It's the first day of Spring Downunder ... and it's our Nation...

Happy Wattle day to you too Bernieh hope the weather stays kind for you s all over there, some wonderful flowers here to celibrate the new spring, love the Wattle and the orchid beautiful how unusual the stuts pea one love the blue gum so pretty.

HI Sixpence ... the Winter weather has been all over the place this year. Lots of dreary overcast days and some showers of rain ... and while we've had a wetter Winter than usual, part of Oz like Western Australia have had their driest Winter in years and years.
Spring is the beginning of the hot, hot, hot! ... and the humidity starts to rise. It's not my favourite time of year ... and of course it's so close to the Summer.

My favourite floral emblem is definitely the Sturt's Desert Pea. It is really something to see in the wild ... I was fortunate enough to see it up close when we did a trip around Australia quite a few years ago now ... really a spectacular flower!

Happy Wattle Day Bernieh to you and your Family. Lovely selection of flowers. All so colourful and pretty. Have a lovely day. :o))

Thanks Linda ... day's nearly over here ... now I'm just waiting for my fav. TV show!

Thanks Bernieh another lovely informative blog

What beautiful flowers Bernieh and happy Wattle day to you and yours, lovely blog.

Glad you enjoyed it Bjs and Grandmage ... each and every one of these flowers is quite beautiful in its own special way.

They certainly are ! `=0)

Happy Wattle day, your blog pictures are beautiful,

Happy Wattle day Bernieh. Just posted a picture of my dendrobium, very similar. Lovely blog,very interesting, lovely pictures.

Happy Wattle day to you and yours Bernieh,loved your blog..:o))

I love accacias....If I could.... I would like to collect the whole lot of them...but not many would survive here. :((

Happy Wattle Day Bernief. Autumn is just around the corner in the UK so enjoy the Summer and your garden.

I know how you feel Bernieh with the humid heat lets hope it gets better for you

Happy Wattle Day Bernieh.You have selected some of the most exotic and wonderful flowers for us to see and with lots of information.Thanks for the great blog.

Wonderful to see all the native flowers of Australia! Here we see so few of them. I often pass an Eucalyptus tree on my way back home after accompanying my wife to her place of work. I like to see its flowers, they are quite pretty. The branch that used to be at eye level has now been cut away & the flowers on other branches are now too high to appreciate.

Sorry I didn't see this new blog of yours in time to wish you a happy Wattle Day. Nevertheless, I hope you had an enjoyable day.

Autumn is less than 3 weeks away for us. But the summer hasn't finished with us just yet in spite of the unfortunate title I chose for my last blog! ("End of summer ...)

I've modified the title slightly on the 2nd part of my blog.

Bernieh:

Wonderful photos! It always amazes how many of your native plants we grow and have naturalized here in southern California! : > )

Thanks everyone for your great comments. Apologies for taking so long to comment ... unfortunately my computer has been very very poorly lately! Could be fatal ... I've had to resort to using a laptop from work to make this visit. Fingers crossed all will be well.

lucky you bernieh spring and summer to look forward to, not a good summer here and autumn on its way, enjoyed the blog and lovely pics to ;o)))

wow, what an interesting blog, thanks Bernieh. Great photos of the great unknown to me. Remind me to pop into your photos and blogs more often now that winter's round the corner in the UK.

Thanks Sanbaz and Weeding ... glad you enjoyed the blog.

Sanbaz ... Summer's not really something I look forward to at all ... it's horrid! Unfortunately the middle-to-end of Spring is not all that much better ... I'm enjoying the slightly cooler temps. right now though. Our days are hitting the 30 deg C mark now (86F) but at least the humidity levels are only around 80%, so it's not quite as bad as the Summer.

Weeding ... I do hope you enjoy looking at the photos and reading the blogs during your long days of Winter. I hope it's not a horrid one for you!

Bernieh:

Only around 80% humidity! That's very high humidity levels. 86F/30C with humidity at 80% is a heat index of 100 degrees F. / 38 degrees C.

We've had the coolest summer in about 100 years in most of San Diego County (most of Cal also - deserts the exception). Average highs have only been 72 degrees F / 22 degrees C on the coast and about 85 degrees F. / 29 degrees C. inland. That's about 7 to 10 degrees below normal.

Delonix, your "cool" summer has been one of our warmest in many a year! We have had those sort of temps here this year.

Wow ... that is a cool summer, Andy! Can you believe that it's actually raining here today? Spring and it's raining! ... could account for the humidity level yesterday! We had around 57 mm overnight and it's still coming down. The so-called 'grass' on my property hasn't turned brown at all this year ... such a strange thing to get used to!

Balcony:

We've only had two heat waves this summer - when the temps hit 100F/ 38C. That's very uncommon for inland San Diego.

Typically in Sept the temps can reach as high as 110F/ 43C. - and it's consistently hot. We've only been averaging 82F/ 28C. However, Oct and Nov can be very warm months also.

I noticed the U.K. has had a similar weather pattern like the U.S. The U.S. western states have been cooler than normal temps and the eastern, southern states and mid-west have been sweltering in extreme heat for many months.

Bernieh:

Well, our weather has been very topsy-turvy! Maybe the reason for your strange weather this year is La Nina. I've been saying for months...it's the extremely fast change from El Nino to a strong La Nina which has caused the strange weather phenomena here and around the world. Now, the meteorologist are finally saying, it's the cause. The water temperature off San Diego and in San Diego Bay has been colder than it is during the middle of winter - only around 56F/24C - 65F/18C. (freezing) It's been having a very negative effect on our tourism.

I bet it looks like a beautiful tropical rain forest there now: although I hope it's not having a negative effect on the ecosystem!

Yes I think you're spot on there, Andy. Today is the second day of light drizzly showers of rain here ... and it's Spring! The surrounding bush is still lovely and green which is a very weird sight for this time of year ... can't wait to see what the Summer will be like!!

Bernieh:

Today it was announced on the news...it has been the coolest summer since 1933 in San Diego. That's pretty amazing! It actually feels very cool outside right now and literally feels like winter...as the high today was only 70F/21C. -- last year on this date is was 99F/ 37C...what a difference a year makes. lol! : > )

I've been reading some other garden websites...many of the people in northern Queensland and the Northern Territory have been saying the mangoes may not produce very much fruit, if any at all this year because of the rainy "dry season".

I guess there's some good things about all the rain...no water rationing and beautiful lush green gardens. : > )

Lucky you, Andy ... I wouldn't mind a nice cool summer like that. As for the mango growers ... I live in a rural suburb where there are many hobby farms down on the flats filled with mango trees and the owners are all saying the same thing! They're predicting a bad season ... because of all the rain ... so there may not be as many little mango stalls set up beside the rain this summer.

About the water rationing ... we are still on water restrictions here. History has taught us to always be careful with water ... but at the moment we're on Level 1 which just restricts how often you can use sprinklers and for how long they're allowed to run ... so not too bad at all.

Bernieh:

Yes, it was a comfortable summer inland and cool at the coast. You won't believe it, we in for a huge heat wave starting this weekend. Go figure...Autumn comes and the heat is here. : > /

Hopefully, you'll get some mangoes this year. I absolutely love mangoes, it's my favorite fruit. It's not summer without mangoes. lol! : > )

So surprised to hear you're still on water rationing! I've read and heard on the palm society website there's been a tremendous amount of water just north of you. I guess the water hasn't gotten down to you. One good thing though...at least you still have green grass. It's extremely dry here now.

Thanks for a very informative blog. I guess it's obvious, but I had never made the connection between various plants/flowers and different states. There's so much variety of climate in Australia that such variety is only to be expected, so it's informative to have this variety so nicely presented. Also enjoyed your acacia blog. Again, such variety, and great photos. We could probably grow some types of acacias in the UK, and it's surprising that they are so rare here.

Oh no Andy... not such good news! Heat waves in Autumn! Mangoes are definitely a favourite of mine ... but I grew up in a town famous for them.

Bernieh:

Actually, severe heat waves in Autumn are very common. Winter heat waves are common also. The city just east of where I live, called La Mesa holds the record for the highest December temperature ever recorded in the U.S. - it was 100F/ 38C. on Dec. 8, 1938.

What a great place to grow up...a town famous for mangoes. Yum Yum! : > ) All the California-grown mangoes are available now. They are so delicious. It's a large variety called Keitt. I've eaten several so far. : > )

I was in the greenhouses at the Cambridge Botanical Gardens again on Saturday & in the very first I visited there were plants from Australia & South Africa. I took some photos of the different plants & will include them in a blog shortly.

I saw as couple of Acacias as well, they have some very wicked thorns at least 2-3 inches long!!! Surprising that Giraffes can eat the without tearing their tongues to shreds!

Hi Balcony ... I'll look out for your blog. Yes you're so right ... some of the Acacias have great thorns ... luckily none of the Acacias that grow around here do. I don't know how those giraffes get on ... they must have a rough tough old tongue!!

Great blog Bernieh..... hooray for the waratah lol