Raindrops On Rooftops and Sweat Marks on Shirt Tops!

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The last couple of days have been days spent mostly indoors in the air-con. It’s been excruciatingly hot and humid which is typical for this time of year. If you walked around in the sun anytime between 7.00 am and 5.00 pm you quickly become an ugly sweaty mess and feel like you’ve just stepped out of a pool or shower!

The weather conditions today at around 9.30 am:

The temperature had climbed to 33 deg C by 11.00 am.

Last week we saw some decent rainfall, hopefully signalling the start of a good wet season. We had around 70 mm over seven days and thankfully, we had enough so that the precious raindrops were able to soak into the ground and not just run off. I was thrilled, and so was the garden!

I’ve done very little in the way of gardening over this last week and a bit.

Apart from a bit of weeding here and there, the only thing I’ve been doing is nurturing some Adenium obesum (Desert Rose) seedlings

and various cuttings that I took a couple of weeks ago.

Most of the cuttings appear to developed roots so I’ll be taking them out of their propagation mix and potting them up in good quality potting mix.

While wandering I’ve noticed:

- The second flush of flowers on the Petunia under the pergola have markedly less yellow stripes.

The plant no longer looks like it did when bought from the garden centre. There is just the occasional striped flower.

- The Torenia fournieri planted in the pergola garden just two months ago have now started self-seeding

and new plants are popping up everywhere in between the Viola hederacea (Native Violet).

- The old Allamanda cathartica that was planted at one corner of the pergola many, many years ago is showing off more flowers than it has for a very long time.

It lives in a very tough spot and has never flourished there. It’s now just too hard to try and dig it out as the ground has compacted a lot, so I just leave it to struggle on to the best of its ability. It still hasn’t given up.

- The Phyllanthus multiflorus (the Waterfall Plant) is covered in its tiny red berries.

They dangle from the long arching branches and look like Christmas baubles hanging on a Christmas tree.

- The Cassia fistula (the Golden Shower Tree) is showing off its clusters of bright yellow flowers.

- The Hibiscus schizopetalus (Japanese Lantern Hibiscus) is covered in it pendulous lantern-like flowers.

• 9 Dec, 2024
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