December Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

On the 15th of each month, Carol at May Dreams Gardens provides the chance for garden bloggers around the world to share what is happening in their gardens via Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

My summer garden here in Brisbane is full of colour and life and has benefited enormously from recent rain after our driest November on record.

Blue-banded bees are frequent visitors to the pentas and salvias.

I finally found an obliging Blue Cycad Butterfly to open his wings and strike a pose for me.

Red is predominant among the blooms, not really surprising since it is my favourite colour, and the poinciana is at its peak.

The Costus or Spiral Ginger is in flower.

The variegated alstomeria is just starting to bloom. I would love a bunch of these to decorate my Christmas table.

Some of later daylilies making their first appearance for the season have been in deeper tones.

This is 'Frank Teele'

'Double Cranberry Ruffles'

and 'Wedding Band' has been flowering continuously.

I have a couple of new additions to my daylily collection as I have decided to extend the border of them in the front to all of the u-shaped garden. The two I chose were:

'Colin Campbell'

and 'Russian Ragtime'

Another new addition to the garden was the result of a bromeliad swap with my mosaic mentor Sandy. She had this one growing along her front fence and gave me a couple of pups. I think this is so gorgeous and Christmasy. With its berry-shaped flowers it could be a tropical stand-in for holly berries.

Elsewhere in the garden, the dry weather in November has made an impact. My cosmos have pretty much been and gone, though I am hopeful they have self seeded. I have cut back the salvias, but there's new foliage on the cordyline.

Cordyline 'Kiwi'

There are still spot flowers but also seed heads forming on the Eremophila polyclada.

But for others, like the leopard lily and the spider lily, the spot flowers are a portent of the big display still to come.

Most wonderful of all are those flowers that combine exquisite beauty with a heavenly scent, like the gardenias and the frangipani.

Gardenia 'Professor Pucci'

My frangipani,  Plumeria rubra 'Tricolour'

and finally, a solitary flower on the evergreen frangipani at twilight. The end of another satisfying day in the garden and my post for this December Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

Plumeria obtusa

Very best wishes for the festive season and for more Garden Blogger's Bloom Day posts, please visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens.