Africanaussie

For multiple reasons, I have not spent much time out in the garden lately.  Life sometimes takes over, but I am so lucky to live in a climate where the garden merrily keeps on growing, all by itself....The old gazebo trellis is where I tied up a bunch of Tilladsia (airplants)  and placed a bunch of orchids in pots on the shelf below it - they are all badly in need of re-potting.  I have been noticing a bit of colour in the area lately, and the Tillandsia are really putting on a  show.  the tibouchina also love this time of year, and are continually covered in these lovely purple blooms.  These angel wing begonia struggle through the heat and humidity of the summer, and then show all their glory as the weather cools down a bit.  Even the cordeline leaves seems more brilliant.  I keep threatening to pull out all these tissue paper costus, until they flower that is......  There are always lots of birds in my garden, but a ...

My wonderful hubby gave me a huge hand tuned wind chime for my birthday, and the sun shone all day so I was a very happy camper working out in the garden with the gentle sounds of the chimes ringing in my ears every time a gentle breeze wafted by.  Oh heaven!  The sunshine has brought out all the flowers :)  I knew that would happen - sunshine does marvellous things. I never even knew this plant flowered - I have had it for years, in quite  a few places, and mostly at the back so never really peer in between the branches.  Isn't it lovely against the background of its striped leaf?  so many tropical flowers are like this, a bunch of succulent little bulbs that the flowers peep out of. The crepe paper costus is similar- it will soon stop flowering as we enter our dry season and then this little beauty carries on throughout the year - tiny flowers, but oh so pretty with the variegated foliage and the stephanotis are opening up - aren't they so pr...

Over the weekend I decided that I had to clear the pathway behind the back of the garden.  It started out with the visit to the gardening group on Saturday where I came back with a bunch of cuttings and small plants - yeah!   I got some growing galangal and ginger roots.  The ginger I tried to grow from the supermarket ginger always rots away.  This is the ginger, it grows up to about 2ft high and has very spindly leaves. This is the galangal - it grows very tall, and I planted it just behind the costus, close to the lychee tree.  While digging around there I discovered that the costus is flowering right at the base.  No-one can see the flowers there unless you go bundu-bashing, so if the glalangal takes off that costus will just have to go.   I have seen the costus that I want to grow there, it is lower with little orangy bud type flowers on the tips.  I guess when I pinched this plant, I must have got the plant next to ...