Our wintertime is well and truly ended. It's been one of the warmest winters I can recall for quite some time, and given that tropical winters are usually very, very mild anyway, you could be forgiven for thinking we hadn't had a winter at all. Officially the last day of winter is tomorrow, August 31st, but the high-20C temps. over the last few weeks has meant it was over ages ago.
The long period of very warm winter temps., added to the failure of the wet season at the beginning of the year, has meant a seemingly intensified dry season. My place is quite simply bone dry! I've been working hard at keeping the new garden beds going and I've had to resort to using the sprinkler at least every second day. Right now there are watering restrictions in place across our city council zone, so I will only be able to use the sprinkler twice a week from now on.
There are little bursts of colour here and there around our place that provide a break from the dryness as you wander around. Thankfully, many of the potted plants sitting out in the courtyard are in bloom right now.
Gazanias.
Down the driveway, my Tabebuia impetignosa has been covered in blooms and the cheery purple flowers greet me as I arrive home after work every day. It's a delight to spot them as I get closer to home.
Tabebuia impetiginosa.
There's also white and purple Bauhinia flowers to be spotted as I travel down the long driveway in the afternoons.
The few blooms, seeds and berries around the place have been attracting quite a bit of birdlife as they seize upon any available source of food.
Spring officially begins tomorrow
As always a real treat to visit your blog and see what is blooming in your part of the world.
ReplyDeleteIt was good to see a post from you. I've missed visiting with your ~ FlowerLady
Thank you so much Lorraine. You've always got encouraging comments to leave for me. I'm still hanging around but my blogging mojo hasn't quite returned in full swing yet.
DeleteHi Bernie, it's always fascinating to read your blogs as the climates we both live in are so different! here in the UK we have had a very disappointing summer with temps lower than average & less sunshine than average . Some places in the UK have had exceptional amounts of rainfall while others have noticed little difference from the average. Our region, East Anglia, has been one of the relatively dry regions with precipitations around average or slightly below. During the last couple of weeks the Met Office has issued Yellow Warning for Heavy rain in Cambridgeshire, the county where we live, in East Anglia, but in our town we have hardly seen more than a few isolated showers. Even today these is a Yellow Warning in operation but during the hour that we were forecast heaviest rain during the day today - not a drop fell!
ReplyDeleteYour pots of flowers look a real treat, Bernie! The photos of the birds are fascinating, too! We don't have any birds like those here in the UK. yet this morning I saw a very big Gull flying over the rooftops in front of our place. It's quite common to see seagulls here, even though we are about 100 miles from the coast, but to see such a big bird is not common.
It's been a few years since we had a hosepipe ban here & the year it was imposed we had one of the wettest summers in history!
Always interesting to read your blogs, Bernie!
I'm so glad you enjoy my intermittent posts, David. I have a couple of friends who live over in Blighty and they all say the same thing ... this year the summer was over before it really began. You would be looking out for rain every day by now I would imagine. Fingers crossed it arrives sooner rather than later. Here, we know there will be no rain until at least December when the wet season is expected to arrive. Watering restrictions are fairly commonplace for us during our dry seasons. This year though the restrictions might move up a level or two. We just hope the coming wet will be far better than the last one.
DeleteI know I say it every time, but you have so many gorgeous flowers in your garden! That male Sunbird is stunning. I've never seen one before!
ReplyDeleteWe are so fortunate that we get to see those males on almost a daily basis. Their fluroescent bibs stand out a mile in the sunshine even thought they're such little birds. The females however, are easy to miss if they're not singing.
DeleteIt's always a pleasure to visit your garden, Bernie and to see your beautiful plants
ReplyDeleteyour plus on G brought me here in hopes of a new post!
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear how dry it is at your place.Not much better here at the moment. Your blooms are lovely even so. Mine get eaten by the wallabies if I don't remember to spray with diluted hot sauce every few days.
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