Thursday, January 15, 2015

It's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day ... January 2015 ... mid-Summer.

It's the beginning of another brand new gardening year, and this first post for the year is all about highlighting what is blooming right now in my garden.


January is our middle Summer month. Yesterday the daytime high was up around 33-34 deg C and the air con was definitely on.  Our nights are slightly cooler, hovering around 25 deg C which isn't too bad.  It means you can sleep with just the fan going and be quite comfortable. Humidity levels haven't been all that bad either lately.  Relative humidity seems to remain around the 60% level, which is bearable.


We had some really lovely decent rainfall nearly two weeks ago, with around 73 mms falling over the first weekend of the new year.


This was followed up by another 12 mms or so just last week.  There's been nothing since, so the wet season hasn't quite arrived in its full glory yet,


but now there are hints of green grass in the front yard whereas last month it was pretty much a dry parched shade of brown.


With the arrival of rain last month, the Rain Lilies started blooming and they've continued to flower off and on ever since.   There were splashes of lemon and pink in the garden today.



Summertime is always the time when the Mussaendas bloom.  The colours are wonderful.


Summer also means the Cassia fistula and Delonix regias are flowering.  The bright yellow of the Cassia and the shade or orange and red in the Poinciana all scream summertime.


The arrival of rain showers has sent the Murrayas into a flowering frenzy.  The perfume from the flowers is simply heavenly.  I like nothing better than to wake up to the beautiful smell of Murraya flowers wafting on the morning breeze.


I just love bringing in a few sprays of flowers inside the house.  You don't need air freshener when you have a few little vases of these in your home.

Actually there are a few perfumed plants in bloom at the moment, which makes an early morning or early evening wander such a delightful way to start or end the day.  


There's Plumeria rubra, Murraya paniculata, Gardenia 'Soleil d'or', Hedychium coronarium (White Butterfly Ginger) and Lonicera japonica (Japanese Honeysuckle).  Each one adds something extra special to the sights and smells in my garden right now.


One of the plants that is showing off its first ever flowers right now is this pink version of the Iris domestica, commonly known as the Blackberry or Leopard Lily.  I do have the more common orange variety as well, but I have to admit I think I much prefer this variety with the more subtle pink shades.


One other plant that does seem to respond to rainfall is my Phyllanthus multiflorus, or Waterfall Plant.  It's covered in pendulous red blooms at the moment.  These look rather like Christmas baubles to me.  They are tiny and rather hard to see though.  You have to get up close and personal to really notice them.

Elsewhere around the garden,


this lovely red Alpinia has bloomed for the first time ever,


the Mandevilla White Fantasy' is flowering,


 the Gloriosa superba, or Gloriosa Lily is showing off its peculiar flowers,


and the Galphimia glaucas are covered in golden yellow flowers.


I did notice as I was wandering around that there's a whole lot of red and white in my garden presently.  I'm such a fan of white in the garden, so I'm so very pleased that I've managed to get it spread throughout various corners of the garden.  Red is a must-have in a tropical garden, I think.  It just seems to blaze so brightly in our fierce sunshine.


There's also quite a bit of orange popping up here and there.


I did find one little splash of purple in the garden.  I almost walked right on by my little Brasso-cattleya Orchid in the shadehouse without seeing the flowers.  Thankfully I looked in the right direction, so I'm able to share it in this post today.


There have been literally hundreds of butterflies and other insects feasting on the nectar of the Duranta blooms and the flowers of the Neem trees.


I just had to share some photos of these beautiful creatures.


The Common Grass Yellows are swarming around in little clouds.  They are fluttering around every Duranta, Murraya, Hibiscus and Neem flower on the property.


I'm not sure about the identity of this little fellow, but he was certainly enjoying the nectar of the Murraya blooms,


and this beautiful little spider was having a great time chilling out on the Rain Lily petal.  I'm always amazed at the variety of insect life that is at home here in my garden.


I'm joining Carol for her Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day  meme.



30 comments:

  1. WOW! These photos are 'why' I love to visit your blog about your lovely gardens. I get inspired every time I visit. You have such a green thumb.

    Happy Gardening ~ FlowerLady

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    1. Thank you Lorraine, I do so love growing and tending lots of different plants. It's such a labour of love. The 'green thumb' part didn't come easily to me. I've had many ups and downs with it all, and still learning.

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  2. There is just so much colour In your garden right now, it's beautiful. Combine that with scent and it must be heaven. I'm rather taken with the waterfall plant. The blooms may be small, but I love the way they hang from the branches.

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    1. Thanking you kindly, Rusty Duck. There are some lovely spots out there at the moment, and I do so love wandering around early in the morning drinking in the colour and enjoying the perfume. No better way to start the day!

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  3. Oh how lovely to visit your summer garden when we are in the midst of a very cold winter here in the USA!
    And I really like your photo of the rain drops
    Happy Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day!
    Lea

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    1. I'm so glad you enjoyed your visit, Lea. Your winter temps are just out of my realm of experience. I can't imagine what it would be like. It would be hard for me to get used to not getting out into the garden for that length of time.

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  4. Bernie your garden is always beautiful. It's a welcome sight to us winter weary folks in the northern hemisphere. Not enough sun and too many clouds! Your garden is always a riot of color and to add fragrance to it....is the cherry on top! Love it!

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    1. Loads and loads of sunshine over here right now Jean. Oh if only I could share. We have had some dreary overcast days though as we've had some decent rain over the last weeks or so. The plants have been loving it.

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  5. It is such a thrill to visit all your tropical blooms and butterflies Bernie. Your gardens are always so beautiful and a pleasure to visit, especially now during our cold northern winter. Happy Bloom Day!

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    1. Glad you enjoyed your visit Lee. We're in the middle of a hot, humid summer right now. Thankfully our wet season seems to have begun now as we've had quite a bit of rain last week. Everything looks so much brighter after rain.

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  6. Alan

    I only just found your beautiful garden by accident today. I shall certainly visit it more often now. I live in Sydney and was looking for suppliers of Hybiscus rosa sinensis cooperi which I saw at the RHS garden at Wisley last year. A stunning plant. Any ideas where I might get one in Australia?

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    1. Great to see another Aussie dropping by for a visit, Alan. I've seen the 'cooperi' available for sale in Bunnings stores up here in the north, but I doubt they would be readily available down around Sydney.

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  7. Wonderful photos from your garden! I love all the flowers and the bright colours. Have a great weekend.

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    1. Thanks Gunilla. I'm so lucky to have flowers all year round.

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  8. Your garden is looking so beautiful with such an amazing variety of flowers, some of which I grow here, but they are conservatory plants which are kept frost free.
    It is so good to see flowers on the other side of the world, I will just try to imagine your temperatures!

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    1. Imagining our summertime temps will bring you no joy, Pauline. It's a horrid time of the year. I don't last long outdoors at this time any more. The humidity gets to me and I have to have a break in the air con. Of course, the plants all seem to be loving this time of year, because it's time for rain.

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  9. As always your garden is filled with such beautiful flowers....I have scrolled through them all about three times already....thanks for sharing Bernie.

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    1. So glad you enjoyed the photos, Virginia. There are lots of lovely things out there at the moment.

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  10. Wow - what a treat to stumble upon your blog! Such wonderful, unusual plants - at least to me they are. I love the Rain lilies and the little pendulous red flowers of the Phyllanthus multiflorus. Absolutely lovely! Happy GBBD to you!

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    1. Thanks so much for coming to visit, Anna. It's great to hear that you enjoyed all the shots.

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  11. How lovely to see all the blooms in your garden when there's absolutely nothing in bloom here. You even have interesting butterflies and insects. I wish they'd invent "Smell-o-Vision" computer monitors. I'd love to smell that Murraya

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    1. Jayne, we've been inundated with all sorts of insect life lately and that's so typical of our summertime. The butterflies are everywhere and last night we had an invasion of thousands of flying ants (termites). I"m left to vacuum up all the dropped wings and little dead bodies this morning, It's a big job! As for the perfume of the Murraya, apparently it smells something like orange blossoms. I've never smelt orange blossoms myself so I can't say whether that's true or not.

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  12. It's been a while, but thank you for letting me visit your wonderful garden once again.

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    1. Yes I've really become quite slack with the blog posts for quite a few months now, Bill. It has just become hard to fit in around everything else that's going on with work and home life. Still, fingers crossed I'll be a little more forthcoming this year!

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  13. As usual I so enjoy taking a walk in your lovely garden, a feast for the eye, especially as we are having unusually cold weather right now - barely above freezing at night. I loved your Leopard Lily, I have not seen it before, it doesn’t really look like any Iris I have seen before :-)
    Have a good Sunday!

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    1. Opposite end of the pole right now, Helene. It's stinking hot and terribly humid and sticky right now. We've had quite a few thunderstorms roll on through the foothills here, sometimes with lightning strikes. We've also had some decent rainfall, which is always appreciated, but the days following the rain are extra extra hot and humid.

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  14. I call them flying crayfish (for the tails)
    but the book says hawk moth, hummingbird moth, clearwing moth.

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    1. Flying Crayfish certainly suits, Diana. Great name.

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  15. I just discovered your blog via May Dreams Garden's bloom day meme - I'm also in Australia and enjoy reading other Australian gardener's blogs. What a treat that rain was last week - apparently there's more forecast so stay dry! :)

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    1. So glad to find your blog too, Jess. It's always brilliant to find out what's going on in gardens around Oz. We've had such brilliant rain over the last week. The ground is finally saturated a little. I can dig down and it's still moist. Yahoo!

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