Wordless Wednesday ~ First Lilly Pilly Berry
Tag: lilly pilly
In A Vase On Monday ~ Bird of Paradise
This week for my contribution to Cathy’s In a Vase on Monday meme at Rambling in the Garden, I have limited my arrangement to three flowers, based on the potted Bird of Paradise that has decided to flower! It only flowers during summer, but not every year. I am sure the plant would flourish if planted in the ground, but I have heard that once in the ground, Bird of Paradise grow huge and are difficult to remove. So in the pot it will stay.
In previous weeks I have said that I don’t like mixing purple and orange flowers, yet somehow I manage to do so often. If the colours are light shades, it doesn’t “clash” as much. Yet having said that, I have seen arrangements of orange and purple flowers looking beautiful together. This week, however, I decided to stick with just orange flowers with green foliage.
Strangely enough, if you look closely at the Bird of Paradise, the have a thin strip of purplish colour with the orange. Regardless, orange is such a bold colour, so today, orange can be the star attraction.
It is fortuitous that during the same week my Bird of Paradise flowered, my Ixora ‘Prince of Orange’ is also in full bloom. I found plenty of long stemmed Ixora to cut for the vase today.
I have discovered that orange flowers en masse do not photograph as well as the more subtle colours I usually choose for my Monday vase! Or it could be the dull light in the house that is the issue. Today is the first day in around a week that it isn’t raining, but there are so many clouds that the sun is struggling to peek through.
Ahhhhhh, that’s more like it – a delicate spray of light coloured Lilly Pilly flowers. 🙂
This week I have been out and about more than usual. My area is overtaken by tourists for the summer holidays. I live just south of Queensland’s Gold Coast and just north of Byron Bay, which has become world renowned in recent years. Byron to me will always be a sleepy little beach village, yet since several of the “rich and famous” moved in, suddenly, everyone wants to go there! So during the six week summer school break, I tend to stay close to home.
One day during the week, I went shopping with my daughter. The shops have begun their Easter displays, and although I had no intention of buying anything, this vase jumped out at me and said “take me home!”. And when my daughter said she had found a dish that looked very “Mum-ish” – her word – I had to agree. And considering my choice of orange flowers for today’s vase, the colours blend beautifully with the bunny designs.
I know for certain that I will not limit the use of this vase to Easter alone. 🙂
In this last photo, once again the orange of the flowers doesn’t look as clear as it could – I think I will blame the dull day – but I wanted to add this photo for the background. I often mention the purple flowering Tibouchina tree just outside my front door: in this photo, the tree can be seen through the window. Hanging from a branch is Tillandsia usneoides – Spanish Moss, or as we call it, Grandfather’s Whiskers. To the right is a mozzie zapper, although those blood-thirsty pests haven’t been as active this past week, thank goodness. And just beyond the tree is the garden which featured in my Hill Project post recently.
Thank you for your dedicated weekly hosting of In a Vase on Monday, Cathy. 🙂
In A Vase On Monday ~ A Scorcher!
Well, aren’t I glad arranged a brand new vase on Saturday morning as I had guests arriving in the afternoon – today is an absolute scorcher! Indoors is 28 degrees Celsius, outside is 34 degrees, yet our weather station in the kitchen – I love it as it keeps us up to date with actual details of the weather in our garden – says it “feels like” 40.3 degrees. I checked, and the conversion to Fahrenheit is 104.54F!
I am indoors today, adding my ‘In A Vase on Monday’ post, hosted by Cathy at Rambling in the Garden, with doors and windows closed and ceiling fans going in every room. We don’t have aircon. I always think that for the few days of unbearable heat we have here each year, I will survive without it; on days like today, I question my wisdom!
It was hot enough on Saturday morning as well, as evidenced by the scorched rose petals. I collected my vase of flowers in a hurry, while also deadheading as I went along; I also used the same vase as last week for the sake of speed – I had guests arriving soon – so hope I am forgiven for being boring. The roses I salvaged one or two of were Olivia Rose Austen, Souvenir de la Malmaison and Jude the Obscure. I feel dreadful about leaving my plants so badly unattended, but with this summer heat, I have no choice. 😦
I deadheaded far more Gerberas than I brought inside. A couple of red flowers had damaged stems, so they were placed right down low, beneath the foliage.
As you can see, some of the Gerberas are a tad frazzled, but the Verbena Polaris are loving the heat!
It was good to see that some Society Garlic ‘Tulbaghia’ flowers had survived, although most had fallen over and died in the heat. With flowers this pretty, I must plant some more when the weather cools.
For a greenery backdrop, I decided to try some sprigs off my Lilly Pilly tree. This variety may be Weeping Lilly Pilly ‘Waterhousea floribunda’, but as the flowers are not fully formed yet, I can’t be sure. I planted the tree around fifteen years ago, and can’t remember the details of its name. I do recall, however, that it was in a large pot near my back door, not looking healthy at all, so I decided to plant it in my (then) newly-built garden. It took off! And now it is a fully-fledged tree.
Previously, I have only added closeup shots of my vase and flowers, and from comments, I’ve realised that a full view is needed to add perspective of the size of the vase and flowers. So today, here is a full view of the vase in situ, in the living room at the front of the house. 🙂
When the larger vase was full, I had a few small stemmed leftovers, so I made up a smaller vase for the living room at the back of the house. My Lavender is beginning to bloom – doing a happy dance about that! – and I had a few sprigs of leftover Verbena and Lilly Pilly as well.
If we have too much rain it may upset the Lavender plants, so I am hoping it doesn’t get too wet before the season is over. From memory, this is French Lavender.
I think the Lavender and Verbena make a great team when together in a vase.
In the interests of providing perspective, here is the full view of the smaller vase. You might remember the miniature ornaments that featured in my Tiny Treasures post a couple of Mondays ago, seen here next to the vase.
I have just one more “vase” to add, and this one is from yesterday. My son, his wife and their two boys – featured modelling Christmas aprons I made late last year in this post – came to visit and swim in the pool. Later, when Masters Seven and Two (almost three) came back to the house, they presented me with four Frangipani flowers that they had picked for me.
I floated the flowers in some water immediately. 🙂
What Nana wouldn’t want to save as beautiful a memory as that? ❤
Thank you for getting me out in my hot garden, again, to choose flowers, Cathy! 🙂
In A Vase On Monday ~ Tiny Treasures
When I went outside to collect flowers between showers of rain, I had not expected to return laden with a large collection of miniatures. My only explanation is that this is the collection of flowers that “chose” to be stars of the vase for my In A Vase On Monday contribution this week, hosted by Cathy at Rambling in the Garden.
Is that a thing, I wonder – can flowers make their own choices? In my garden, surprisingly, they often seem to!
The native Australian Lilly Pilly buds had already caught my eye today. When I saw them through the kitchen window this morning, the colour of the bud seemed to be a deeper shade of pinkish-brown, compared to two days ago when I took photos of them for my native plants post. I imagined tiny sprigs of the buds looking very pretty in a vase.
In a pot close to the Lilly Pilly bush, I noticed that some of my ‘Chameleon’ roses needed dead-heading. Chameleon – also known as ‘Pur Caprice’ – is a miniature rose, with the blooms changing colour from red to yellow, then pink and white as the flowers age, hence the name Chameleon. Some Chameleon blooms would look lovely in a vase with the Lilly Pilly buds … and so the miniature vase began to take shape.
In yet another pot nearby, the Osteospermum Serenity Pink Magic Cape daisy also needed some attention, so while snipping spent flowers, I chose two healthy blooms to add to the miniature mix. I adore the colour of this daisy! It is not the shade of pink I expected when I first planted the tube stock plant, it’s even more beautiful than I had imagined it would be.
In the front garden, I knew I had some very pretty Gazania flowers in bloom. The colour matches the various pink tones I had already picked, although the delicate petals may have suffered a bit due to being damp from the recent rain. In the garden, Gazania close their petals when night falls, so I will watch carefully as the day turns into night, to see if they do the same when indoors.
When together in the vase, I am quite happy with the selection of tiny treasures I heard calling out to be chosen for my Monday vase!
When deciding on a vase, I chose a tiny jug which is actually a miniature of an old-style wash basin. The design on the side colour-coordinates very well with my flowers as well – perfect!
And my collection of miniature “pets” – the Labrador with four kittens stands guard over the vase …
… with the finishing touch – the tiny bowl under the tiny jug. 🙂
Australian and New Zealand Native Plants
In previous posts, I have mentioned that during the past year, I have focused on revamping my garden, by removing plants that I wasn’t happy with and trying new plants in their place.
A new plant to me was ‘Metrosideros Little Ewan’, otherwise known as a dwarf New Zealand Christmas bush. I thought I’d give it a go, so bought three tube stock plants. Much to my delight, I noticed this week that I have my first Little Ewan flower.
The clusters of red spires look to be growing from a yellow base; also, there is the tiniest hint of yellow at the end of the soft spires. The plant is still tiny but grows to one metre in both width and height. It will be lovely to see the plant in flower when it reaches its full maturity.
Finger limes are native to Australia. Referred to as “bush tucker” by aboriginal people, the fruit, when cut open, has the appearance of caviar! My tree is young, and this is the first summer it has fruited. I have been lucky enough to try finger limes previously when my neighbour brought some off their tree for us to try. When I cut open my first lime, I will take photos to share here. 🙂
I am still learning the intricacies of finger lime tree growth, but I predict we may have a few more limes appearing before summer is over.
Also in bud is my native Australian Lilly Pilly shrub. This shrub is growing in a pot currently, but I have plans for it to become a feature plant in one of my newly renovated gardens.
A post of Australian natives wouldn’t be complete without a photo of kookaburras. As you can see, we have summer rain here which I am thankful for – it is keeping the temperatures lower each day, even if the humidity is a tad high! During the mid-month of summer, I am grateful for any reprieve I can get from the heat. 🙂
In My World 