My indigenous garden — familiar but not quite the same

Australia has a lot of very unique plants. But we still have a fair range of those that would seem familar to overseas visitors.

Native forget-me-nots

Some that I have in my garden that occur locally are native forget-me-nots. Believe me the seeds are a thousand times more annoying and sticky than the common garden variety. It is also as tough as anything in a dry garden.

Pelargonium australe

Another family we have a few of in Australia is Pelargoniums. This one is currently flowering in my garden. It's Pelargonium australe Austral stork's bill.

I also have the outrageously bright pink Magenta Stork's Bill Pelargonium rodneyanum but it's not out at present. It is a small rockery plant that survived the 10 year drought here without any added water.

Native jasmine

I've also got the tiny little scrambling local grassland jasmine. It's flowering right now and has a sweet delicate scent rather than the absolutely overpowering heady scent of some jasmines.

Common everlastings

Some of the other things flowering now are the common everlastings.

Clustered everlastings

The clustered everlastings which are taller and have smaller flowers.

Scaevola aemula

Other locals that are well worth having is the Scaevolas (fanflowers). I've both the Scaevola albida and the Scaevola aemula in the garden. The Sceavola aemula is my favourite but the both flower for months in my unwatered indigenous area of the garden. They are also the easiest thing to strike from cuttings as well. I'd recommend this as they need replacing semi-regularly as they are inclined to be a bit shortlived.

Vegetables can have pretty flowers too

I haven't blogged for a while as I'd picked up some paid temporary work and life was just too busy. I'm finished now so I can get back to all the things I was running out of time for. Including getting ready to have 16 over for Christmas Day.

Naughty chickens on the lawn.

My dear husband built my permanent escape proof chook run for me. Did you know leghorns can scale 6 foot fences even with their wings clipped.

 I finally got my summer garden going a month later than I usually would.

scarlet runner beans

Lots of the vegetables and fruit we grow has quite colourful flowers if we look closely. I put these scarlet runner bean in, just for the flowers it is often too warm for them to set beans here. So they are sharing a frame with purple king beans (yet to flower) which are predictably productive here.

Pepino flowers

The pepino flowers are attractive and I find the plants themselves as tough as old boots and productive in dry conditions. They don't however like frosts much.

Purple tomatillo flowers

Another one from the tomato family purple tomatillo. I haven't tried this one before so I be interested how it goes. The flowers are a really bright yellow.

Chinese celery in flower

These aren't as pretty but are often covered in beneficial insects like ladybirds. 

This is Chinese celery. It is much hardier the normal supermarket stem one requiring less water by far. But it is still very useful to produce that celery flavour in soups and other cooked dishes or to slice a little very finely in a salad. It has the added bonus it self sows in my garden.

Black passionfruit

A couple of fruiting plants flowering in the garden at the moment. 

Black passionfruit, this one is a seedling plant on its own roots. The grafted Nelly Kelly's rootstock is a pain as it suckers a fair bit here.

Pomegranate

And a pomegranate this bush is just starting to flower now. So tough, with such bright flowers that they should be grown as ornamentals alone.

Tree onion

Not a flower but I still find them fascinating. Tree onions, these little ones can be replanted next year and produce pickling size onions with good flavour and a bit of a bite.

A couple of winter flowers

I love my scented flowers in the garden. This time of the years there aren't that many around in my garden as it is still winter and the garden is still quite bare.

Hyacinths

I'm a lazy gardener so bulbs don't get lifted very often here but some of them manage to survive the drought we had, neglect and still delight me every year like these jonquils and these sweetly fragrant hyacinths both of which I love. A spike or two of these is all I require in the house or the scent becomes overpowering.

My daughter thought the jonquils were cute and did a quick sketch of them while sitting out in the winters sun today.

Rosies Sketch

Jonquils

Winter's nearly over isn't it?

Broccoli

I know winter isn't over yet but the winter solstice has been and gone. So being an eternal optimist with my garden my thoughts are turning to spring. 

This is even though my winter vegetables are just starting to bear like this broccoli.

Is it too early to plant seeds for the spring? Of course it is experience tells me. But it doesn't stop me from poring over catalogues to think about what to buy. But no first I really need to go through my seed stash and remember what seeds I saved from the year before. I know I have a bucketload of Purple King climbing beans as they always do well here.

But I always like to try something new. What will it be this year? Last year I tried rat-tailed radishes that you eat the seed pods of. They grew well but the pods tasted of RADISHES which no-one in the family likes. So I didn't bother saving the seed and I won't bother growing them again. 

I'll probably buy through one of these to companies who I've used before Cornucopia seeds or Eden Seeds I'm thinking of trying tomatillos this year. Has anyone tried them?

I find this time of year in the garden I'm waiting impatiently. Will any more of my young fruit trees blossom and bear fruit for the first time this year. And even more importantly when will the "egg drought" be over.