Green

Green green green, how I love summer green.  After all the rain, grass and plants are bursting with fresh growth.

 The pink and grey galahs are frequent visitors.

 The citrus trees are looking good.  Even the stubborn mandarine in the foreground has decided to put on some decent growth.

 My banksia is now in full flower, and I've finally been able to identify it, its a Banksia speciosa, or Showy Banksia.  Endemic to the south coast of WA, particularly towards Esperance apparently.

 This is my dwarf lillipilli, grown from a tiny cutting from my friend Ruth.  It's now handsome shrub about 1 metre high, and for the first time has flowered.  I love the fluffy white flowers, and if I'm lucky I might even see some fruit.  Except the parrots will probably see them first!

 This is a native bluebell creeper, I'm trying to train it up and over the remains of a dead jarrah trunk in my garden.  It will make a great habitat for the little birds as it is quite thick.  The day I discover the little birds are nesting in my garden will be a happy one indeed.  :-)

 This plant, grow from a cutting from Ruth, who got a cutting from her friend, is called Miribalis, or Four O'Clock plant.  It's from Peru apparently.  I am quite proud as no-one knew what the plant was and I managed to put on my detective hat and between me and Google, figured out its identity. 
The flowers come out about 4pm, bloom all night, then close up by midmorning.  They have a lovely fragrance, so I'm hoping when the three plants grow bigger and flower more, that the perfume will waft around in the evening.

 This is my Moonglow grevillea, I planted it about 5 years ago, but it was ravaged by the kangaroos for the first few years until I finally put a wide enough fence around it.  It's growing well now, getting a lot bigger.  The bees and nectar birds love it.

 I had a disaster with the passionfruit vine.  It carked it.  So quickly too, all the leaves wilted then died in a matter of weeks.  There was masses of fruit on it so I managed to salvage some of them, a lot of them dried up unfortunately.  Upon researching I think it succumbed to a fungal disease called Frusarium Wilt, which resides in the soil.  Darn it.

 Luckily the banana passionfruit alongside seems unaffected, hopefully it is resistant.  I've got another passionfruit vine growing and I might plant another one in a different place, luckily they grow fast.

 

 Anyway, the passionfruit I saved were ripe but the flesh, although edible,  is a bit sour as they didn't have a chance to finish ripening before the vine died.  So I depulped them all and poured it into freezer bags for use in fruit salads and yogurt later on.  Glad to have saved some of the crop.

 The trees in the orchard are looking good, and all putting on new growth.  This is the triple grafted apricot tree that has grown like the clappers.  It's about 2 metres high.  We got two apricots this year, well, we watched the two apricots slowly ripen until the day before we were going to pick them, then some ratbag critter or bird nicked them! Next year....

 This is the sad O'Henry peach that almost died on us.  It seems to be recovering slowly and is growing new leaves after completely defoliating and dropping all its fruit.  Lesson learned, don't use bore water on this tree!

 These are the two nectarine trees, the Flavortop yellow fleshed one in front, and the Goldmine white fleshed one behind and to the left.  Go figure, they grow alongside each other, and the front one is the other tree that almost died after bore water irrigation.  Again, it is recovering and releafing like the peach, but look at the difference between these two nectarine trees, the Goldmine one is a mass of lush foliage, too much in fact.  I can't fathom why one tree was happy and one was not.  We are pleased to see the sick one looking happy again though.

 This is the Angel peach, a white fleshed one.  That too has grown beautifully, loads of healthy leaves.

 The apples are coming along nicely, we have five varieties.  This one is a Cox's Orange Pippin, a famous English eating apple.

 This is a Red Fuji, my favourite apple.  As you can see we aren't very good at thinning out the fruit!

 Meanwhile, outside the fences protecting the fruit and veg, we spy bunny holes in the bush.  We've noticed a few plaintive little digging attempts along the fence perimeter, but thankfully Steve buried the wire into the ground and this has foiled the bunnies - ha!  There were hardly any rabbits around last year, but we are certainly seeing them this year. 

 The roos are enjoying the green grass of summer, plus the odd serving of wheat we succumb to giving them.  The mum standing with joey in the foreground is Split (she has a split ear), Lucy is behind her with a joey in pouch too.  Growler (cos she does) at the back right.

 Here's Growler again, with her now out of the pouch joey, Andre, with his tennis sweatband forehead marking. :-)

 I would love to master the ability to sketch kangaroos.  Only one line has to be a touch out of place and suddenly they look too fat or chubby cheeked or squat necked.   Fun trying though.