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 I am thrilled with the first of these flowering. There was a little thrip damage on the bottom flower ( so I pulled it off ) but still lovely. I have 6 of these green Gladioli dotted along a narrow bed against a retaining wall out the side of the house. Also there are other flowers in lemon, yellow, blue, white and orange.

 cosmos.

 I was weeding along this garden yesterday and things are really struggling with the dry even tho I have been watering them. I can't remember when we had any meaningful rain.

 Over our long anniversary weekend we did get to go to the Mt. Lioness's Used book sale.

 14 adult paperbacks ,4 kids books and a jigsaw for $27. ( that's not even the price of one new paperback.) Amazing value. There will be another Rotary book sale at Easter so this might last us till then.

Some Bright Spots in the Winter Garden..

This Cineraria is currently on one of the outside tables where I can see it out the window.

These Spider lilies are nearby. Bulbs saved from my childhood garden ( still with me. ) 

The Zygocactus is flowering. ( Christmas cactus in the Northern hemisphere. )

 Just to prove I have other colours. This new Vireya called  Just Peachy is happily flowering at the front gate.

 With so many Cherry trees we also have leaves....far too many leaves. I spent several hours cleaning them up from the corners and nooks and crannies.

 R mowed up the ones on the big lawns. Today was the first afternoon I felt warm enough to garden for about a week.

 During all the rain I picked these as they were getting trashed.

 Still don't know what rose it is for sure. 

It's Not Raining.

It's not raining today which makes a very pleasant change. July had rain most days and even more at night.

 The first sweet smelling  Freesias  are out.

 The lovely face of hellebores have to be lifted towards the camera, they naturally seem to hang their heads.

 Getting up close to ....

 Magnolia stellata King rose

 Which is from this photo.

 It is always the first of the magnolias out.

 Lots of sunshine to dry up all the mud would be good.

Growing Time.

Growing time. Growing( expanding) Time.  Both are applicable. I need more hours in the day but would be totally exhausted if it happened so maybe not such a smart notion.
    * Molly send your son over immediately, we'll put him to work.
   *Meg - I commented to Mary that obviously the pollen didn't get to her. "Nah," she said dragging on a smoke . So someone who does not  get affected by sissy things like allergies!!!!

I have been collecting macadamia nuts from under the trees and drying them on the trolley in the sun. The ones at the front have not yet split open their outer shell. They still have to be cracked after that.

I have been closely watching this cauliflower and marvelling at it's perfection and wrapping.

The first baby courgettes are sizing up. Yum! I can't wait to make fritters out of some.

I have pulled out going to seed parsley and missed radish to make room for more lettuce, 2 capsicums and a coriander. ( I don't much care for coriander but R likes it and the young ones coming soon do too.)

Yesterday morning I mowed all the lawns. Weeds and grasses were forming seed heads and the wind had left plenty of twigs and leaves for me to collect.The sight of freshly ( neatly ) mowed  lawns always makes me want to rush in for the camera to take photos while it's looking neat and tidy. So many things are flowering I can't keep up.

Filipendula is one of my favourites at the moment. So delicate, the leaves are fabulous too.

Usually I grow Iceland poppies ( Hello Gudrun )  but tried Shirley poppies this time. 

Meg the rose has a beautiful face too.
All these ladies in my garden!

This one is Sally.  While all the roses are beautiful I do have a problem with bronze beetles hiding in them and eating holes in the petals. You can see some evidence of it here at the bottom right corner. Some are so badly chewed they are totally destroyed. The only thing I can do is digitally squash them ( but they leap and drop to the ground). I dead head over a large bowl to try and catch as many as I can. We still have bees here so I can't spray with any insecticide. They overwinter under ground so are hard to get rid of.
 I started counting up how many flowers have people's names or is it the other way around, people have flowers' names. Many I know are named after the breeder or someone in their family. ( someone  wrote a book about "Ladies and Gentlemen in my Garden." I think I have it somewhere.