floribundas and don't usually plant them , but if BN has a good fragrance it could be forgiven ....

This was one of my first flowers from BN

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

RosyTeesh , its quite a unusual colour isn't it , sort of eclectic , do you think ?

I just wish I could always get them on a long stem

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Mmmmmnnnn RosyTeesh , maybe as it gets bigger ....

I have had a couple of long stems but the rest floribundas

Ah well RosyTeesh , i'm like you , i like to pick em , but this could be one that you just sniff then stand back and admire ....

There is a way you can have a HT type bloom, the stem lenght might not be as long. As floribundas have central leader which flower before the rest of the head. If you pinch this one out early all the head will flower together. The other option is take all the flower stems off but the central leader, this will give the HT look. It is not perfect but. If you look closely at HT's they have secondary flowers on the stem, there are not many HT's that only have one proper stem and flower.
Just as a side note, this approach of taking out the central leader can be applied to any form of floribunda type flower

That's very interesting thanks roseman.

Thanks Roseman , good advice ....

Its raining here at present. First drops for about 23 days. Been hot and dry. The grass is brown and plants look like they are struggling.
Woops spoke to soon sounds like its stopped. No its started again. Hope it rains all night.

Jealous We haven't had rain in 45+ days

Yes I saw on the weather radar the line of "storms" was north of Brisbane.

Ummnn , Melbourne is windy and rainy , hope you guys get some good rain ....

Does 1mm count for rain

It does at the moment

Do you want it posted up Gary. From talking to all the people around our district, they are saying dry times ahead.

I was talking to the Operational Manager yesterday about having a dry year, get the mulch ready

Ground's pretty sodden here. Had 13mm or so the last couple of days. Last couple of months have been at/above average.

Sunshine trying to break through now. I should probably get out there and battle some weeds...

Gary will come on and ask if you can send it up to him.

oit that desperate yet. Still water in teh dam and in the bore.

You can send us some rain if you like I think we are up to 46 days with no rain !! My roses are not too pleased ..