G’day everyone,
As the weather is starting to cool down and frosty mornings are making an appearance again, a lot of the summer blooming flowers are starting to finish. Autumn is the time of year I tend to enjoy getting a lot of the hard, back-breaking work done in the garden. With the cooler weather it makes it more pleasant to garden for longer. I have slowly been getting back into the garden and getting a few things done. I still have a few weeds to pull and plants that I want to start propagating in the next few weeks.
But here are the top 5 highlights from the past week in my garden.
1. This Camellia was cut back down to the stump last year, mainly due to disease and die back issues. I was taking photos in the immediate area and was excited to discover that it has started to re-shoot! It always amazes me when plants can bounce back from a dramatic prune or recover from diseases and infections.
2. These delicate clusters of coral-orange flowers belong to a plant called Senecio stapeliiformis, ‘The Candy Plant’. I bought this S. stapeliiformis approximately 12 months ago, not knowing what the flowers would look like. I purchased it because I fell in love with the two-toned stems and had to add it to my collection. I was surprised when I discovered the flowers for the first time earlier this week.
3. As the weather gets colder the roses will slowly finish blooming, and eventually drop their foliage for the winter season. But with a few warmer weeks left I hope to keep my roses flowering until May. I will be fertilising them again this weekend to help encourage more flowers and healthy growth. Usually, I start giving my rose bushes their winter prune around the third week of June.
4. Over the past week as I have been working in my garden, I have noticed a lot of the flowers that are currently in bloom are either orange or pink… The next orange beauty I have to share with you all is the flower from my Haemanthus coccineus! This beautiful plant is native to South Africa and flowers during February and April.
5. Vallota speciosa syn. Cyrtanthus elatus, Scarborough Lily, is a bulb that I received from a good friend from out of her garden. I have never grown this type of bulb before and was a little unsure of how to care for it. Whenever I come across a plant I am unfamiliar with I like to do as much research on it as I can. Luckily I haven’t killed it! But as you can see, it is thriving and has been continuously blooming for about 10 days.
By Bonnie-Marie Hibbs
©BMHPhotographyTheGardener’sNotebook2015
