We had 15 mm of rain – 0.6 of an inch – yesterday, and so far today we have had double that. The temperature has dropped substantially as well, today reaching only 23 degrees Celsius – or 73 Fahrenheit.
Finally, it feels like autumn is in the air!
The wet garden looked so pretty, so I took my camera out to the front veranda and took a couple of photos, nothing spectacular, just “feel good” photos of my garden soaking up the refreshing rain and cooler weather.
Just the other day, I dead-headed the summer-tired flowers on the Magnolia ‘Little Gem’, leaving just new buds on the shrub. Today, the pure white flowers have opened – shown in the first photo. I was sorry I couldn’t take my camera out into the rain for a closer look! So zooming in on the flowers from the protected veranda gave me a clearer view.
A Jade plant, of sorts.
The second photo is of a plant my mother always called a Jade. I’m not convinced that’s it’s actual name, as I have seen Jade plants that look different to mine, but to me, it will always be Jade.
Salvia and Hydrangea.
This Salvia is looking lovely right now, although it has been, at times, a tad frazzled over summer. The Hydrangea next to it provides some protection from the hot afternoon sun. As for the Hydrangea, I am amazed that it is still covered in so many lush green leaves at this time of year! It is really enjoying the rainy weather.
Gardenia.
The Gardenia is beginning to flower again now, after a quiet summer of dormancy. It’s a shame these flowers do not last for long looking this soft and velvety or I would bring them indoors for a vase.
Chameleon Roses.
Yesterday morning, when choosing flowers for my vase, I didn’t pick any Chameleon Roses as I can see they will drop their petal soon. Today, however, they are still hanging on, possibly due to a new lease on life with the rain. The lilac bud in the top-left of the photo is a new Society Garlic flower.
An opened Finger Lime.
And finally, I promised I would share a photo of a Finger Lime fruit – and here it is. Those tiny caviar-like balls are so full of limey taste; I am surprised there isn’t a Finger Lime tree growing in every garden in Australia!
Who knows if this lovely autumn weather will continue, but for today, I am enjoying every cool minute of it. ❤
When Karma suggested a photo hunt for her blogging friends to join in on, I immediately knew which photos I needed to search for!
Last year, as I have mentioned before, I spent a lot of time revamping several of my garden beds. The hill directly opposite the front of my house was the largest project, a garden running almost the full length of the house. Plus, it’s on a sharp slope. We had tried to make the hill manageable previously, without a great deal of success – what I didn’t realise was that our first attempt at constructing a manageable and attractive garden was in 2010!
Here’s the first photo I found during the hunt –
15th April 2010, before the first Hill Project began.
As the photo shows, the hill was steep! So anything we constructed there would be a challenge to maintain. You will notice growing on the far right of the photo is a small pine cone tree. I decided this tree would be beautiful when fully grown, and would shade the front of the house.
19th October 2020 – the tree had grown!
The next photo I found during the hunt was taken in 2020. I had even convinced husband to extend the retaining wall out in front of the pine cone tree at some stage, to accomodate the tree’s roots. The original plan had been to cover the whole hill with drought tolerent ground cover plants, which may have worked well if most of the plants hadn’t struggled to get a root-hold on the slope!
By this time, husband had lost interest in helping me with the garden. Weed mat and mesh wire to hold mulch in place simply wasn’t successful on the sharp slope. I slipped down the slope when trying to pull out weeds. Also, by this time we had brought home potted plants galore from my inlaws house when we had cleaned out their property, ready for sale. It was a trying time, putting my inlaws into aged care facilities and dealing with my father-in-law’s declining health. I think it fair to say we had both lost our gardening mojo completely.
The day my seventeen year old daughter brought home a boy “she thought she might like” – nearly nineteen years ago – little did I know what an inspiration he would be to me in the years to come! I wrote a post about him several years ago, I think I called it A Man of Ideas or some such thing, as I had discovered he has a unique knack of getting into my brain, seeing the vision I have, then improving upon my ideas. He’s wonderful! So when we spoke about a possible solution to the most challenging part of my garden and threw around a few ideas, we came up with a solution that he was prepared to help me bring to fruition …
Winter 2023 ~ the Hill Project 2.0 begins!
First, the pine cone tree had to go. Next, the retaining wall needed to travel along a straight line once the roots of the tree were removed. What was I thinking when I insisted the tree stayed? Those tree roots were gynormous!!!
Three little people, along with the dogs, enjoyed watching Daddy – to the two little ones on the right – and Uncle – to the little one on the far left – hack away at the hill, essentially restructuring the land to accomodate our vision for a new, attractive, easy care, easy to access, garden.
The dry creek bed under construction.
During times of heavy rain, the far corner of the garden washes away in a stream of water which cascades down the hill. My man of Ideas suggested we construct a dry creek bed in that corner. This area of the garden is still under construction, but I think this photo, taken around October last year, shows the basic formation of what we have in mind.
And here’s the constructed garden –
The construction and planting is complete!
The height of the lower section of the retaining wall has been raised, another small block wall has been contructed and a wooden sleeper wall at the top runs along a hedge of Sacred Bamboo, Nandina Nana. It had to be a rockery garden to compliment the natural surroundings, so my son-in-law lifted the larger bush rocks into place with the mini-excavator and left several smaller rocks for me to play around with, to create the garden I had in mind.
It was a long process, but we did it! I hope my son-in-law realises how much I appreciate his contribution to everything he helps me with around the garden. Maybe the thousand times I have said thank you may have been a clue. 😉
So there are my before shots, before-before shots, during and after shots, Karma – you did say the rules of the photo hunt are loosey-goosey – right? 😉
There’s still time to join in, so why not follow the link to Karma’s Photo Hunt!
The second part of the challenge is to take a photo, one for each season of the same place, which I will join in also! I am eager to watch my new garden plants grow and change as the seasons progress. 🙂
It’s a glorious time of year in the subtropics! Each night is cool enough to warm the house with our fireplace, I can wear cosy winter clothes for a few weeks, and on Monday I spent the whole day gardening without breaking out in a sweat at all.
Today we had our third day of rain for the week, so gardening has been put on hold. It wasn’t too difficult to stay indoors to keep dry and warm though. The valley – and most of our garden – has been hidden by mist all day, so todays photo of Mount Warning is one I took last week.
It had been overcast weather all day, then as nightfall approached, in the distance, beyond the mountain and grey sky, a strip of light sky appeared. It was a stunning sight, and something a bit different to our usual sunsets.
“Life” has taken up more of my time than usual recently. What with final university assignment writing at the end of semester 1, and various family events, my blogging, and visiting blogger friends’ sites had to be put on hold. Also, my son, daughter-in-law and two of my grandsons have moved in recently. They sold their home, put a deposit on a new home, but when the building report on their prospective new home wasn’t up to par, they pulled out of the sale.
Meanwhile, houses in our area are in high demand. With more people buying than selling, house prices are on the rise, and Covid 19 is the culprit. People are selling up and leaving the capital cities, where covid “lock-downs” have become a regular occurance. Many people are relocating to areas such as ours where we have been virtually covid-free from the beginning of the pandemic, searching for freedom.
The changing market has forced many locals into a similar situation, so they simply have to be patient. The right house will become available for my son and his family eventually. In the meantime, I can enjoy grandson-cuddles every single day, which isn’t a bad thing at all! ❤
I have one last photo for today of a pair of kookaburras, taken last month, looking at something that obviously caught their eye. They are gorgeous characters, these birds. 🙂
Hopefully by tomorrow, the weather will have cleared and I will see the mountain again!
When you do something beautiful and nobody notices, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle, and yet most of the audience still sleeps. ~~ John Lennon
When the early morning sun put on a beautiful specticle today, someone noticed. Luckily for me, I was awake to see the gentle, muted colours caught in interesting cloud patterns across the sky over Mount Warning.
Once, rising at 6:00 am seemed horrendous, yet now I look forward to seeing the changes in the sky, clouds and light as the earth awakens.
Lately, with all the rain and blustery weather we have had, there have been several mornings when the mountain hasn’t been visible at all, so I really appreciate the fine-weather mornings. The current La Niña weather pattern has sent parts of my garden into a tizz, with all the small green mango fruit blowing off the tree before it had a chance to mature, and we hardly have any frangipani flowers left. Only those flowers hidden among the leaves on the safer, northern side of the tree have survived.
Surprisingly, our hibiscus hedge is doing very well this year. We only bought one plant back in the days when we were establishing our new garden, and from that one plant, a creamy-peach colour, we grew more from cuttings. When a neighbour pruned their pink hibiscus, they were happy for us to take a few cuttings to strike for our garden, so our colour scheme was decided upon.
Some years, the excessive humidity and lack of rain bothers the hibiscus and we see few flowers. This year, the plants seem to be flourishing with the extra rain and we have a beautiful array of flowers.
Seeing the changes in the weather, which affects everything – the sky, the view, and especially the plants in the garden is what I enjoy most about spending time outdoors. In the garden, from season to season, you just never know which flowers and plants will be the star performers. And during summer, in the early morning, while much of the world still sleeps, it is the best time of day to spend time with nature. 🙂
Today is the first day since before Christmas that life feels like it has regained a touch of normality. Husband went to work, I fed the birds and indoor pets, then sat down to eat breakfast.
The phone rang as soon as I put milk on my cereal.
Of course it did! That’s normal in my house. 😉
Morning visitor.
There was still cloudy skies and rain about this morning. I’m loving the coolness of the last few days so much! I wish every summer day felt like it has recently, comfortably warm, with little humidity. After a coolish night, there was a hint of mist across the ranges and Mount Warning, which looked very pretty.
Later in the day the sun appeared for a while and the mountain looked extremely clear. I was a bit caught up in work related matters though, so didn’t pause to take any more photos after capturing this morning’s mist and layers of clouds.
Morning mist.
On the subject of Mount Warning, yesterday I read the sad news that the chains at the summit of the mountain, there to help hikers reach the top, have been removed. Apparently this is to discourage people from climbing the mountain, as the local indigenous people believe the mountain is a sacred site and don’t want people climbing the mountain. Needless to say, many locals are shocked by the news, as climbing the mountain has been enjoyed by people of all ethnicities for as long as anyone can remember, without a word of complaint.
Some cynics predict that in the near future, a fee will be charged for the pleasure of enjoying a hike that was once free. We will have to see what eventuates.
In My World 