I remember those hot and humid days when it was hard to concentrate in the first weeks back at school each year.
I remember packing school lunches for kids who were sick of holidays and glad to be back with their friends once more.
But this year is different. I no longer have kids at school so there are no school books or uniforms to be bought, and they now take care of their own lunches! After so many years it is a strange feeling to now have adult children.
Although in terms of weather, this year is not very different to last. A couple of days of rain last week settled the dust and our parched gardens have been greedily gulping the moisture injection and once again the humidity increases as the summer sun seeks to reassert dominance over the earth beneath and half a week passes with the heavy moisture laden atmosphere trapped beneath high riding cloud cover.
Then three more days of rain, the humidity is high, around 96%, with the slightest exertion raising a sweat. The oppression breaks around midday and heavier showers develop throughout the afternoon. You can almost see the garden growing overnight, the weeds certainly do.
My In-Laws had a Tibouchina growing right beside their letterbox, it was one of the older style purple ones. They weren't really that much into gardening and I think they were quite proud when their shrub was covered in beautiful purple flowers.
In recent times there have been some exciting new dwarf Tibouchina varieties released.
 |
| Tibouchina Peace Baby |
Distributed by PMA, these are called Fantasy Flower Tibouchinas and include a gorgeous white, "Tibouchina Peace Baby", which grows to about 60 cm high. "Peace Baby" was covered in blooms in the weeks after I brought her home.
 |
| Tibouchina Cool Baby |
"Tibouchina Cool Baby", a pretty pink and white, growing to just 45cm and "Tibouchina Groovy Baby", a vibrant purple colour, also growing to 45cm, both of which are recent acquisitions of mine.
I don't really have room for a full height Tibouchina shrub and am thrilled to have one of each of these three in my garden. As they are dwarf varieties I think I should be able to keep all three in medium sized terracotta pots which I can move around as required, to a prominent place whilst they are in flower and into lightly dappled shade in the hotter months. Although they are designed for full sun, my "Peace Baby" found full sun in Sydney (as a potted specimen) too much and suffered a fair bit of sun damage, from which it is still recovering so I was excited to find a bloom on each of the first two, I guess I'll have to wait a little longer for "Groovy Baby"
There a couple of other varieties in this range, "Tibouchina Illusion", Tibouchina Allure" and "Tibouchina Imagine", and these grow bigger (between 1 and 3 metres).
 | |||||||||
| Ivy Geranium |
Over the past month or so I have invested an incredible amount of time (and money) in watering the garden but it seems that no amount of watering is ever going to refresh and bring the garden back to life as effectively as a couple of steady showers of rain will. Everything seems to be grateful for the rain.
 | |||
| Long Tall Sally |
The grass that was brown and crisp has miraculously turned green once more and as I dead-head the roses, I see that new red stems and buds have already begun to grow beside the spent flower heads and I am hopeful of a nice autumnal display in the coming months.
 |
| Tuberous Begonia Pink Picotee |
I think we all have certain expectations of what will and won't do well in our gardens. More often than not, it is that things don't perform to our expectations so it is all the sweeter when the surprise is a pleasant one, as was the case with this Tuberous Begonia. I had seen them grown to perfection in glass houses in Orange and Bathurst and on impulse bought a couple of tubers through an on-line end of season sale, fully expecting that they probably wouldn't amount to much.
 |
| Endless Summer Hydrangea - Twist N Shout |
No comments:
Post a Comment