This Month In The Garden

January 2014

The above palm hasn't been doing too well in the incredibly dry hot weather we've been having this summer. I'm not sure whether this has anything to do with the many flowers it's produced this year.

The second time it's flowered and I think the flowers are more spectacular this time around.

The gerberas are struggling too and the blooms much smaller than in previous summers.

Leptospurmum always intrigues me with it's delicate foliage and flowers.

Banksia Serrata has also flowered well and is now sending out new shoots.

Isn't the bark of the banksia tree intriguing? 

Light and dark pink (above)trigger plants

grow all through our garden.

I'm not a hundred percent sure but I think this is a juvenile geebung.

The vegetable garden is a bit of an embarrassment and I really need to think about getting some raised beds. 

Some little or not so little creature is munching on plants that are not enclosed. (I've got a feeling it's a wallaby...feasting on the tender shoots of some taller plants so may not be so small...) 

Herbs continue to thrive as long as they are enclosed.

But really, the overbearing heat of this summer means I'm spending more time indoors tending my African Violets.

Plants of Western Australia - And A Wedding.

We've been to Perth.

For a wedding.

Our eldest's wedding.

But just to whet your appetite...here are some of the beautifully unusual plants of Western Australia. 

Silver Princess (above).

Seven hundred year old boab tree which was transplanted into Kings Park after a 3200 kilometre road trip, in 2008. (Above).

Above three photos: Banksia

Seed pods from gum trees. (Above).

Day 277/366

Isn't it quirky how nature imitates nature?

While raking up leaves from the garden this morning I came across this spent banksia brush. It looked so much like an echidna I just couldn't resist transforming it.

Day 274/366

There is usually one area of a photograph that is better focused than the rest (most likely to be the centre).

The unusual structure of some of our native  flowers fascinates me.

This is a banksia brush in a floral arrangement that our Eldest Son and his Fiancée gave us as a 'thank you' during their recent stay with  us.

   Perhaps it's been coloured by the florist because it's a colour I haven't seen before in a banksia.

But then again, some banksias brushes are more favoured by florists than others because of their offbeat colour.

The wirey bits in the photograph remind me of the hairpins by Mum used in her hair during the sixties and seventies when she'd pin her long locks into a "bun".

I also had the odd occasion to have hairpins stuck into my hair, usually when I was bridesmaid to one of my cousins or aunts.

My sister, my cousins and I would spend hours at the hairdressers getting our hairdos done.

So much hair spray or lacquer was used to hold up our hair that I doubt the hair pins did much at all!

And here is the original photograph before it was cropped.