Spring in my garden...

I wrote this post before I went to hospital for my op. I figure it's about time that I publish it :-). There's no mention of my veggie garden beds because they have unfortunately been the focus of attention to 2 female bush turkeys, who took it upon themselves to visit every day and dig over and re-dig the 3 beds. I admitted defeat...no home-grown herbs and summer vegetables this year. Strangely these birds have no interest in the shrubs and small trees, so there is still some garden to look at! lol


Here in the southern hemisphere, we are in the second month of Spring. Admittedly though, here in Queensland, the difference in weather between the different seasons is only slight. Many of the shrubs and trees in the garden started flowering in winter as it was quite warm this year!

The dianella is flowering; after the flowers there will be berries of the most brilliant blue.

 Here's a better photo than mine...from the web...

This year the garden has had to look after itself, so these 'old favourites' in the collage have done a pretty good job staying alive and then flowering...

I was a bit slow getting a photo of the brunfelsia. It's also known as the Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow plant as the flowers start as a mid purple, fade to a mauve and finally they fade to white. The photo shows mainly the 'white stage'.

Along the back boundary of our yard we have some self sown (volunteer) trees that burst into flower each Spring and bring an extraordinary number of bees. When the blossoms are out there are so many bees that I can hear the humming/buzzing from the house!

One of my daylilies...

In the next collage there is a photo of a hippeastrum; out of all my 'hippies' only 2 flowered this year :-(

This plant was a cutting from a friend which has done very well looking after itself. This photo was taken a week or so after we trimmed it; it rewarded us with a lot of new flowers.

Another favourite which is thriving with no help from me!

The frangapani is not only getting new leaves shooting but a few flowers too. 

Some birds enjoying the nectar in the grevillea flowers...

And flowers are still on the jacaranda....

I've done some dividing up of my bromeliad plants and have planted these in the few areas where the plants didn't do so well being neglected. Good old 'broms' will soon fill in any gaps. 

 

We've had quite a bit of rain lately...

Because of the rain the garden has become quite overgrown and shrubs that were wilting in the latter months of 2012 are now thriving. Here in Brisbane, the weather does not change much between the seasons and very few of the trees and shrubs in our garden will lose their leaves...but there are a few, such as the crepe myrtles, the jacaranda  and the dreadful Chinese Elms (they are classed as weeds here) .
So what's happening in my poor neglected garden?
This orchid was given to me by my sister in law...after this photo was taken, we found the perfect spot for it, hanging on a branch of one of the crepe myrtles.

This flower is on one of my potato plants...

This overgrown patch is outside one of the vegie beds and is a self sown tomato and a self sown cucumber vine...

 Talking of cucumbers...this is an odd shaped cucumber in another garden bed. I should have picked it even though it was a bit small...as one of the local wildlife must have come along in the night and made this cucumber disappear!

One of my mum's favourite shrubs was the tibrouchina...I love the very deep purple flowered varieties and have tried growing them. Those darker ones didn't survive but this mauve variety one which was a free council giveaway has survived and thrived!

Look closely and in this jungle you might see a passionfruit vine (self sown) and some crepe myrtles that keep springing up, much to my displeasure! There is also some clumps of lomandra grasses there as well.

No matter how much I trim and prune this 'Cherry Ripe' allamanda, it still grows madly in late summer and gets quite untidy. It does quite a good job hiding those water tanks behind it.

Hmmm...lots of weeding needed in this garden bed...

Growing over the tibouchina and amongst the lomandra grass, the passionfruit vine has some fruit setting on it...

When we've had a fair bit of rain, I notice these areas that have little rolled balls of mud...not sure which creature does this.

This cassia tree came up all by itself several years ago...it always look so bright and cheerful when the flowers come...

 The next photo is one of my daylillies. Occasionally I would buy a new plant form the markets but they all seem to be red! There is one salmon coloured one that's all! But it's not out at the moment.

 The duranta/Sheena gold plants at the front need a good pruning, but the purple flowers always look lovely.

When I was a girl, many gardens had these plumbago plants...I thought they were pretty ordinary when I was a girl but I have a new appreciation of them now. The soil  in the area where I planted this one about 10 years ago was affected by nematodes which killed all the plants that I had planted there. I planted this plumbago there not expecting it to live for very long...it just grew and grew, and spread out to screen the front fence area.

And here's a closeup of the delicate blue flower. 

But some of the other plants in that front garden bed still struggle. I planted this acalypha at the front fence line in memory of the huge hedge of them at my parent's home. This poor thing struggled through the drought which surprised me as they are tough plants.

Talking of plants doing it tough when there is little rain...this is my pentas shrub. Last year I was bucketing water to it and it was still wilting. Regular rain from January this year, has brought this pentas back to life.

And here is a photo I raced out and took yesterday afternoon when I had seen the colour of the sky. I had just got inside after taking the photo when the rain started pouring! So the garden got yet another heavy watering! :-)

Threatening skies above the mango tree