Mystery Succulent Flower

I love a good mystery - don't you?

This little potted succulent was a leftover from the previous owner of the house. It's a little battler - it withers and shrinks and then comes back again, and has flowered each year with this bulbous purple lone flower.

To be honest it kind of freaks me out - once upon a time I worked on film about flesh eating vines, and they had waxy flowers that lured people to their death...(yah not exactly an award winner)... and I think it reminds me of them...

It also kind of reminds me of a banana flower - this one's on our tiny banana tree near the chicken coop - here's hoping that the bananas get a little bigger.

Anyway - my google searches haven't come up with anything - so if you know what my mystery succulent is please let me know!

Impatience and Hydrangeas

I cheated. I bought the worlds biggest hydrangea bush on the weekend. 

I've been watering and caring for my little mail order seedlings all autumn and they've barely grown. And my two transplants from last year are not doing so great either. So when I spotted this gigantic beauty in the nursery at Capalaba Produce where I was meant to be fetching chicken feed - I gave in to all notions of being patient and just bit the bullet and bought it.

And I knew exactly where to put it - this ratty looking garden bed gets morning sun and afternoon shade which suits hydrangeas perfectly.

Mr Tchotchke loves lending a hand in the garden

Wa - lah! Who doesn't love a before and after shot? I topped up the bed with lots of organic sugarcane mulch to help it retain moisture.

It's so fluffy! I'm sorely tempted to lop off a few blooms to bring inside. I think I'll give it a few days to settle in.

At first I felt a bit guilty for giving in to temptation and not sticking it out with my seedlings - plus it was the single most expensive plant I've ever purchased. But I figured it could be an early Christmas pressie to myself - and it was just as much as a few bunches of flowers and would provide me with far more enjoyment. Let's hope I can keep it alive until next year!

I Want a Tasmanian Garden

I haven't dropped off the face of the earth - I've just been to Tasmania. But its okay - they have abundant gardens, gobsmacking galleries and bunnies-a-plenty (but more on that later).

This amazing creeping rose was at the Governors House in Hobart. We jumped a fence looking to get to the botanical gardens and realised later they were private grounds. Whoops - sorry gov.

This is from a front yard in Richmond. Not sure what the flower is - like a hydrangea but half the size?

Here are a few pics from my travels.

These amazing houses are in Battery Point

Would you believe these gardens are at the Cascade Brewery? Beer and gardens together at last.

Beautiful blooms aside - it's good to be home.

Perfect Petals

After the flower failure in my last post it's nice to have some more successful blooms to display. (Although I've decided that roses must be like pancakes - the first one is always a dud).

The below gerbera was a gift last year that I repotted into the below teacup saucer-pot. It promptly shrivelled up and died, and got taken over by various weeds. I'd like to think it was some innate inner gardening know-how that guided me to nurse it back to life - but I simply left it to its own devices over the past few months - and shazam! Up popped these two lovelies.

In other garden news these amaryllis (spent a while googling red trumpet flower bulb to figure out what they were called) have sprung up again - they were quite the surprise last year.

Are you noticing a trend? Why is it all the neglected plants seem to flower beautifully and the ones I dote on behave like spoilt brats?

Hey Jude (The Obscure) Why So Glum?

My new David Austin rose (and first attempt into the world of rose growing) - the curiously named Jude the Obscure -  has been going well so far -  progressing from a depressing bare rooted stick to a lovely leafy bush much faster than I expected (8 weeks!)

It's even popped out a promising bud, which has grown into a tennis ball sized bloom that I've been excitedly monitoring each day. I took this photo this morning.

So when I arrived home this afternoon - a mere 10 hours later - to find the lovely bloom looking like this....

... I was a little disheartened. It was pretty warm today so I'm hoping that it was just having a little sulk. I gave it a good drink this afternoon so fingers crossed she comes good tomorrow.

Going Bananas for Spring

Look at what I spotted peeking out from under a banana leaf on the weekend..

Finally a banana flower! It's been about 20 months since we feasted on our last lot of bananas - that tree has since come down and this is the sucker that's popped up to take it's place. It's pretty slow progress - at this rate I won't be profiting from the high banana prices any time soon..

These are some other flowers I'm excited to see - it's the solanum potato vine that we've grown over the chicken run. It's been a vigorous grower and has done a good job covering the ugly steel mesh in a relatively short time, but it's never flowered! I've always wondered what it's lacking and why it wasn't flowering - I guess it was just biding it's time and maybe waiting for spring.

Perfect Poppies

Our freebie Ekka Lindemans hanging baskets have surprised me with these gorgeous poppy blooms. 

 

The second hot pink one reminds me a little of this poppy print I've always loved from Marimekko.

via Pinterest

I think this is an "inspired by" print but it works fantastically on this upholstered bedhead.

via Pinterest

 Although my first point of reference will always be the field of poppies from The Wizard of Oz.

via Pinterest

However I think I'll have to grow quite a few more poppies before I can blame my sleep-ins on them..

Garden Update: Winter Lemon Buds

My citrus "orchard" has been decidedly lacklustre since this photo back in March.  

The dwarf Meyer lemon has made a few attempts since then at popping out a flower - but I kept removing it since I thought the plant's energy would be best spent growing sturdier instead of trying to make a lemon. Eventually I decided to let nature take its course and look at it now..

It's covered in little buds! There are far too many for the little tree to bear but I'm tempted to leave it alone and see what happens.

My First Foray with Roses Begins

So I've taken the plunge and ordered some roses!

image via Rose Notes

I've put in an order for three Brindabella Bouquet's to make a little rose border along the end of the veggie garden, and one David Austen - Jude the Obscure to pop in the front garden bed. The Jude the Obscure are the lovely peachy ones in the above arrangement.

I chose the Brindabella's because apparently they're more suited to Brisbane conditions and are resistant to blackspot. I've never grown any rose bushes before so figured I'd try and make it as easy as possible for myself - when I was growing up my Mum had a lovely rose garden but I remember them being a lot of work.

And since I was already paying for shipping I couldn't resist throwing some hydrangeas into the order too - one Hydrangea Goliath and one Hydrangea Le Cygne.

I don't expect to have as many gorgeous blooms as the above bouquet - but if they could each pop out a few blossoms come spring I'll be a happy girl...

Hydrangea Blues

I've got the hydrangea blues.

via Martha Stewart

Look how gorgeous Martha's hydrangeas are. I'm jealous. I desperately wanted hydrangeas for my wedding last year, and even went and bought my own plants - determined to grow my own flowers when florists all over Brisbane were adamant the blooms wouldn't be available.

Neither plant did too well - I mistakenly put them both in full shade. Both are still hanging in there so we'll see what happens this coming summer. In the meantime - look at what I spotted in the Garden Express catalogue in this month's Gardening Australia...

Winter Camellias

I'm not a big fan of cold weather - but one thing to look forward to in winter are my beautiful camellias.

I captured the first one here but now I've got a whole bush with enough to snip and bring inside.

Last year I cut a few branches and tried my hand (unsuccessfully) at propagating them - seeing these blooms makes me want to try again.

Collecting Flowers

We babysat a friend of ours last weekend and she busied herself picking lots of flowers from our garden - look at her collection!

Northern Hemisphere Peonies Blooming

It looks likes peonies are in bloom in the Northern Hemisphere - there have been a lot of of gorgeous pics being posted by bloggers over the past few days so here are some of my favourites.

via Vanessa & Valentine

via My Paper Crane

via My Ish Wish Dish

via Air Kiss

via Northern Light

via Stephmodo

Peonies are a lot harder to come by here in Queensland - I desperately wanted some for my wedding in October last year and was hoping to order them from either here or here but I was about two weeks too early unfortunately. Its one of the downsides of having such lovely warm weather!

Autumn Flowers and the First Camellia

Our camellia bush has been covered in buds so I was so excited to to come across this first bloom today.

This rogue purple orchid has popped up between a tree and some undergrowth.

I think this is another type of orchid - the colour is so vivid an lovely down the side of of house.

And a sure sign that it's getting colder - our poinsettias are blooming! We've got two huge bushes of them but this was the only head low enough for me to photograph.

Happy Mother's Day

I hope all the Mums out there have a wonderful Mother's Day today!

Rose Gardens at New Farm Park

 Here are a few snaps from the rose gardens at New Farm park this weekend.

My mum has always had gorgeous roses in her front yard but it's a project that I haven't tackled yet.

They seem to be pretty high maintenance - and to be honest I don't really love the look of the thorny bushes - but it would be so nice to be able to have your own cut roses to display.

Tango Bougainvilleas by Night

A quick snap of one of the bougainvilleas we bought at the Gardening Australia Expo on the weekend.

They look quite dramatic at night, no? I hope they do well enough to cover our fence - the flowers really pop.

Gardening Australia Expo

I was tickled pink here on Friday when my new copy of Gardening Australia arrived in the post - so of course I wasn't letting the weekend slide by without a visit to the Gardening Australia Expo at the Brisbane Convention Centre.

I dragged Mr Tchotchke along - and when he wasn't being accosted by shoe shine demonstrators or distracted by food stalls I think he enjoyed himself too.

I bought two bougainvilleas from this stall to plant alongside our side fence.

We caught up with Ingrid at the City Chicks stand.

I couldn't believe how placid this silky was! And can you believe she's wearing a chook nappy?

Another stall was selling these gorgeous hyacinths.

And I couldn't resist taking a photo of these ridiculous plastic garden sculptures - Mr Tchotchke warned me here that it's a slippery slope from a plastic owl to a plastic tiger. Can you see the velociraptor in the background?