I love our Brisbane summers: sultry days and fragrant nights, with a wild late afternoon storm often marking the divide. The colours of our summer are red, white, and blazing blue skies as on my driveway with the poinciana, frangipani, and spider lilies in bloom. As the poinciana blooms fall, my visitors walk a red flower carpet to the house in the sunshine and negotiate a treacherously slippery slope after rain.
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| A fierce afternoon hailstorm that punched holes through the polycarbonate panels in my veranda roof. |
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| Poinciana |
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| Frangipani/plumeria |
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| Spider lily Hymenocallis littoralis |
There are more daylilies in bloom. Each morning after greeting the puppies, I walk down to see if there are any new blooms and make an mental note to write an identifying tag for it. I know I have lost a couple over the past twelve months, and many tags were missing at the beginning of the season, so I am anxiously waiting for each and every favourite to make its appearance. Identification can be challenging. Sometimes the colours vary with the weather, and many of the photos in an old catalogue I have bear little resemblance to their real selves.
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| 'Douglas Lycett' |
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| 'Spacecoast Whiteout' |
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| 'Spacecoast Seashells' |
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| 'Jordan Verhaert' |
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| Magnolia 'Little Gem' with the petals full of stamens shaken loose by the bees. |
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| Gardenia |
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| I have let the murraya hedge go shaggy, so I can enjoy the fragrant blooms that follow the rain. |
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| A visitor to the frangipani |
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| I popped a mass of caladiums into my wheel barrow so I could sweep the garage floor. I put a river pebble in each pot so I remember something precious is sleeping when they are dormant and don't throw it out as 'empty'. |
Finally, another daylily. This one is 'Frank Teele', a gorgeous cherry red for the festive season.
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| The deep purple salvia to the left is a new addition 'Love and Wishes' |
Seasons Greetings to all and a very happy Bloom Day. To see more of what is blooming in gardens around the world on Bloom Day - the fifteenth of each month - visit our host, Carol, at
May Dreams Gardens.
