It's a Winter's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day ... June 2011

Our Winter has begun and the dry weather has definitely arrived.  From mid-Autumn to now, our rainfall total has really dropped away ... 88mm or 3.5ins in April (mid-Autumn) to 15mm or 0.6 of an inch so far this month (early Winter). 

The conditions haven't varied much from cooler bright blue, sunny sky days and quite cool nights.  The days are getting shorter ... the sun is barely visible by 5.00 pm and rises around 6.30 am.  Our daytime temperatures usually remain somewhere between 23 and 26 degrees C (73-78 F) and the nightime temps are dipping down to between 15 and 10 degrees C (59-50 F).  Last night it got down to 9!

It's wonderful winter weather here in the Aussie tropics.

Out in the garden, not much has changed around the place since my last Garden Journal entry Our Dry Season Has Begun.  The cyclone damaged plants mentioned in that post are still in tortoise-paced recovery mode as they're not getting any watering at this time of year.  But there are the usual things in bloom right now.

Some of the purple container plants:

Starting top left:  Spathoglottis or Ground Orchid, Barleria obtusa, Gomphrena globosa or Bachelor Buttons, Petunia ShockWave 'Pink Ice' ... and in the centre, Lavendula dentata.

Some of the pinks:

Top row:  Antirrhinum 'Velveteen' or Snapdragon, Pentas lanceolata, Schlumbergera or Zygocactus.
Second row:  Azalea, my pink dwarf Euphorbia pulcherrima or Poinsettia, Salvia splendens.
Bottom row:  Impatiens hawkerii 'Celebrette Orchid Star' or New Guinea Impatiens, Antirrhinum 'Strawberry Crush' and Verbena.

In the courtyard garden, all my container plants are powering on, but need watering every second day.  The pots dry out quite quickly in these dry season conditions, especially during the many blustery windy days we experience at this time of year.  Unfortunately, due to the busyness of work and the occasional week away from home lately, I still haven't finished potting up my annuals for their winter-spring display.  There are a couple of pots of Petunias, Pansies, Osteospurmum and Verbena on the go, but that's nowhere near as many as I had this time last year. 

My Cleome spinosas both had to be cut back severely after becoming infested with what seemed like white mould.  It's a real pity that they're not showing off their brilliant lavender-purple flowers right now, as they are usually a feature out in the courtyard garden during our winter.

The Euphorbia leucocephala or Snowflake Bush has begun its' winter blooming and it always adds a great splash of brilliant white beside the courtyard garden steps.

The Jasminum officinale or Poet's Jasmine continues to bloom out-of-season.  As I've mentioned before, this climber didn't enjoy the past Summer/Wet Season at all and showed no blooms whatsoever during it's usual Summer flowering period.  The flowers started appearing sporadically around mid-Autumn and have continued ever since, although the perfume is nowhere near as heady as usual.  Still, it's great to see those little white blooms.

I have re-vamped small area under one of the Cycas revolutas out in the courtyard.  During the post-cyclone clean-up, I finally got in and trimmed back all the dead and dying fronds on the Cycad near the courtyard steps.  It's something I had put off for ages, mainly because of the deadly sharp spines on the fronds that make such a job a bit of a nightmare.  But it's done now and I added some lovely New Guinea Impatiens and Bromeliads underneath.

One of the Broms has bloomed, but I'm still waiting on the New Guineas to show their gorgeous flowers.

In the outdoor tiered garden bed, there's quite a bit of cutting back to be done.  Unfortunately, that job has been put on the back burner for now.  The Salvia madrensis sure does need to be trimmed as the golden spires are looking more like weird hairy caterpillars!

The Iresine herbstii 'Blazin Rose' is flowering, but will need pruning very soon.

I do rather like the combination of dwarf Angelonia angustifolia, Salvia leucantha, Scutellaria suffrutescens and Scaevola in this patch in the tiered bed.  It all happened quite be accident, but I don't mind it!

This plant has just popped up beside the patch shown above, and while it certainly does look attractive, I'm not sure what it is or whether I should keep it!!  Can anyone help with an ID?

Elsewhere in my garden there are some lovely whites, oranges and yellows:

From top left:  Pelargonium peltatum 'Blanche Roche', Mandevilla 'White Fantasy' and Pentas.

Top row:  Bracteantha bracteata, Portulaca grandiflora, Neomarica longifolia and Ixora 'Twilight Glow'.
Main shot:  Cosmos sulphureus which popped up down the driveway after our long, long wet season.  It's now blooming and showing its' lovely yellow and orange flowers.


For loads more wonderful GBBD posts, please visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens

A Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day ... It's Our End-of-Autumn Month of May.

We've had such beautiful autumn days lately.  Vast expanses of beautiful blue sky, loads of lovely sunshine and the most pleasant temperatures.  There's really not a great deal of variation when it comes to the seasons here in the tropics, except for that drop in temperatures and humidity levels after early autumn, and the rain takes a break for three-quarters of the year.

The Dragonflies have certainly been appreciating these beautiful sunny days and are everywhere in the garden right now.

The plants are also welcoming this lovely weather.  So there are a few that are able to put their best foot forward at last for this Bloom Day post.

It's a truth that some spots in my garden show little variation in the way they look from year to year, as there's so many all-year-round bloomers here.  This means they're usually always a part of my GBBD posts ... and here they are again.

Pentas, Impatiens walleriana, Pseudomussaenda flava, Dragonwing Begonias, and red flowering Hibiscus.

The trauma inflicted by torrential rain and cyclonic winds experienced during the sumer/early autumn means there are quite a few things that are out of whack in my garden.  They should be blooming during May.  But, there are no flowers on my Spathodea campanulata or African Tulip Tree ... it's still a stump.  Nor is the pink Calliandra surinamensis or Pink Powderpuff flowering as it continues to recover from its' severe cut back.

There are however lots of other plants showing their beauty right now though including ...

Bracteantha bracteata, Angelonia angustifolia, Crossandra infundibuliformis, Viola hederaceae, Dianthera nodosa, Barleria obtusa and, in the middle, Plectranthus 'Mona Lavender'.

I've had far more success getting some of my Pelargoniums through the 'wet' season/summer at the beginning of this year, and it was a doozy.  Not only was there plenty of heavy rain and almost no strong sunlight, the air is just laden with moisture as the humidity levels reach 90% some days.  Pellies hate these conditions, so I'm very pleased that I've finally managed to coddle a few through these horrors.  The survivors are now beginning to bloom once again.

This is a Pelargonium hybrid from the 'Caliente' series.  It blends the best characteristics of the zonal and the ivy pelargoniums.  I'm so impressed with its' staying power, not to mention its' stunning blooms.

Now for another of my great Pellie survivors.


It's this pretty Pelargonium peltatum.  I adore the clusters of double, white flowers with these magenta markings in the middle.  I think this is 'Blanche Roche'

The Torenia fournieri seedlings are now all potted up and starting to bloom.  They will keep on showing off for months now ... at least until the next 'wet' when they find it hard-going.  It's amazing to see that there are little ones that have self-seeded from the last flowering season and are now popping up in between the bricks on the courtyard floor ... I will have to move them so they don't get trampled underfoot.

I've managed to pot up a few other annual seedlings as well and I'm pleased to see them take off.

Sweet Alyssum, Snapdragon 'Strawberry Crush' and Shock Wave Petunia 'Pink Ice'.

Elsewhere ...

Bromeliads are blooming.

My Cordyline cannifolia or Palm Lily is showing off its' first sprays of flowers.

My red Gerberas are showing their faces and there's a few sprays of flowers on my Bougainvillea.

Flowers are popping up on the Scuttellaria  suffrutescens, the Gomphrena globosa, the Salvia leucantha, the Cleome spinosa, the dwarf Scaveola ... and those orange and yellow flowers that have just showed up in my garden all by themselves.  There are clumps of these growing in spots next to the roads up here in the hills, but this is the first time I've ever seen any of these on our property.  I think they look like Cosmos sulphureus to me.  I don't think I would mind if they stayed.

This is the time of year that I enjoy the most out in the garden.  I can wander around all day long without getting scorched or sunburnt or drenched.  I find myself pottering about, under the watchful gaze of the local birdlife, for hours and hours and it's bloomin' marvellous!

For lots of fabulous GBBD posts,
visit Carol in the U.S. at May Dreams Gardens

and pop over to see Gesine at Seahorse Garden in Germany. 

Both these sites are hosts for fantastic posts about what's blooming this May in gardens around the world.

I'm also joining in the Mosaic Monday meme

... and in the Today's Flowers meme with this post.  Go and take a look.

Our 'Dry' Season Has Begun ... My Downunder Dry Tropics Garden Journal ... Week 17, 2011.

Date:   April 30, 2011


Season: mid-Autumn and beginning of the 'dry' season


(Gardening zone:  'Dry Tropics' located within the Tropics Zone/Australia ... comparable to U.S. Zone 11)

There's been very little rainfall for three weeks or so now which seems to be a sure sign that our 'dry' season has begun.  Typically, we will not receive much, if any, rainfall now until around mid-December ... hence the name 'dry tropics'.  Of course, 2010 was a bit of an exception to the rule around here ... it was one of the wettest 'dry' seasons we've had!  So it will be interesting to see how this year unfolds.  At the moment, though, we're experiencing those familiar clear sunny days.

So after the garden was pelted and pummelled during the last few months of the 'wet' season, it will be parched and thirsty for months and months to come.  This is the time of year when the outdoor garden beds have to tough it out ... many of the shrubs and trees are still in recovery mode after the cyclone, so without rain they will take ages to flourish once more.

Here's my beloved white Bauhinia variegata.  It's now got significant amounts of re-growth but with the 'dry', I don't think it will get all that much bigger in the coming months.

Lagerstroemia speciosa or Queen's Myrtle has continued to recover very well.  It will be interesting to see if all this new foliage growth will in fact start turning into the familiar reds and oranges for our winter.  This is my only tree that I could possibly say gets autumn colours ... except they usually appear in the winter. 

It will also be very interesting to see if my Plumerias will do their deciduous thing this coming Winter as well.  Considering Winter officially begins in June, and these Frangipanis are still trying their best to put on new growth ... will all the leaves fall?

The two Corymbia torellianas or Cadaghi Gums have come back beautifully after having most of their foliage stripped away.  It's nice having some tree canopy back once again in this spot on the property.

The Hibiscus rosa-sinensis that grows underneath the Cadaghis has come back quickly and is showing a bloom or two here and there.

The same is true for the Malvaviscus arboreus or the Sleepy Hibiscus.  It's already recovered and those wonderful flowers and buds are peeping out in between the leaves.

With Cyclone Yasi's destructive winds causing the almost total removal of the tree canopy down the driveway on our property, the driveway garden beds had became almost overrun with weeds.  Finally, with the arrival of dry weather over the last couple of weeks, I've been able to get out there and do the much needed weeding of both sides of the driveway.  It's looking far tidier now.  

I was accompanied by hordes of lovely little red dragonflies the whole time.

It was amazing just how much was removed ... we thought we had done with having to use the fire pit to burn off garden debris and rubbish.  But no, I have managed to add another little pile to the fire pit after my efforts yesterday and today.

As well as removing huge amounts of weeds, I did a bit of trimming on some plants that were not included in the post-cyclone clean-up.  Mainly a Croton, the Pseuderanthemum, the Ming Aralia and the Graptophyllum.  They were all looking decidedly leggy and scraggly.
 

I found a couple of Philodendrons that I'd thought I'd lost.  Obviously they loved the long 'wet' season and had come back in some what were once hidden spots, but not hidden now after the weeding effort.

I also finally removed most of the horrid pile of Pedilanthus tithymaloides 'variegata' - the Slipper Plant - which had taken over one section of the long driveway bed and was looking absolutely terrible.  I pulled out most of it by the root ... moved one tiny little piece back towards the fence ... and dug over the spot where it had been growing.   

I'm looking to plant more Crotons and Pseuderanthemum in that section.  However, there will be no planting happening just yet.  Along with the new section added to the driveway garden bed closest to our car shed, the spots that need planting up will have to wait until the 'dry' season is over.  It's no use trying to start plant at this time of year here in the dry tropics ... it would add extra cost to our water bill trying to keep them alive over the next nine months or so when we receive little or no rainfall! 

In the meantime though, I have quite a few Croton cuttings that have taken off and need re-potting and lots of feeding so they're ready for planting during our rainy season.  I will also be on the lookout for some groundcover for both these spots.  Perhaps some native Viola for the shaded sections ... will think about the sunny sections.

In other spots around the property, it's lovely to see the Acacias are starting to bloom once more.

This is Acacia mangium showing its' lemony-yellow rod-like flower heads ...

... and Acacia auriculiformis beginning its' wonderful display.