Africanaussie

Yesterday we had almost an entire 24 hours without rain so I sprayed myself liberally with mosquito repellent and went out into the garden and chopped and hacked my way through the jungle.  This will allow more light into the ground and plants and hopefully there will be less damp areas for the mozzies to hang out and breed in.  I also would like it to dry out enough to mulch up the leaves.  The rex begonia love this weather. I really chopped away a lot of hanging branches here to let the light in and scraped up some lovely mulch from the path to put between the bromeliads.  There are still lots of lovely strands of lady slipper orchids hanging down into the path. I was photographing the hanging lady slipper orchids and look at this funny face I captured! Underneath the fan palms the beehive gingers are going crazy - I will get into this area next and clean it out a bit. I hope everyone else has had a wonderful relaxing time with family and friends an...

I have a bunch of lovely flower photos and thought they might brighten someones day.  I am often in awe at how beautiful buds are before they open into their full blown glory as flowers.  Take this bud of the Desert rose, such a perfect whorl. In fact a whole bunch of perfect whorls. Then slowly one by one they open up into the most perfect trumpet shaped flowers. The ground orchids stand up firm and proud above the leaves around its base. i think the green ants are part of the fertilization process. Maybe the leaves know enough not to try and compete with the beautiful flowers. The Rex Begonia buds are flat unassuming disks but then they unfold into these pretty little beauties. All these flowers last so long once they open and add continuous colour to my tropical garden.

I have recently developed a love for leaves with red backs....  In the shady garden I thought that a lot of plants would not flower and began to look or more interesting foliage,and that is where it all started.  I picked up one of these little plants at the orchid show last year, and have already subdivided them once.   I volunteered at the local markets on Saturday and  found a few plants I just had to have. The one was this variegated leaf Calathea. I have admired the Calathea with red undersides, and on looking it up discovered that the first plant is also a Calathea, or peacock plant.  Some plants like this cordeline start off pink and then turn a darker shade as they age. This one has even more color distinction between the old and new leaves. I think my favorite foliage plant though has to be this grey leaved rex begonia.  From one little slip I have subdivided it many t...

After all the fretting and researching the amaryllis have finally come right.  Maybe it was just exactly the weather that they like - a fairly cold winter, and then a very dry spring.  About half of them have had two flower spikes, so I couldn't be happier....  The torch ginger flower is opening up - it is quite small, but it is my first flower, so hopefully things improve once the rains come too as it is a wet season plant.  Probably looking around and saying "I thought this was the wet season in the tropics - anyone got a drink for me?"  My chia have started to flower, and I found this very useful information for anyone interested in growing it.  I see you can make a tea from the leaves, so am going to try that.  I doubt I am ever going to grow enough to give me enough seeds to eat, but I will make tea from  the leaves, and maybe put a few flowers into my salads.  I think next dry sea...

The desert rose is once again in full flower.  This is an amazing plant, it flowers almost continuously.  Look at the detail of the little white cup inside the pink flower  If you have been following my blog for a while you will know that I have been frustrated by my hippeastrums not blooming.  Well I think they need the leaves to die down.  I chopped the leaves off of these and look what happened - they are sending out buds :)  The passionfruit vine is loaded with flowers and soon the ground will once again be littered every afternoon with the delicious sweet fruit.  When you walk by the vine you are surrounded by their sweet scent.  the orchid is enjoying its little sheltered spot.  they say they need sunshine, but this one is in a very sheltered spot, so who knows - I think they have a mind of their own. The rex begonia is flowering - what a lovely plant this is.  The foliage is stunning, and from on...