Native ferns are tough, when the conditions are right they pop up with wonderful
patterns and such fresh green colour. I love the structure of ferns, their intricate shape of leaves, to me, they are very attractive plants.
When Paperbarks are in flower, the trees transform to a wonderful world of nourishment and enjoyment for Insects and birds alike.
Kangaroo Paws, the heavy clay soil in my bush garden has never been absolutely kind to these fine plants. This one has survived somehow. When the soil dries out or it drips wetness, I go with trepidation to look for them, are they still alive.
Casuarinas, different species, are also my favourites, as everything about them is attractive. They are furnished with needle-like leaves, Quivering with crystalline drops after rain, swishing lightly to and fro, Wonderful in flower with fox coloured endings. Very attractive cork-like bark.
No bush garden without wattles.
Murraya, the perfumers of the bush garden.
Flower of Grevillea Lyrebird.
Melastoma, a relative to the well known Tibouchina.
Grevillia Sandra Gordon does not mind clay soil.
Favourites are all sorts of fungi growing on decaying wood.
Fine, new pink leaves on Syzygium luehmannii; Lillipilly.
Erithryna crista gally is not a native tree, but it is the best host for fern spores to establish themselves and grow on to beautiful plants.
This tree is full of different ferns. When a draught strikes they will not grow, but hold on to the bark and wait until rain-fall arrives again. The way of nature.
Melaleuca, I am always amazed at the abundance of flowers.
THE COLOURS OF LIGHT
This is not easy to understand
For you that come from a distant land
Where all the COLOURS are low in pitch -
Deep purples, emeralds deep and rich,
Where autumn's flaming and summer's green -
Here is a beauty you have not seen.
All is pitched in a higher key,
Lilac, topaz, and ivory,
Palest jade-green and pale clear blue
Like aquamarines that the sun shines through,
Golds and silvers, we have at will -
Silver and gold on each plain and hill,
Silver-green of the myall leaves,
Tawny gold of the garnered sheaves,
Silver rivers that silent slide,
Golden sands by the water-side,
Golden wattle, and golden broom,
Silver stars of the rosewood bloom;
Amber sunshine, and smoke-blue shade:
Opal colours that glow and fade;
On the gold of the upland grass
Blue cloud-shadows that swiftly pass;
Wood-smoke blown in an azure mist;
Hills of tenuous amethyst. . .
Oft the colours are pitched so high
The deepest note is the cobalt sky;
We have to wait till the sunset comes
For shades that feel like the beat of drums -
Or like organ notes in their rise and fall -
Purple and orange and cardinal,
Or the peacock-green that turns soft and slow
To peacock-blue as the great stars show . . .
Sugar-gum boles flushed to peach-blow pink;
Blue-gums, tall at the clearing's brink;
Ivory pillars, their smooth fine slope
Dappled with delicate heliotrope;
Grey of the twisted mulga-roots;
Golden-bronze of the budding shoots;
Tints of the lichens that cling and spread,
Nile-green, primrose, and palest red . . .
Sheen of the bronze-wing; blue of the crane;Fawn and pearl of the lyrebird's train;
Cream of the plover; grey of the dove -
These are the hues of the land I love.
Dorothea MacKellar
Believe it or not;
the garden has many voices just listen to it.
©Photos/Text Ts Lavender & Vanilla
