Colours of Spring 3

Just one of our many banksias.

Native Violets

These are the other violets that have nearly strangled the blue ones. This one is an Australian Native I believe & is thoroushing ( Spelling) up the side path, all in between the pavers etc. Pretty though.

A Room With A View

Being an ex country girl, I do love the bush, and can appreciate people who want live in it. There are, however, risks, and we have seen these come to the forefront of the news over the last week. As a child, I was always taught to live in a house on a hill. One reason was the view, another was to keep out of reach of flood waters. I was also taught to keep areas around a house clean & clear of rubbish & debri in case of fire.

Our country is still in recovery mode after the fires that ravaged Victoria last weekend. Current statistics are at 181 lives (still expected to rise), and over 1,000 properties, countless native animals, and thousands of people displaced. Perhaps these statistics may not have been so high if simple advice of our elders & forefathers was followed.

I wonder how the house in the pic above would survive in a bushfire?

My Baby Grows

Back in November I showed my new babies that I aquired. It is about six weeks since I first aquired them and they are all growing nicely. This is one of the Kangaroo paws, and if you look closely, you can see all the new growth at the base, and also how tall the plant itself is getting. At the moment they are still in pots on my back blacony where it has got extremely hot over the last few days. The heat does not seem to affect them at all, which means they may live in pots on the balcony for some time to come.

Yellow Flowers - a Wattle?

Continuing on our walk through the park, we came upon a few trees like this one covered in yellow flowers. I have absolutely no idea what it is but I figure it is a native of some kind. Very pretty. I'll have to do some research & find out.

NSW Christmas Bush

I am thinking that as we lead up to the Christmas week that I may not have a huge amount of time for posting pics & blogging. So I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas, & Happy Holidays. For everyone taking to the road these holidays, travel safe, so that you can return to read what I have in store for you all. So I will leave you now with a close up pic of my NSW Christmas Bush in flower.

My Scrub Apple Grows

A week after I repotted my new babies, my Angophora hispida, or more commonly known "Scrub Apple" is already putting out new shoots & leaves. I am rather stoked at this, and am eagerly awaiting what will happen next, & how long it will be before this little tree flowers. I will keep you all posted on the progress.

Banksias

There were lots of banksia trees along the walks that we did while we away. I noticed that there were different types, and the buds of the flowers were all slightly different. As I suspected there are lots of different types as I discovered here. There are different colours,

and differnt shapes.

Though I think they all dry off to form the "Big Bad Banksia Men" that are mentioned in MayGibb's "Snugglepot and Cuddlepie" series.

Mystery Blue Flower

On my recent trip away, I came across this blue flower on one of my walks. I have absolutely no idea as to what it is & have been searching the net trying to find it. The closest I have come is a "Blue Grass Lily", or a Dwarf Morning Iris", but I really don't think it is either one these. I'll keep searching. If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated, just to satisfy my curiosity.

Kangaroo Paw

My babies are doing well & have not looked back from being removed from their black tubes & planted in something larger & more nourishing. They have been rained on a few times over the last few days, so hopefully this will help them to establish.

The above pics are of the kangaroo paws that are planted on the nature stip just before the bridge at Tuncurrry. They look stunning, & I fugure if they grow well on a council nature strip, they should go well in my garden as well. After another spell in my own garden, trying to clean out all the encroaching grass, I had a brain wave that I could plant kangaroo paws all the way down my side path. Mmmmm............ something to think about. The local nursery had heaps of them the other day when I went for a visit.

New Babies

The storms did evenuate yesterday, one at lunch time & a second late afternoon. Overall a nice little drop of rain for my wall pots that I had left out. Also what these new babies required. I acquired these from a wedding that our family attended just recently. Instead of the traditional almond bomboniere, the bridal couple provided tubed Australian Native Plants, wrapped in florist paper of a colour that matched the bridal party. Very nice! So I now have two kangaroo paws, one NSW waratah, and one Angophora hispida. I have been doing some reading about these plants, where to plant, how to plant, how often to water, etc etc, so for the moment I have just transferred them into lager pots containg a mix specially for Australian Natives. At least that will give me some time to think about where I will eventually plant them .

Acacia ?

While we were away I snapped this pic on one of my walks. Something different, & something I had not seen befere. Obviously another Australian Native of some kind, so I just had to find out what it was. I have been doing some research since I came home & think it may be an "Acacia Genistifolia". Maybe someone can help me out here.

On the drive up the coast, we heard on the radio that there are hundreds of different wattles, and on any given day, one of them will be in flower somewhere in this great country of ours. After doing my research I would believe it, somewhere I read that there are nearly 1,000 of them in Australia. I have also found out that they can vary in colour from cream, to pale yellow, gold, even purple & red. Now that was news to me! I have grown up knowing wattles to be only yellow! Also news to me was that wattles are also found in Africa, South America, Mexico & parts of South East Asia. The say that we learn something new every day, and I sure have this week!

Bottlebrush

Continuing our walk along the coast, watching the whales & the dolphins play in the water, I managed this pic of one of our native bottlebrush . As an Aussie, I am ashamed to say I don't know much about our Australian native plants, but I think that may be about to change. I did know that there were differnt types of bottlebrush plants, but in my reading this morning, I have found out that there are many different types of bottlebrush. This one was only a small plant, whether small by nature, or small because of age I am not sure. It's leaves are different to the leaves that are on the bottlebrush on our nature strip. These leaves were much shorter, & consequently looked a little fatter, while the leaves of the one on our nature strip are much narrower & longer. How the flowers emerge are also different. The fine fillaments on this one emerge from a stem, while the fillaments of the one on my nature strip emerge from the base. Mmmmm...................... an interesting difference.