Res Publica

Banksia Ericifolia

Last year it had one flowering head (about 6" long), this year several - Banksia ericifolia - or Heath Leaved Banksia to give it its more popular name.  Not long after it came into bloom last year the guys who come and trim our poinciana managed to drop a sufficiently large branch onto the Banksia to nearly destroy it but it has bounced back surprisingly well.  It has taken a few years to get this far and didn't seem to do much for the first couple of years (I scanned the ID card in October 2004).  Sadly, if our plan to move to Brisbane in the New Year eventuates (and I can't see what will prevent it) this will be the last time we see this in flower.

In other exciting news, I learnt today of the existence of 'pales' while I was helping The Handbrake with the washing.  'Pales' are neither 'whites' nor 'colours', and there's also 'fluffies', to further complicate the issue.  Suitably enlightened, I'm still left wondering why the female population continues to delude itself into thinking that strappy things get a decent wash when they're nicely protected in one of those bags to stop the straps getting tangled. 

Drying Out

What a day yesterday was, rain, rain and then some more, the most I think I've seen hereabouts in about 6 years. It was the big pick-up job this morning in the yard, our native ash and lemon-scented gum managed to shed numerous small branches along with the poinciana out the back which has gone berserk over the last few weeks with all the rain we've had. Pictured left is our pretty flowering gum which only stands about 18" high in the front yard but doesn't look quite so pretty today, in fact it's decidedly bedraggled this morning.

Back to work today and earlier flights than usual although I can't remember why - must have been some booking difficulties. I get into Townsville fairly early this evening so I thought it would be a good chance to catch up with dear daughter, S, who's recently split up with her boyfriend and also just lost her job. But no, she's off to the movies with a friend, a parental shoulder to cry on is obviously not necessary, nor the lure of a decent meal. Eldest daughter has also managed to persuade my ex to join Facebook. I know you can have friends on Facebook (I've got 12, getting into the big time now...), can you also have enemies ?

House and Garden

For those who've been following our progress, I'm pleased to say that we've finally finished off painting downstairs. Well, outside anyway, the inside still needs a bit of work but the basic job is finished. I can't remember when we started but it was a very long time ago. In between discovering old termite damage and my slipping a disc it all seemed to drag on far longer than was really respectable. We're also going to tidy up inside by buying a stationery cabinet and store away lots of old files currently residing in removalist's boxes and generally cluttering the place up.

Even though autumn has officially arrived, Bundaberg and much of SE Queensland has turned on its hottest weather for the year - and most humid, more like Cairns than the southeast corner. Recent rains have brought the garden to life including our bromeliads which lurk underneath our poinciana and generally don't do much for the rest of the year. We hit a high of 35.5 at midday which is hot by our usual standards and a few degrees warmer than yesterday. As I write this the sun is setting and it's just starting to cool off so the humidity has gone berserk.

Organising finance for the new car fell in a hole today because it's a public holiday  in Melbourne. Why the rest of the country should grind to a halt because everyone in Melbourne wants a holiday escapes me.

Flowering Gum

Home again, and the big gum tree in the front garden is in full bloom. It's actually a bit too big for a suburban block but it does a great job of shielding the house from the street. One day it will no doubt fall over and take the power line with it. At flowering time it puts on a mass of white flowers which attract all manner of beasts of the air. During the day the rainbow lorikeets swoop on the tree and get stuck into the flowering heads. When it's quiet you can also hear a distinct buzzing noise as hundreds of native bees and other bugs home in on the scent from the flowers. At night the fruit bats take their turn and spend hours squabbling and squawking amongst the branches. So much so that The Handbrake has taken to wearing ear plugs to get a decent night's sleep. They also leave a regular calling card in the form of sticky droppings on the walls of the house as they fly off in search of other nocturnal smorgasbords. Between the lorikeets and the bats attacking the flowers there's a continual rain of bits of flowers and twigs falling on the garden and making a right royal mess.

Geraldton Wax

Surprisingly, after many months, our Geraldton Wax (on the left - Chamelaucium uncinatum) has sprung into flower. We planted a couple some eighteen months ago and it seems to have taken ages for the sole survivor to burst into flower. They do like a lot of sun so our front garden is probably a bit too heavily shaded for them to do well. I was surprised to find that it's actually a reasonably close relative of manuka (Leptospermum scoparium), a native of New Zealand and SE Australia. While we were on the South Island I actually took a few photos of the white manuka which covers some of the slopes along the way between Christchurch and Greymouth. At the time the flowers reminded me of something I'd seen before. but I couldn't work out what it was. The leaves are quite a bit different though. Mystery solved.

New Toy

Yesterday I got a new toy we invested in one of the best labour saving devices I've seen in a while and a snip at $90 or so. We live in a high-set Queenslander and the concrete floor downstairs is always getting covered in dead leaves which seem to blow in, but never seem to find their way out again. The Dear Handbrake is always having to sweep them up or hose them out so it was long about time that we made the task a bit easier. We shopped around, looked at the two models they had in Mitre 10 and then went and picked from the 10 models they had at Bunnings.

It's magnificent: 2000 watts, 'patio wheels', 10:1 volumetric mulching reduction ratio and converts from suck to blow at the turn of a lever. There only appeared to be one downside, the Ryobi only comes in grey, not red. I've given it a couple of test runs, vacuumed all the leaves up downstairs yesterday and then blew off the front stairs this afternoon (and half the front driveway). Having established an efficient working protocol and confirmed the obvious time saving potential, all that now remains is to teach The Handbrake how to use it.

On a more serious note, it makes a hell of a racket. Admittedly not as much as some mining equipment I've stood next to underground, but noisy all the same. Today I put ear plugs in and it was much more pleasant. I'd hazard a guess that the noise these things make exceeds a few safety thresholds and I'm forced to wonder how many Sunday gardeners are doing irreparable damage to their hearing.

Bower Birds

This odd shaped contraption made up of sticks, snail shells and small pieces of grey limestone aggregate is a bowerbird's nest. I've only rarely come across these in my bush wanderings and, quite strangely, this one is actually among the shrubs in the garden of the place I stay at while I'm at work.

The bower is constructed by the male of the species to attract the female as part of the courtship ritual. Judging from the rather drab colouring of the owner of this bower who fled up into the tops of the bushes on my arrival, he's a Great Bowerbird (Chlamydera nuchalis), pale fawn with alternating brown stripey wings and not much to look at compared to his colourful cousin, the regent bowerbird. This bower is relatively dull to look at and has only been brightened up by the addition of a few pieces of broken green glass. One I found many years ago near Charters Towers was very striking with many red plastic coke bottle tops.

Rose Coloured Spectacle

A trifle late for Valentine's Day perhaps but here are a couple of shots of roses from the garden of my residence up on the Tablelands. Someone comes and mows the lawns once in a while (and the plumbing, but that's another story) but otherwise the garden is rather neglected. For all that, the solitary rose bush out the back has put on a magnificent show.

The smaller shot is obviusly a different bud but, here's the twist, it's the same bush. The only difference between the photos is the time of day they were taken. The little image was taken early one evening in low light conditions and the larger image was taken in fairly full light during the day.  So, can anyone tell me how to get round my camera's mendacious tendencies ? For the record it's an Olympus Camedia C740 and already approaching obsolescence based on my recent window shopping to get a work camera.

Hebe Gebes

The stick on the left with a few dead bits of foliage hanging off the ends is the last of our hebes. We were quite impressed with the hebes we saw all over NZ but our garden or Bundaberg's climate has been less than kind to the genus. This one lasted relatively well, all of 18 months or so but has eventually fallen foul of the environment. Perhaps it got a bit crowded out by the lilly pily. It did flower once, a mere shadow of the picture on the pot, a better performance than the other two we planted which turned up their toes very quickly.

The Handbrake has planted one of the magnificent flowering gums out the front. These seem to do quite well in Bundaberg. This variety is a hybrid between Corymbia ficifolia and Corymba ptychocarpa. The little label describes it as having mauve flowers. Mauve must have changed colour recently because that looks like a good solid pink colour if you ask me. My camera, which has trouble up the purple end of the spectrum, has faithfully reproduced the colour for once. I've also done a close up of the flowers, they're truly magnificent.

I take the sign that it has gone into flower as a positive since The Handbrake only planted it a week or so ago. Either that, or it's one last desperate attempt to ensure the survival of its genes and it's just about to do a hebe on us and snuff it.

Blooming Proteas

When we started to fix up the garden we put a couple of proteas in, thinking they would go well in the sandy soil. One of them, the floppy one (Leucospermum patersonii) has finally bloomed. I say 'floppy' because if it wasn't well supported on a stake it would be lying on the ground. It's grown reasonably well but simply doesn't want to stand up. Maybe there's some deficiency in the soil. The other one (Protea compacta x Protea susanna) has yet to flower, it's only about a third of the height of this one and looks decidedly stunted. By contrast the stunted one seems to have enough strength to stand up on its own. Are they always this temperamental ?