Rain, the sound of plants growing

Gentle rain, the kindest rain of all. Soaking into the soil without damaging the tender seedlings, or even making the flowers sad. (Edit: well, that was how it was until last night's downpour!) We're into our second day of gentle rain now, after a record midwinter dry spell, and the garden definitely needs every drop it can get.

More usually, after a long dry spell we get pounding rain that brings damage and much needed relief in equal doses. (Edit: talk about speaking too soon ... the more usual pounding, damaging rain arrived last night.) I originally wished a special thankyou to Huey for this lovely, gentle, nurturing rain, but in this re-edited posting, it's "thanks Huey for the rain, but you can back off now".  

Anyway, it's good to have the rains arrive, so here's a quick lap of our garden, camera in hand.

Still bare, our frangipani is wearing strings of these watery jewels now.

Poppies never cope well with rain, but today they're just
drooping their heads a little. They'll look up when the sun
breaks out.

Rosemary in bloom with vivid green new growth, too.

A week away from full flowering, the scadoxus are already
glowing like beacons, and opening rapidly now there's rain.

Aeonium 'Schwartzkopf' looks like it's trying to resist getting wet. 

While in a dark, shady corner this Vriesia
bromeliad is putting on a colour party.

The foodies are loving it. Lettuce planted less than a week ago.

Potato babies growing noticeably every day.

Thai limes were fertilised on the weekend, and with this steady
watering they'll be flowering and fruiting through summer.

As I've mentioned before, I am so glad the roof over the rear part of our house is galvanised iron. There's nothing more pleasing to this gardener than enjoying breakfast, fresh mug of coffee to start the day, listening to the sound of rain on a tin roof.

Waking up in winter

Yawn ... stretch ... no Garden Amateur posts since June 18? Yes, we've been taking a little midwinter break, but this morning, August 1, is such a mild, sweet morning that all Sydney gardeners know spring is not far away. So it's a good time to wake up the sleeping blogger.

Out on our streets the magnolias are bursting out in pinky purples, the wattles are dripping with golden bling, and here in our little backyard there's colour everywhere you look. On with the show ...

Several of our succulents are colouring up, and this
Kalanchoe 'Copper Spoons' is flushed all over with coppery
new growth on a shrub about 70cm tall. So classy.

Bromeliads such as this Vriesia are the ideal plants for non
gardeners to grow in Sydney. Just shove them in semi shade,
pretty well ignore them, and they will then do this in winter.

Our "groundcover" Cootamundra wattle in our
front garden is at its colourful fuzziest right now.

Growing poppies for Pammy in winter has become a tradition
that I hope will last forever.

Our pot of Aeonioum 'Schwartzkopf' offcuts
that we are striking seem to have taken.

Crassula 'Campfire' is a succulent which
really colours up in winter. It's green when
the weather is warmer, but red for just a
month or two in midwinter.

Same deal with the trailing hanging basket
succulent, Senecio jacobensii. It's green in
summer but wears purple robes to ward off
the winter chills.

Finally, even our silvers are shining right now. The Spanish
moss which Pammy looks after, draped from the bare and
otherwise scrappy looking branches of our Grevillea 'Peaches
and Cream', always look superb in the early morning sun.

All the cliches of the seasons, of winter's bareness especially, just don't apply here in Sydney. And that's how I love it.

Spring's other colours

I know I did a post only recently about one succulent's lovely colours at this time of year (Senecio jacobensii), but I think the topic is worth another quick visit just because everything in the succulent patch is celebrating spring through colour.

Crassula 'Campfire' looks like it was made for the lolly shop.

I love a good "black", especially when it's not
really black but just a very dark shade of another
colour, so dark that in low light it looks black.
Yet in the bright afternoon sunshine Aeonium
'Schwartzkopf' reveals itself to be the product
of a very fine winery specialising in shiraz.

First prize for good, obvious names goes to the
person who decided that this cultivar of
Kalanchoe orygalis should be called 'Copper
Spoons'. This living rust never sleeps.

The marketing people have called Kalanchoe thyrsiflora, with
its big, red-rimmed leaves 'Flapjacks' but that name has never
particularly appealed to me. I prefer lipstick hippos.

Last, and probably least, in this colourful company is this
little green-leafed sedum with the red tips, whose small clusters
of daisy flowers is a cheerful sight this morning. 

As we move into the second year of our new succulent garden, with the plants all liberated from their pots and now living in sandy soil, I can't help but think that this is something that I should have done years ago. You can't undo the past, so I am simply glad that I have now done it, as almost every plant here is much happier. And the language that they speak is colour.