Where will I go? What will I see?
What will I discover? Uncover? Recover?
A cosmic law in a daisy. My awareness shifts. I AM happy. ~Ally.
One of the challenges that really caught my attention when I returned to Steemit was
Wednesday Walk initiated by @tattoodjay.
One of the reasons why I gravitated to Wednesday Walk is that it encourages us to visit our favourite places or share our neighbourhood or route to work ~ But to see our surroundings in a completely new way.
There are so many beautiful, and some not so beautiful spaces and places around Sydney that I'd love to explore and share with you and participating in Wednesday Walk is sure to provide the perfect inspiration to venture out, at least once a week to capture the spirit of wherever I feel guided to go.
I live in the Sydney suburb of Roseville, which true to her name is home to many wonderful rose gardens. It's Spring in Sydney and the roses are just starting to bloom and so it will be my pleasure to show you some of these gardens.
But for now, I'd like to show you the plants and flowers that are absolutely thriving in my own front garden, after deluges of rain for the last few weeks, after an extremely dry winter.
Maybe the lack of rain over winter and then the sudden heat wave provided the perfect storm for our Wisteria to open so abundantly?
Going a different way to QiGong this morning, my attention was drawn to a row of massive Red Bottlebrush trees on the nature strip. A topic for another Wednesday Walk perhaps?
For now, this is the VERY first Red Bottlebrush flower on my own 'Would-be-one-day Red Bottlebrush tree.
This plant survived being cut back to base level by an overzealous 'whipper snipperer' two years ago. It's wonderful to see it growing so vigorously now.
I planted Sweet Pea seedlings a few months ago, in an attempt to cover the brick wall on the front of the house. However, the trellis it needs to climb up is still a thought in my mind ~ A trip to the hardware store is still on the 'To do' List. A few branches and string might have to save the day?
In the meantime, some of the Sweet peas are trailing horizontally through the oregano while some of them are climbing through the spokes of my bike on the front porch.
A few years ago there was no front garden. I gradually dug up the lawn to make garden beds that now border the whole front yard. Typically suburban garden design, I know ~ If it was my own property the entire lawn would be transformed into a combination of indigenous bush and raised vegetable gardens. But for now, flower beds are permissable.
Yellow, orange, red and cream Margaritas, as well as a few Lavender bushes, were planted in amongst a carpet of oregano surrounding the gnarled trunk of an ancient miniature rose.
At first, nothing grew very well in the lifeless soil that had been covered in lawn for eons. But then, with the mulch generated by our backyard resident Brush Turkey, everything I planted started to absolutely THRIVE.
I planted yellow, pink and white Snapdragon seedlings several months ago. As the flowers begin to drop off, I cut the stems back and within a short time, the plants were covered in new flowers again. I've never seen, let alone grown such prolific Snapdragons EVER.
I've always tended to plant edible plants rather than flowers and have celery and lettuce, kale and silver beat growing amongst the flowers so the garden beds always look exceptionally green.
My mother and her mother were gardeners who grew both flowers and vegetables but I'd never felt the inclination to plants flowers ~ Until now.
My poppies have been flowering now for many months. Initially, just the occasional poppy would open but now all the poppy plants have about 6 to 10 buds on them. As soon as the poppies start to open I have to pick them ~ It's either me or the snails. I don't like to use snail bates and the idea of drowning snails and slugs in a good brew doesn't appeal to me either.
For weeks now it's felt like it would never stop raining. And yet today when the rain lost its ground, we could once again feel the warmth of the sun. I have the feeling it will be very hot now that the rain has run its course.
I've hardly begun to capture the beauty of our most colourful Spring this year so I'm hoping to visit the Sydney Botanical Gardens and the Chinese Gardens while Spring is still in the gardens there.
SONY Mark2 A7: 35 mm:
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