Africanaussie

I spent all day Saturday digging out all (hopefully) the roots of the invasive Lady Di Heleconia.  That area is now a bit bare, but I am sure it will all fill in soon enough.  I moved a couple of cordelines there that were not doing well in the shade and along with the crotons should create quite a colourful spot.  I cleared a path behind that area to go to the back of the garden as it sometimes gets a bit prickly going past the duranta.  I think the franzipani will do better now that it has more light and air.  Good, another job to tick off the list.  Behind the tree fern these heleconia are flowering.  Maybe they should be further out in the front as they are quite low and hidden. they have great detail in their colouring. My neighbour gave me a piece of her tassel fern......hers is in a hanging pot  the last one I saw was in Delaware at Longwood Gardens.  I cant believe the tropical plants they grew there in the "ballroom", and I come home to discover one in my neighbou

The dry season is when a lot of native Australian plants come into their own. My bouganvillea that I started from a slip is heavy with flowers  I have a greyvillea that I planted at the beginning of the wet season in the front garden and it has just been sitting there doing not much for an awfully long time.  Greyvillea are one of the iconic Australian native plants, and mostly like the drier areas on Australia.  I figured if I planted this one alongside a fence where I rarely water, and it gets full sun it might be happy. In fact when some eggplant volunteered in the area, I let them stay since the greyvillea was just, well...  there... a grey plant against a grey fence.   It is a Sandra Gordon Greyvillea - supposedly suited to the tropics, flowers year round, or so the label said.  Recently I noticed some little buds forming and now look what is happening.... Look at the details.... I can just see why these attract the little honeyeaters! Isnt this just an amazing flower,

When I returned from my five weeks away the veggie garden was a little overgrown.  Cherry tomatoes everywhere, and as I carefully put in some stakes and tied branches back I discovered that the capsicum        plants had been buried underneath them.  Hopefully they will perk up now that they can come up for air.  I don't know why I have such trouble growing the large bulbous capsicums that you see in the store.  Oh yes I do!  They are capsicums on steroids or hormones or something!  My little organic ones are very tasty though!  Supermarket produce can give you such an unreal expectation of what your garden should produce.  Isn't that sad. they should be ashamed of themselves. My lettuces have essentially lain over and gone to sleep..... on long leggy stalks.  Anyway I planted some seeds and we will see what comes up.  Snow peas, lettuce, radish, silverbeet, green beans, gemsquash, amaranth.  Our winter has been strange - a lot hotter than normal, and we have been getting quit

I was walking around the garden with a friend last evening and discovered that one of my pineaples is actually starting to fruit!  For years I have patiently cut the tops off pineapples and plopped them into the ground.  Occasionally I move them into another area, and so scattered around the garden are these pineapples, but I had sort of "forgotten" that one day they might bear fruit.  I did know that they take a couple of years, but dont really keep track.  Sometimes if one has been in the way I have just pulled it up and moved it or (heaven forbit) tossed it into the compost.   I have no idea how long ago I planted this but isnt it simply marvellous that you can take the top off a pineppple, plop it into the ground and it will eventually give you another pipenapple? mmm... yummy

Last weekend I began to thin out a few of the Lady Di Heleconia.  Now these have been my favourite heleconia by far, BUT the problem I now discover is that they are very invasive.  Sooooo.... I made the huge decision to rip them out - yes all of them.  So far I have just removed them from the front section. My hubby is very nervous as he loves the privacy they give, but  just one day of digging out roots made me convinced that the sooner I get rid of them the better.  We are going to have a bald spot for  a while, sorry Hubby!   I cant afford to go out and buy some full size plants, so will have to start out with some more cuttings, but look how quickly the garden filled in before from nothing.  I like the look of the purple flowers  and yellow leaves together alongside this area and the red of the pointsettia in the winter, although I wonder if it some sort of diesease with the yellowing of its leaves.  Everything got a good long drink of seaweed tea on my return so hope that perk

It has been a week since I got home, but there have been so many things to do, and in fact I haven't wanted to take photos of my garden until things are just perfect.  Isn't that always the case?  I did do a tiny bit of gardening - I planted out a herb pot for my daughters windowsill and so far things are doing well there.  I tried out my new camera overseas and will just tease you a  little with some photos of other flowers I looked at while away --- oh how sad, I said I would never do that!  Only my hard labour on this blog!  Just a tease though - we will call them guest flowers. I found that while sitting in the swing with my dear hubby (who did such a great job of keeping everything alive and flourishing) I was already thinking about ripping out the heleconias and putting some sort of lower edging plant so that the crotons behind them can be seen.  Then the area next to the swing will have some work done on it at the beginning of the wet season.   Hopefully the Hippeast