May is the last month of our Autumn here, and the evenings and early mornings are starting to get slightly cooler! The mercury has been dropping all the way down to between 14 and 17 deg C (57 - 62 F) overnight lately ... chilly!! Well, that's chilly for us!
One day of showers since the beginning of April means our dry season is now will under-way. Growth slows down considerably during this time of year and there are relatively few blooms on the trees. There is still a little colour in the surrounding bushland though, as the Acacias have been on show for a couple of weeks now.
Some of the blooms are a pale lemony yellow, while others are a brilliant gold. These Acacias will continue taking turns to bloom into early Winter.
Blooms at my place can be found in the front tiered garden beds, the shadehouse and the courtyard gardens. There are some first time bloomers ...
Starting top left and going clockwise:
Dracaena godseffiana, Salvia farinacea 'Strata', Salvia farinacea 'Victoria Blue', unknown Salvia, Cordyline 'Purple King' and double white Impatiens walleriana.
... and there are oldies that just keep on keeping on.
Starting top left and going clockwise:
Duranta repens 'Geisha Girl', Pentas lancelolata, Callistemon 'Pink Champagne', Ixora 'Golden Ball', Impatiens hawkeri 'Celebrette', Crossandra infundibuliformis Glamour Puss' and Saliva farinacea 'Victoria White'.
Starting top left and going clockwise:
Neomarica longifolia, Salvia madrensis, Allamanda cathartica 'Sunee', Mussaenda philippica 'Bangkok Rose', Dragon Wing Begonia, Hibiscus schizopetalus and Turnera ulmifolia.
Starting top left and going clockwise:
Anthurium, Torenia 'Violet Magic', Torenia 'Clown Mix', Gomphrena globosa 'Buddy Purple' and Angelonia angustifolia 'Serena White', Dendrobium, Portulaca, Justicia carnea, Angelonia angustifolia 'Serena Purple'.
At the moment, there are few of my potted annuals beginning their show, and some late Autumn/early Winter bloomers are putting on their display.
Starting at top left and going clockwise:
Petunia 'Stars Mixed', Petunia 'Hot Lips', the variegated Ixora chinensis 'Splash', Schlumbergera, and Petunia 'Giant Victorious'.
Starting top left and going clockwise:
Zinnia 'Summer Brilliance', Petunia 'Stars Mixed', Pansy 'Faces Mix', and Snapdragons.
Oh what a glorious weekend we've just had. (Be warned ... this post is photo heavy!)
The days were clear, sunny, blue-sky days with temps just below 30 deg C, and with lovely soft breezes. The nights have had the slightest hint of the cooler weather that's on its way. Our night-time temps are now down around the 20 deg C mark, which is very, very pleasant. There's no sign of any more rain. I think that solitary day of showers, during the last week of April, will be it for a long while now, as our dry season rolls on. Out in the yard and the bushland, it's still fairly green and easy on the eye though.
There were no big gardening jobs to be done this weekend, so I've had the luxury of just pottering around the place, pulling a weed here and trimming a branch there, and enjoying the company of dragonflies, birds and wallabies.
I've so enjoyed just wandering around making sure everything that has been recently planted is looking happy and healthy. So far, so good!
Both of the rock garden beds in the driveway garden are almost finished now, and seem to be doing well. The plants installed just last weekend have settled in beautifully, so this weekend I was out there giving them a long drink and a few words of encouragement.
The other section of rock garden, planted up a couple of months back, is coming along slowly. This weekend, the plants that are already established in this bed were
also given a nice long drink and some lovely compliments, just to
reassure them that they're doing their job quite nicely.
The two Turnera ulmifolia, which are a brilliant golden yellow, are the stars in there right now. They've just started to really take off. I do want to add a Turnera subulata, with its creamy blooms, though. It will add a little contrast in amongst the yellows.
I'm on the lookout for some more little Scutellaria indica too. It pairs so well with the Ixora 'Golden Ball'. The last of the tiny purple flowers on the one that's already planted can be spotted in the photo above. It will be a few more weeks before the next blooming cycle begins, and hopefully by that time I'll have added a few more of this lovely Skullcap.
The area under the recently re-constructed pergola, next to the courtyard garden, is starting to pick up now. The Palms are on their way back, and the newer plantings are settling in. I've added just a few more dwarf white Angelonias to fill in under the taller plants.
The Cordylines, which had been trampled quite badly during the re-construction work, are starting to recover and look a whole lot happier now. I still haven't gotten around to draining the pond yet. Maybe next weekend!
I have, however, finished arranging all the potted plants out in the courtyard. This was the view out there as the sun was setting late this afternoon.
It's great to see the annuals beginning to bloom. This is why I so love this time of the year. End of Autumn through to early Summer is the time for annuals in my garden. They do brilliantly through the cooler months here. Summertime is just too harsh for them.
Sitting on the old broken woodwork around the pond (still not replaced!) are pots of lovely colour, and I'm looking forward to seeing them fill out in the coming weeks.
A new plant for me that I've just added to this collection near the pond, is this gorgeous Salvia farinacea 'Strata'. It has the loveliest bicoloured flower spikes carrying blue blooms with white calyxes. It can take the full sun that drenches this particular spot of the courtyard, so it's well suited to this area.
As is my old favourite Salvia farinacea 'Victoria White'. This particular Salvia has never let me down when positioned in full sun. Both Salvias are perennials here and only require a bit of a trim back when each flowering cycle is over.
Another of my old favourites, which has also joined the pot collection in this corner of the courtyard, is my Impatiens hawkeri 'Celebrette Series'. The flowers on this contrast so well with the dark foliage. It's a striking combination.
Alright ... continuing the view around the courtyard, this is the back section which is bordered by a raised garden bed filled with shrubs.
I just have to have a pot of Snapdragons ...
... and some Portulacas sitting over on this side.
Now we keep on turning around to the right, towards the house and back verandah. The Plectranthus 'Mona Lavender' look a little blue in this afternoon light. They really are a lovely lilac purple though.
There's a little pot of Schlumbergera, sitting on the courtyard garden table, as it does every year at this time.
Now, swinging further around to the opposite side of the courtyard ...you might be able to see the first flower spike on my Cordyline 'Purple King' if you look up high next to the arching fronds of the Cycad.
These flower spikes are a beautiful rich purple, while the flowers have purple petals and yellow stamens. They are just spectacular up close.
It's great to see the colour of the Amaranthus Tricolor once more. I had thought I'd lost this lovely thing, but it's self-seeded in the pot for me. What a lovely surprise! There were a couple of other little surprises I've also noticed out in the courtyard during my wanderings.
My Pilea cardierei is blooming ...
... and so is my Dracaena godseffiana. Can you see those green spikes at the end of the stems? I've never noticed blooms on either of these plants before, and I've had them for a few years now. Isn't nature grand?
Out in my shadehouse garden, I finally had the time to pot up my little baby Aeschynanthus lobbianus or Lipstick Plant. You can see it in the brown hanging pot to the left. I think it will handle the weaker Autumn-Winter sunlight in this location, but I will have to move it into a far shadier spot when Spring rolls around.
I'm really impressed with the unusual looking red flowers on this plant. It will make a stunning display when the plant matures and fills out the pot.
Outside the shadehouse, in the tiered garden beds,
I found my first ever Adenium obesum bloom had finally opened up ...
... and close by, the Justicia carnea is blooming once more. They sometimes go unnoticed down under the Lagerstroemia indicas.
It's just been the perfect weekend. Have I mentioned how much I love this time of year?
Just in closing, I'm adding some short video clips captured over the weekend. You will have to scroll right down to the bottom of the page and stop the Playlist from playing first before going any further. That way you will be able to enjoy the background bird song that accompanies these clips.
Right ... now the first clip shows a rather young Agile Wallaby joey
grooming itself while sitting in the safety and comfort of its mother's
pouch. This is definitely a baby as it is looking a little bald
and hairless.
The second clip shows a young Agile Wallaby joey out on its own for the
first time. It's no longer allowed in its mother's pouch and has to
fend for itself. Such a darling thing. You will also hear the
screeching of some Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos in the background.
Last of all ... this clip shows some of the Agile Wallabies munching on the 'grass' (for want of a better term!) out in our front yard. You will hear the Laughing Kookaburras and the Figbirds in the background of this clip. You might even pick up the sound the Sunbird towards the end of the clip, if you listen carefully.
You will also notice that the older Agile Wallabies are in a group further away from the house, while the younger ones are romping around close to the front verandah. Perhaps they're just not quite as wise in the ways of the world! Of course, they're perfectly safe at our place. We never try to befriend them or get too close without a very good reason.
So that pretty much covers my lovely weekend at home here in the foothills as our last Autumn month begins.
Lots of dark dreary clouds rolled in on Friday and we had a brilliant downpour of rain which fell a little short of an inch of rain ... around 17 mm ... but was most welcome. While we are certainly at the beginning our 'dry' season here in the northern tropics, an April shower is not totally uncommon. It does happen, but it's not all that commonplace. In fact, the rain that fell on Friday was the only rain that's fallen all this month.
I was over the moon when the heavens opened, because I hadn't yet gotten around to the mulching of the newer garden beds. So it was very serendipitous that the ground got a lovely soaking just before I visited the nursery to get some bags of sugar cane mulch. I didn't have to use up precious water to do the job.
Mulching is so very important for these newly developing garden beds, especially as our dry rolls on. When I do start the regular watering by hand schedule out there, I need the watering to be useful for the newly established plants and not wasted through rapid evaporation. Even if the daytime temps are dropping slightly, it's still very warm outside during the day and the ground gets baked quickly.
So I rushed out to the nursery yesterday to buy a couple of big bags of my favourite mulching medium ... sugar cane mulch. On the opposite side of the driveway the mulch is provided by the overhanging trees, but on the side where this rock garden bed is located, I need to add mulch if I want it on the bed. I've been using sugar cane mulch for a couple of years now, and I can't speak highly enough of it. It is wonderful for moisture retention and for water penetration as the coarse mulch does not compact like others. I also find that here in the tropics, this particular mulch seems to promote earthworms, which is fantastic for the rather nutrient poor soil that's the norm for this property.
I'm sure I almost hear the plants smacking their lips when it's time to add this 'Sweet Garden' product!!! Of course, we're lucky that we live close to sugar cane farm country, so this is locally produced in our region, and not very expensive.
While I was at the nursery I'm afraid I didn't stop at just buying a couple of bags of mulch. I couldn't resist picking up just a couple more little plants to add to one of the rock garden sections of the driveway garden that I've been working so hard on lately. It was only a few little babies, and so necessary to fill in some empty spots!!!! Sounds good doesn't it?
So, I've added a couple of dwarf Ixoras ... Ixora 'Yellow Sunshine'. Ixoras are just so well suited to the climate and conditions here, and they flower almost all year round when well-established. I'm looking forward to the splashes of colour the these Ixoras will provide in this difficult spot along the driveway garden beds.
I also added two beautiful little baby Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Phantom Black' ... otherwise known as Mondo Grass. This particular variety has upright green foliage which turns jet black as it ages. The two I bought already had tiny spikes of white flowers, which apparently are supposed to be highly scented, but I didn't pick that up at all. Maybe as they mature, the flowers' perfume will develop.
Finally, I added just one pink-flowering Serissa foetida. I've been looking for the white one for ages, but I'm quite happy to add the pink form to this section of the garden. Serissa foetida is another dwarf evergreen shrub. This variety will bear masses of very tiny pink flowers, and will develop lovely variegated foliage as it matures.
After the planting, I then went about tucking the sugar cane mulch in around the plants on this rock garden section. This section has now had compost added, fertiliser added and given a healthy covering of mulch. I now want everything to hurry up and grow! At the end of the year, nearer to the 'wet' season, I'll add a ground-cover or two which should then spread quickly with the arrival of the rains.
I also mulched the other little rock garden section and watered them both down as well, just to settle the mulch.
While I was out in the driveway section of the property this weekend, I decided to tackle a weeding / clearing out job I'd been putting off for ages. My darling husband has been working on extending the garage at the end
of the driveway for a while now. It's slow-going, as he's doing
everything himself, but only doing what we can afford each step of the
way. He's now up to the 'adding-fill' part of the job, so the end is
getting a little closer.
You may remember I took a shot of this spot after a particularly bad storm we had during our 'wet' season just back at the end of March. It looked like we had installed a strange looking swimming pool, as it was completely filled with water.
Anyway, since then we had to wait until the area dried out so the next stage could begin. Here's the first load of fill that arrived last weekend. Now that pile is only half the size it was when the whole load first arrived. By the time I'd taken this shot, darling husband had already spread almost half of it. It's amazing just how much fill is needed for a job like this.
When he had spread the load, he realised it wasn't enough. So ... we will need to get another load soon. Well ... during this on-going project that section of garden bed you can see over near the fence in the photo above was completely neglected by myself mainly because of the mess that was scattered around. After the long 'wet' season, this whole section was almost over-run with the horrid Passiflora foetida, or what we call Stinking Passionfruit. It's a real thug of a vine, and very difficult to remove once it gets its little twirly bits curled around plants branches.
I did my best and the section does look a whole lot better now. I ended up pulling out quite a few baby Delonix regia or Poinciana trees as well. They had literally sprung up everywhere. They can also become a big nuisance and take over very quickly. They're very very hardy in this climate.
One of the hardiest trees of all time though, has to be the Spathodea campanulata or African Tulip Tree. Out of shot in the photo above, to the right, there's a section where a mature Spathodea has been growing every since we moved in here. It was completely knocked over during Cyclone Yasi at the beginning of last year. It crashed through the fence over into our neighbour's yard, falling flat on the ground and exposing the root system.
Well, after I had finished clearing out this section beside the new garage area, it became very noticeable just how tough this old tree is. Despite the root ball still being exposed, it's sprouted and has grown considerably in the year since being flattened.
Just look at the size of it now. That's one hardy specimen. There were lots of little babies as well that had sprouted from the suckers spreading out along the ground. I ripped those out, as I really don't want any more of this huge tree growing in the garden. While I'm happy enough to keep the old girl, I don't want any of her offspring.
Moving further along to the end of this garden bed, I weeded the patch underneath the enormous Eucalyptus platyphylla or Poplar Gum, for the first time. Whenever I took photos from this angle, like this one that I took back at the beginning of last month, I would always avoid including the spot right under the Gum tree. It was too ugly to share! Anyway, this weekend I decided to plant some things in this patch, as it had been an eyesore ever since we moved in over ten years ago now.
I actually planted a non-red-flowering Hibiscus!!! Yes, you heard right. Those who have read my blog for a while know that I have many of the red-flowering Hibiscus rosa-sinensis shrubs in my garden, and I was very content with those ... until I walked past this particular variety during my nursery visit over the weekend. It was on special ... and looked a little sad and unloved. Apparently it has hot pink flowers which sounds good to me. It's only a dwarf Hibiscus, so it should settle in nicely underneath the Eucalyptus. It already has a few buds on it, so I'm looking forward to seeing those hot pink blooms soon.
In the same patch under the Eucalyptus, I planted some more of the Pennisetum advena 'Rubrum' or Purple Fountain Grass along with some unknown Cactus plants that were given to me a long time ago. You can see them planted on the left in the shot above. I have no idea what they are, but it seemed like the perfect spot to finally plant them up. Let's hope these all take off well in this previously ugly corner of the garden.
While wandering back from the driveway at the end of the day, I nearly jumped for joy when I noticed the first ever bloom on one of my Desert Roses appearing. It seems odd that it's the littlest of the two Adeniums that is about to flower first, but I'm not complaining. Maybe the April shower gave it the boost it needed. I'll be out there every morning now waiting to see the bloom.
