Tag: frangipani tree

Australia · flowers · gardening · in my garden · subtropical weather

A Week of Flowers ~~ Day 7

Joanne25 Comments

Seven days simply is not enough time to share all the flowers that are in my Southern Hemisphere garden now the summer is here. A Week of Flowers, hosted by Cathy at Words and Herbs is an annual event where bloggers are encouraged to share photos of their gardens in all their glory. Not only does it brighten the days of people in the Northern Hemisphere, where brightly coloured flowers dancing in the sunlight are a distant memory until spring returns, but it has also encouraged me to return to my own garden with a camera in hand. All through the cooler months of the year I have dug, removed, relocated, planted and mulched in my garden. Now hotter days have returned, it is time for me to stand at my windows, cool drink in hand and enjoy the landscape I have created during the cooler months.

Frangipani trees love the subtropical weather. I have four in my garden, the largest and most mature trees strategically placed near our pool and bar-be-que area. Being deciduous, during winter, when we want to allow the sun’s warm rays into the garden, the branches of the trees are bare. As the warmer weather arrives, so do the leaves, giving us beautiful dappled shade in the area of the garden where we spend most of our time during summer. And the added bonus is that frangipanis have the most beautiful flowers. Close up, the five-petaled flowers are a work of art. From a distance, the view of the two trees together is breathtaking. 🙂

Cathy, where has the week gone? I still have more photos to share! Thank you so much for the inspiration to share flowers with other bloggers every day for a week. I have met more like-minded bloggers through your challenge this week and I am learning more about plants, and how they grow in the Northern Hemisphere. ❤

I believe I will have to blog more regularly now summer is here. 🙂

Australia · Changes · clouds · colours · flowers · garden flowers · gardening · in my garden · Mount Warning · quotes · rain · summer · sunrise · Tweed Valley

Something Beautiful

Joanne16 Comments

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. 🙂

Australia · clouds · daughter · floods · granddaughter · grandson · Mount Warning · palm trees · rain · rivers · subtropical weather · summer · Tweed Valley

The Rain Continues …

Joanne16 Comments

There was a brief break in the rain this afternoon, so I ventured outdoors with the two dogs to have a bit of a look around. I have spent most of the last two days indoors, watching the rain pelting down and the wind ripping at the trees in my garden. As the first photo shows, looking down towards the pool, debris from the palm trees is piled beside the pool and floating in the water. There’ll be a big clean-up down there next weekend!

What looks like a massive pond in the valley is actually water-filled sugar cane fields.

Low-lying land pockets as far as the eye can see are filled with rain water.

And no surprises here, the mountain is still hiding behind a thick, white veil.

It looks like there are two rivers running parallel to one another. The actual river can be glimpsed behind the row of trees in the photo above. The other “river” in the foreground is flood water.

The river ran across roads in many areas, and people were advised not to go out unless they had to. My daughter, Hayley, went out as she had an appointment for her 20 week ultrasound. Luckily, her husband drove her to the appointment in their four-wheel-drive ute. From there they took the sealed envelope that had been given to them to our local balloon shop to have a special balloon made. The envelope contained a card with the gender of her baby on it. 🙂

Aurora, who is to be a big sister, was pretty excited about popping the balloon ~~ Mummy and Daddy were excited to see what colour confetti was in the balloon ~~

It’s a boy! ❤