City Botanic Gardens

It took a building evacaution a fortnight ago, with a Botanic Garden building assembly point, to remind me that it had been a while since my last visit to Brisbane's City Botanic Gardens - silly really when my office is only about four blocks away. So, last week, I headed back with camera in hand to see what is in bloom in early Autumn.

Brisbane is lucky enough to have two botanic gardens: the original is in the city beside the river, and, in the 70s, the Mount Coot-tha botanic gardens were established at Toowong, an inner Western suburb, after the river broke its banks in the infamous 1974 floods.

The garden provides a tranquil oasis for city workers and students from the adjoining Queensland University of Technology.

One shrub, widely planted throughout the garden that was in full flower was the Brazilian Red Cloak Megaskepasma erythrochlamys here with Spathiphyllum in the foreground.

Although a different colour, the flower of the the Golden Candle plant Pachystachys lutea is similar to that of the Red Cloak. In both cases, the white flower appears in closely arranged coloured bracts. 

Spectacular buttress roots of a Moreton Bay Fig, native to the East Coast of Australia.

Pink mussaenda behind a bed of the striking foliage of calathea.

The Australian White Ibis - photogenic but a bit of a pest in Brisbane 

The stunning Bismarck Palm

My presence was making this young swamphen chick nervous

Hot-footing it across the lily pads to escape

Adult Purple Swamphen

Swamphen family with even younger chick

Scarlet cannas

More Brazilian Red Cloak

An ibis and swamphen on the rocks in front of a bank of Philodendron

If you look closely, you can see that the rock on the right is inhabited.

Here is lizard-in-residence, a handsome Eastern Water Dragon.  I had a close encounter with one of his brothers in my previous post about the Gardens here

Another fancied a branch as his vantage point.

Tree fern frond

Brugmansia in flower, with I think the Caricature Plant Graptophylum pictum  the mauve-toned shrub in the foreground

A tall Ixora

Yellow ixora

Cordyline flower

Another cordyline with both flowers and berry-like fruit

Old Parliament House at the end of the garden and start of the University.

Pentas and bromeliad

This mauve flowered largerstoemia or crepe myrtle had just abut finished blooming.

Selection of bromeliads

Pentas, gaura, bromeliads.

These beds were growing a kind of legume as green fertilizer.

One of the showiest of the autumn blooms in Brisbane, the Tibouchina.

As in my own garden, the daylilies are just finishing off.

Hope you enjoyed your visit. I definitely won't leave it so long before I head back again.

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...