Saturday, September 22, 2012

Here are a few of my favourite things

A  quick walk around my garden and I realise that the plants are flowering a little earlier this year. I expect the experts would say that its a sign of global warming. However, these are a few of  my favourite things ...... why do I hear Julie Andrews singing? lol.
The first picture (above) is Stellatta Magnolia. There is a beautiful example of this shrub in a garden in the next street to us. Sadly mine only ever bears a few flowers and I would be grateful if any of my readers could tell me what to do to encourage it to perform better....without showing it the axe !! Ha-ha


  

This one is a Leucadendron "Harvest" a new comer  (just bought it last Wednesday) I couldn't leave it in the garden centre, don't you love it

The pic below is a close-up.




Its great that colour can be introduced to the garden display without there being flowers


Now this Pacific blue doesn't usually flower here until late October/early November. I'm surprised to see it so early. I know it is in bloom in other parts of the hills but our place is quite high and 2 or 3 degrees colder.

Last, but not least this bright blue ground cover (name long forgotten) has more flowers on it than I've ever seen.

Monday, September 17, 2012

Cherry Blossom time

   



As pretty as a picture this weeping cherry tree is in full bloom.
 It's a pity though that the fruit it sets is inedible even to the scavenging birds. The cherries are dark and VERY bitter, not suitable for anything.
      
         It wont be long before the wind comes and blows all the petals to the ground, it happens each and every year, then we have to wait until autumn for the leaves to colour up and put on another beautiful show.





Very aptly named it is called Snowfall

          I've never been sorry that I planted this little beauty just outside our dining room window.

Sunday, September 2, 2012

A glorious day of warm sunshine

 The first two days of spring have been lovely and warm, and although I have been working in my vegetable patch I couldn't help myself....the flowers are looking good and now they are established, almost take care of themselves, all I have to do is pull a few weeds that always seem to find their way to my garden.









The Jonquils are still happily bobbing their heads in the breeze,
they are the first to bloom, letting us know that spring will soon be here.












Although I'm not a lover of yellow flowers, these daffodils are so bright and cheerful, they brighten up the whole garden.
The reason I don't like yellow flowers is....the colour  is a WEED  colour!! I can think of only one  common weed that is not yellow and that is Salvation Jane, better known in the eastern states as Patterson's Curse.(and what a curse it is)
The Rannunculi  have gone a tad feral, not a bad thing, I think. They come up from seed drop and form a
flowering corm in their second year. The good thing about that is they work as a weed suppresant.
I will have to move my Iris  from the raised bed, they don't appreciate too much water. They are rather badly affected by all of the rain that has made this bed too soggy, it collects the rainfall that runs down from the rock-face on the far side.