These are the flowers we had in the garden in mid-spring 2021, taken mainly on 23 October 2021. They're not all overly pretty, but the purpose of the photos is to
record what was in the garden at the time.
Last year I was not very
happy with the condition of the garden, but this year it's much worse. I had concerns about
the Schinus molle, which I
thought was dying. It's not quite gone yet, but there's not much hope. Here in January
this year, last month and now:
A surprising amount of damage is to blame on Bryan Ross, the “horticulturalist”. Like Jim
Lannen before him, he left damage for me to discover gradually as time went on. I had
suggested putting nets round the Hibiscus rosa-sinensis and
the Corymbia ficifolia, but no, he said, there was no need. Here the result:
But that's a small problem. There's also the Polygonum odoratum (“Vietnamese
mint“ or Daun kesum):
He had cut an 80 cm high, thriving bush to the ground, and it's only starting to recover
now.
And then there are the long-suffering Clematis, which had finally started flowering again this time last year:
The first one had just recovered from having its support torn away, leaving it cut to the
ground. At least the other one was flowering. But that was last year. What we have now
from Bryan “cut it to the ground” Ross is:
The first photo shows new shoots, about 10 cm long. The other is all that's left of the
second Clematis. At least it has leaves.
The Alyogyne huegelii,
one of the most resilient plants I know, has survived Bryan and is still flowering. But
compared to last year it's a shadow of its former self:
About the only plant that is really doing well is the Banksia integrifolia that we
planted 5 years ago:
Arguably all the trees should be looking like that, but the only other one is a self-sown
Acacia melanoxylon (if that's really the name), which must now be 5 m high:
It makes clear what a failure the rest of the garden has been.
Indoors, our very last Buddleja x weyeriana chose this month to flower, though normally they only flower
between January and July:
I'd really like to plant it somewhere, but while they grew like fury in Kleins Road, they
never got very far at all here.
The Abutilon that we grew from
cuttings in January is also flowering happily:
I have a place where I'd like to plant it, but after seeing what happened to our Curry tree in the last month, I think
I'll postpone a little:
The tree will survive, but it doesn't do much good to subject it to that kind of treatment.
And the Spathiphyllum in
the bath now clearly has 7 flowers, even if they're not all very pretty:
That's still the most I have ever had.
Here are the rest: