In the pink

I first came upon this quote by American photographer Dorothea Lange courtesy of my desk calendar, but it was one that immediately registered with me:  “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”

Before our recent storms and the flood damage that followed through much of Brisbane and Queensland, the garden had taken a pounding from the intense heat. On many a morning, I wandered down to the front garden to feed the goldfish, and there seemed to be little in flower. But since I started this blog and have began taking regular photos, I have become more attuned to my garden and see so much more, whether I have my camera with me or not.

One of the little details that I have come to love are the twisted spent blooms of the Leopard Lily Belamcanda chinensis.

Here a spider lying in wait for an unwary visitor mirrors the shape of the flower above.

Continuing the pink theme in my garden and just as reliable as the leopard lily are the cosmos. Both self seed fairly freely, but never enough to be a nuisance.

Cosmos about to bloom

and in full flower with attendant spider

The scabious has been a wonderful addition to the garden this year, and I have enjoyed it in all its phases. There is a very subtle variation in the shades of the flowers; many are more mauve than pink.

Scabious just beginning to bloom.

Scabious with pink salvia 'Heatwave Sizzle' in the background.

Scabious seed heads

A new unnamed  variety of pink salvia that I picked up at the markets.

Another recent acquisition Ginger Globba winitii 'Red Back'

The final pink bloom that I am sharing this post is the beautiful pink cassia Cassia javanica. Sadly, it isn't in my garden, but a tree I spotted on my return from the supermarket. While I have seen a few others around the neighbourhood, they are frequently too tall to be able to get a good photo of the flowers. 

Once I would have driven past probably without paying much heed, but luckily I had my camera on board.

Miss Bella always looks pretty in pink too.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day January 2013

January marks midsummer in Australia, and although we have had a week or so of heatwave conditions recently and the garden is a little dry, it is full of colour for the first Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day for 2013.

This was the first year I planted scabious in the garden, and they have been a great success. I sowed the seeds directly into the garden, and it seems that nearly every seed germinated. I will definitely be planting them again next year.

I may have been away for their Spring flush, but the daylilies have continued to brighten the garden with repeat blooms.

'Kent's Favourite Two'

One of my absolute favourites 'Percival James'

Another favourite 'Donna Mead'

'Passion for Life'

'Passion for Life' again

'Isis Unveiled'

A badly focussed photo of the very beautiful 'Jordan Verhaert'

Alongside the daylilies in the front garden, the white ixora 'Kampon's Pride' is a mass of blooms for such a young plant.

The Leopard Lily has self-seeded and sprung up in a few new places but is always a welcome sight.

And the Variegated Alstomeria is re-establishing itself after taking a bit of a pounding while I was away.



One of the showiest bromeliads in flower.

Here is a view of the front garden at the moment, absolutely dominated by the Poinciana Delonix regia.

The white flowers to the right of the poinciana belong to the Hammerhead Frangipani Plumeria pudica.

Elsewhere in the garden, tropical foliage provides almost as much colour as the flowers. Among the more spectacular are the Elephant Ears or Caladiums, a tropical perennial. I am a recent addition to the ranks of their admirers. In just a month I have expanded my 'collection' from two to ten. The second photo is of four new plants I picked up at the local markets.

For December Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, I was very proud to report that my Yucca was in flower for the first time. If you were thinking it couldn't get any more exciting than that, you are wrong. Just a week or two back, I was gazing vaguely in the direction of the Ponytail Palm Beaucarnea recurvata when I realised it too had come into bud for the first time since I moved here in 2005.

Here are a few photos tracking its progress.

  

I do love my garden; there's always something new popping up and demanding my attention.

To visit more gardens around the world, visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens who hosts the Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day meme on the 15th of each month.

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...