A Very Early Spring and other random things

I like to keep my blog uncontroversial so I won't talk about climate change but we have had a super short winter this year with a very warm and dry July.

Australian cuckoos don't make that sound and not many of the gardens round here have daffodils - locally the main marker of Spring is the star jasmine.

The first jasmine flowers appeared on the weekend - that's 27-28th July!!!

I adore Australia's native orchids with their delicate little flowers in all sorts of odd shapes ... we've had this Dockrillia teretifolia (used to be Dendrobium teretifolium) for just over 30yrs and this is the first time it has flowered in July!!! 

Audrey checks out the orchid flowers

First flowers burst open yesterday, 29th July.  This orchid has several common names: Thin Pencil Orchid, Rat's Tail Orchid (for the leaves) or Bridal Veil Orchid (for the masses of flowers spilling down a tree).  Ours is a NSW D. teretifolia with cream / lemon coloured flowers and it is growing on a casurina branch that is tied to the Moreton Bay tree - and I should add that the silver grey stuff belongs to neither the Moreton Bay Fig Tree nor to the orchid - that is "Old Man's Beard" or "Spanish Moss" a type Bromeliad.  The scent of this orchid is quite lovely - I wish one of the perfume companies could bottle it.

More flower photos?   Our camellias have been flowering profusely this year ... very proud of this plant and it's twin sister. 

Hubby rescued them about 15yrs ago - 2 pathetic sticks, pot-bound in ultra-dry, exhausted soil, a few yellowed leaves about to drop - I really didn't give them any hope.  Now they are healthy green bush/trees that give us lots of lovely blush-pink flowers.

"I think my bonnet needs a flower on it."

Our star magnolia gives us a few totally pretty and beautifully scented flowers every spring.

Spring-time weather makes me want to plant things and often results in a trip to the nursery.  Melville found the box I'd carried the new plants home in...

"As happy as a Kitty in a cardboard box"

And - just because I can - I'm going to confuse things with some photos taken weeks ago - on the 6th July when it still felt like we might be having a winter this year!

We took Imogen with us for some photos in the Royal Botanical Gardens ... Imogen was busy posing in the late-afternoon sunlight under some trees ...

 When I spotted some truly bizarre fungi.  The aged and collapsing ones looking like those forgotten carrots from the back of the fridge...

 

 A type of stinkhorn - possibly Lysurus mokusi.  See The Mushroom Expert website for more info on these amazing fungi.   Here is one just emerging - stinkhorns all start with an "egg".

Many stinkhorns have quite bizarre shapes - and at this point you might like to send the children out of the room - because in its 'prime' this particular fungus looks rather rude.

 La la 

dee

La la ...

One of nature's sillier jokes!

Almost Spring & some Doll Torture

Spring must be just around the corner when this happens in our garden -
lovely old-fashioned SnowFlakes. This happens too -

A native Australian orchid Dendrobium teretifolium, commonly called Rats' Tail Orchid in NSW and Bridal Veil Orchid in Queensland :-) I've had this lovely orchid since 1982. Love the way the petals curve backwards making the flowers look like a child running with their arms out and I love the perfume of these flowers. Sorry we don't yet have Blog-a-Scent but many native orchids have gorgeous scent - D teretifolium is like a lot of the Dendrobiums, sweet with a powdery quality. Wish I could bottle it!

And now for some Doll Torture - avert your eyes if you are squeamish! No I've not been customising Blythe Dolls (not brave enough) but I'm plotting and planning a project which requires 1/2 a doll. So off to large store toy department where I was bewildered by the amazing array of plastic ... mostly Barbies. BTW they've changed her face again and she looks exactly like Paris Hilton ... very apt! But I bought another sort of doll for a whole $6.

Hubby ripped her legs off, then he amputated half her bottom with a hack-saw, I cooked her arm in hot water



so I could bend it, then we drilled holes in her hips, finally I sandpapered the rough bits ...


More on this project in future posts.



Well perhaps as punishment for all that, there has been a little human torture too. This last week I've been busy sewing for a private client; making among other items, a slip dress in a very soft silk fabric. A really pretty fabric but a nightmare to sew except when perfectly on the straight of grain and this is a bias cut slip dress - the straps are probably the only parts on the straight. I had planned to hem the frock with a neat little machine hem - impossible, the sewing machine just wanted to eat the fabric, I tried all my tricks and nothing worked. SO - I consulted my lovely old "Encyclopedia of Needlework" for a quick brush-up on the technique for a hand stitched rolled hem. It isn't all that slow but my left hand gets the sore from holding the fabric taut.