Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day June 2013

It's hard to believe that it is more than a month since my last post and that I missed May Garden Bloggers Bloom Day completely. However, I am slowly making inroads trying to get the house in order and catch up with study for a short course I have enrolled in.

The garden has been neglected, but being wintertime here in Brisbane, I can almost get away with it. Unusually for this time of year, we have had a little rain. Although the shortest day of the year is only just around the corner and the temperature is dipping to around 20C by day and under 10C in the evening, there is still plenty of colour to be seen in my winter garden.

'Wilders White' Hibiscus

In the front garden, most of the colour comes courtesy of the aloes, several members of the sage and salvia family, and the deep red foliage of the Cordyline Rubra.

Looking across the front garden to the aloe and Hawaiian Fan Palm, the striped foliage in the foreground is a rhoeo.

Aloe 'Diana'

Afternoon light throught the cordylines.

   

Yucca 'Purple Royale' to the right of this Diana spike

Aloe 'Southern Cross' and grapetopetalum

On the driveway, the Strelitzia or Bird of Paradise are in bloom (and  Bella and Onslow are keeping up patrol duties)

Nandina

Interestingly, in the side garden my Brazilian Red Cloak is still putting on a great display, although it was back in March that I was admiring them in the City Botanic Garden. I like it with the dark foliage of the cordylines in the background, and I am leaving a similarly coloured euphorbia volunteer to the left of the red cloak for the same reason.

Brazilian Red Cloak Megaskepasma erythrochlamys

Three of the salvias are adding a pop of colour to the garden bed.

'Heatwave Sizzle'

Pineapple sage

'Hot Lips'

Two of the bromeliads are in flower. The top one is Aechmea 'Burning Bush'. I don't know the name of the other, but the bright purple and red combination make it one of my favourites.

All in all, the garden has held up quite well in spite of having been somewhat neglected while I've been busy.  Like Onslow I have been on the inside looking out, rather than out there getting my hands dirty. Hopefully, I will be able to turn that around by the time of my next garden report.

To see what is happening in other gardens around the world this Bloom Day, visit Garden Bloggers Bloom Day host Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day April 2013

As we enter into mid-Autumn here in Brisbane this Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, there is not a great variety of blooms in the garden, but there is still plenty of colour. We are once again very much 'in the pink', courtesy of a new dahlia and those fabulous troopers, the cosmos.

Dahlia 'Araluen Katrina'

Love the pink of the cosmos with the slightly blue-toned foliage of aloe and Yucca 'Purple Royale'

Here is a better shot of the Yucca 'Purple Royale' (back right) with Tradescantia pallida or Purple Heart in the front.

I can't believe I still have a daylily blooming.

Daylily 'Passion for Life'

Here's the slightly chewed cosmos with variegated alstomeria and white ixora

Coleus, salvia 'Heatwave Sizzle ' and variegated alstomeria

One of the bromeliads on the driveway is out.

This little dahlia was bought last year as one in a punnet of seedlings.

Finally, one of the orchids is in bloom. This is an Oncidium.

There will be lots more to see over at May Dreams Gardens where Carol hosts Garden Bloggers Bloom Day on the 15th of each month.

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.