Tuesday 3 July 2018

This Winter's Flowers

Winter time colour in the garden from the flowers that are blooming this cold weather season. I love the eye-catching red of the salvia and the vibrance of the violas dotted through the veggie patch. The hot pink of the geranium in its pot  is just as glorious. The delicate pale pink flowers, of the ground cover whose names escapes me, cover the ground around the little water tank. The penstemon is still flowering months after its first magenta blossoms opened. The broccoli, that never really amounted to much, is redeeming itself with its bright yellow flowers that signal it is going to seed. So much colour from this Winter's flowers. 

salvia 

viola

geranium

groundcover 

penstemon

broccoli

Our little native bees take flight now only when the day warms enough. The little entrance to their home is a "hive" of activity; a traffic jam of tiny bees flying in and out. 

Our tiny native bees.

A native bee about to land on a flower.

Our tiny native bees work industriously in among the winter flowers. Their favourites seems to be the broccoli and groundcover blooms. I am not sure I have favourites though, I love all of them. 

What's blossoming around you right now?

Meg


16 comments:

  1. Did you see the segment on splitting native bee hives on gardening Australia? It was so interesting and informative, made me briefly consider a hive in my yard.

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    1. Yes, I did see that segment. Love that show! Our hive could be split, as it is heavy enough now, but we'll wait until friends are ready to take the new hive created. I think you would love having native bees, Cheryl. They are fascinating and fantastic little pollinators. Meg🤗🐝

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  2. I've got bees everywhere, too. They seem to favor the hollyhocks and artichoke flowers. It's encouraging to see them pollinating the blossoms. I love all of your flowers, especially the violas!

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    1. Aren't tbe violas pretty! I will pick some soon to press and keep for making little gift cards. It's a wonderful thing that you have created a garden that bees are happy in. They are such important little creatures. Meg 🐝🌸

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  3. Such pretty colors of your "winter flowers". Come winter here, there is nothing green or colorful except evergreens! Andrea

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    1. Our winters are very mild, Andrea. So much still blooms. Summers are more challenging though for plants. Meg🌸

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  4. Is your ground cover a nemesia, Meg? I love winter bloomers.....summer is so hot very little survives....it would be the same up your way I imagine.......that I really enjoy filling the garden with a riot of annual colour.

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    1. Thanks so much, Nanette. I just looked it up and it is nemesia. I have purple flowering ine too and they are so sweet. Meg 🌸

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  5. I love your picture of the bee about to land for a drink!

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    1. Thanks! I am always trying to snap clear photos of my sweet little bees but they tend to fly off just as I click! Meg🐝

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  6. Meg, some of our many bromeliads are flowering and a few chrysanthemums, pink and red camellias, pink lavender and a few calendulas but that's about it for the moment. Once August/September arrive things will change dramatically of course as we have hundreds of bulbs which have been planted over the years.

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    1. Oh, pink lavender sounds lovely, Chel. I had three lavenders, or rather had, because one bush has died off. I will have to replace it come Spring. My mother loves bromeliads, in her garden in the far north she has hundreds of them! Meg🌱

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  7. Our passionfruit has finished flowering and for the first time is producing fruit. They are golden yellow passionfruits and the pulp inside is magical. I was nearly in tears yesterday when I ran over one in the car. What a waste. I scraped up every little bit and put it in the garden in the hope it will start another vine.

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    1. Oh, no! Yellow passionfruits are so delicious. We have a vine here but no flowers at all yet. So, no fruit. Might have to visit your vine to get my passionfruit fix:D
      MegXx

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  8. It’s lovely to see any bees, and greatvwe are all so aware of them. Your winter flowers we can only grow in our summer, I love the red salvias and have a pot growing on our decking. Our winters would kill all the plants you show above, too cold and wet.

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    1. It's our Summers that kill plants here, Marlene. Scorching hot days can fry them! MegXx

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