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Friday 25 February 2011

SkyWatch Friday; Sky and Earth;



   Stony Desert;

Sturt Stony Desert (previously Sturt's Stony Desert) is an area in the north-east of South Australia, named by Charles Sturt in 1844, whilst trying to reach the exact centre of Australia.
The stones caused his horses to limp and wore down the hooves of the cattle and sheep which Sturt had taken on the expedition.
The larger Simpson Desert is located to the west and the Strzelecki Desert is to the south east. To the south west of Sturt Stony Desert is the Tirari Desert. The Birdsville Track is a route between Marree in South Australia and Birdsville in Queensland. The desert is part of the Tirari-Sturt stony desert ecoregion.

Photo TS


   

Monday 21 February 2011

A different Garden; Jacek Yerka;



Jacek Yerka; Surrealismo fantasia;

Life and work

Jacek Yerka was born in Torun, Poland, in 1952 - where he later studied fine art and graphic design. According to Yerka, he was pressured by his university instructors to eschew detail and realism in favor of the fashion of the times - but did not relent, adhering to the meticulous classic Flemish technique that still typifies his work. In time they came to see him as a brilliant - though troubled - talent. Yerka graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, specializing in printmaking. He began working full time as an artist in 1980.
Yerka cites Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel, Cagliostro, Jan van Eyck, and Hugo van der Goes as formative influencers of his work. His subject matter ranges from odd beasts to whimsical landscapes incorporating extraordinary architecture, and include imagery gleamed from his childhood, such as his grandmothers kitchen. Says Yerka, "For me, the 1950s were a kind of Golden Age ... If I were, for instance, to paint a computer, it would definitely have a pre-war aesthetic to it."
Work typically progresses from a graphite sketch, to crayon drawing, then a pastel com, and finally an acrylic painting.


I love his fantastic surrealistic paintings. 





Monday 14 February 2011

Angel's-Trumpets;




I grow this white flowered Brugmansia and....





Brugmansia hybrid
 Angels' trumpets

Brugmansia is named after Sebald Justin Brugmans 1763-1819. The genus Brugmansia belongs to the nightshade, Solanaceae family which includes tomatoes, potatoes, tobacco, many kinds of peppers, eggplant, and also includes Datura, petunia, nicotiana, solanum, physalis (Chinese lantern) and other ornamentals. Brugmansia is native to South America, particularly the Andes, where they grow on sloping terrain under damp conditions.

These striking plants produce flowers that perfume the night air with their exotic fragrance. All parts of Brugmansia are toxic when ingested,  Toxic Principles of the plant are: Atropine, scopolamine, and hyoscyamine.






this beautiful yellow. I have also planted an orange flowered one but it has not yet flowered.



Brugmansia is a genus of seven species of flowering plants in the family Solanaceae, native to subtropical regions of South America, along the Andes from Colombia to northern Chile, and also in southeastern Brazil. They are known as Angel's Trumpets, sharing that name with the closely related genus Datura. Brugmansiaare long-lived, woody trees or bushes, with pendulous, not erect, flowers, that have no spines on their fruit.Datura species are herbaceous bushes with erect (not pendulous) flowers, and most have spines on their fruit.
Courtesy Wikipedia




Believe it or not:
Whether you tend a garden or not, you are the gardener of your own being,
the seed of your destiny.

All Photos from my Garden TS

Thursday 3 February 2011

In the native plants realm;


Rhodamnia rubescens;  Scrub Turpentine;  flowers in spring, generally heavy flowering, very fragrant with a beautiful perfume. The next trees show the abundance of flowers covering the whole tree.



 Melaleuca quinquenervia bark showing the papery exfoliation from which the common name "paperbark" derives.

 Grevillia Robyn Gordon;


 Grevillia; I am not sure of its name; I grow moonlight which is a much lighter yellow and also "Lyrebird" which is a more prostrate looking shrub.


 Love the cats whiskers, Orthosiphon aristatus; they can be grown from cuttings, appreciate to get a haircut from time to time and show their striking, soft purple flowers over the summer month.



The orchid like flowers of Bauhinia alba. It flowers in spring.



 

Birds enjoy the red seed berries of the Bangalow palm.


Climber Hibbertia scandens winds its way through a bottlebrush;

Se


Acacia fimbriata  seedpods;   


Believe it or not:

"One can never know for sure what a deserted area looks like" 
George Carlin