GTS

The weather has been really weird here,it was very cool this morning and now has warmed up to the point I will off to the pool with the kids later this afternoon!!!
Anyway for today I am featuring some Australian Christmas trees...

The Western Australian Christmas Tree, Nuytsia florbunda, a parasitic tree that is a obligate root hemiparasite that also gained water and nutrients from grasses and plants around it! Sounds very much like a Quandong tree!

The NSW Christmas Tree,Ceratopetalum gummiferrum, a pretty 5m high by 1.5m wide tree that starts with white flowers that are followed by redish pink calyces much in the same fashion as a hop bush.

The Victoria Christmas tree is the Prothanthera lasianthos, a white to mauve flowering shrub to tree , 10m high to 2m wide.

The Queensland version is a gorgeous orchid, Calanthe triplicata,that has 90cm long leaves and showy white flowers held on a 150cm spike.I would to love see it in flower,it sounds gorgeous.

The South Austalian Christmas Tree ,Bursaria spinosa thar is a horny shrub with masses of flowers growing up to 3m high.I wonder if it has a perfume as well!

And there is always the Christmas bells....Blandfordia nobilis, it has 50cm grass like leaves and the flowers are held are also the same height as the leaves.It is a NSW plant flowering mostly in summer.

All photos were taken by Murray Fagg, Denise Greig, and F Humphreys.I found a very good source of native plant information was in Murray Fagg and John Wigleys 'Australian Native Plants'.

The last time I was in the local book shop it was on sale for $50 and I couldn't spare anymore with Christmas shopping nearly done.As this book was around $100 normally,even with heavy hints DH wouldnt get it so I will keep an eye out in the furture!!! I do have an old version but the new one was updated at least from the brief look I had.....

Well I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a prosperous and green New Year for all and may it rain often in the drought ravaged areas in the Eastern States of Australia,

Cheers.....

GTS

GTS
A bit late but at least I got it here!!!
Echinecea, a small plant that has finally flowered and is sending a few buds up too.I was thrilled to see it survive the ravages of slugs and even kangaroos climbing into the rock gardens to taste a rare bite!





This is a Zepherantes that was planted at the same time,I prefer the pink ones but I've found them hard to find in the nurseries.These were crammed into the pots so it was a bargain as I was able to split them into three reasonable clumps! I think the odd thunderstorm has helped the flowering alon as they are known as rain flowers!













And these I couldn't resist showing as the colours are gorgeous(guess what my fav garden colour is?) The remnants of the spring flowers are there but they need a spray for mites which i will
be doing this week early and a prune back may get another flower or two!














And a close up for luck...............

GTS

GTS

Plumbago

Simply Summer

Simply Gorgeous

GTS

I have been too busy to add any photos for a while so am putting a little in today!

This is the famous and my favourite Robyn Gordon Grevillea that has just taken off this summer.It was small shrub last year that only grew to a flower then was pruned back but this year even when I take off the flowers it will still be 50cm taller than last year!

A veiw from a distance! I think I will leave some height but somewhere around this as it can cause alergic reactions with some asthmatics with some people so I intend keeping inside the rails! These particular shrubs I intend to plant in my developing front yard after Christmas as they are hardy,pretty and being fairily drought hardy so excellant for this area. These photos by the way are my school photos where I am Head gardener at moment as with all Government red tape I have to apply to keep the position and I find out if I remain as this week some time.

Had to put another one in,isn't the colour gorgeous!Perhaps there should be something to compare the size of flowers but they are are around the length of my hands for those who haven't seen them before!

Here is the rose bed that was in a previous entry,it has proved very successful and these with stood 42' heat and in that position was closer to 45' but i am happy to say they didn't droop too much considering that the roots were quite small and haven't had that much time to grow significantly.At the moment there are heaps of buds that will come out during the Christmas break and I will give them a light trim before schools back to see if I can coach some flowers for the office as there wille a lot of new staff this year coming!

Take a look at the St Barbaras daisy ,the Magic Grow Fert has been applied here too and its thriving!

This is the Angel Face rose and although its not a good one of this particular bush but you can see the flower colour,which I caused some confusion before as I only had a red rose flowering at the time and it seemed I was refering to it as Angel Face.I have been waiting for it to put another one out and as its been hot it was not as full as normal.

I intend to put some of my own garden in next week as I have startd on the front with new plants in a red desert and laid retic,the back yard is green but full of weeds as I have had no time to scratch this last month due to job commitment etc.See you all next Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!