Silk Trees

Our silk trees (Albizzia julibrissin) have been making their usual autumn mess. Hubby spent yesterday afternoon sweeping the paving and cleaning the gutters, and the strong winds overnight brought a whole lot more leaves down.

Watch This Space

One of our crepe myrtles is looking good this year, it should be spectacular soon. Funny how the vibrancy of the pink varies though, not just in the photographs but in real life. Sometimes I glance out the window and think was it always so pale and other times I think yes, that's the amazing colour I remember from a few years ago.

I Wonder

I wonder why some crepe myrtles are already in full bloom and some, for example mine, are not? I wonder why some crepe myrtles, for example mine, take a holiday from flowering in some years? Hoping for more flowers this year though.

Lawn Substitute

During the drought we decided to reduce our lawn and in this area we have replaced it with a groundcover. This is a native plant called myoporum parvifolium or Creeping Boobialla. It is supposed to be very hardy, frost tolerant and suitable for xeriscaping. At first we had some trouble with individual plants and had to replace a couple but the space is filling in nicely this year.

Last summer.

It flowers too.

Yesterday.

Photinia

I thought it would be interesting, and maybe useful for others, to document the new growth of the photinias. This hedge is the variety called Superhedge.

23 July

31 July

10 August

21 August

29 August

2 September

14 September
the bright afternoon light is enhancing the colour

21 September

25 September

29 September

3 October

15 October

19 October
after hub did an unannounced pruning

26 October
there are some flowers developing though
not as many as if it hadn't been pruned

2 November

14 November

21 November

you can just see in the last two photos
the browned flowers on the right side

Chinese Pistachio

This photo taken on 11 May 2009 shows the 

typical autumn colour of our Chinese Pistachio.

And this is what it did this year.

19 April

21 April

1 May

5 May

10 May

16 May

24 May

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.