We're all frogs!

This is probably more accurately a froglet because, despite the size it looks in the photo it is barely a couple of centimetres in length.  It seems to be living in the bottom of a pot of wild marjoram because when I watered the pot the frog came out of one of the drainage holes!

Happy Valentine's Day

Despite 40 degree plus heat for 3 or 4 days in a row then drenching rain overnight, this Graham Thomas Rose decided it would burst into flower on 14 February.

Too hot for koalas!

Koalas usually stay high in their favourite gum trees but when it gets hot they come down lower for shade or water.  This one is seeking shade from the low 40 degree temperature in a feral ash tree just above Minno Creek which stopped flowing in December but it still has a few pools of water in it.

Correa lawrenceana (red form)

Like most correas, Correa lawrenceana takes many forms and there are half a dozen or so recognised varieties.  Correa lawrenceana occurs mainly in Tasmania (where one form can grow to be a small tree) and Victoria.  This "red form" variety in the garden has reached 2 metres in height and is covered with these purple-red flowers that attract honeyeaters and the plant provides a great deal of dense shelter to protect them from predators.  Frankly the photo is flattering to the look of the flowers which are a little manky in reality but the birds don't care what they look like, just that the flowers are a desirable food source.  I'd suggest that this would be a good background bush to cover up an unsightly fence or to provide some privacy, particularly as a hedge.  This bush seems to be remarkably drought hardy and it can be grown from cuttings.

Correa 'Tucker Time Dinner Bells'

It's very hot at present in South Australia with temperatures in the high thirties to low 40s but one pleasant surprise is that some correas have commenced flowering.  Correas are much loved by small birds whose beaks have evolved to be inserted in the long correa flowers - eastern spinebills in particular.  Besides Eastern Spinebills, I've noticed Silvereyes, New Holland honeyeaters, Grey wrens and Superb Fairy wrens enjoying the correa bushes.  This particular correa is a named and registered cultivar called Correa Tucker Time Dinner Bells.  It's a hybrid of Correa glabra x decumbens.  Decumbens is a prostrate correa so this cultivar must have taken on more of the flowering characteristics of that species and the bushy and shiny leaf characteristics of Correa glabra.  It's a very hardy correa which seems to have low water requirements and is quite showy even without flowers because of its shiny leaves.  It can grow to about 1.5 metres but it can be trimmed back and a group of them would form a very attractive native hedge which would be a real honey-eater magnet!  It can be grown from cuttings.

Achillea millefolium (yarrow)

There are many colourful yarrows available and this one has flowers that start off looking yellow then progress through shades of pink to be finally bright pink.  And yarrow always has such ferny foliage that's soft to touch.  It's quite drought hardy and grows in full sun to dappled shade.  It will grow in heavy shade but doesn't flower very profusely.

Wanderer (Monarch) butterfly on Bursaria spinosa bush

Butterfly on Bursaria spinosa flower

I think it's a Common Xenica (Geitoneura klugii).

Snow in summer

Bursaria spinosa is a native shrub that flowers in summertime, hence the common name "Snow in Summer".  It's easy to grow, drought hardy, gives a better display of flowers if it's pruned back in winter and bees and birds love the flowers.  Every home should have one.  This is one growing in Blackwood Forest Recreation Park so it hasn't been pruned but the floral display is still spectacular.

Satsuma plum

Satsuma plums (these are nearly ripe) are probably the most delicious of the Japanese varieties. The local possums, rats and birds agree so we have to net the tree so we get to enjoy the fruit!