Seasons Greetings from Down Under…

This is the New South Wales Christmas Bush (Ceratopetalum is a small genus of 5 species, all occurring in Australia and New Guinea) and is a very popular cut flower for Christmas decoration. They are one of the flowers grown on this native flower farm I am house sitting during Christmas, so I have picked a bunch to put on our Christmas table.

Towards the end of December this hardy and reliable plant puts on a great display of red ‘flowers’ – however all is not what it seems. The true flowers are white in colour and fairly insignificant and are seen in late spring to early November. After pollination by flies and native bees, the sepals, which are the outer series or whorl of flora leaves that protect the flower bud, enlarge and turn deep pink to red in colour enclosing the fruit, a single seed, a nut and the whole fall when ripe.  

I also picked Kangaroo Paw and Protea to make a cheerful display.

Sending thoughts and best wishes to all my Blogging friends from all around the world. It has been a pleasure “chatting” with you all and sharing photos and stories about your lives and countries.

Looking forward to joining you all via the wonderful world of WordPress in 2016. 

A Flower a Week : Silver Princess Gum

Princess gum

Buds

Close-up

Gum trees or Eucalyptus are very common around Australia. The more than 700 species of eucalyptus are mostly native to Australia, only 15 species occur outside Australia, with just nine of these not occurring in Australia. One of the most spectacular is the Silver Princess Gum. Found in the wild in Central Western Australia. It is now cultivated and a very popular small tree for gardens. 

Eucalyptus caesia, commonly known as Caesia, Gungurru or Silver Princess, is a mallee of the Eucalyptus genus. It is endemic to the central Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, where it is found on a small number of granite outcrops. The name “silver” refers to the white powder that covers the branches, flower buds and fruit. “Gungurru” comes from the name used by the indigenous Noongar people. (Wikipedia)

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Nalinki on “Angles and views” is hosting a weekly series called: “Flowersoverflowers”, it will be posted every Tuesday. The idea is to bring some more colorful pics of nature into our blogosphere

Weekly Photo Challenge : Rule of Thirds

 

This week Jen has challenged us to compose our subject off-center, obeying the Rule of Thirds.

The Rule of Thirds is a photography concept that puts the subject of the photograph off-center, which usually results in blank space in the rest of the image. If you focus closely on your subject and use a wide aperture, your photograph’s background will also be beautifully blurred in that blank space. The blurred area behind your focal point is referred to as bokeh.

So when it stopped raining I headed into the garden to experiment with the cameras settings. I think some worked, (some were a woeful failure, and I won’t show you those)..

Grevillea Ned Kelly

Anthurium

Water Lily

Desert Rose

Plumbago

Fungus

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Update on the storm.

Cyclone Marcia caused terrible devastation where she came to land as a category 5 cyclone.

 “The BOM said Marcia had weakened to a Category Two cyclone, with sustained winds of 110km/h (72mph) and gusts of up to 155km/h.

It was about 60km west of the town of Gladstone, Queensland and 65km north-northeast of Biloela, and moving south-southeast at 18 kmh but expected to weaken below cyclone strength by Saturday morning.” (For more information and photos go here to the BBC news report)

Hundreds of people in the central Queensland area are now homeless with their homes torn apart and large areas are without power. Thankfully there is no loss of life or major injuries. As it moved south it gradually lost power and by the time it reached Brisbane it was classed as a tropical low, lots of rain and some flooding, but the winds had dropped. It then veered out to sea away from our corner of Queensland. We had approx. 200mm of rain over 3 days, but no wind. As you can see in the flower photos they are flourishing in the rain.

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How does my garden grow?

It is a week since we built the no-dig garden bed. Did you see it in progress? (Here it is).

I’ve waited patiently for the heat from the compost to cool down. It is cooler now and rain is forecast for the weekend. A good time to put in the seedlings.

Jack calls this a cradle for my babies! The crows and magpies thought I had built it for them to play in, so this fooled them and keeps them out.

The netting is easily lifted to get into the bed. The green plastic wire at the back will eventually have beans growing up it.

I planted these silver beet yesterday and they seem to have settled in OK, so now I am planting the other lettuce and rocket seedlings.

These are sunflower seedlings I carefully nurtured from seeds. This bed gets the full sun so I’ve put the old screen door over them for protection for a couple of days. I love sunflowers and these will grow to 5 feet, all being well…

The seedlings are slowly taking over. Front right is the box I grew the sunflower seeds in. Still a few waiting to be planted out. On the seat I have some kale and rocket seedlings. Kale is one of the new super foods, even though the kale plants are still babies I pick one of the leaves as I wander by and nibble it. Maybe it will turn me into super woman (she says with a grin… )

The first crop of lettuce have just about reached their use-by date. Home grown is so tasty, we have salad almost every day.

This is the herb corner. Basil, coriander, oregano, parsley, rocket, chillies and at the end of the line a mini capsicum.

These little beauties are just bite sized and I’m waiting, rather impatiently, for them to turn red.

This is a lovely time of the year. It is hot but cools down in the evening, that is when I love to be out in the garden.

Here are some flowers that add a splash of colour at the moment.

Bird of paradise, Stelitzia reginae

Bromeliad

Forgotten this plants name!!!

Dietes

Red Pentas

Heliconia

Pentas

Frangipani

Fruit salad frangipani

The clouds are rolling in, maybe we will get some rain, but I hope we don’t get the storms that hit Brisbane last week. (click here to see the storm) The poor folks in Brisbane are still struggling to clear up and another storm would be catastrophic. We are only 100 kilometres south of Brisbane but didn’t get any of the hail, torrential rain and winds that blanketed that area.

Revitalising Rain.

Today it is drizzling. OK that is not going to get down and dirty into the soil, but oh how much the plants love that soft refreshing moisture.

Look at them, they are smiling as they lift their faces to the heavens.

Desert Rose

I’ve forgotten the name of this one…

But take a close look at it, it is beautiful

Even the water lilies enjoy the rain.

Nasturtiums delight me with their orange glow and peppery taste

This is only tiny and almost a weed, it tends to take over the rockery area if I don’t curb it’s enthusiasm.

Finally here are my lettuce only just 4 weeks old and giving me a delicious wholesome feed.

It is a pleasure to wander around the garden and share the beauty of nature.

A bouquet of tropical flowers to brighten your day

Yellow water-lily

Tropical water lilies

Tropical water-lily

Water Hyacinth

Heliconia

Heliconia

Nepenthes, insect eating pitcher plant

Frangipani

Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea

Here is a splash of colour and the scent of summer for my Northern Hemisphere friends. I hope this will brighten your winter day and remind you of the summer to come.

For the short time I am at home I love to spend time in the garden. This morning I went round to record what is flowering at the moment.

Wild Weekly Photo Challenge : Flowers

This is a theme that I love. Flowers are the most beautiful forms of nature and just ask to be admired, loved and photographed.

Western Australia in the springtime is a mecca for flower lovers. We spent August to October in 2010 slowly travelling along the west coast immersed in the most incredible display of flowers you could imagine. This area has the most diverse collection of wild flowers in the world. The shape, texture, form and colours are a visual feast. From huge swathes of one variety spreading to the horizon to the tiny orchids and small, petite flowers that hide shyly under other foliage and have to be searched for. Stop at the side of the road, wander in every direction and every step you take opens your eyes to more flowers.

These are photos of just a small sample of the many varieties we saw, I do not know all the names, so I hope you will enjoy the colours, textures and amazing forms of these Western Australia wild flowers.

Browse through the “Let’s be wild” site, if you enjoy these photos make a comment on the “lets be wild ” site and I maybe chosen as having the most enjoyed photos by viewers. You will also find some excellent posts on this subject. Maybe you have some flower photos you would like to share with us…

Early morning discovery in the garden…

Horrendously hot, windy weather has been circling right round Australia over the past 2 weeks bringing with it hundreds of out of control bush fires. Today it has reached Queensland and the forecast is for a week of high temperatures and strong, gusty winds. Fires are still raging in NSW and Victoria. Now we are on high alert.

It is my ritual to wander around the garden before breakfast and before the heat of the Queensland summer builds up.

Come with me and see what I found flowering at this time of the year in our tropical Queensland patch of paradise.

Birdbath surrounded by petunias

bromeliads in flower

Bromeliads are a favourite plant of mine. They love this hot humid climate, needing very little water, they are happy just to have water in the well made by the leaves, and the flower spikes last for weeks.

 

Around the shady side

The ferns on the other hand need moisture and shade so they are clustered under the shade of a group of trees and watered regularly. This group of ferns self seeded in the rocks, I doubt if I could’ve grown them there as a transplant.

Grevillea

The Grevillea are a hardy group of beautiful Australian natives. The birds love them because they are dripping with nectar.

close up of Grevillea, notice the drops of nectar

Amazing Heliconia

The early morning sun beautifully highlights these Heliconia as though they have a light inside them.

Then I walked round the corner and found the batplant’s whiskery face gazing out at me from under its broad protective leaves. It was the highlight of my walk and I had to share it with you so rushed inside for the camera.

Batplant

 

I hope you have enjoyed your stroll with me around a small part of our garden.

Now I am going to find a cool place to spend the rest of the day.

 

 

Travel Theme : Multiples (2)

Sarracenias, trumpet pitcher plant October 2009, originally uploaded by gypsy woman1.

I love the stateliness of these plants. This is in response to Ailsas travel theme “multiples”. Check her blog “Where’s my backpack” for lots more posts, or if you would like to join this large community of bloggers that take on Ailsas theme each week.

This also made me ponder on how important our photos are and how devastated I would be to lose them.

I searched all through my photos for this. I thought I had lost it. Then I remembered I had put it into my “Flickr” photo stream.

So I still have a copy. I have not been backing my photos to Flickr for the past year due to travel and poor internet connections so a new year’s resolution is to go through and put the most important ones into Flickr. I have them on a separate hard drive but that may not be enough.

Last night I watched the news in horror and sadness, with tears in my eyes, as the awful devastation of yet another bush fire blazed through a small town in Tasmania wiping out 60% of the towns buildings. Many of the residents running into the ocean to escape the blaze and from there watching as the fire consumed everything. They lost every thing.

The rain it came…

What a satisfying sound it is to be laying in bed and hear the rain start to fall. I fell asleep thinking of the plants relishing the moisture…

It rained all night and I hurried outside as soon as I woke up. The rain gauge recorded 35mm had fallen. I wandered around the garden with my camera to catch the freshness of the rain drops on the flowers and foliage. Every thing had a sheen and glossy glow of happiness.

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Matilda Update

The reconditioned gear box is finally installed. This weekend she will be going for a long trial run. Then, hopefully I will be able to bring her home….

Watch this space…..