January/February in the Garden;

The best known-and perhaps most inspired-literary mushroom of all is the one nibbled by Alice in her Adventures in Wonderland. Eating from one side of the mushroom makes her grow larger, eating from the other side makes her shrink. It's possible that author Lewis Carroll knew of the properties of Fly Agaric. One effect of this hallucinogenic fungus is to make objects appear larger or smaller in the user's eye.

Macadamia Nuts

Macadamia is a genus of nine species of flowering plants in the family Proteaceae, with a disjunctive distribution native to eastern Australia (seven species), New Caledonia (one species M. neurophylla) and Sulawesi in Indonesia (one species, M. hildebrandii).

They are small to large evergreen trees growing to 2–12 m tall. The leaves are arranged in whorls of three to six, lanceolate to obovate or elliptical in shape, 6–30 cm long and 2–13 cm broad, with an entire or spiny-serrated margin. The flowers are produced in a long, slender, simple raceme 5–30 cm long, the individual flowers 10–15 mm long, white to pink or purple, with four tepals. The fruit is a very hard, woody, globose follicle with a pointed apex, containing one or two seeds.

The genus is named after John Macadam, a colleague of botanist Ferdinand von Mueller, who first described the genus. Common names include macadamia, macadamia nut, Queensland nut, bush nut, maroochi nut, queen of nuts and bauple nut; Indigenous Australian names include gyndl, jindilli, and boombera.

It can take 50-100 years for fungi to reduce a hardwood trunk to dust.

Pink Turmeric

Globba winitii, Zingiberaceae 

An unsettled summer's sky;

Miniature garden paraphernalia;

Beautiful patterns found on fungi growing on decaying wood.

I am always amazed and glad when I see the stags and elks attaching them selves freely  from seed to the bark of trees

Sweet Chestnuts; Castanea sativa;  the subtropics are not the optimum climate for Chestnuts.

Quisqualis indica also known as the Chinese honeysuckle, Rangoon Creeper, and Combretum indicum is a vine with red flower clusters and is found in in many other parts of the world either as a cultivated ornamental or run wild. The genus translates into Latin for What is that?.

Passionfruit, this is the yellow Hawaiian; it is absolutely delicious. 

Aechmea gamosepala 'Lucky Stripe' Bromeliad

The flowers of the native Alexandra Palm, Archontophoenix alexandrae; nectar and seed for birds and insects.

Pecan nuts growing.

My new play area, the old chicken yard. The chooks have received a new home on the other side of the garden, a sunnier spot and lots of grass and herbs to nibble on.

I have started to plant, it will take me a while to finish, at the moment it is hot and muggy which saps my energy. It is a mixture of sun and shade so I have quite a variety of plants I can use. A birdbath is also on the list. Perhaps a bench to have a rest and watch and look and see!

Believe it or not;

When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant. ~


© TS text and photos