Tuesday 24 November 2015

A bit from the garden

 My backhousia citriadoria (lemon scented myrtle is looking a picture.  I have been slightly disappointed that I planted this tree as I did not realise it does not attract the birds - but the insects and bees love it!  I love the smell of the crushed leaves, but I am not a fan of the flavour in cooking - though it is very fashionable these days.
I have no idea of the botanical name for this basket fern.  The new leaves have suddenly shout out, changing the appearance dramatically.  Ten days ago it was a danger to our eyes, with long sharp spines protruding everywhere. I spent an hour or so getting rid of them while I was waiting for a boring business visitor of Bill's to leave!  Bill collected this fern about forty years ago from a site in far north Queensland, along with the orchids - you can see the tail end of their flowering in the photo.
The season has been strange, many plants are hanging on to their flowers for months instead of  weeks and others are flowering right out of season.
I suspect the El Nino has something to do with this.  We are not getting our usual rain, but thankfully neither are we getting the super cell storms of Southern Queensland.  I think the ants are giving me a message though, the sugar is definitely back in a screw top jar instead of its open bowl, and we are inundated in our bathroom.  We had black cockatoos a week ago, but they have vanished this week - they are always supposed to be a sign of rain coming.  Bush lore is fascinating.
Christmas has caught up with me and I have realised all the stuff which I need to do with so little time left - it seemed like months away till this week!  At least I have bought most of the ingredients for my Christmas cakes and puddings, also the Christmas cards, but I haven't started to write any yet.  I also need to perforate 900 raffle tickets - after Bill has produced them - for our annual Christmas in the Gardens event at the Botanic Gardens in just over two weeks!  At least we are not going away this year so I don't need to worry about that.
Time to do some weeding - they are growing so big even I can see t hem
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1 comment:

  1. Heather24 November 2015 at 21:02

    It is always fascinating to hear about how different our gardens and weather are. We had flying ants under our boiler in the kitchen one summer. They had all emerged at the same time and I noticed them all over the window first, then turned round to see a growing black puddle of them on the floor! Luckily it hasn't happened again. Hope you get some rain soon - I'd send you some if I could! I can't begin to think about Christmas yet but have bought my cards. It'll all get done in time.

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