Catching Up With What's Been Happening In The Last Two Weeks

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It’s been two weeks since my last blog post and that time has flown by. I thought I’d catch up with what’s been happening out here in the foothills.

Two weeks ago we had a very different visitor to our corner of this rural outlying suburb.

Our local council, the Townsville City Council, sent a helicopter to several parts of our suburb in order to drop treatment that apparently should deal with the Yellow Crazy Ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes) found out here.

Strange name for an ant, I know. They are recognised as an extremely invasive ant and there have been loads of infestations found in and around our rural suburb. Of course most of these infestations are in inaccessible areas, hence the need for the helicopter.

The helicopter made several passes along the creek bed at the bottom of our property and was flying quite low and close to our place.

A week later our Council sent out a ground crew member of the Yellow Crazy Ant Management Team as follow-up to the previous aerial treatment by helicopter.

The young man walked around the accessible parts of our property spraying a dosage of granular bait over the ground. Hopefully the treatment works!

November the 1st was officially the start of the 2024-2025 cyclone season, and with daytime highs of around 32 to 33 deg C our summertime is looming. The garden areas are starting to feel the effects of the continuing dry season combined with the heat and humidity.

So many plants are looking very thirsty and heat stressed towards the end of the day. Early evenings are spent watering potted plants.

Early mornings are spent placing sprinklers in strategic spots for a couple of hours. Trying to keep our one patch of green grass going through the long dry season is a real chore!

On one of the mornings, as I headed out, I heard a familiar call and then spotted a small group of Red-tailed Black Cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus banksii, aka C. magnificus) perched in one of the neighbour’s very tall Neem trees.

Many believe the sight of these birds heralds the arrival of rain. Supposedly, the number of cockatoos indicates the number of days before rain is expected to fall. In this case, there were 4 cockatoos, so it was supposed to rain for four days if the folklore is to be believed. That didn’t happen!

Jobs such as weeding, mulching, moving sprinklers, hand-watering and taking cuttings for propagation has kept me busy over the last fortnight.

Mulching the outdoor garden beds is a big job as those beds need an extremely thick layer of mulch. I’ve found sugar cane mulch to be the most suitable for my garden and I have to do it twice – just after the start of the dry season and then just before our wet season.

After about 11.00 am it’s just too hot and humid to be spending any more time outdoors in the garden, so I retreat inside and quite often switch on the air-conditioning for the afternoon.

During my wanderings around over the last two weeks I’ve noticed:

- Caladiums in garden beds are continuing to flourish as they rise from their dormancy

- my potted Spathiphyllum (Peace Lily) is blooming

- the Lagerstroemia speciosa (commonly known as Queen’s Crepe Myrtle) is showing off its first blooms

- one of my Adenium obesums (Desert Roses) has flowered and looks exactly like a red rose

- my white form of Curcuma australasica (Cape York Lily) is rising from its dormancy

- two of my three very tall Plumeria rubras are flowering, although the blooms can be hard to spot in amongst other trees growing close by

- there are a number of Poincianas that have popped up in the bush paddock over the years and are beginning to flower

- the first cicada nymph shell cases appearing on the back of my Iris domestica leaves

- a Dicrurus bracteatus, commonly known as the Spangled Drongo, hanging around

- Gardenia flowers appearing once more

- Lonicera japonica (Japanese Honeysuckle) flowers appearing again

- my half-dead rescue from the half-price shelf, Salvia ‘Lake Strawberry’, blooming and flourishing

I’ve been very excited about the sprouting of the Adenium obesum (Desert Rose) seeds I ordered a couple of weeks ago. I can’t wait to see these babies grow and flourish.

I’m also pleased to see that my Coleus and Impatiens cuttings have all sprouted roots and are now planted out into pots or trays.

• 12 Nov, 2024
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