Garden photos

Diane's new camera is certainly going to up the ante in garden posts. No hovering bee from me but this is my latest aquisition - another bromeliad.

Bromeliads are easy to look after and cope with a shady garden, this one only gets a bit of dappled sun for about an hour a day. They're expensive (this one was $30 though you can get them a bit cheaper at the markets) but they put out "pups" which can be cut off and planted so one plant generates an endless supply of babies.

Some have spectacular flowers, other just interesting foliage. This one has a combination of both - deep inside the middle pink bit is a weird flower. If you want to get them to flower you cover them in a plastic bag with a bit of apple. The decomposing apple gives off a gas (ethylene I think) which causes things to ripen. It works, I got some to flower by just putting cut apple pieces around the plant - and they'd never flowered in the past few years. So don't keep apples and bananas together unless you want to ripen bananas quickly.

The cause of all the shade imy garden - way too many massive old Terminalias and assorted palms. Terminalias are native, the billy goat plum is one. Mine aren't billy goat plums but the dog enjoys eating their hard little berries anyway. They don't seem to do him any harm and he's been munching on them for a few years now. No grass around for him to eat so maybe they're a substitute.

I have no worries about the ability of my house to withstand a cyclone - in nearly 30 years it would have seen a few. The trees however are another matter. Not many houses would withstand one of those beauties dropping on it!

This was my strobilanthes in it's heyday, it flourished for a couple of years and then just dropped dead literally overnight, both the one in the ground and the one in the pot. I'll have to get some more and try again.

Another weekend gone too quickly. I worked all yesterday, running a stall promoting sustainable fisheries at a community fair held by a rural school. I'll have to take some time off soon to make up for my short weekend (don't get overtime but can take time in lieu).