Life and Colour

The change to the garden over the last few weeks is significant. From the drab dead look of winter, we now have abundant foliage and some very vibrant colour. Even overcast days have been unable to diminish the glow of some plants.

Some of the highlights of the garden are illustrated in these photos.


The first rose isn’t the most perfect specimen, but it’s encouraging to have the first flower. The rest of my roses are smothered in buds so we should get a good display. Hopefully they will last longer than last year when the majority of flowers disappeared after a few short weeks and were not replaced


I took a liking to the aquilegia the first time a saw them. It’s taken two years for mine to establish themselves, but now they are looking very healthy. At the moment we have three white plants flowering and this deep red one. The flowers are quite unusual. Another plant is on the verge of blooming and it seems it will have purple flowers. The flower stems on that one are also much thicker than on the red and white


The photo doesn’t do this lavender justice. It is practically luminescent. It was part of a “ruffles” range that was available a couple of years ago but I can’t remember what the colour was called. We had another called “Mulberry”, but that one did not do as well. A large grevillea rosmarinafolia decided to grow along side, making growing conditions a bit too difficult.


This is the first good year for this grevillea. I think it is a Poorinda Peter. We’ve had a few flowers over the last two years, but this time it’s covered in these attractive deep pink-red toothbush flowers.
Also looking promising is my prized Bulli Princess. At the moment it is covered in buds – so hopefully we’ll have no more severe frosts.
So far, since we planted it, we’ve had only one flower on the plant so I’m looking forward to seeing how prolific it will be this year.








Alongside the driveway we have this yellow and white combination. The display at its best only lasts for a few short weeks, but it always brightens up an otherwise colourless part of the garden






While the photography doesn't do justice to the plants I've tried to illustrate - they still show the marked difference between the garden now and that of only a month or two ago when everything was so drab and dead looking.