Africanaussie

On the way down to some doctors appointments in Cairns I lucked out when I arrived in Bunnings just as their monthly garden group began.  They provided pots, plants, decorations and soil to make your own Christmas centerpiece.  This is my favorite store, but now it has been elevated!  Look at what I made.  I love that dichondra silver falls - they are always talking about that on Gardening Australia, and I even got another lipstick plant which will eventually have to go into its own hanging basket. The pointsettia should be in an area that does not get light in the evenings to help it keep its colour. It is more of a welcome basket than a centerpiece, and gives a lovely christmassy welcome feel to the entrance.   I do surveys to accumulate points which I then trade in for Bunnings coupons, and there really is nothing better than free shopping in my opinion.  I had accumulated 70.00 in coupons, so had fun looking for bargains to make my free money ...

I got two different types of organic fertilizer  in the pack that I won, and decided over the weekend to add some to the rest of the garden.  I recently planted lots of seeds in the veggie patch and think it will be a good idea to wait until they grow up into seedlings before I add any fertilizer to them. The seeds themselves are their own little fertilizer packages for the first few weeks. I did dig some fertilizer into the area where I planted the snow peas, after I removed the Rosella plants so will be able to compare the difference.. Firstly I cleared the paths and edgings of excess leaves. The beds around the lychee tree are layered with fallen leaves and leaves and branches that I have cut back while trimming plants.  I noticed that there is a white mould/fungus in some very shady, wet areas.  I hope this is mycellium which is what we want to build up in the rotting matter and not some nasty fungus. I moved the rex begonias into one section - I think the...

Our units are going to be painted, and in preparation for the work, excess vegetation needs to be cut back.  Our rather large lychee tree is going to have to be pruned back.  The leaves clog the gutters, and in a cyclone the branches might snap and cause some damage to fences or break windows. I love that tree - I love all the birds that hide in its branches and call out with their different songs.  I love the cool shade that it provides to the garden - on a hot day you can feel the temperature drop the minute you walk into the back.  I love all the free leaves I get for my compost bin and I imagine those will be drastically reduced.   My hubby, often the one to mulch all those leaves is not so sad about it :) I love the lychees that we get to eat. I don't love the bats that came very night when the top half of the tree was filled with lychees nobody could reach to pick them. I do...

Lots of things spring to life in my garden once the wet season starts.  My ginger bed is erupting with little green spikes and I know under the ground lovely juicy ginger tubers are forming.  The sweet potato bed is doing the same, and  turmeric  is popping up in a couple of places, where I knew I had planted them.  The torch ginger and this lovely beehive ginger is flowering, although the leaves never totally die back during the dry season.  My neighbor gave me a plant with a beautiful flower at the end of the last wet season.  She said it had died and I tried to tell her it was ok but just going dormant.  No, she wanted me to have it, insisting I was the one with the green thumb.  Here it is rising up in all its glory six months later.  Behind it is kampheria, another plant that completely disappears during the dry season.  This one I know is...

Our long drought  has at last been broken!  It is very strange here to have months with absolutely no rain, but this last week it has rained very day!   I also have been without telephone and Internet all week, so no way to post any of my fabulous photos as the garden comes to life with all the rain!  When it rains here it really rains, but the tropical flowers love it - look at this sodden hibiscus.  The cannas that I moved into an area that get lots of standing water during the wet season are very happy.  It is not a big enough area to really be defined as a swale, but it works the same way.  Look at the gorgeous red and yellow together - nature can be so flamboyant some times cant it?  Little lipstick cases are forming on my lipstick plant, but so far they are empty.  I took a few cuttings in another pot and they are doing well, so now I have two pots of this magnificent plant.  My bougainvillea cutting has als...

This is a  little bit of this and that, so forgive me as I seem to jump from one plant to the other.... firstly my lipstick plant has seeded!  I heard that they could be propagated by cuttings and have started some off quite successfully, and then noticed these long dangling strips where the flowers had died off.  Well now I noticed they had opened up - I am probably going to have hundreds of tiny lipsticks plants growing up around the hanging basket now.  These cosmos sure attract the butterflies, but I want the zinnia to bloom as well - soon the vegetable garden will be bright with color and that should bring on some pollinators.  I am also letting some of the basil flower for the same reason.  The amazon lily flowers intermittently through the year - I still cant figure out when is the "right" season for it to flower.  Celery, bok choy and lettuces are slowly getting a little...

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 re...

This weekend was a very busy one, and as I hurried past the lipstick plant  I could feel something watching me.  The little yellow honeyeater was busy sucking nectar and clearly did not want to be disturbed.  He was not moving though, and I hurried to get the camera, to find him still there - hopping from branch to branch sucking up what must have been delicious nectar.  Here is his head right inside the flower Looking around to see if I am still there, Are you still there? he seems to say, and assessing the situation, decides I am not a threat.  Lovely yellow tummy and bright blue on the throat.  Just need to get some more of this....  then he posed quietly - thinking he would be invisible......  The iridescent blue needs a flash of sunlight to show its true beauty. what a lovely find - and thank you dear little bird for posing for the camera :) I think this is the olive backed honeyeater - the male has the iridescent front bib,...

Yes the garden does like the rain - these are tropical plants I grow after all!  Flowers though need a bit of sunshine in between to burst forth in colour, and I must say I also apreciate it when the rain stops for  a while and I can get out with the camera, even though I am wading through the mud to do it. The chinese lantern hibiscus has enjoyed the rain.  The star of the show is the lipstick plant though - look at it emerging out of the little fluffy tube -how cute is that :)  They really like all this rain - the cups are full of water.  My grandson took a look at this photo and said "oooh lollies" (candies are called lollies here in Australia)   I must say I am enjoying how this plant has taken off this year. A basket of lipstick anyone?  The branches are hanging down about two feet from the hanging basket.  As they emerge they open up into flowers. This is the first year this plant has been so prolific and I now realise t...

I have put down some stones - still have a bit more to go, but this is definitely keeping the place mud free - whch is marvellous with all the rain we have been having.  This is a true tropical wet season, and I am ready for it to end!  It is hard to even find a few moments without pouring rain in order to take  a few photos! I am happy with how the rain seems to drain away quite quckly from the gazebo and towards the pathway garden which I dug a little lower.    I need to bring the level of the stones up a bit, so still need to haul in a few more loads. After my holiday I noticed that the anthirium flowers were green and have been foliar feeding with liquid seaweed every weekend and now I have nice colourful flowers. Some other flowers that are enjoying the wet weather are the lipstick plant, This year it has developed long tendrils and they are covered in lovely red flowers. When they start out they look like lipstick emerging from a tube!...