I’m only adding photos today. It’s been a long day of writing, but another day closer to the finishing line of semester 2. 🙂
One day closer …
Category: garden flowers
A Day Spent in the Garden
There is a hazy film hanging around the valley today. Apparently, a blustery storm travelled across the state from west to east – so to the New South Wales coast – yesterday, kicking up dust as it went. My guess is that this is the tail-end of the dust, and we haven’t had any rain to wash it away.
Tonight my body aches from head to foot, but I’ve had the most wonderful and productive day in the garden. I’ve done a lot of pruning with the garden shears today, so even my hands hurt! By 3 pm I decided to call it a day, but paused to look over what I’d accomplished. Up in the pecan tree I could see several Figbirds, so zoomed in on them with the camera to get a close shot. The light, or rather lack of light, wasn’t in my favour, so it’s not the best photo. If you look closely though, you might notice the ring around the eye of the bird in the fork of the tree – that’s the male, and the other bird higher up the tree is a female.
Those cheeky birds were pinching my mulberries! I went down to have a look at the tree, and some of the fruit are looking pretty scraggly now, as you can see.
I decided to go right down the back and see how the orchard is going. We’ve done a lot of clearing down there during winter. The whole area had been taken over by gamba grass, which is classified as a weed in our area, but we’ve got rid of most of it now. We have to keep a lookout for any new shoots coming through though.
My poor grapefruit tree looked pretty dismal when we found it amid the grass, but look at it now! It’s covered in flowers, and I’m so pleased to see it looking so incredibly healthy. It’s quite an old tree, I think we planted it about twenty-five years ago, and every year up until now it ends up covered in huge grapefruits. It looks like it will be the same this year too.
As you can see, the whole valley has the smoky-haze appearance today. If you look closely at this photo though, on the right there’s a bare-branched tree with more figbirds in it! I think it might be a Jacarada tree, so I’ll keep an eye on it and get some photos when it flowers.
And here are the figbirds closer up! I wonder, are they all after my mulberries?
Another tree in flower is my Pomegranate. This is a fairly new addition to the orchard, but it had some beautiful big pomegranates on it during summer. There’s quite a few flowers on the tree now, so I could be in luck again this year.
Our lovely old Mango is preparing for summer fruit too! I had a great time last summer making Green Mango Chutney with freshly picked fruit from the tree and the next day my eyes were puffy and I had blisters on my face, hands and arms. It turned out to be a reaction to a poisonous substance in the sap of the mango tree that I had an allergic reaction to! But the chutney was great. 😉
While I did my gardening, my son’s dog Forrest – who lives permanently at my house now because it’s the only place she’s settled – and my Labrador, Bronte, followed me everywhere. They are good company, but it’s very difficult to get them to sit still long enough to get a photo of them. This photo of Forrest is a tad blurry, but the best I could get.
The Figbirds often sit atop these bunches of palm tree berries and I’ve often taken photos of them, from a distance, munching away on them. They were too busy with my mulberries today and seemed to have forgotten the berries, so I got a much closer photo of them on my way back to the house.
This is a Prince of Orange in my pool area.
And these pretty Daylilies are in the pool area too.
I absolutely love Evening Primrose flowers. They are such easy plants to grow, they are basically the plant-and-forget variety. And every summer the plants multiply, so I get even more flowers.
I love the closeup detail too, the veins through the petals and the dainty yellow carpel and stigma in the centre. (I think that’s what they are called, so correct me if I’m wrong.)
The only way I could get a photo of Bronte today was when she was on the other side of the pool fence. Every time I pointed the camera in her direction, she would run to me for a pat, so you’ll have to excuse the shadow of the fence across her fur. Actually, I’m surprised the sun shone long enough to form a shadow, it’s been such a dull day. It’s been very warm though, I think about 27 degrees Celsius, so around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s a high temperature for a spring day, but cooler weather is predicted in a few days.
So that was my day today, a wander around the garden after I finished my chores there, and it was a wonderful change from sitting at my desk. I’ll have to get back into uni tomorrow, but I think I’ll feel better doing so after having a break. 🙂
Another Garden Wander
Just this one strip of mist lay in the valley this morning. The mountain sits to the south-west of the back of my house, and directly to the south the valley looked completely clear and sparkling green. We had rain overnight, hence the vivid greenery. I didn’t take any more photos today, because the clouds rolled in and we have rain again. It’s just as well I took some photos around my front garden yesterday.
I think I first saw Queen Anne’s Lace on my blogging friend Robin’s old blog, Bogs of Ohio. Robin started a new blog when she moved from Ohio in 2013. Gosh was it that long ago? Well, after all these years I’ve finally planted some Queen Anne’s Lace, which I’m sure Robin told me can get out of hand if I don’t keep an eye on it. It’s looking very pretty and well contained right now.
This white Buddleia is less than a year old and already it is about a meter tall and covered in flowers. The flowers are supposed to attract bees and butterflies, and as you can see, it is doing well in the butterfly department. At first I thought this could be a cabbage moth, but it’s actually a Female Brimstone.
A little Noisy Miner dropped by to say hello during my wandering around the garden. I’m sure it had something in its beak, but it didn’t sit long enough for me to see what it was. We’ve hung the little bird dishes on the chain wire fence for some Eastern Rosellas that we often see on the fence where the Miner is sitting, with some seed and water in. I think they may have a nest nearby.
I still don’t know what this plant is called, but it’s covered in pretty white flowers. It’s been in flower for a few weeks now and the flowers are growing bigger and more prolific every week.
The daisies are growing well too! I love this lilac colour in the garden.
The flowers on the Callistemon tree, or Bottle Brush as we like to call it, are maturing well, much to the delight of the birds. We planted this tree as a tiny plant about twenty-five years ago and now we have to trim the top back every year to keep it from growing too tall and hitting the gutters of the house.
My Spanish Moss is very special to me. My mum gave me this, and she’s been gone for twenty-seven years now. Over the years I have started up new collections of the plant by draping it over tree branches, but this one is the original. It’s crowed by some of my mother-in-law’s orchid plants at the moment! To the right, one of my Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, or Brunfelsia, shrubs is covered in flowers too. That’s another plant I have to prune to keep control of, as it grows so vigorously in our subtropical climate.
I’m so proud of my potted Fuchsia! It is thriving just now on my front veranda and the flowers look incredibly healthy. I think it enjoys the drink of seaweed solution I feed it every fortnight.
And finally, this is the lavender that I didn’t think would survive. It’s planted under a tree near the front boundary of my garden and was over-run with weeds up until two weekends ago when I tidied the area. Since then, it has burst into flower again! I think it could be Italian Lavender, but I’m not one-hundred percent sure.
Tomorrow, weather permitting, I plan on spending the day in the garden. There’s a bit more weeding to do, some pruning to finish before summer arrives, a vegetable garden to organise, and a few new plants that arrived by mail order that I need to get planted. 🙂
Wordless Wednesday
Listening to Nature
The sun made a brief return today. If I hadn’t dashed outside to take a photo at just the right moment I would have missed capturing Mount Warning today. Before nightfall it was engulfed by a misty, cloudy mass of white.
I have spent another day working on assignments, so with my mind taken over by academic writing and genre analysis, I thought today I would share someone else’s words. I read this on Facebook this morning –
“Drink water from the spring where horses drink. The horse will never drink bad water.
Lay your bed where the cat sleeps. Eat the fruit that has been touched by a worm.
Boldly pick the mushroom on which the insects sit. Plant the tree where the mole digs. Build your house where the snake coils to warm itself.
Dig your fountain where the birds hide from heat.
Go to sleep and wake up at the same time with the birds – you will reap all of the days golden grains.
Eat more green – you will have strong legs and a resistant heart, like the beings of the forest.
Swim often and you will feel on earth like the fish in water.
Look at the sky as often as possible and your thoughts will become light and clear.
Be quiet a lot, speak little – and silence will come in your heart, and your spirit will be calm and full of peace.
Nature is talking to you, are you listening?” ~~ Angus Williams
I don’t think I would be inclined to share my house with a snake, but I like the concept of Williams’s words. Engage closely with nature – follow its lead – live a quiet life to find peace. ❤
In My World 