More garden stuff. Our garden after the rains.
Statistics about our rainfall have been bouncing around in the media every day lately - too many to detail here. Suffice to say that Melbourne's gardens are flourishing, and our little patch is throwing up some surprises.
Geraniums live through just about anything I've found, but they do look a lot healthier than they did a few years ago. This is one of ours:
And this one is in a neighbour's garden. Eat your heart out, Isabelle!
This Pelargonium was not looking very happy until last week when it suddenly produced these blooms.
The Trailing Lotus which got off to a slow start earlier this year is now spreading rapidly, to the point of being classed as an invasive pest! But that's okay, I can trim it back.
We've even got our own mushroom farm in a shady spot in the front yard.
My pots of herbs are doing well: Parsley, Mint, Rosemary and Chives.
This small shrub is a Native - Geraldton Wax.
Geraldton Wax flower closeup.
Our Staghorn (Elkhorn?) has fully recovered, after nearly dying during the drought, despite me hosing it nearly every night last summer. All it takes is REAL rain, not the stuff from the hose!
The Dutch Elm tree in the front yard didn't appear to be affected by drought conditions, but it has been slowly eaten away every year by the elm beetle. Right now it looks lovely with all the spring growth, but that won't last long unfortunately. We were going to pull the tree out, but after consulting a horticulturist about it, he begged us not to, as there are not many surviving in Melbourne now, due to the elm beetle infestation. Well, I don't know...I'm sure I've seen a few around in the inner suburbs, but we've left it there for the time being. The bright green does look pretty against the dark green of the photinia hedge.
Now this is a real surprise. This bottle brush tree (Callistemon) hasn't flowered for years, and the only reason we haven't pulled it out is because it was still alive, even though it didn't flower all that time. Voila! This year, heaps of buds, and the first flowers have just come out. Beautiful bright red! Worth waiting for.
Geraniums live through just about anything I've found, but they do look a lot healthier than they did a few years ago. This is one of ours:
And this one is in a neighbour's garden. Eat your heart out, Isabelle!
This Pelargonium was not looking very happy until last week when it suddenly produced these blooms.
The Trailing Lotus which got off to a slow start earlier this year is now spreading rapidly, to the point of being classed as an invasive pest! But that's okay, I can trim it back.
We've even got our own mushroom farm in a shady spot in the front yard.
My pots of herbs are doing well: Parsley, Mint, Rosemary and Chives.
This small shrub is a Native - Geraldton Wax.
Geraldton Wax flower closeup.
Our Staghorn (Elkhorn?) has fully recovered, after nearly dying during the drought, despite me hosing it nearly every night last summer. All it takes is REAL rain, not the stuff from the hose!
The Dutch Elm tree in the front yard didn't appear to be affected by drought conditions, but it has been slowly eaten away every year by the elm beetle. Right now it looks lovely with all the spring growth, but that won't last long unfortunately. We were going to pull the tree out, but after consulting a horticulturist about it, he begged us not to, as there are not many surviving in Melbourne now, due to the elm beetle infestation. Well, I don't know...I'm sure I've seen a few around in the inner suburbs, but we've left it there for the time being. The bright green does look pretty against the dark green of the photinia hedge.
Now this is a real surprise. This bottle brush tree (Callistemon) hasn't flowered for years, and the only reason we haven't pulled it out is because it was still alive, even though it didn't flower all that time. Voila! This year, heaps of buds, and the first flowers have just come out. Beautiful bright red! Worth waiting for.
posted by Gina E. | 11:19 am
4 Comments:
Hi Gina!!!!
It was great hearing from you
again. How strange that your computer won't let you visit
my blog. It's lucky that Ken
has a lap top that you can use
in a pinch.
When my computer crapped out
in the summer I had no back up computer to turn to. We only
have the one machine and I'm
the only one who uses it. Phil
refuses to touch it. Says he
uses a computer at work all day
and doesn't want to bother with
one at home.
Which is fine by me because I
don't have to share. And Phil
gets almost exclusive use of
the TV because I rarely watch
it ... unless the computer is
on the fritz.
Your garden looks amazing thanks
to all the rain that you've been
getting. I loved seeing all of
the plants that you have growing
around your property. That
geranium is HUGE!!! Do you leave
it in the ground all year?? We
can only have geraniums in our
summer pots because they won't
survive our winters.
The Pelargonium has a beautiful
flower and I love the Geraldton
Wax flower as well. We don't
have many Elm trees here either.
A great many of them died from
Dutch Elm Disease back in the
60's which is such a shame. We
have a Japanese Beetle problem
here and some of the cities
have been spraying to try and
eradicate them. I must say
the flower on the Bottlebrush
tree is so strange looking.
But the color is fabulous!!!
I really enjoyed the pictures
of your local park and the
section that the town council
and others are trying to return
to it's natural state. I love
seeing the plants and animals
of other countries and most
especially when they are not
to be found anywhere else in
the world.
Those Paper Daisies sound like
a plant that we buy here to
put in our pots during the
summer months. Ours is called
Straw Flower and the flower
is the texture of straw ... or
paper. They look quite a bit
like your Daisy but I can't
see much of the greenery in
the picture to see if that is
similar also.
Mandatory voting. What a
brilliant idea. I can just
imagine the brouhaha that
such legislation would cause
over here as indignant citizens
would gather to protest and
whine about it.
Perhaps they would be happier living in China or other places where there is either no voting
at all, or the system is so
corrupt that if you do vote it
is meaningless. I really do
wonder about people sometimes.
How are Ken's birds doing??
Have you had any Kookaburras
around lately?? I love it
when you write about the birds
that visit your yard, as well
as reading about Ken's
collection.
It's too bad that your Halloween
was ruined for the kids by all
the rain. We usually have fairly
decent weather for Halloween night
but if there's one thing that will
keep the kids at home it's a rainy
night.
Well, I'd best finish this off.
Blogger is going to kill me when
I hit the publish button. For
some reason they insist that I
exceed bandwidth or something
whenever I leave comments. Go
figure.
Cheers!
Judy! What a great "comment" - LOL!
I'll reply to you directly on your blog...hugs!
Duh. I just remembered I can't get on to your blog from here. I'll have to wait until I get on to Ken's laptop again. In the meantime, I'm still chuckling over your remark about our geraniums - you're not the only one to be surprised by them! Must be a southern hemisphere thing... they are like that everywhere here; the longer we leave them in the ground, the more they spread. We can grow them in pots too, but they have to be kept trimmed, otherwise the pot falls over with the weight of the stems!
I've just put an update on our birds, on my Australian Birds blog. We don't get kookaburras visiting us any more, but we still hear them laughing around here now and then.
Heya¡my very first comment on your site. ,I have been reading your blog for a while and thought I would completely pop in and drop a friendly note. . It is great stuff indeed. I also wanted to ask..is there a way to subscribe to your site via email?
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