Africanaussie

My neighbour behind me was thinning out some of her spider lilies so I asked if she had any to spare.   She has also cleared out a lot of the red gingers that was a backdrop to our garden, and I miss them - I had enjoyed that continuity. It made it seem as though our garden extended on  into hers, making ours seem much bigger than it is. I gave her a sexy pink lady and red heleconia in exchange for the spider lilies. Soon we will have that green backdrop again. We live in a set of units, so there is a communal area that I have been trying to spruce up myself.  If our surrounding area is lovely and well cared for then the value of our property is increased, so to me it is a win win situation.  I have more garden to play in as well!  The path leading to the pool has two rows of palm trees and it is notoriously diffiult to grow anything under palm trees, so I had been thinking I should look out for something that grows like a weed.  Well spider lillies fit the bill I think.   I cut the t

I read about this vine on a Florida blog a  year or so ago (I think it was Floridagirl) and was excited to see one on the clearance rack, so snapped it up.  It suffered badly during our wet season - I could never see the bugs, but something was madly attracted to its leaves.   A couple of months back I cut it right back and it began to send out some branches and this time the leaves stayed, and then I was excited to see some little white flowers.  Oh pretty, I thought, but in the back of my mind I had thought there was some red involved in the flowers - then I saw little red buds appearing at the base of the flowers. Then some of the  red flowers opened up - how cool is that!   I am so glad I persisted with this vine.  It is called a bleeding heart vine.

This is a re=post of my garden tour - somehow the original video got deleted!  I was a little hasty in my tidying up of excess photos.  Just double-click on the photo and you will be directed to the video.  Just ignore if you have already done the tour, but I wanted to keep it as a reference when I do further videos.

Coming to the end of a five day weekend  (yes I do love the fact we get so many holidays in Australia) we had a brunch out in the garden this morning and I realised just how special it is to live here in the tropics. This is my favourite time of the year when the humidity and temperature drop.  We have had a lot of wind and two days ago I mulched up every single leaf and now the back garden is full of fallen leaves again.  There is nothing I would rather be doing though than messing about in the garden.  There are deep depressions in the vegetable garden where I cleared away the sugar cane mulch and planted out my little parsley seedlings.  I suspect that horrible can toads have gone and sat on the seedlings, wiggling their ugly bums into the earth and squashing the seedlings flat.  I am going to have to find a way to get rid of them. the cane toads, not the seedlings! My Ulysses caterpillar curled himself up against the branch and has now formed its chrysalis.  I am counting down t

By now you probably think I am a caterpillar fanatic and I must admit I do seem to be turning into one. About two years ago at the local markets I bought this little straggly tree/bush and the lady said that it would host Ulysses butterflies.  I have moved it around a few times and it is still a very straggly tree/ bush... but....... we were sitting on the swing enjoying a avocado sandwich when I suddenly looked at a spot on the straggly tree/bush.  Wow!  that is exactly what a Ulysses butterfly caterpillar looks like - big smile - I rushed to get the camera.  This one seems to be gathering the leaves together and there is some sort of web on the leaves. Oh now this plant is paying its way!

Over the weekend two more butterflies emerged.  Now hopefully the lime tree can get back to the job of producing limes instead of hosting catterpillar sleepovers.   This was the first to emerge.  There is a lot of black on this one - it is a male.  You can see the empty dry crisp chrysalis.  In the final days it becomes quite black and I realise it is becoming quite thin and the black you see is actually the butterflies wings.  Arent they the most delicate design on these exquisite creatures?  It reminds me of the stippling technique my daughter used to practice in art clases.  Intricate tiny dots.  Then this little lady appeared!  Isnt she pretty?  this is the female - you can see how much white there is on her wings.  They spend quite a few hours hanging onto the branch before they can fly off.  They seem to be quite wet too, and need to dry off in the early morning sunlight - they always emerge just before dawn.  You can see a little drop of moisture just hanging from her body.

The weather is cooling down a bit now and the humidity is definitely a bit more bearable.   It is lovely out in the garden and since I have been a bit under the weather I have been spending a bit of time just sitting in the swing enjoying the garden.  I need to do more of that, I think.   Once the flowers fell off off the lipstick plant it developed these long tendrils - arent they strange?  I wonder if they contain some sort of seed? In other news I broke down and bought a bale of sugar cane mulch.  It is much more expensive than the hay mulch I normally get from my farmer neighbour, but he doesnt seem to have any this year.  It is quite finely chopped so spreads easily and right away I could tell everything was happy to be bedded down between these billowy clouds of mulch.  I have never grown zuchini before, and it seems quite happy.  I am waiting to see which of these pawpaw plants it a female - she will stay and the rest will go.  I am hoping they are the red ones, since I pla

I got into the garden over the weekend and slashed down the excess branches instead of removing anything.  Most of the leaves that fall from the lychee tree are mulched for the compost but some just lie around on the ground in the tropical plant area under the tree. If there were some greens mixed in they would not be robbing too much nitrogen as they decompose. (just my theory).  That is what works on the forest floor anyway. I thought it might be a good idea to stand at the end of the stone path which is pretty much the middle of the tropical garden and take a panoramic series of photos for you.  This is looking out towards the big gate, with the side fence off to the right.  This is facing approximately south. This could be called palm corner I suppose.  Two fan palms are against the fence, with one sago palm in front of the tree fern.  There is a franzipani and some amaryllis, that have had trouble flowering and I hope they do better in this area, amazon lilly, ground orchids, per

I think this heleconia deserves a post of its very own -  it has opened up even more now -  you still have to go into the "scary, deep forest," as my grandson calls it.  I first noticed this starting to colour up on the 21st March, so it has taken about three weeks to open up this much.  I am always tempted to cut my big flowers that you don't see easily, but I like the idea of having to work a bit harder to access this one.  We have some friends visiting from England this weekend - I wonder if they will venture down the scary deep forest path to see it?     

Can butterflies see colour?  How on earth did this butterfly know that he would match this bucket so perfectly?  It is full of some compost I dragged out the bottom of my composter - there must be some good stuff in there.....or maybe this was a modelling opportunity he couldnt miss?  I was hoping for some dry weather this weekend, but it looks like more rain is on the way. Never mind, I dont have much time for gardening.  We are hoping to have a family brunch out in the garden on sunday so still holding thumbs for good weather for that. My hubby took the photos while I was at work, so I missed seeing him.  (Hubby is a good photographer isnt he?)  this is aptly named the blue triangle butterfly. I wish you a butterfly filled sunny weekend!