Currawongs

Aha, that's what's been making that atrocious squawking lately! Baby currawongs. Mummy bird was feeding one in the silk tree outside the window, and I noticed a second one hiding further up in the foliage. They still have some of their fluffy grey baby feathers. After a while they flew over to the bird bath for an ungainly splash around in the water which just made them look even more like they were having a bad hair day.

Unfortunately I have a few concerns about these latest arrivals in my garden. I have seen currawongs in the area before but they seemed to be somewhat seasonal, arriving in time for the appearance of berries on the nandinas. The resulting mess on the porch is not appreciated, and what's worse is they can spread seeds of exotic plants into nearby native bushland. I haven't noticed them breeding locally before. Apparently where their numbers increase populations of small birds decrease, and they also eat lizards. I had already been wondering if I should remove the nandina berries in order to discourage the currawongs and having now read an article about how troublesome they can be I have decided to do that. It won't affect these ones now as it's past berry season but hopefully in the future it will reduce the detrimental effect of currawongs on other local fauna.

In other news, we had a doozy of a thunderstorm, the lights were flickering all evening and the bathroom exhaust fan leaked again.

Rain

92mm overnight. Three and a half inches if my conversion is correct. The bathroom exhaust fan leaked again. It was a surprise to see sunshine this afternoon, though later on the weather turned indecisive, going rapidly from sunshine to drizzle to sunshine again with some sudden gusty winds as well. The temperature range was 13℃ to 23℃ (55℉ to 73℉).

Hebe Blue Gem

Since the Hebes are flowering at the moment I thought I'd do a post about one of them. 

Hebe Blue Gem is one of the old varieties, I think we've had them in each garden we've owned so that's going back a long time. We originally planted two here, the plain one and a variegated one which soon reverted to green. We removed that one because it was right beside the plain one so it looked like a half-hearted attempt to grow a formal row. The original plain one is now about two metres wide and over a metre tall (six and a half feet by about four  feet). I give it a light trim once in a while to keep it looking neat. The flowers are purplish blue and seem to vary with the light. Hebes are easy to grow from cuttings. In fact we now have a new plant accidentally propagated by layering. I found it while doing some pruning a few years ago. It had grown from a low branch that had become covered in mulch. When I saw how much of a root system it had developed I thought it was worth keeping and since I had an empty space elsewhere in that garden bed I transplanted it there. So here are some photos of the original hebe and one photo of the new one.

Butterfly

I did some googling and I believe the butterfly in my previous post is a female Orchard Swallowtail Butterfly (Papilio aegeus). The black one I've seen a few times recently which never seems to land long enough to photograph is probably a male.

Their favoured food source is apparently citrus trees. Years ago I found some caterpillars munching on our newly planted choisyas and my research at the time indicated citrus munchers also like choisya, which is also known as Mexican Orange Blossom. One of the plants had all its leaves eaten and I was willing to write it off as I didn't want to disturb the caterpillars but it grew back just fine. I guess this is what the little guys turn into!

Today's temperature range was 8℃ to 19℃ or 46℉ to 66℉ and it was cloudy and drizzly all day.

On The Way Home

Returning from visiting some Open Gardens I had a wander around our own garden before going inside. 

What a great coincidence, camera at the ready and cooperative wildlife.

He sat there for quite a while.

This hebe is looking lovely at the moment.

Hmm, so just how long do cucumber (?) seeds stay viable in the soil?

Speaking of seeds, how cute are these.

The gazania has produced a bunch more flowers.

As has the calibrachoa.

Did I mention I went shopping earlier in the week.

It was 32℃  90℉ after a warmish night and an early morning low of 12 ℃  53℉.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

Here's what's blooming now in my garden. I'll be checking out other GBBD gardens at  Seepferds Garten.

Calibrachoa

I bought this Million Bells years ago and was surprised how well it grew the first year and it even survived the winter quite well. After a few years it died right back but I didn't get around to emptying the pot and then it started growing again but with different coloured flowers.

Convolvulus

I pruned these back earlier in the year and just when I was starting to wonder if they were going to do anything they started to grow back and flower.

Convolvulus

This one was supposed to produce two different coloured flowers on the same plant but it turned out simply pale, perhaps someone switched some of the labels?

Dianella

This is one of the grey foliaged ones.

Gazania

I've been transplanting these around the garden for years.

Hebe

This is one of the old varieties that seem more reliable than the flamboyantly flowering ones the nurseries stock these days.

Helianthemum

This was an impulse buy last week.

Lamium

This is just starting to flower.

Lychnis

This has the most ridiculously wonderfully bright colour.

Rose

This was an impulse buy $2 tuber from the hardware store garden centre a few years ago, I'm still trying to decide where to put it.

Salvia

This salvia will stand out more when the lychnis finishes flowering.

Weigela

This has almost finished flowering.

In other news, I trimmed this liriope back a couple of weeks ago as it wasn't looking good after winter and it's coming up again nicely, but I think I might transplant it as it is spreading more than I would like for that space. None of my other liriopes have had such a tendency to spread.

I noticed some unusually coloured foliage on the Japanese maple, I wonder what caused it.

We replaced the hebes in the beds beside the patio, which were badly affected by extremes of temperature, with berberis. I like the contrasting purple foliage.

If you'd like to see some other gardens in Canberra check out my other blog for last weekend's  Open Garden visits.