Friday 30 December 2011

Daisy

I hadn't seen these African daises in yellow before we moved here :)

Yellow African Daisy

Thursday 29 December 2011

Thieves!

We were away for two days and came back to this!


My lovely Apricot crop. From my single tree.



The red wattle birds are constantly barking and calling to each other up the back where the tree is and if there is an upside it is that they are cleaning up the fruit on the ground quite nicely.



I went out and picked all of the remaining low lying  fruit. Less than 20 pieces, In this case the birds got over 90%. I think I have enough almost ripe fruit for a jar of jam which is what I really, really wanted to make with this fruit. Lesson learned. Next year we will net.

Wednesday 28 December 2011

Blue Crown passion Fruit

This vine weaves its way up and around most of our garden, it is a weed.
The Blue Crown Passion fruit It is a yellow skinned passion fruit with bland red flesh. Last Summer the birds who are the ones I suspect bought it to our garden initially, enjoyed them. The flowers are pretty but the vine is invasive in warmer weater. I'm wondering what I can do with the bland sweet red flesh this year. 


 Here it is in one of our Plum trees.

Friday 23 December 2011

Red Wattle Bird

These are our most prolific visitors at this point in time :)

Thursday 22 December 2011

Evening Aquilegia

There are still a few unexpected Aquilegia blooms happening and this little one is unique in its very pompom-ish flower Love the evening sun starting to dip and back lighting this with a magical quality.

Friday 16 December 2011

Water Spiders

Sorry I didn't come back with more berry posts. The pace of life has picked up around here and I am barely blogging on either of my blogs. :)
These pond Spiders are amazing the skate across the water with such speed and agility grabbing unsuspecting insects at the water before they even realise what is happening.


we also have baby Goldfish swimming around in there which intrigue me!

Wednesday 30 November 2011

A post with some substance :)


It's about Boysenberries :)
Earlier in the week I posted these two pics at the Down to Earth Forum.
I am feeling pretty happy with myself as last summer I was precariously reaching in between roses to pick any of a few berries being offered. 


Then a couple of months back I guess I decided to take some of the randomly placed vigorously growing canes and weave them in this trellis. it was against what I was reading in regards to how to trellis a boysenberry but I was just working with what I had which was a berry planted by someone else re rooted in various places and frankly pretty wild. I didn't really have anything to loose.


My friend Narelle asked to see more of how I had it supported so I'm just recording it all here. I had a thought this morning in regard to some Banksias that I suspect are dead, which was that I would have photographed the flowers last summer but not recorded where or on which shrub they appeared and and there is value in doing this part of the recording too, not just the images. 

Ok so here is the trellis which I took the earlier picture of from the right hand side.


This trellis screens off a section of the tanks. The berry is rooted all along the front of it and around the corner to the left. A few random plants in the grass area to the right also. The Big blue X marks the corner post and the red x marks the tank overflow pipe. this is one of the secondary or overflow tanks. I have not watered or tended these at all but to weave existing canes through the trellis and I did tie with cut pantihose in a few places. Its is over hung by a very mis-shaped Nectarine tree and interspersed with a rose or two.
Here is a more encompassing view.


I can't get between the lattice and the tank without some injury but from the open end on the right I can see the berries ripening on the back of the trellis, this is not obvious from front on. When I know where they are I can reach through the gaps to pick so I'm not loosing any !! Something to consider when thinking about space.

The following image is from around the corner to the left of the previous ones.


You can see some berries ripening on the archway to the left of this image and they are popping up amongst the roses and weeds through this section not trellised or tamed in any way, this is a section I haven't tackled at all. As is the case with a lot of this garden !

I'll be sharing some more berry thoughts during the week. Mulberries and Strawberries and maybe Blackberries :)

Sunday 20 November 2011

So Pretty

I feel I really should know what this is but just can't recollect, we have three colours a white one and a pale-ish pink one this dark pink is the biggest and has flowered slightly later than the other two.

Thursday 17 November 2011

Red Rose

There is such a lovely collection of Roses here, I don't think I even identified this as a rose prior to it flowering  its not the type of rose I am familiar with but There are a lot of these in various colours and sizes and I love them all.

Wednesday 16 November 2011

Friday 11 November 2011

Purple roses


This is one of the purple roses in our garden. This one is a standard and has a clematis climbing it and twining up through its top. The weeping red you see in the background is one of my favourite standard roses in this garden.


Saturday 5 November 2011

Friday 4 November 2011

Irises


And after this there will be two more. I haven't taken a pic of the orange ones yet and there is one showing a hint of yellow yet to actually open.

with a dusty plum edge.

Palest Parchment/Peach

Hard to capture a pinkish with deep dark purple
This one is a stunner!



Tuesday 1 November 2011

Lavendar

Simply stunning with more to come :)
Some with dark tails some with pale light ones :)

Monday 31 October 2011

Read Wattle Bird

I was on the ground trying to take pics of the lavender and this bird didn't see me when it first came down :)
I had a good position and line of sight from my shrubbery to get some shots with full zoom. 

Red Wattle Bird

Sunday 30 October 2011

Surprise


Another quiet, out of the way, close to the ground stunner.



Saturday 29 October 2011

Pretty Weeds

I love the poppies, they are gorgeous and plentiful, however not many of them are actually in the garden beds! This scene makes me smile How can I consider something so stately and delicate as a weed :)

If only the grass would stay out of the garden beds and the flowers would stay in :)

Friday 28 October 2011

More Irises


.... and I'm not sure this is the end of it with more unusual coloured buds sighted :)


I may have posted this one already.


Much lighter than the one shown in the first pic, not accurately shown here