Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day March 2012

Although I have been busy in the garden, applying a thick layer of mulch to help the garden get through our dry season and planting seeds and bulbs in preparation for spring, with the following two exceptions, there are very few changes in what has been in flower since my report for February's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

This little ginger is a Globba 'Golden Dragon'

 Aechmea  fulgens 'Burning Bush'

Dahlia 'Marie Antoinette' is still flowering well.

Despite looking a little washed out in this photo, I love my salvia 'Hot Lips' and the way it varies from all white to all red and two toned.

The Evergreen Frangipani Plumeria obtusa looks a picture of health, but the advent of frangipani rust here in Brisbane over the last few years causes early leaf drop, and it is virtually now 'evergreen' in name only!

Always flowering,  Hammerhead Frangipani Plumeria pudica

I don't know what I'd do without my Rosemary. (Roasted rosemary potatoes are the best!)

The Bird of Paradise Strelitzia reginea are putting on a great show along the driveway.

Lots of storm lilies, Zephyranthes candida, have popped up after our wet weather.

Zinnia 'Summer Brilliance' with salvia 'Heatwave Sizzle' and variegated pineapple (also a bromeliad).

In the back garden there is lots of new growth on the spiral ginger , Costus 

...and plenty of flowers

Not exactly a bloom, but this Ponytail 'Palm' Beaucarnia recurvata deserves its moment in the spotlight. It has fallen into the 'hidden in plain sight' category. I have never included it in the blog because it is on its own by the pool, but it is quite an impressive specimen, despite some unsympathetic pruning by a previous owner.

Finally, my nomination for villain of the month...

Look at the terrible damage to the new fronds of this cycad.  All the handiwork of the blue cycad butterfly's caterpiller.  I have posted about these menaces before, and, although I don't like spraying, I used Confidor on this plant, but it seems to have had no effect, perhaps because of all our rain.

To see more beautiful blooms from all around the world, and hopefully no more villains, visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

Weekend ramblings

It's a slightly scary thought that in about 12 hours I will off on my way to work.  What happened to the weekend?  It started peacefully enough, taking the pups for a walk at Minnippi parklands.

The pups had a snooze on our return, but there is no rest for the weary gardener...

This zinnia bud

had morphed into this beautiful flower.

While I have had plenty of summer colour from the dwarf zinnia 'Summer Brilliance', this and another slightly shaggy bloom were the first from my 'big' zinnias. I thought I would celebrate by trying a tiny arrangement with dahlia 'Marie Antoinette'. (The little jug was my grandmother's, the blue and white china two recent thrifty purchases - the box was $2 at Mount Gravatt flea market and the vase 50 cents at Lifeline!)

And speaking of thrifty finds, I picked up this table base at a kerbside throw-out...

I'm going through a bit of a 'home beautiful' phase at the moment. Although in my case this generally means everything gets a whole lot worse for a while before the transformation is completed. Case in point, my sofa...
The puppies have found it necessary to modify this to suit themselves.

Sometimes they like the one cushion option.

And sometimes the no cushion option.

They always prefer to remove the protective throw, and have eaten the cushion they don't like, so it seems a recover is in order.  I found the perfect fabric. It was subtle, elegant - and had lots of white - so we aren't having that, and have opted for a more vibrant selection. The fabric was delivered last week and looks wonderful.  It is still on the roll, but hopefully will be off to the upholsterer in the next few weeks.

With the new sofa in mind, I rearranged the paintings on the stairway and swapped a few around with others downstairs.

I think the lady with flowers by Aavik from the Eumundi markets is much better here than on the stairway. She is like a little sister to Jane Creenaune's Girl in Chinese Dress

Unfortunately the recent rain resulted in a roof leak that had water running down the wall where many of my paintings are hung, so I have removed a few and propped them against a wall until I can get someone out to repair it.

But one project keeps leading to the next. In the interim, I tried out my Turkish rug, which had been relegated to the safety of an upstairs bedroom after the pups took to nibbling its fringes, with the new colour scheme and decided it desperately needed a wash and repair. So it was off to Taringa to deliver it into the hands of the experts, and I had a bit of a wander on the way home. Firstly I ducked into the Cat and Fiddle deli for a quick lunch, and then detoured through some of my favourite streets round Toowong and Auchenflower.

Typically hilly terrain and treelined streets with beautiful classic Queenslander homes.

Pretty as a picture...

but it was the blue ginger Dichorisandra thrysiflora that caught my eye.

Here is another example.  Doesn't it look gorgeous against the green wall?




Speaking of green walls, while many Queenslanders are painted in pastel tones, I love the stronger colours.  Doesn' t this bright pink work beautifully with the green of the bamboo (and what about pink for a sofa - do you think it will frighten the pups into behaving?)

After all that gadding about yesterday and grocery shopping this morning, I spent the rest of the day in the garden, bulb planting and green ant dodging in the front, followed by serious weeding and mosquito swatting in the backyard until it got too dark. Still it was all worthwhile, I will sleep the sleep of the just: I have finally made a start to the back garden, which has been hanging over my head, and I added another handful of leopard lily seed pods to my collection.  And next weekend, I'll do it all over again, but changes are afoot.  Stay tuned...

Lunuganga

After my 2004 visit to Sri Lanka and Bevis Bawa's Brief Garden, which was the subject of my last post, from time to time I came upon references to Lunuganga. My first thought was that Brief Garden had been renamed and reopened as a boutique hotel, but I soon discovered that Lunuganga was the country estate of Bevis's brother, Geoffrey. On my return last year, I was able to visit both gardens from my base at Waterside in Bentota.

Our fabulous accommodation at Waterside, Bentota

Crinums growing on Waterside's front lawn.

Geoffrey Bawa was Sri Lanka's and one of Asia's most influential architects. He created the large garden at Lunuganga from what had been an abandoned rubber plantation of about 25 acres. It is an incredibly romantic tropical garden where jungle, paddies and indigenous plants meet Italianate design. The property is situated on a promontory overlooking a lagoon on an estuary of the Bentota River. There are several houses on the property, but I especially love the main residence with its wonderful veranda and views overlooking the water.  Lunuganga is rendolent of the elegant and gracious lifestyle of a man committed to creativity and beauty.

Not far inside the entrance is the Garden Room, with the Glass House in the background

There is the same wonderful placement of urns and garden sculpture to provide definition to the different  garden rooms and vistas that I saw at Brief Garden.

Estate workers cleaning out the Water Garden

This leopard sculpture by Lydia Duchin marks the Water Gate, the departure point for excursions on to the lake and neighbouring islands.

The Hindu Pan

The urn on the right was designed by Bevis Bawa and Australian artist, Donald Friend

From Cinnamon Hill looking towards the main house.

The southern terrace

The southern view (with orchid in flower on the tree)

The Northern Terrace. The frangipanis, planted in 1947 when work first commenced on the garden, are as large as I have seen.

The front veranda of the main house