You lose some you win some...

I spent all day Saturday digging out all (hopefully) the roots of the invasive Lady Di Heleconia.  That area is now a bit bare, but I am sure it will all fill in soon enough.  I moved a couple of cordelines there that were not doing well in the shade and along with the crotons should create quite a colourful spot.  I cleared a path behind that area to go to the back of the garden as it sometimes gets a bit prickly going past the duranta.  I think the franzipani will do better now that it has more light and air.  Good, another job to tick off the list.  Behind the tree fern these heleconia are flowering.  Maybe they should be further out in the front as they are quite low and hidden.

they have great detail in their colouring.

My neighbour gave me a piece of her tassel fern......hers is in a hanging pot 

the last one I saw was in Delaware at Longwood Gardens.  I cant believe the tropical plants they grew there in the "ballroom", and I come home to discover one in my neighbours garden!

Hope mine does this well!

Winter native flowers in the tropics

The dry season is when a lot of native Australian plants come into their own.
My bouganvillea that I started from a slip is heavy with flowers

 I have a greyvillea that I planted at the beginning of the wet season in the front garden and it has just been sitting there doing not much for an awfully long time.  Greyvillea are one of the iconic Australian native plants, and mostly like the drier areas on Australia.  I figured if I planted this one alongside a fence where I rarely water, and it gets full sun it might be happy. In fact when some eggplant volunteered in the area, I let them stay since the greyvillea was just, well...
 there...
a grey plant against a grey fence.   It is a Sandra Gordon Greyvillea - supposedly suited to the tropics, flowers year round, or so the label said.

 Recently I noticed some little buds forming and now look what is happening....

Look at the details.... I can just see why these attract the little honeyeaters!

Isnt this just an amazing flower, with all those little yellow loops?

Veggie Garden Update

When I returned from my five weeks away the veggie garden was a little overgrown.  Cherry tomatoes everywhere, and as I carefully put in some stakes and tied branches back I discovered that the capsicum        plants had been buried underneath them.  Hopefully they will perk up now that they can come up for air.  I don't know why I have such trouble growing the large bulbous capsicums that you see in the store.  Oh yes I do!  They are capsicums on steroids or hormones or something!  My little organic ones are very tasty though!  Supermarket produce can give you such an unreal expectation of what your garden should produce.  Isn't that sad. they should be ashamed of themselves.
My lettuces have essentially lain over and gone to sleep..... on long leggy stalks.  Anyway I planted some seeds and we will see what comes up.  Snow peas, lettuce, radish, silverbeet, green beans, gemsquash, amaranth.  Our winter has been strange - a lot hotter than normal, and we have been getting quite regular rain. I would like a little touch of winter before it starts getting hot and humid again.....
The eggplant has been producing wonderfully while I was away and my hubby doesn't eat them, so the neighbours have been lucky.  No more flowers - I wonder, is that it?  Too late to plant more? I must do some research as I think they should grow pretty much year round here.  I do want to find a selection of veggies that produce well in this area. 
So far the best producers have been
Eggplant
Cherry tomatoes
Snow peas (if we get enough cold)
Asparagus
Snake Beans
Loofah
Bok Choy
Sweet Potato
This winter has been very strange with warmer temperatures, and much more rain than usual.   Whatever....... it is so good to be getting out there and getting some dirt under my fingernails once again. (Arent we gardeners strange!, and to think I had a manicure four weeks ago!)

Pineapple!

I was walking around the garden with a friend last evening and discovered that one of my pineaples is actually starting to fruit!  For years I have patiently cut the tops off pineapples and plopped them into the ground.  Occasionally I move them into another area, and so scattered around the garden are these pineapples, but I had sort of "forgotten" that one day they might bear fruit.  I did know that they take a couple of years, but dont really keep track.  Sometimes if one has been in the way I have just pulled it up and moved it or (heaven forbit) tossed it into the compost.

  I have no idea how long ago I planted this but isnt it simply marvellous that you can take the top off a pineppple, plop it into the ground and it will eventually give you another pipenapple?

mmm... yummy

Invasive Heleconia

Last weekend I began to thin out a few of the Lady Di Heleconia.  Now these have been my favourite heleconia by far, BUT the problem I now discover is that they are very invasive.  Sooooo.... I made the huge decision to rip them out - yes all of them.  So far I have just removed them from the front section. My hubby is very nervous as he loves the privacy they give, but  just one day of digging out roots made me convinced that the sooner I get rid of them the better.  We are going to have a bald spot for  a while, sorry Hubby!  

I cant afford to go out and buy some full size plants, so will have to start out with some more cuttings, but look how quickly the garden filled in before from nothing.
 I like the look of the purple flowers  and yellow leaves together alongside this area

and the red of the pointsettia in the winter, although I wonder if it some sort of diesease with the yellowing of its leaves.  Everything got a good long drink of seaweed tea on my return so hope that perks it up.

I like the look of having layers of different colours.  Right now I am heading towards pink and red together, which is not my favourite combination. 
I have just transplanted a row of ground orchids with pink flowers(because they keep volunteering, and they keep flowering, and they form a  nice edge, and I needed something right then and there!) so that is the first low layer.  Next I have crotons since they were there and are very colourful.  They haven't been doing so well being crowded out by the heleconia, but this is the season that they will take off.  Behind that I have the Plumeria which also doesn't seem to like being crowded, and one very large Cordeline, and another very sad looking one. then a big bushy burgundy leaved plant.  Since there are a lot of reddish plants I am thinking I need to add maybe some lime green to break it up and add some interest.  Probably between the ground orchids and the crotons.  Unless I find something to replace the ground orchids with that are more of a lime green colour.  That would be best I think.  There is a type of lariope that a lot of people have that might work.   I might go and visit a few friends and see if they have some volunteers to spare, trade them for ground orchids.....
So much to do, mostly just tidying up, and I must scrub the lime out of the bird bath, and..

cut back some overgrown bushes...  The passionfruit vine has died back at the beginning but the ends are still producing.

Oh I also have a couple of volunteer paw paw struggling at the back, but paw paws can always stay, even if they mess up my arrangement.  I notice quite a few here and there, so will see how they go.
Talking of paw paws, my paw paw tree in the vegetable garden is reaching for the sky,and I can no longer pick them using my little ladder.  Soooo... I am going to try to lop the top off, and cover the cut end with an upturned empty tin to keep out moisture.  This should make it branch out lower.  I am scared as I love paw paws and dont want to lose my best performing tree.  Has anyone done this before?  any tips?

Back home again, and big plans

It has been a week since I got home, but there have been so many things to do, and in fact I haven't wanted to take photos of my garden until things are just perfect.  Isn't that always the case?  I did do a tiny bit of gardening - I planted out a herb pot for my daughters windowsill and so far things are doing well there.
 I tried out my new camera overseas and will just tease you a  little with some photos of other flowers I looked at while away --- oh how sad, I said I would never do that!  Only my hard labour on this blog!  Just a tease though - we will call them guest flowers.

I found that while sitting in the swing with my dear hubby (who did such a great job of keeping everything alive and flourishing) I was already thinking about ripping out the heleconias and putting some sort of lower edging plant so that the crotons behind them can be seen.  Then the area next to the swing will have some work done on it at the beginning of the wet season.   Hopefully the Hippeastrums will flower and then I can move them soon afterwards, or give them away, as I have too many.  I want that area to be just rocks and bromeliads.  It is really my only area of full sun... so am I doing the right thing?  Will the sun be too intense for the bromeliads?  I think not - they seem to have brighter colours in full sun.
 No worries mate -
I am back in Australia and can pose all these questions on my blog!  It is like having a great big family of garden advisers and supporters.  I missed you guys!
 So my plan for the next couple of months is to fine tune the garden.  Now that everything has been there for a year I can see
1. what dies down in the dry season (quite a lot of  the gingers, the turmeric )  leaving empty spaces.
2. what has grown higher than I thought it would, or spread into a bigger area than I had anticipated. (my Lady Di Heleconias, for one!  the impatients for another) crowding out other plants - should they be moved or the other plants contained and cut back?
3. my passion fruit vine has died off, leaving the whole are looking awful.  where do I plant the next one so that as it dies it doesn't ruin the look of the rest of the garden?
4. my pigeon peas had flowers but never produced peas.  don't I have enough pollinators or what was the reason that they didn't produce?  I liked the way they grew in a  line and provided support for other climbing plants.  I also liked the shade that they provided, so will plant them again, but where?
5. everyone suggested growing eggplant in pots to prevent blight, and yet my plants in pots never did well, the other eggplant are producing nicely, why?

OK that is enough reflection for now, I have tied back the cherry tomatoes that are starting to produce well, and this weekend I hope to put in some vegetable seeds, Snow peas to climb the pigeon pea trellis..... it has cooled down a bit so the timing should be perfect.  Then another go at the gemsquash and some bok choy and lettuce as the others have gone to seed.   So back my fingers go into the dirt... aaah.