Bit of this and that

Hello again everybody.

I do happen to keep bunching my posts together, but better all together than none at all J.

This post is a bit of a mish-mash of photos I’ve taken recently.

First of all, this is a photo of a pond that I made outside one of my shade houses.  Sorry for the terrible photo, it was getting just to dark to keep gardening and working on it so I thought I’d take my chance with taking a photo.

Now in the pond itself is a little Water Lily;

Some Louisiana Irises, these flowered last year but I somehow forgot to get a photo.  I started off with a medium sized plant and in the space of a year it has simply tripled in size….. I LOVE IT!

Also, ontop of some bricks and inside a shallow tray of water are my wittle carnivores who are starting to send up new shoots/traps/pitchers/leaves like no tomorrow, I’m loving this weather as it warms up.

Then on the side is my weirdo mystery plant, and a bromeliad, then in the pot underneath the pond is a Richmond Birdwing Butterfly Vine, of which there is a long story about, but I’m very tired, so perhaps another time. Then above the pond is a Bird’s Nest Fern, a couple of other bromeliads and a Crucifix Orchid or Epidendrum radicans.

This little guy seriously has to be the coolest christmas present I have ever gotten from a teacher, we talk about gardening all the time together and then before christmas/summer holidays we always buy each other a git that is gardening related, it’s good fun.  I have him standing under my snap dragons, but I need to come up with a name for him… I’m not sure, I’m tossing up between Tangle Goblintwist, Spider Willowsnap and Ash Elfembers.  Which do you prefer, or do you have a suggestion?

Now this thing, this is from my Nepenthes Gothica, this was a massive pitcher, the pitchers doubled in size from the ones that were at the gardening store, to when it got back to my house, however it has just produced another pitcher some months after this photo was taken, and I believe that the cold weather may be what has caused the newest pitcher to be smaller than this one.

And then just some miscilaneous photos

Happy Gardening

The Joys of Watering Plants

Hey Everyone.... if you're out there J,

Now, to all those gardener/plant-people out there, I need to ask.  Do you enjoy watering your plants? I need to ask because my friends look at me as though I have 3 heads if I start to talk about how much I enjoy watering my plants. 

Yesterday I was out watering the plants in one of my gardens and the beauty of the afternoon sun hitting all of the water droplets as they soared through the air mesmerized me.  I wish the photos had captured it as I saw it, but they at least give you an idea. LOL

I like this photo because if you look at the photo with a bit of imagination the shadow made in the water droplets looks faintly like a heart..... what do you think? 

What’s you favourite thing to do in the garden?

A quick apology, and then on with the plants :)

Hey Everybody out there in blog land.

Would you believe it, this week my wee wittle blog reach 100 page views, gosh, who would have thought that would happen?  And, my page views aren’t counted in that number so woohoo J…… now I just have to get my act together with these blog posts LOL.

Now, I must apologise for the lack of posts of late.  I know a lot of you don’t mind, or don’t even notice but I would like to make a new blog post at least every 2 days, now whether that is a big long life story, or just one or two photos I don’t care, not sure about your opinion so I’ll just have to go with mine LOL.  Now the reason for my lack of posts is that, I got grounded L, i.e. no Facebook, no mobile phone, no nothin’…… and I must admit, I kinda enjoyed it, it certainly gave me more time for gardening which I think is one thing I’m going to keep going J.

However I’ve been helping mum at the Redlands Quilt Extravaganza these past few days, and as embarrassing as it is to admit it…. I’m enjoying myself tremendously, if any people in Brisbane just so happen to come across this quaint little blog then please do pop in, but as I doubt that to happen I won’t bore you all with details on it. Though I might try get a photo of myself on the stand tomorrow to show you all J LOL.

Now on with the bloggering J

These are just some photos from around the garden, and they are what I would refer to as “cottage-y” plants, I’m working on making one of my gardens more  cottage-y and high maintenance just to give me something to keep me busy, whereas the others I think I might try and make some low maintenance versions of some of those amazing gardens I’ve been seeing on other gardening blogs such as;

Now this is my one and only Pentas…. And I do intend to get it a friend because I do love it dearly.  I got this one on the Christmas school holidays from a little nursery in the Gold Coast Hinterland, it didn’t have a name on it, and to memory it only cost me $10 and in my opinion it’s been worth every penny. It just keeps on flowering J.

My one and only Pentas

This on of my “Flapjacks” or Kalanchoe thyrsiflora, and I thought the look of it was really intriguing.  Now I must say that if anybody has the slightest interest in succulents, or just plants in general then if you can, than GET ONE OF THESE! I absolutely adore this plant, depending on how much I water it and the light I give it, it can go from BRIGHT pure red, ro dark green, in the photos its at my favourite colour of the green with the red edging.  I just throw some water at it when I can be bothered and apart from that it just multiplies like absolute mad…. LOVE IT! J

 “Flapjacks” or Kalanchoe thyrsiflora

This next picture is of one of my Jonquils.  When mum told me that jonquils were her favourite flower I was determined to get some for her, and now I have them coming out of my ears…. I really must find a more permanent place for them where I want cut them in half with the shovel while they are dormant :S… I must admit, many a hippeastrum has suffered that fate.

Jonquil

 This is an interesting little plant. The pitty is, I can’t for the life of me remember what its called, I know I have the name for it somewhere in the deep dark depths of my computer files, and I’ll have to find it, but I’ve never seen it before except for in very old gardens around the bayside area near my house.  The gardening fashions of different eras fascinate me no end.

Mystery plant

Here are a couple of shots of my Jasminum polyanthum, a lovely climbing jasmine that just smells DEVINE, I would have it growing all over our house if my mum let me J

My Salvia Phyllis Fancy.  This is a marvelous plant I got a couple of years back and it just grows and flowers non stop. And I have now figured out when to prune it.  All the branches you can see there are coming from the ground, of from branches just above it.  Now what I do is I wait for these new branches to start to grow from the ground in late autumn to mid winter, then when they get big enough to differentiate them from the other branches, and they are strong enough to be by themselves then I remove all other branches bar the new ones, and this stops the plant getting to overgrown and scraggly, and gives me a bit of extra maneuverability in the garden until summer J

Salvia Phyllis Fancy

 And then just a couple of shots from around the place. I’ll try get around on Sunday to take some more/newer pictures because more and more flowers are coming out each day.’

Now I have to ask, does anyone know what this marvelous plant is?  I absolutely adore it and would love to get hundreds of them, but I don’t know what it is, and I’d like to move it to a new spot but I don’t know the name which means I can’t find cultural info for it so I can’t makesure I move it to the right spot… what a vicious little circle LOL, so if anyone could help with the name it would be massively appreciated.

 Well I do believe I’d best be off to bed, and I’ll try get another post up tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for me J

Michael