More gardening photos

I've been walking in the Gardens again and have a few more photos to show - not as many as I would like because my photography was not up to scratch with a lot of the photos - I am finding it harder to see well enough to focus properly - and my memory has gone walkabout!  I had completely forgotten about the compensatory button on my camera so some of my photos looked very washed out because of our extremely bright sunlight.  Never mind, I shall go back again and practise.

 This photo of the actephila is not very good, and the butterfly in the centre (you need to click to enlarge) is showing a washed out brown instead of blue! However I couldn't resist putting it up, there were hundreds of blue tiger butterflies flying around the tree and feeding on the nectar.  When we had our boat and used to go out to the islands about 20 km offshore, at this time of the year we would often run through even bigger swarms of them out on the ocean, either flying to the islands or from the islands.

 I have shown you these swamp orchids in past years, they are stunning.  I have some plants in my garden at home but although they look very healthy I can't make them grow large and flower - but I will keep trying.

 I certainly won't be trying to grow this striking heleconia in my garden - it is nearly 3 metres tall!

 I had a Petrea creeper many years ago, they used to be very fashionable when we were first married, but you rarely see them these days.  Ours did not like its position so we replanted with something else.

 I thought I had dug out all my hippeastrums to give away as they were in too much shade to flower.  Once we lost our tree a couple of years ago, these poked their heads up and are really putting on a show.

 I finally remembered about the compensation feature on my camera when I took this photo.  I have been watching carefully to see when the flowers come out (you can see the buds if you enlarge the photo) when today out popped these beautiful new leaves with the gorgeous deep pink colour - all this while being smothered by the belleparone which should be cut back, but haven't been!