My Garden in flower - Winter 2009

What wonderful colourful pictures, your garden looks fabulous - particularly the courtyard. I hope you get time to just sit and enjoy it! I'm going to keep this pictures flagged to look at it in the depths of our grey winter - approaching fast!

Hi BH!

There is enough colour and variation in your paradise to keep you going for a long time. What a wonderful site to walk out to each day.

Great blog and thanks for the pics!! They've brightened up a dreary, dank day here in Wales!!

thank you sooo much for the tour. your garden is full of great plants. love your court yard so many pots......
your winter temps. are similar to our summer ones only we get loads of summer rain toooo.....

That was breathtaking BH...thank you! What a riot of colours & the courtyard garden is absolutely lovely.

Thanks Antigone - yes we do spend quite a bit of time enjoying the courtyard. I'm hoping the pots will pick up more now as spring approaches.

Glad to cheer up your day, Oddbillie. It was another bright, sunny .. and dry .. day here. Had a lovely time weeding and doing a general tidy up out in the garden areas today.

Thanks Sandra - hoping the pots will explode with lots more colour during spring! Oh for rain! It's still about 4 months away yet - that's if we get any rain in December.

Thanks Fluff - the courtyard garden has come a long way in just under a year. This time last year, it was a bit dismal and bare.

That torenia is absolutely stunning, gorgeous and phwahh!
nuff said!
as usual your garden looks wonderful, you lucky (hard working ) australia dweller you! I'm jealous...lol!

Thanks Indy - I've had torenias for many years. They come in such great colours now (the dark purple was all I could get for a long time), they flower for ages and are the best little self-seeders which is great because I don't mind them popping up at all.

i wish we could send u some of ouur rain....its a holiday weekend here and the fashion is 'indoor bar-b-ues....but were used to it....lol

Great photos of beautiful plants and flowers, your colours all look so vibrant :)
I'm drawn to the whites, pinks and purples in your garden :)

Oh Bernieh, Bernieh, Bernieh !!! Another wonderful walk through a magical, beautiful land !!!
ALL beautiful but the Tornenia is so blue she looks black and seems for all the world that she has two goldfish swimming about in there !
The Eucalyptus is ghostly in it's whiteness.
The Gazania .... talk about you've been 'Tangoed' !

And the Hibiscus ......well......words can't really describe !

Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou !!! xxx

Your garden is beautiful Bernieh wish our gardens in winter looked like that very colourful and pretty.

What an exquisite bit of paradise you've captured for us all, Bernieh!
All this AND cockatoos and Kookaburras on the verandah too!
My parents nearly emigrated to Oz in the 1950's...and I'm rather wishing they had after seeing your beautiful, beautiful garden!

Thanks Sandra - if wishes were reality, it would be pouring down here and you'd be having glorious fine, sunny days.

Thanks Louise. I'm trying to add more white to more garden and the next 'project' on the list (after completing the new tiered garden beds) will be that huge screening bed at the back of the courtyard - it definitely needs some white!

You're welcome... you're welcome...you're welcome, Sue. It's nice to know you enjoyed the photo tour.

Thanks for your nice comments, Morgana and Bscott.

Lovely blog.... stunning photos... Wow...:o)

What a fabulous garden you have Bernieh, so many lovely plants and your courtyard garden is so lovely I would sit out there all day if it was mine. Do you?

Thanks Lily2. Half of our feet-up time or time with friends over a meal and a drink is spent out in the courtyard - the other half is spent on the front verandah overlooking the bush!

What a lovely garden you have and so many lovely plants... lovely photos........your Pink Hibiscus is lovely.... i have just bought 3 of them in different colours........

Thanks TT - appreciate your comment.

That hibiscus, Hollyeves, is now around 15 years old and it never stops flowering. The flowers are usually bigger than my hand and are a delightful pink. Hope your hibiscus do well for you.

Amazing photos, your garden is fantastic! Thank you for sharing the photos with us. I can only dream of winter temperatures that are warmer than our summer temperatures, lol.Though it must be hard keeping everything watered if it is both dry and windy.

Thanks Weedfingers. Watering the grassed areas on this property is not a consideration at all - it would cost us a lot in excess water fees to do so. Most of the larger garden beds have to survive without much water for most of the year. The greenhouse and some of the courtyard are on a timed irrigation system and that leaves me with some hose watering to do - mostly all the potted plants. I usually do this every day, twice a day during the hot summer.

Thanks Bernieh for sharing with us,although I`m feeling a little bit envious as its a very grey cold day here,you have some fabulous plants and everywhere is so colourful......

Thankyou for sharing your lovely garden with us as always i love looking at your plants, and all that sunny weather.

That was a fabulous tour, BH! You have more flowers in your garden in winter than we have here in the summer! What a marvellous display!

I loved all your flowers, there were even some I didn't know of before! There are a few Eucalyptus trees here where I live. They tower over the houses in whose gardens they are planted!

I know of one that produces nice little flowers as well.

Your winter temps are better than our summer temps!!!

Thanks Lincslass, Clarice and Balcony - glad you enjoyed the winter tour.

Your garden looks good in the winter Benieh -can't wait to see what it looks like in your summer. Your summer pictures will be nice to see in the middle of our winter!

Thanks Richard. I've already posted a blog about the summer just gone - which for us was from Dec to Feb - so you can get a peek now if you want. Hopefully my new garden bed will have some plants filling out nicely during the coming summer.

I'll have a look at that Bernieh.I didn't know you did a summer blog as I only joined GOY relatively recently -hope you are well.

I'm very well, thanks Richard. It's the last day of winter today and another bright, sunny morning over here.

your weather will be on the way up from now on then Bernieh. It must be the last day of summer with us then -it has been cold,windy and raining here, a friend has put the central heating on today! and our weather will be on the way down from now on -what a thought!

Most definitely Richard... it's starting hitting 30 degrees C during the week, but luckily the humidity was low. Today it's a little cooler. As we've had quite a warm winter, we're not looking forward to the summer ... expecting it to be very hot and humid. Hope your autumn is not too miserable.

Wonderful :o)
Thank you.

Absolutly fantastic Bernieh you are sooooo lucky to have a garden like thatto wake up to every morning. who does all the hard work?

No snow then!! Thanks for this, I have enjoyed the tour.

Thanks Hywel and Tulsalady ... very kind. Tulsalady ... my hubbie's approach to gardening is either 'cut it down' or run it down with the mower'. Hubbie does not have a love of gardening - but he does help with the hard jobs sometimes. I, on the other hand, love being out in the garden ... so I do most of the work.

Ha Oldgunner ... would you believe I've only seen snow once in my whole life. Many many years ago my family and I went on a six-month tour of Oz and we got to see snow and go skiing! Glorious fun! No, winter for us up here in the north has more to do with - daytime temps. that finally get below 30 degrees C for a few months and comfortable humidity levels - than snow!

Beautiful as ever Bernieh I just love all your flowers and trees enjoy keep cool in the days ahead!
Looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooovely

:o))

Thanks so much Neellan - well the temps have started rising again. It's the first day of spring today and the expected high is 30 degreesC. Yahoooo .... it's spring!

Keep those wallabies (lovely though they are) off your super flowers :o))

So far the Vaporub seems to be working! Obviously it's a smell even animals don't like!!

With them on that!
Glad it's working for you - so far so good!

:o))

Superb pictures Bernieh, you have a smashing garden. It's nice to see Eucalyptus in its native country!

You have a beautiful garden I really love the Bauhinia Variegata especially the eucalyptus after shredding is quite something.

Fantastic garden Bernieh. You are very lucky to be abe to grow all these plants outside. Many of them are just regarded as indoor pot plants over here!

Thanks Rbtkew - my property is surrounded by magnificent eucalypts and I just love it. Think they're my favourite tree after the jacaranda!

Thanks Drc726. Yes have to agree with you - the bauhinia looks great but hubbie doesn't agree. He hates the mess from all the falling leaves and then the falling flowers and he hates the bare branches when the leaves have dropped. It's a constant battle to keep this one - I've lost three already (old age!)

Thanks Paul - yes these plants that you see here are all growing outdoors. Some are out in garden beds (receiving total neglect) and some are in my greenhouse and courtyard gardens (they're the ones that get cared for!) I don't have any indoor plants at all!

you have a stunning garden Bernieh, thanks for all the pictures. All I look at in the winter is mud :)))))))))))))

Sorry to hear that Grindle - it was like that at the end of our summer just passed. We reached record rainfall levels in a matter of six weeks - fair bit of flooding and lots and lots of mud!

:) that's ok Bernieh, I can look forward to looking at your summer plants this winter instead

Your garden is just stunning, so much to see, and the colours are amazing. Thanks for a very interesting blog.

My nephew is moving to Australia next month. This makes me want to come and visit him as soon as possible.

Wow, gourgeous colours!!!!! :- O

I live in Aus. too, in Sydney, but I don't think this little garden will ever look as good as yours! Love the Antirrhinums and the Violas, I've got those too, they're flowering right now as well.

Thanks Dottydaisy - I've worked hard this year to get a whole lot more colour into some of my garden areas. So far so good!

Thanks Inverglen - hope your nephew enjoys the move and you'll definitely have to visit soon.

Thanks Pip - gardens take time to develop and I'm sure given more time you'll have a fabulous great-looking garden. The antirrhinums and violas have been flowering for months now and they're still doing very well.

What I'm amazed about is the time it must have taken to upload all those pics!!!!!!!! :- (o)

You can be very proud of your amazing garden , every moth I look at I think it can't get any better , but it does.I know beautiful gardens do not just happen .

Thanks a lot Pitta - it's a lot of work, as you know, it's slow progress over time and there's always something else to do. I'm constantly trying to find ways of improving the planting choices - especially when I lose things over the long dry or through the short wet - and this year I've concentrated on adding lots more colour.

Oh Bernieh, I just typed in 'courtyard gardens' to get some ideas when this popped up. Outside my window it's a dirty damp dull day and it's just going dark. But here... what a tonic your beautiful photos have been, thankyou:-)))

Glad to have brightened up you day Bornagain! Nice to know you've enjoyed the photos - lots of the plants above are still in flower, but most are about spent.

Dear Author! thank you for bright pictures! You know, such great work inspire me also for new archievment! Especially I liked Kalanchoe! And I would like to have one in my own garden! I read a lot articles and in one (http://house-plants.biz/) I read that it is room plant... But in your article it is more outdoor flower... So maybe you can help me to understand - can I grow such bright flower on my window?
I'll be glad to get every help from expirienced gardeners)