This winter I had to move houses
and leave behind the slightly wild garden that I had.
Garden in the Old House
The joys of that winter
garden can be viewed with pictures at
‘Winter
in My Garden’. In that home the spring continued to have the nasturtiums, morning
glory, roses, daffs and snowdrops but brought in new flowers too like the
wisteria and jasmine. The perfume of those two is heady and pervades
everywhere. One evening I had forgotten to shut the back door and left just the
grill shut and the jasmine scent was in every room in the house. Here are some of the photos of my old garden in spring.
Wisteria in the back garden
Wisteria over the fence and neighbour's garage
Wisteria over the shed in the back garden
Jasmine in full bloom
Dog Rose Bush
Creeper Roses
Old Roses with very sweet perfume
Hardy Thistle that grew strong every year
Peruvian Lilies
Lavender starts to bloom
Gardenias
Paperbark tree flowering
Flowering Palm
Garden in the New House
My new home has a better established
garden and from what I gather was with one family for a few decades. Only
recently has it been put out to rent and had one previous tenant besides us. It
appears that they were not gardeners for most of the trees and bushes were not
pruned. There is affront and back garden. The front garden has palm trees, a
gum tree of sorts and an orange tree.
Front Garden
There is ornamental grass, bougainvillea
with orange flowers, a small rose plant that appeared when some of the
overgrown grass and weeds were pulled up and one or two other plants which have
yet to be identified. I am sure as flowers come out I shall be able to search
the net for its identity. These are all in front of veranda.
Ornamental Grass
Orange Tree
Last 2 oranges of last year's harvest
Orange Blossoms
The back garden is also large
with well-established trees – variety of palms, banksia and ferns. Some of them
I believe are old species – there seem to be a New Zealand Fern and a couple of
Staghorn ferns.
Back Garden
Fruiting Palms
From the neighbour's garden
Banskia and Palms
Cones new (above) and old (below)
Banksia Flowers
Sweet perfum in this yet unidentified flower
Stand alone fern (need to find its identity)
Staghorn Fern on an old tree in the back garden
Winter flowers stilll going strong
There is a well planted border running
along the drive that proved even more interesting. It started with some flowers
coming over from the neighbour’s side. Then there is a big bush of parrot
flowers and a long thick stem of a rose that had not been cut back. On cutting
down the old stems of parrot flowers we discovered that someone had tried to
kill of the rose. We chopped the stem right back and hoped it would revive
itself. I am glad to say that after a few weeks I have seen new leaves
sprouting from this near dead plant. Next there is a plant with tiny white
flowers and spiny leaves that has spread along the fence a little. A number of
spider flower trees planted along the border. In between there are a couple of
vines which also had not been pruned in a while.
Parrot Flowers and the Rose that got sever pruning after the photo was taken
Last year's final bunch of grapes
Emerging vine leaves
A hard prune works wonders
Spider Flowers
There is a bush that had few
leaves but many tight buds. We were not sure what to make of this one but the
buds uncurled into new leaves literally within a couple of days of spring. Then
new buds appeared and lovely purple flowers of all shades emerged. Now we could
look up the flowers on the net to identify the plant which is from the family
of nightshades.
Brunfelsia Australis - nightshade
Further along there is a lovely
cover of wild strawberries among the weeds and grasses. The strawberries are
deep red and lovely to look at but watery and tasteless. There are some weeds
with pretty little flowers as well.
First wild Strawberry
Nosiy Miners are full of beans
