Colour in my December summer garden

I love my December summer front garden. Every year it blooms glorious colours - 

red, yellow, pink, bluey mauve - and best of all these plants come back year after 

year with little maintenance. They bloom, I water and clip them back a little, 

and next summer they bloom again. Beautiful. 

So today I share some of them with you.  (My apologies for this post apearing strange 

on mobile phones. - I don't know how to fix it. Sorry)

Mauve-blue agapanthus, against the backdrop of the red coral bush, and along 

the bottom my wild hibiscus - an Australian native 

Pinks and mauves of the hydrangea - I must admit that the ones along the top 

row - the bluey mauve ones - are in my neighbour's garden

 

Roses, though they have finished their first glorious flush

The yellow Coreopsis daisy that is a wonderful border plant that comes 

back every year, frangipani, and the yellow rose bush

 

Last year a glorious new frangipani flowered in my garden - a cutting gifted to me 

by my friend - It looks like it has buds on it again - so fingers crossed. 

Native yellow and green kangaroo paws - the honey-eaters love these. 

The Australian native red bottle-brush

My Hoya is flowering in my shady patio garden

In my back garden we are picking apricots (a month early this year - looks like I 

will be making apricot jam later this week), the red and green grapes are looking 

fabulous along the side fence, and the tomatoes are coming on. We also quinces 

on our tree which will be ready in autumn. 

The apricot tree has bags all over it to firstly guard against fruit fly, and 

secondly to keep the birds off when the apricots are ready to pick. The parrots

love apricots too! 

Some of the native trees are blooming too. Everything seems early this year - 

you can see some of them on my previous post here - 

Trees are blooming for Christmas. Below are the candlestick banksia (they remind

me of giant Christmas candles), purple jacaranda (not an Australian native), 

the yellow Christmas tree, and the red flowering gum. So vibrant. 

Thank you so much for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to 

hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 

I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous 

contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!

   

Mosaic Monday @ Soul & Mind & So On

Saturdays Critters - Viewing Nature With Eileen

Travel Tuesday

Pictorial Tuesday 

ThroughMy Lens 
Image-in-ing
My corner of the world through my camera 
Wednesday Around the World at Communal Global hosted by Randomosity. 
       and Little bird - Pienilintu
Thankful Thursday 
Welcome to Nature Thursday

Skywatch Friday

Hello there! I love reading your comments. If you scroll down to the bottom you can comment too! I would love to hear from you.

Summer in my Garden

Hi everyone! Welcome to the first week of December! I don't know about you but I feel like the year has rushed by in a blur. I have been busy yes, but can it be December already? There is so much going on this time of year with school concerts, end of the school year, break-up parties for work places or groups that we belong to, Christmas shopping, Christmas festivities, get togethers with family and friends, perhaps preparing for a summer holiday (summer holidays here in Australia anyways). 

So amongst the rush towards the festive season, I thought I would bring you a few pics from my garden and share some quiet places with you. We need a quiet place to sit to prepare ourselves for the weeks ahead don't you think? 

I only have a relatively small suburban garden, but it always puts on a beautiful show in December, putting on its festive colours - yellows, reds, greens, purples -  though I must say the yellow daisies are flowering a little earlier than I would like. What a love about my front garden is that a lot of the plants here basically look after themselves, except for a little pruning and weeding from time to time. I don't like gardening in the heat of summer, so I am happy they are happy to do their own thing.

Hello 2017!

As so here we are 2017 already! amazing. I wonder what 2017 will bring.  

Before I start this post I want to share a little pic of what many Australians do on New Years Day - go to the beach of course! Yesterday we spent the day with our extended family at my sister's summer beach house.  How did you spend your New Years Day?

 
Do you make New Year resolutions? I'm not going to make any outlandish New Year resolutions. But I do hope to travel more, photograph more, write more, exercise more, eat more healthy, listen, be still, spend more time with family and friends, and be brave to put "myself out there". This last one probably means being brave to take new opportunities that come along which may test me and take me out of my comfort zone. It might also mean taking a risk and exposing myself to critique by entering a few photography competitions.

But for today I send a prayer for PEACE throughout our troubled world, and a prayer that people will be kinder and more tolerant of others despite their race, creed, abilities, looks, financial status.... whatever. We all have a story, and we don't know all of the story of those around us. As they say, we can't walk in the shoes of others. So please don't judge, don't try to push your beliefs onto others. Just try to be a good person, listen, be open, and try to understand. 

The last couple of days I've been playing around with what I hesitantly call "fine art photography". I know it isn't for everyone, and I know I have a long way to go. But I hope to experiment more with fine art photography in 2017. 

Please click here to see my slant on fine art...
 

Melting Moments & Hydrangeas in the garden

Do you sometimes have a day when you set out to do something, and then it ends of as something completely different? That's how my day was today.

Inspired by a recent photo I had seen of afternoon tea in a lavender garden I made a batch of Melting Moments from my Mum's recipe that I used to help her make when I was a child. It is a happy memory I have from my childhood, pressing the top of the biscuits with a fork to make the pattern.

While the biscuits were in the oven I set up the chairs and table in the garden. 
It's nice to use pretty cups sometimes don't you think?




Please click on "read more" to keep reading and seeing more

My first texture class

Well I have finally done it - I have taken the plunge and started a new artist direction.

With a huge thank you to Kim Klassen from Kim Klassen Cafe - I just completed my first lesson of my "Art of Texture e-course". Below is the result - it is a hydrangea from my garden.  What do you think?  I have wanted to learn about textures for so long - having seen the work of Kim and also other artists on Flickr.  Perhaps this will be my project for 2012. 

See here with textures added from Kim's textures - "beach sand" and "peacock" with painterly effect.

the original - straight out of camera..........

 I am joining Kim and other "texturists" for Texture Tuesday - please click on the link to see the work of Kim and other contributors - Texture Tuesday at Kim's Cafe

Thanks Kim! I am on my way!
ps - this took a while, but I was doing it step by step with the class video as I went. With luck as time goes by, with practice!, the process will speed up!

 I would be very interested which you like the best. You can be honest! My husband prefers the original!
Thanks all - I look forward to hearing from you.

I hope in 2012 you all dare to dream, start a new project, and enjoy the simple things in life that bring you happiness.