Summer, 2012

Its nearly the end of summer, and I am amazed that I still have a Columbine in flower, also a Magnolia is just starting to flower. Of course, this weekend we are expecting to get 35 degrees, so it may just kill the blooms, dry out the sand - yes, its beach sand pretty much. But the upside is that I have a little Potoroo in the garden. It is a marsupial, like a big rat with a long snout. How gorgeous is that? The downside is that he digs little holes all over the garden, so you have to watch that you don't trip and sprain your ankle!!

We also have just 2 tomato plants, given to my by a friend, but I think one of them must be that Russian Giant one, that each tomato is the size of a hand! S0 check these photos out. Others I took today or recently, including the little Potoroo.

More flowers in spring

1 & 2:Looking down the garden from the deck.

3: Looking up towards the front along the side of the house, with diosma, pelagonium and grassy plants are my Native Grass tree (Black Boy or Xanthoria), and a native orchid.

4: Californian Poppy.

5: Foxglove.

6: Statue amongst white ground cover.

7: My lilac that has flowered for the first time since I planted the runner 8 years ago, brought from Sheffield.

8: Rock Rose. They grow well as they don't get eaten by Wallabies!

Buddha on the deck

Buddha, a bowl of crystals and rose quartz, with flowering, sweet smelling native orchids or irises, on my deck.

Cottage garden by the beach

Foxglove, succulent ground cover, rock rose (with next door's house in background) Irises, border along the side of the house, white flowered Melaleuca's and Bottle brushes in flower.







Another view of my cottage garden corner.

Spring at Primrose Sands - October/November

Photo taken today, below the water tanks, where my garden is now looking like a cottage garden. At last!! Californian poppies, pale pink and white columbines, rock rose, foxglove, grasses, and cannas in the foreground.

Back garden plants.

This is the view from my back door downstairs. There is the rain water tank, and shed on the right, and I have 2 grassy pathways leading down to the bottom of garden. In the distance you can just see the dried up lagoon, and the marshes of the river on the left.

garden

This is a view from the other side of the tall Kangaroo Paws, looking up the slope towards the house. The front of the house is level with the land, but the back of the house comes out over the slope, with a deck looking out over the beach, lagoon and river. The large Gum tree is across the road!

garden

I have tried to get an overall view of the garden, which is a bit difficult due to the bushes and trees. This photo is looking from my downstairs back door, down the garden, with the Carlton River in the distance. Joey is on the dried out grass. There are red and yellow kangaroo paws, a purple buddleia, and under the bird netting is an apricot tree. The second photo is an extension of the first one, just on the right where there is a middle border, and then a grass path that goes down to the garden shed. There are cannas in flower at the moment.

Magnolia

This is the very first bud on my Magnolia bush that Monica gave me several years ago. I am so excited to see it!

Echidna, Possum and Kookaburra

These two Noisy Miner birds had got soaked in the rain, and they were sitting on the back of a chair on the deck, looking in the window!!

The possum was on the deck at night, and when Joey ran out, he ran up the flag pole!!

These were taken a little while ago, but is some of the wildlife that comes in to the garden! Tony had to remove the Echidna, wearing thick gloves of course, as Joey was barking at it and so it was burying itself lower into the sand!

The Kookaburra came to be hand fed bits of meat. Sitting on our deck. He would wait in the tree for us at feed time. Then one day he just never came back.

foxgloves and iris

The front garden again, with a white Hebe, foxgloves, columbines and Iris'.

Buddha sitting under my Kangaroo Paws.

Kangaroo Paw

A yellow Kangaroo Paw. Not sure if I have already uploaded this one! Ho hum.

Iris, Rock Rose and Columbines

Another coloured Iris, with a Weeping Broom behind it.

"Black Boy" or Xanthoria

Native Grass tree is what it is usually called and this is my most special plant in the garden! It is a West Australian plant, although grows all over Australia, and this one, the spiky grassy plant in foreground, I grew from seed in Sheffield and then I transplanted it, which they don't like at all! I am hanging out for it to grow that trunk that the green tuft then sits on!

Next to it is a native iris, which isn't in flower, and the Pelagoniums in the background, also my Affirmation flags!!

Deep purple iris

Yum, another coloured Iris! The other view has a Pink Rock Rose behind it.

Californian Poppies and Pelargoniums

I just love the way these wonderful orange flowers spread all over the sloping garden.

The Pelargoniums are up the side of the house where it gets quite hot - see the weeping broom in the background?

Purple Penstamen

Isn't this just the most wonderful thing? A purple Penstemen, however you spell it!!

Falcon Street, Primrose Sands

A view of part of my front garden, with this wonderful yellow iris flowering as it has never before. Originally I brought it with me from Sheffield 7 years ago, and just had one flower at a time every year on it, but this year - boom! Plus little Columbines in front.

Bottlebrush

A lime coloured Bottlebrush just flowering in my back garden.