June 2011
Winter Once Again

If anything can lift my spirits as winter looms on the horizon, it's a steaming heap of fresh mulch.
By spring time, it will have sufficiently composted for me to spread it around the garden.

Foggy mornings help to show the amazing work of the spiders' night shift activities.

The banksias which began displaying their spectacular cones in early autumn
stay around long enough to brighten the dull winter days.

The hakes verrucosa (also known as the 'warty fruit' hakea), is always so generous with its flowers.
Although the leaves are extremely sharp, and the branches stiff and angled, I have found the
prunings surprisingly easy to mulch in my big Hansa 6.5hp muncher.

I probably show photos of this phebalium squamulosum every year, but it one of my very favourite shrubs
in the garden, as the beautiful bronze buds appear soon after the previous season's flowers have disappeared,
and the first yellow star shape flowers can begin to appear even in the middle of winter -
just to let you know that spring is on the way!

Winter isn't all bare branches and lack of flowers.
The thryptomene is a frenzy of small flowers for many weeks.

The 'design' of each small flower truly warrants more than a cursory glance.

Every winter I refresh my late friend David's army boots with something bright
so he can see he is not forgotten.

 

Although the garden is almost totally filled with Australian plants, the small garden
on the south side of the house is 'Mum's Garden', and here I grow the English cottage plants
that Mum and I used to both grow, before we discovered the wisdom of 'going native'.

next - July 2011 It's All a Bit Soggy

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