I don't normally profile my non-vegetable garden in this blog but there is not much to pick at the moment and late winter in Sydney is a lovely time for flowers.
My orchids are flowering quite well, despite the flower buds on the orchid on the verandah being nibbled by an inquisitive baby lorikeet!
Most of my garden is planted with endemic natives - plants that are representative of the local area before European arrival. It's something I really wanted to do - a small effort in re-vegetating the city with it's original flora. The pay off has been incredible - plants that do well and that the local birds enjoy,visit and breed.
The arch at the entrance to the patch has a big Pandorea pandorana (Wonga wonga vine) in near full flower.
I love their little brown stripes inside the flower.
Here are some of the other things flowering beautifully right now.This is Ozothamnus diosmofolius.
It's an 'everlasting-type' daisy or paper daisy. The flowers are tiny and grouped in large heads together - a bit like carrot and parsley flowers in flattish domes. The buds are quite pink.
Here is a really small wattle. It really only gets to 2 meters high. I love its fluffy ball flowers. They are only slightly lemony yellow coloured.
It's called Acacia myrtifolia (red-stemmed wattle). It doesn't have that overpowering wattle flower smell which is quite good.
While it's called red-stemmed wattle, only it's older stems that are reddish.
One of my favourites in the garden is the Epacris longiflora.
It's long wiry stems with short spiky leaves contrast to its incredible long red and white flowers all held in a row along the branch.
Another favourite is the Red spider grevillia Grevillia speciosa. This is a real local Sydney grevillia, I have never seen it anywhere else. It's not a tall plant at all and the leaves are hard and grey-green.
The birds really like visiting these plants for their nectar.
Last but not least are the native violets that have well and truly naturalised across the garden floor.
They are Viola hederacea. This is their time of the year. In winter they die back a little and in summer there is too much sun for them in all but the most shady places. But right now is when the plants thicken up, grow furiously and start sending up their little flowers.
They grow especially well around the frog pond and I suspect the frogs like hiding under their leaves.
I could have shown you my banksias and the flowering that is about to go berserk on the Lomatia silaifolia or crinkle bush but that is enough for today.
