An Outing

Today we took a drive to the Melton Botanic Garden. It was great to get away from the family worries that have been consuming me lately. The gardens are looking fantastic, and have really grown and developed since our last visit. I'm not sure when the last visit was, as the only post I could find was our   bus trip in 2018. But we really need to make more regular trips to this wonderful spot.

This meadow argus (Junonia villida) butterfly was in the first plant I saw as I got out of the car.

The gardens are full of wildlife, like this musk lorikeet:

And this rainbow lorikeet:
 

I was so taken with the wildlife I forgot to take photos of the garden vistas, apart from these ducks helpfully sitting around the sign that tells you what species they are:

The reason we went to the gardens on a Thursday was to visit the nursery. And of course we did not come away empty-handed!

A haul of interesting and unusual plants to add to our own garden.

Greenery

Because I finished January's project early, I gave myself permission to start another one, and work on it for the rest of the month. So after two days, here is the background for what will become Alex Anderson's Birdhouse quilt:

Alex is running classes in various applique methods on YouTube for this quilt. Hers looks like this (although I think this is a progress shot, rather than her final layout):

I'm making mine portrait orientation, so I can hang it in my hallway once it is finished.

Today also involved some unpicking:

This is a project that has been hanging around in my sewing room for I'm not sure quite how long. It is a try-out of a summer dress pattern, that I was making in some inexpensive fabric. I made a mistake in putting in the pockets, and stopped. The issue was that the invisible zip in the side of the dress had to extend past the top of the side-seam pocket. I didn't know how to fix it so did nothing. However, I recently found an amazing Russian YouTube video on how to do this. (If you are interested: it's here.)

I'm not sure there is enough seam allowance for me to do the Russian technique. I might just remove that pocket altogether. But either way, I needed to unpick the very securely sewn on pocket bags. It took me about an hour, but it is now done and the dress can proceed.

 

This afternoon we visited a new (at least to us) nursery that our next-door neighbours told us about. 

It has a great selection of indoor plants, as well as interesting native plants, a coffee/snack van and lovely gardens to enjoy.

It is called Birdsong Nursery, and is apparently in Smythesdale, although Google maps says it is in Scarsdale. Apparently it has been open for a year, but as it is not on a main road we never would have found it on our own.
 

 

Blue Lotus

This was the focus of my travel eastward:

Blue Lotus Water Garden. The garden is amazing, and getting there early on such a hot day was a good idea. We were able to see everything before the very hottest part of the day.

Not a lotus, not blue, but this is the plant known as the blue lotus, Nymphaea nouchali:

Native to southern and eastern parts of Asia, and the national flower of Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Lotus

Lotus

Lotus

Lotus as far as the eye can see:

Several greenhouses provide sheltered environments for plants from the tropics, which need warmer water than usually found in this part of the world. This is the "crocodile plant", Euryale ferox:

Its amazing leaves unfold into a large flat disc covered in sharp spines that look like rose thorns.

The blue aster waterlily needs water over 24 degrees to survive:

Its leaves are almost as lovely as the flower.

Another tropical waterlily:

Today was such a hot sticky day that we felt like we were in the tropics even outside the greenhouses. Here's my friend enjoying one of the many welcome shade pavilions dotted around the gardens:

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you may remember my disappointment last year that the Amazon waterlilies were not on display at the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. But thanks to the Blue Lotus Garden, I have now seen one:

Hooray!

A leaf beginning to unfurl, a flower just opening, and what looks like a bud emerging:

The Amazon waterlily was a highlight for me.

We ate lunch at the cafe at Kuranga Native Nursery in Mt Evelyn. The nursery has a lovely display of plants and garden goodies:

  
I had to restrain myself as I had a long train journey ahead. So my only purchase was:

Melaleuca nesophila, which was labelled with the common name of Western tea-myrtle. (If you are reading this, Sue, this might be the plant in your neighbour's garden.)

When I got back to Ballarat I found that scans had uncovered some new issues with Mum. That bad news made me glad I had taken this wonderful short break away. It was easier to face the situation when feeling refreshed from spending time seeing and doing such interesting things.

I Drove It

On a beautiful last day of winter, I finally drove the Jag:

And not just around the block; I drove to Beaufort, an hour away.

Actual destination was the Heritage Fruit Tree nursery:

They are having a one-week clearance sale to sell off all these bare-rooted trees that need to be in the ground. We don't need any more fruit trees, but we had some grape-vines to collect. And it was a lovely day for a drive in a fancy car!

Farewell to a Nursery

A few years back I first visited Newlyn Antiques and Nursery, but it is now in the process of shutting down as the owners retire. They held an auction recently of all the remaining antiques, and now it is the nursery's turn.

We really don't need more trees:

 Although they have a huge range of fruit and ornamental trees to go.

We made a small contribution to the clearance:

Mainly shrubs this time. My selections included a white herbaceous peony "Lady Bird" and a couple of hellebores.

The property is going to be auctioned at the end of May, so the sale will continue until at least then. I suspect we might make further visits before it is gone forever.

More Nurseries

The Friends Nursery at the Geelong Botanic Gardens opens on Wednesday mornings. We were looking for a particular plant, but it turns out that they had a big autumn sale a week or two ago, and stocks of everything were low or gone. They had none left of the plant we had gone to buy.

I bought these instead:

Two hippeastrums of unknown variety. This morning over breakfast I was reading some blogs, including this post at NeedledMom, featuring some amazing hippeastrums in flower (called amaryllis in the US).  Many years ago I had some I bought at a garage sale in Coburg, but I don't know what happened to them in the end. I've been wanting a replacement for a while. Now I just need to work out the best way to care for them here. They might be candidates for living in the outdoor living area in winter to protect them from frost.

We met a family member and had lunch at the kiosk in the gardens, then on our trip home we stopped off at Roraima Nursery in Lara. The gardens there are fascinating, with all sorts of rusty bits and pieces used as planters or as sculptural decoration.

I like this ball of augur bits hanging in a peppercorn tree:

And the combination of plants in this rusted-through box:

Lime green and pinky-grey:

Just gorgeous!

These ball-shaped succulents are beautiful:

Agave victoriae-reginae. The nursery had tiny ones for sale for $15 and $20 dollars, so I have no idea what this massed display of basket-ball sized ones would cost to emulate. Nice to look at, anyway!

I think that might be enough nurseries for a while. It must be time to just do some work in our own garden.

Lambley and a Fire

Last Thursday my GPS kicked the bucket. I got a new one yesterday, and today wanted to go for a drive somewhere to check it out. I decided Lambley nursery would be a nice spot to visit. The gardens there are always a treat, and we wanted to buy some of their vegetable seeds after attending a talk on vegetable-growing by David Glenn (the owner of Lambley) a couple of weeks ago.

It was a very bright sunny day, (and much hotter than you might expect at this time of year) which is not ideal for photography, but here are a few views around the gardens:

And in the nursery:

Sun-loving plants in the foreground, and shade lovers behind.

On the way home we could see a lot of smoke from a fire which turned out to be quite close to my parents' retirement village. I was almost home when I received a call from Mum's home care co-ordinator telling me that the village had been evacuated to Buninyong. I rang the village's main number to confirm exactly where people had been taken, and was given the address of the recreation centre which was being used as the fire relief centre.

I was relieved to think that the village had an emergency evacuation plan, and that my parents were somewhere well away from the fire.

Back in the car and off to Buninyong, where I found that there was no sign of my parents, or of the village bus. There were a number of elderly people there, and various cats and dogs in boxes and on leads. There were people handing out cups of tea and coffee. There were fire officials and police, but no-one knew where my parents might be. Eventually I was directed to someone who was the representative of the company which runs the retirement village, but she also had no idea where my parents might be. She made a phone call, and eventually I discovered that my parents were out on the street in front of the village.

Here is a news article about the fire in The Age. They don't mention in that story that a big part of the "massive amount of evacuations" was a retirement village. Or that the evacuation involved moving immobile people out to the street and leaving them there for over three hours.

Basically anyone who could drive was told where the relief centre was, but those without cars were just told to get out of the village, then left to their own devices. The village bus, which I had imagined had taken such people to safety, was parked blocking the driveway to stop anyone entering the village. My parents don't use mobile phones, so couldn't ring anyone (me) to come and get them, or even tell me where they were.

I asked the village manager why people were just sitting out in the street, and he said that it was safer for them to be there than in their units, in case the fire turned towards the village. I can understand that, but I think it would have been even better for them to have been loaded into the bus and taken to the air-conditioned relief centre, with access to toilets and refreshments, and well out of danger.

Long Day

Happy summer solstice!

First item on the agenda was checking the next mystery clue. And then I had to make some to see how they looked:

And then I may have cut, and even sewed, a few more:

 After lunch we took a trip to Avalon Nursery:

 And a bunch of small plants came home with us, which were planted out once the sun dropped a bit.

Wisteria update:

Both wisterias have now climbed to the top of the pergola uprights, and are starting to spread along it.

Speaking of climbing:

I think this guy has reached the top of the weed he is on. Fortunately I noticed him just as I was about to grab the weed and pull it out, so I left it and him there.


Just as we were about to have dinner I looked out the front window and saw this on the grass out the front:

It stayed out there for nearly an hour. Amazing!

Jack and Dot were not impressed with having a wallaby trespassing on their property, though:

Indigenous Plants and Stormwater

An outing today to a non-commercial indigenous plant nursery, and to a stormwater harvesting project.

First up the nursery, where volunteers grow indigenous plants for Ballarat Council, for re-vegetation projects, and the like:

 It was interesting to compare with our tree-growing experiences for the TreeProject. The nursery has the advantage of shade houses and green houses to give their plants the optimum growing conditions:

 Most of the plants looked a bit sad for winter, but will perk up again once spring arrives.

One plant that was looking good is this native storksbill, Pelargonium australe:

It has been allowed to self-seed and spread in an area at one end of the nursery, and is growing there very happily. It has flowers just about all year apparently, and forms a nice round bush. Will have to see if we can get hold of some for the garden.

The second part of our excursion was to the North Gardens Wetlands.

Not an easy sign to read, but basically stormwater is collected, goes through gross pollutant traps, then several basins where sediment can settle, before the water ends up in Lake Wendouree.

The settling basins have provided areas frequented by many waterbirds, and although I didn't manage to photograph any of them,

 about 30 species of bird were identified by members of the group on our walk around the project.