Day: June 29, 2009

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See whats at the bottom of my garden

Every country has its own authors who write for children – here in Australia May Gibbs became famous for her children’s stories and her use of the native flora and fauna as an inspiration for the characters in her books

My children weren’t raised with May Gibbs but there are many Aussies (young and old) who remember the stories about the gumnut babies, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie.

This ‘nasty’ looking character is the Big Bad Banksia Man who is one of the villians in these books

This is my Banksia bush at the bottom of my garden
From recollection its a Banksia spinulosa and has the most beautiful candles
to see these best click on the photo to enlarge
The poor old thing has led a troubled life
When we rented the house out in 1994 he was quite big, as tall as the fence and really healthy. However the renters’ children seemed to think its branches were great to use as a step ladder to get over the fence so when we came home in 2002 he really needed some attention
We cut him down nearly to the ground and he is just coming into his own again
You might like to see what his candles look like
I haven’t removed any of the old candles so you are able to see them
From fairly young fresh ones


Through the different stages

This is one thats maybe from a couple of years ago and is drying off

This one is a year older and the seed pods are just becoming visible
See the resemblance to the drawing above

This is a clearer view of the seeed pods

And now one that’s nearly ‘naked’ cept for the big pods

And heres one that I love
All those pods are ready to burst

So even if it appears there isn’t much life in my garden – it turns out that if you look here and there you might get a nice surprise

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Garden surprises

Its that time of the year when the winter jobs have to be done and pruning the roses is one of them
We’ll be going off in a couple of weeks and won’t be back till the middle of September, it will be too late then to do some of these jobs so for the best part of this week I’ve been busy outside
Snipping here and snipping there – giving a (sometime) silent yell when my arm or leg or any other part of my anatomy got snared by the thorns
Then the thrill of tossing ‘mature’ manure and choock poo all over the ground so they will can have a little feed before they really close down for the winter
I covered the top bed with some of next doors oak leaves but if the high winds that are forecast arrive they won’t stay there for very long lol
Come Spring and they start shooting it won’t look quite so flat and bare. Plus I plan to replant Salvia again to fill the spaces in the lower bed.
Took a photo looking up and down the side fence.
These shrubs are all deciduous, close to the house I recently (in the last 3 years) planted a Forsythia and Weigelia which are just finding their feet and filling a gap between the two large bare shrubs
Flowering Quince aka Chaenomeles, one with white flowers and the other a pinky red.
They flower on the bare stems and are great to cut and have indoors when theres not much else around.
Like the back garden it can be a bit sparse looking at this timeof the year
but once they start to leaf up that fence line is a blaze of colour


But guess what I saw peeking out of the branches as I walked down past the first bush
There were flower buds and the first had started to open

And down below the first of the Bergenias had started to bloom

All is not lost – where there is colour there is a good feeling

don’t forget to click on the photos to enlarge
Even tho I thought there was nothing to see I did find few more things in flower
But that post can wait till another day

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