My Garden – Page 6 – A Bellingen Diary

My first Heliconia …

Published on May 25, 2016May 25, 2016 by FJBLeave a comment

Anyone who lives in the tropics will think this event is quite ho-hum, but for me it’s quite exciting. For the past three weeks I’ve been watching the development of my very first sub-tropical heliconia flower.

I had begun to give up hope of mine ever flowering, but finally here it is, helped no doubt by the unusually long warm autumn we are having.

Resident insect — Resident Helicona insect

Last night the temperature dropped to 6C, so I don’t like my chances of seeing the remaining heliconias open, but I’m very happy with my very first flower.

And there are some other sub-tropical plants blooming at the moment – the Cat’s Whiskers, Brazilian Cloak, Champagne Ginger and the ever crazy Costa Rican Butterfly vine. Not bad considering Winter officially starts in only six days!

Crazy Costa Ricans

Champagne Ginger

Cat’s Whiskers

Costa Rican Butterfly vine flowers

Brazilian Cloak flower

Badly behaving bamboo …

Published on May 6, 2016 by FJB4 Comments

Even the best behaved bamboo can get a bit out of control if you turn your back on it.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a “before” photo, so when I say that this is a Slender Weaver’s Bamboo after I cut down 56 monstrous canes ( yes, I counted) you’ll get an idea of just how enthusiastically it was growing.

Most of them were pruned with my trusty Fiskars loppers (the Finns certainly know how to make strong, quality cutting tools) but some of the internal canes were so compacted that I had to attack them with an electric grinder! This left the base looking somewhat unattractive.

I’ve mentioned before that I have become rather fond of bromeliads, and here’s another reason why …

Looking better with bromeliads

Happy Buddha ?

View from balcony

All I had to do was chop some bromeliads out of an overgrown clump and rescue a rather dejected looking Buddha from under a tree, and voila, no more ugly stumps.

Nothing to fight over …

Published on March 27, 2016March 28, 2016 by FJB2 Comments

It’s unusually peaceful under the mango tree. The Mango War, which generally erupts around this time of the year has been called off due to a shortage of fruit.

The season started promisingly. After good Spring rains the tree produced loads of flowers, but they disappeared almost overnight due to who knows what. Perhaps to lack of follow up rain, or wind, or fungus or even Mango Beetles. Which, by the way, I thought were beneficial insects until I finally identified them!

My superior camera skills enabled me to capture the entire mango crop in one frame.

This year, protecting the crop was easy, instead of netting I used a zippered lingerie bag.

There was just enough fruit to freeze one container of pulp and to make a delicious Green Mango salad. And that was it – mango season over !

Now I am pinning all my hopes on the Kwai Muk, which is related to Jackfruit and Breadfruit. It has a lovely sweet-tangy taste with a hint of sherbet. The tree is fruiting for the first time and there aren’t many fruits, so I’m hoping that the Bower Birds haven’t noticed them. Hope is important after all …

The biggest Kwai Muk – I can hardly wait

Immature Kwai Muk

Ripe Kwai Muk

My weed meadow …

Published on February 13, 2016April 27, 2016 by FJB2 Comments

At the side of the house I have a small sloping area of lawn. And I use the word “lawn” loosely. From a distance it passes for lawn, but close up it reveals itself to be just mown weeds. It was after a mowing session on a particularly hot and steamy day that I came up with the idea of turning it into a meadow.

I’ve long been envious of the wildflower meadows you see in England, and always assumed that the idea wouldn’t work in Australia. But what the heck – give it a go – and if it doesn’t work I can always go back to mowing the weeds again.

Weed Lawn

Weed Meadow Stage 1

The first things to grow were the usual suspects … dandelion, plantain, farmer’s friend and some pretty ageratum – which needs to be removed as it features on the very first page of the local weed handbook.

Dandelion with European Bee

Plantain

Farmers Friend flowers

Farmers Friend seeds

Ageratum

Next to arrive were some Weeds of National Significance and Noxious Weeds – white blackberry, camphor laurel, seratro and lantana. They had to go immediately.

Our weed handbook

White Blackberry

Siratro vine

Camphor Laurel

Lantana bud

Then I noticed some more interesting weeds, white clover, oxalis, mock strawberry, fleabane, Verbena boniarensis and something that looks like hemlock but could be wild carrot.

Verbena boniarensis

White Clover

Wild Strawberry

Oxalis

Fleabane

Hemlock or not?

Thankfully some natives also popped up – kidney weed (dichondra), Glycene microphilla, Native geranium, Commelina and Slender sedge.

Slender sedge

Kidney weed

Native geranium

Glycene microphilla

Commelina

Plus quite a few luxuriously fragrant Lemon Scented eucalyptus saplings, which have to be pulled out due to the fact that they can grow to 35 metres and I already have one !

Lemon Scented Eucalyptus sapling

Mature Lemon Scented Eucalyptus

I’ve really only scratched the surface, and there are many more plants in the understorey to be identified together with a few insects. It will be interesting to see what develops over the coming months …

Reflective ladybird

Lemon fungus

Unknown bug

Brown Bug

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