My Garden in flower - Summer 2008-2009

I love seeing your flowers Bernie.
I am drawn to the pink coloured ones very much they are gorgeous.
The Tabebuia, the Mandevilla and the Lagerstroemia i like a lot too.
You are very lucky to be able to grow such things, it seems like we'd all fancy another persons climate !!!!

Thanks Louise. Yes it's so true - I rather fancy a climate that would allow me to grow daffs, tulips and dutch iris. But there are gorgeous plants to be grown wherever you are!

It's interesting to learn about diferent areas. Thanks. You have some lovely plants.

Thanks Hywel - I really enjoy that aspect of this site. You get to learn so much about different places and plants.

Ta Marguerite - thanks for the suggestion. I will look it up - it's been bugging me for quite a while not knowing what it was. Not that knowing its name will help me look after it any better - it does that by itself. It's a fantastic fuss-free shrub. I started this 'through the seasons' more for myself - sometimes you don't appreciate just what you have!

Bernie - I enjoyed this blog and seeing plants we wouldn't grow here in the UK. Keep 'em coming :-)

Thanks for your effort Marguerite - I appreciate it. This one is proving more difficult than I thought.

Thanks Andrewr - it's always interesting to me too to see what others are growing. I will be doing one of these for each of our 'seasons' - although we really only have a 'wet' and 'dry' season here.

Lovely blog, Bernieh! Loved all the flowers, many of which I've never seen before! Reading your description of the climate I wouldn't like to live there! I can get on with high temps, up to about 36º/37ºC but that´s in a dry climate, like where I used to live in the centre of Spain. Just coming back to humid ol'Blighty was a shock! I had lived in Spain nearly 20 years without returning to the UK & had become accustomed to the very dry conditions there. The day I returned to England I heard on the radio that that day was the hottest day of the year, about 26ºC, up till that moment, end of June, but I left temps of more than 10ºC higher when I left Spain.

I take many photos of my plants on the balcony as well. I like to keep a record of what was flowering when & how the plants evolve over their growing period. That's how I am capable of posting pictures of my plants over several years & at different moments of the year.

Since my wife bought me a digital camera about 6 years ago I have been able to take very many more photos than before. Now with high quality photos on our mobile phones it's even easier than before!!!

Thanks very much Balcony. Yes our climate up here is not for the faint-hearted. We had some visitors come out from London to stay here over Christmas - they suffered terribly! The heat, the humidity and the insects were too much for them! It is interesting to keep a record over time of the plants in the garden - I've enjoyed your photos very much. You have a great display on your balcony at all times of the year and through the years.

Wow, considering your climate you have a good variety of blooms, I was expecting a garden of cactii :-) and I am extremely jealous as you have Singapore White frangipani one of my favourites (childhood memory) I bought some seed and tried growing them in my conservatory, they never germinated :-(

Thanks Norfolk. We can grow some lovely flowering plants up here - my particular area of the north is not really suited to a lot of the tropical plants as it's rather dry here. Still have a few choice of plants to grow though. Sorry to hear about your frangipani - mine are dropping all their leaves at the moment for winter and will be back in full bloom in spring/summer - always a great display.

..and fantastic scent, I can still smell them from long ago when I lived in Singapore, Id love to fill my house with that scent, the closest I can get to it over here is with Freesias

Norfolk I can't grow freesias - so there's a bit of irony for you. You're right about the scent though - I use the flowers as table decorations for dinner with friends and it's always a hit.

Marguerite - I've found it at last! Found out the name of the red flowering shrub. It's called Combretum Constrictum or the New Guinea Bottlebrush. Finally!

Enjoyed this blog very much Bernieh :) You havve so many beautiful flowering plants. How tall is your duranta repens? I have one, but mine is wee :) The photo of your Russelia Juncea, is gorgeous! The pentas photo is very nice too. The Lagerstroemia Speciosa has gorgeous flowers!

Thanks Tasteyg - I have several duranta repens. There are nine durantas down beside my long driveway and the tallest is around 5 metres - the others are mostly around 3 or 4 metres tall. I've just spent most of this afternoon pulling a huge 2 metre by 2 metre clump of russelia out (impossible to get rid of all of it unfortunately) - there's quite a bit of it growing in several clumps around the property. I'm afraid it's all now looking more like a weed, so I'm slowly getting rid of most of it! I do have quite a few pentas plants, which I love, and I have two of the lagerstroemia trees. Winter over here means there's really not much colour out around the property.

Hi BH! Said I'd come and look and here I am....glad I popped by as well.

Fabulous pics and such great flowers. Love the Gazania, as you can tell from my pic. All mine were washed away and/or eaten by the pesky slugs. I've put some copper tape around the bowl now and today, I noticed 3 new buds so hoping for some sunshine to welcome them out!

Great blog and pics....

I will return! :0)-

Glad you could visit Oddbillie - I love gazanias as well but they suffered dreadfully during the monsoonal rainfall we got in late summer. Lost most of them - so I've just started getting some new ones for the garden. I'd love to send some of our great winter sunshine over to you - hope your gazanias flower well.

Thank you kindly.

Most of my poor flowers look drained with all the rainfall of late. It's such a shame as they look great then, whoooooosh....a week of rain and game over. Well, not quite, but you know what I mean!

Appreciate the offer of the sunshine but not sure if it would get through the immigration laws here in Wales......

....anything remotely resembling sunshine or blue sky is rapidly sent back out of the country as it is deemed detrimental to the welsh way of life...:0(

Lol!

Ha - good one. I visited Wales a few years ago and we experienced glorious sunny blue-sky days!!! Hope they can creep back over there.