Sarah Rajkotwala's Blog, page 41
May 26, 2023
Six on Saturday – Ruby Trees 27🌸5🌸23
It has been unusually still for us this autumn and unusually cold, so the autumn foliage did not get blown or burnt off like it usually does! So we have had a sustained period of autumn colours, which for us in my garden, is an unusual treat. A delight that people get more in the eastern states where it is colder in places.
Our summers the last few years have not been as hot or as sustained, making them easier to live with. But the winter weather has come in earlier into autumn, making the winters longer. For me our winter is colder and wetter, so that makes better gardening weather for me. I quite like cloudy moist days, it is great to garden in. But we had to move much quicker into our winter clothes and winter behaviour. My drinking water has to be topped up with a little warm water, so they aren’t so cold to drink. They are advertising ‘oodies’ and other thermal TV watching blankets that are lined in thick fleece on TV. It’s like you are wearing a fleece blanket around the house. I don’t wear one but the children love them. We don’t have central heating here in Australia, so we have to adopt other passive heating methods! The fur covered hot water bottles have really come back into fashion here, to help keep your feet toasty in bed. To avoid running up a large electricity bill. We watch TV under donnas in the coldest part of winter. We wear much thicker jumpers here too.
The foliage of the numerous Manchurian pears throughout the garden are glowing a rich ruby with the unusually still conditions of this autumn.
The pretty Plum Pudding is still flowering amongst the calendulas, a little black spot on her leaves with the cool weather doesn’t detract from her elegance.
Perfume Delight is a delight! She is quite slow to bloom for me, but if I give her special attentions by watering her, even when she doesn’t bloom in the summer months, and she blooms nicely the other side for me in autumn. 
Little symphony of autumn flowers felicias, pelargoniums, salvia Marine Blue, Cineraria saxifraga.
A close-up of the pretty staff pelargonium that flowers for months with very little effort on my behalf! My favourite sort of plant. This one was growing in a friend’s garden and is super reliable it could almost be a landscaping plant in our country. 
Second ever blooms on my new rose bush Orangerie after the rain. While I’m a big lover of old roses, I also love modern roses in the old style, with modern colours but the old style and modern breeding to make them very reliable to bloom more, and maybe less susceptible to disease. Although my really old roses don’t get much disease either, they are real toughies too.That’s all from me.
See more beautiful Six on Saturday gardens from around the world, on the Six on the Saturday tag, our host is Jim you can find his blog here .
Thanks for visiting. Happy Gardening – Sarah
May 25, 2023
One Love
We are all connected, when we love, and enjoy everyone benefits.
A fabulous pink rannunculus growing in my garden! 
Words & Photo by Sarah Rajkotwala spiritual author & teacher •.•-:¦:–~ღஐƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒஐღ*~ღஐƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒஐ
Your positive words can spread a powerful healing balm across your life.
Find out more in my books “The Year of Talking To Plants”, ‘Fairy Sparkles ‘ and ‘Conversations with My Vegetable Garden’, available from Amazon and all good online book stores or ask your store to get it in.
Words & Photo by Sarah Rajkotwala spiritual author & teacher
My real life Fairy Book ‘The Year of Talking to Plants’
is available on Amazon :
– http://a.co/cKiKZdg
Links to my other E book sellers:
https://books2read.com/u/brveYA
https://books2read.com/u/4Az2X0
Also my new Spiritual Part Autobiographical/ Part Spiritual Life Manual book “Fairy Sparkles” is available from Amazon through this link:
My other sellers – https://books2read.com/u/4Az2X0
My new book ‘Conversations With My Vegetable Garden’ on Amazon :
https://www.amazon.com/Conver…/dp/B08RB2HRGB/ref=sr_1_1…
Plus book depository and other good online book stores & Gawler Books SA.
My website : https://petalsandbuds.wordpress.com/
My writing blog : https://rosegardenconversation.wordpress.com/
Zazzle – some of my nature watercolour art designs for sale –
https://www.zazzle.com.au/store/romance_and_flowers…
Red Bubble my nature watercolour art
https://www.redbubble.com/people/sarahrajkotwala
May 19, 2023
May the Flowers of Your Love Sprinkle Happiness Wherever They Touch
May the Flowers of Your Love Sprinkle Happiness Wherever They Touch. Your positive words can spread a powerful healing balm across your life. Sprinlke a little love with your words and watch your love grow. Whatever love you put out will return to you many-fold!
Find out more in my books “The Year of Talking To Plants”, ‘Fairy Sparkles ‘ and ‘Conversations with My Vegetable Garden’, available from Amazon and all good online book stores or ask your store to get it in.
Words & Photo by Sarah Rajkotwala spiritual author & teacher
My real life Fairy Book ‘The Year of Talking to Plants’
is available on Amazon :
– http://a.co/cKiKZdg
Links to my other E book sellers:
https://books2read.com/u/brveYA
https://books2read.com/u/4Az2X0
Also my new Spiritual Part Autobiographical/ Part Spiritual Life Manual book “Fairy Sparkles” is available from Amazon through this link:
My other sellers – https://books2read.com/u/4Az2X0
My new book ‘Conversations With My Vegetable Garden’ on Amazon :
https://www.amazon.com/Conver…/dp/B08RB2HRGB/ref=sr_1_1…
Plus book depository and other good online book stores & Gawler Books SA.
My website : https://petalsandbuds.wordpress.com/
My writing blog : https://rosegardenconversation.wordpress.com/
Zazzle – some of my nature watercolour art designs for sale –
https://www.zazzle.com.au/store/romance_and_flowers…
Red Bubble my nature watercolour art
https://www.redbubble.com/people/sarahrajkotwala
Fairies Are Real!
It’s amazing but true, that we have these little spiritual beings looking after every aspect of nature! Find out more and read lots of the psychic conversations I have directly with the fairies in my book ‘The Year of Talking to Plants ‘ 
‘The Year of Talking to Plants’
is here – a.co/cKiKZdg
Six on Saturday – Going Potty! 20🌸5🌸23
For the last few weeks I have been slowly reinstating and re- planting and creating new bulb pots for my spring bulb display. I didn’t have a dedicated bulb display last year and my spring bulbs were rather disparate in pots in different places. So with firm resolve, I decided to reinstate my big spring bulb display on the concrete steps on the old cottage that is next to my house, like I had a few years ago. This is I have done off and on for many years. This area is quite good because it gets morning shade and afternoon sun in the winter /spring and is mainly weed and pest free.
I had the able help of one of my daughters, and I did a lot of carting of pots, weeding and replanting and redistributing bulbs. My preferred bulb I like to grew where are the lovely rannunculus bulbs that put on a magnificent show here, with some freesias, tulips, dutch iris and the odd blue star flower. I am still prevaricating as to what I am going to under-plant them with because I would like some pretty under-plants that have the potential to flower here all year round. But it gets stinking hot here in summer, so that will have to be thought about. I already have some pretty violas planted there and some fairy-sown petunias, lobelias and pansies from other pots too, we will see if they:
A. withstand the huge growth of the bulb display and
B. Are able to cope with the searing heat and dry conditions with summer.
and C. Whether I have the patience to water that many pots in summer anyway, which may be doubtful. That is why I mainly use this area for a spring display rather than a summer one, as it still rains regularly and is damper then.
Also flowering this week are verbenas, petunias, newly flowering mini snapdragons, daisies and Salvia mexicanus.
The last hurrah of the cucumbers. I must make a mention of them because they have kept us in crunchy cumber sandwiches for lunch every day in summer/autumn! They produced over 60 cute little Lebanese cucumbers in my new Vegepod! It was an outstanding success and my best cucumber crop by far!Cineraria saxifraga and felicias, Splice rose, and cute little non-flowering pelargoniums called dainty something that I use for edges of the flower borders in my retaining wall garden. The pink leafy plant is a kalanchoe I obtained from a market plants stall with no labels or flowers, so I will have to see what colour they are. The plant is telling me a dark pink colour.
Still can’t get enough of the pretty Heidesommer rose with the Salvia Marine Blue!
Daisy crazy, the earliest of my flowering daisies has just started to bloom enmasse and is a very welcome sight. It makes the start of the match towards my spring flower fest. Each week now in late autumn, a few more of my Mediterranean flowering shrubs/ sub-shrubs and perennials will start to flower.
As the deciduous trees bow out for the season, the season is only just getting started for my local wattle Acacia iteaphylla, the Flinder’s Ranges wattle. This little beauty is local to my state and starts to flower with her egg-custard smelling flowers in late autumn, making her one of the first wattles to bloom for the year. Giving a welcome source of nectar for the local honey-eater birds. Things that flower very early or very late in the season are most acceptable in the garden!That’s all from me. See more beautiful Six on Saturday gardens from around the world, on the Six on the Saturday tag, our host is Jim you can find his blog here .
Thanks for visiting. Happy Gardening – Sarah
May 13, 2023
Bless The Earth With Your Love
Our dear Mother Earth our beloved planet needs our help to keep her clean, to help all of natures systems operate with ease and grace. As much as you can use environmentally friendly products, clear up rubbish and pollution and thank and appreciate our Mother Earth. She in turn will respond back to us with love. ¨`•✿¸.•
(A great photo I took of my ponies one day.)
Words & Photo by Sarah Rajkotwala spiritual author & teacher •.•-:¦:–~ღஐƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒஐღ*~ღஐƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒஐ
My real life Fairy Book ‘The Year of Talking to Plants’
is available on Amazon :
– http://a.co/cKiKZdg
Links to my other E book sellers:
https://books2read.com/u/brveYA
https://books2read.com/u/4Az2X0
Also my new Spiritual Part Autobiographical/ Part Spiritual Life Manual book “Fairy Sparkles” is available from Amazon through this link:
My other sellers – https://books2read.com/u/4Az2X0
My new book ‘Conversations With My Vegetable Garden’ on Amazon :
https://www.amazon.com/Conver…/dp/B08RB2HRGB/ref=sr_1_1…
Plus book depository and other good online book stores & Gawler Books SA.
My website : https://petalsandbuds.wordpress.com/
My writing blog : https://rosegardenconversation.wordpress.com/
Zazzle – some of my nature watercolour art designs for sale –
https://www.zazzle.com.au/store/romance_and_flowers…
Red Bubble my nature watercolour art
https://www.redbubble.com/people/sarahrajkotwala
May 12, 2023
Six on Saturday – An Oath By a Tap and Autumn Favourites. 13🌸5🌸23
Another mild and lovely week here, with some decidedly cool mornings that necessitated a heater, socks, and jumpers to be used, almost frosty! But fantabulous gardening weather! I have been still busy transplanting my little rooted plants, plus making a border around the back garden of pot marigolds. I enjoy the watering in the new plants in the gently warm sunny days. Plus I have started in earnest to transplant clumps of my couch grass Wintergreen to my front garden, starting the replacement lawn. In previous years, I have concentrated on the grass, on my new side rose garden area and they are now growing nicely.
I have another Australian-ism for you. I had to have a plumber come out to fix one of the garden taps this week. It was my driveway and it had sprung a leek. He fixed this tap which is on one of the outer areas of the garden but nonetheless useful for watering the natives that I plant up the hill.
Once he had straightened and fixed the tap and the ‘lean’ (it was on a lean since we arrived here for over 20 years). I was excited that it was fixed and ‘straightened’ and I said it was in an odd spot, but I liked to water my natives with it, and he replied “Bloody Oath!”. I have not heard this phrase in a while, if at all in real life (maybe I mix in the wrong circles!). I was quite delighted by his response, and I knew you would be delighted with it too! I it is annunciated, so that the words run into each other as though it is one word and almost growled out in response to an exiting thought ! I don’t know exactly what ‘oath’ it referred too, but it was certainly exciting!
My favourite rose-bud pelargoium which is a plumy burgundy colour. Heidesommer rose, the single white rose, is a hardy Kordes rose. It is new to my garden, but I am most impressed by her beautiful scent and strong growth and the little roses bloom in clusters. Queen Adelaide rose. As I have been renovating all of my gardens, in the last 3 years, I have found some seeds that come up miraculously after many years. The green plant here is a Sweet Mignonette plant that has fragrant leaves, I don’t remember when I last planted them, but it was over 10 years ago!
Salvia Waverley, Staff Pelargonium, and new plant acquisition a white version of the Salvia mexicanus plant, that I have been after for a few years.
My favourite Ivy Leafed climbing pelargonium with blush pink flowers, roses flowering this week and my new grass transplant to the front garden!
A treat at this time of year a bright cerise red Nerines pop out of nowhere in the autumn gardenscape. This variety is a very hardy one given to me by a lovely elderly neighbour, it is much hardier than a pink variety I bought. Red roses Fire and Ice and oldie Francis Dubreuil. A lovely ruby coloured hybrid diascia I could not resist from the local hardware store, (it was only $2.50 cheaper than a coffee!) with parsley and lamb’s ear.
Not to be outshone by the roses, the hardy pelargoniums keep on flowering month after month, with their bright happy blooms. Some are in pots and some are growing in the garden in the sheltered garden beds near the house.
Pussycats keeping me company in the garden and a lovely purple calbrichoa in a hanging basket. Autumn foliage on a Chinese elm against the blue sky. The lovely purple Salvia mexicanus that I have reproduced and planted lots of little plants around the garden. That’s all from me. See more beautiful Six on Saturday gardens from around the world, on the Six on the Saturday tag, our host is Jim you can find his blog here .
Thanks for visiting. Happy Gardening – Sarah
Six on Saturday – An Oath By a Tap and Autumn Favourites.
Another mild and lovely week here, with some decidedly cool mornings that necessitated a heater, socks, and jumpers to be used, almost frosty! But fantabulous gardening weather! I have been still busy transplanting my little rooted plants, plus making a border around the back garden of pot marigolds. I enjoy the watering in the new plants in the gently warm sunny days. Plus I have started in earnest to transplant clumps of my couch grass Wintergreen to my front garden, starting the replacement lawn. In previous years, I have concentrated on the grass, on my new side rose garden area and they are now growing nicely.
I have another Australian-ism for you. I had to have a plumber come out to fix one of the garden taps this week. It was my driveway and it had sprung a leek. He fixed this tap which is on one of the outer areas of the garden but nonetheless useful for watering the natives that I plant up the hill.
Once he had straightened and fixed the tap and the ‘lean’ (it was on a lean since we arrived here for over 20 years). I was excited that it was fixed and ‘straightened’ and I said it was in an odd spot, but I liked to water my natives with it, and he replied “Bloody Oath!”. I have not heard this phrase in a while, if at all in real life (maybe I mix in the wrong circles!). I was quite delighted by his response, and I knew you would be delighted with it too! I it is annunciated, so that the words run into each other as though it is one word and almost growled out in response to an exiting thought ! I don’t know exactly what ‘oath’ it referred too, but it was certainly exciting!
My favourite rose-bud pelargoium which is a plumy burgundy colour. Heidesommer rose, the single white rose, is a hardy Kordes rose. It is new to my garden, but I am most impressed by her beautiful scent and strong growth and the little roses bloom in clusters. Queen Adelaide rose. As I have been renovating all of my gardens, in the last 3 years, I have found some seeds that come up miraculously after many years. The green plant here is a Sweet Mignonette plant that has fragrant leaves, I don’t remember when I last planted them, but it was over 10 years ago!Salvia Waverley, Staff Pelargonium, and new plant acquisition a white version of the Salvia mexicanus plant, that I have been after for a few years.My favourite Ivy Leafed climbing pelargonium with blush pink flowers, roses flowering this week and my new grass transplant to the front garden!A treat at this time of year a bright cerise red Nerines pop out of nowhere in the autumn gardenscape. This variety is a very hardy one given to me by a lovely elderly neighbour, it is much hardier than a pink variety I bought. Red roses Fire and Ice and oldie Francis Dubreuil. A lovely ruby coloured hybrid diascia I could not resist from the local hardware store, (it was only $2.50 cheaper than a coffee!) with parsley and lamb’s ear.Not to be outshone by the roses, the hardy pelargoniums keep on flowering month after month, with their bright happy blooms. Some are in pots and some are growing in the garden in the sheltered garden beds near the house.Pussycats keeping me company in the garden and a lovely purple calbrichoa in a hanging basket. Autumn foliage on a Chinese elm against the blue sky. The lovely purple Salvia mexicanus that I have reproduced and planted lots of little plants around the garden. That’s all from me. See more beautiful Six on Saturday gardens from around the world, on the Six on the Saturday tag, our host is Jim you can find his blog here .
Thanks for visiting. Happy Gardening – Sarah
Love is the Best Reality Repair
Love in one form or the other is always the answer to every problem.
If something isn’t working in your life the way you would like or there are tensions between another person, send both them and the situation love and light, then stop worrying about it. You will be surprised how well this works on everything and sometimes creates miraculous results.
Words & Photo by Sarah Rajkotwala spiritual author & teacher •.•-:¦:–~ღஐƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒஐღ*~ღஐƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒஐ
My real life Fairy Book ‘The Year of Talking to Plants’
is available on Amazon :
– http://a.co/cKiKZdg
Links to my other E book sellers:
https://books2read.com/u/brveYA
https://books2read.com/u/4Az2X0
Also my new Spiritual Part Autobiographical/ Part Spiritual Life Manual book “Fairy Sparkles” is available from Amazon through this link:
My other sellers – https://books2read.com/u/4Az2X0
My new book ‘Conversations With My Vegetable Garden’ on Amazon :
https://www.amazon.com/Conver…/dp/B08RB2HRGB/ref=sr_1_1…
Plus book depository and other good online book stores & Gawler Books SA.
My website : https://petalsandbuds.wordpress.com/
My writing blog : https://rosegardenconversation.wordpress.com/
Zazzle – some of my nature watercolour art designs for sale –
https://www.zazzle.com.au/store/romance_and_flowers…
Red Bubble my nature watercolour art
https://www.redbubble.com/people/sarahrajkotwala
May 7, 2023
A Well Timed Rest is as Good as a Hundred Badly Timed Actions
A good rest is a much needed thing in the sacred dance of life.
Words & Photo by Sarah Rajkotwala spiritual author & teacher ✿¸.• •.•-:¦:–~ღஐƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒஐღ*~ღஐƸ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒஐ
My real life Fairy Book ‘The Year of Talking to Plants’
is available on Amazon :
– http://a.co/cKiKZdg
Links to my other E book sellers:
https://books2read.com/u/brveYA
https://books2read.com/u/4Az2X0
Also my new Spiritual Part Autobiographical/ Part Spiritual Life Manual book “Fairy Sparkles” is available from Amazon through this link:
My other sellers – https://books2read.com/u/4Az2X0
My new book ‘Conversations With My Vegetable Garden’ on Amazon :
https://www.amazon.com/Conver…/dp/B08RB2HRGB/ref=sr_1_1…
Plus book depository and other good online book stores & Gawler Books SA.
My website : https://petalsandbuds.wordpress.com/
My writing blog : https://rosegardenconversation.wordpress.com/
Zazzle – some of my nature watercolour art designs for sale –
https://www.zazzle.com.au/store/romance_and_flowers…
Red Bubble my nature watercolour art
https://www.redbubble.com/people/sarahrajkotwala
