Friday Flower Flaunt .... Mid-Summer 2025

Mid-Summer Garden Update:  Hot Days and Resilient Plants In Bloom.

As we settle into the heart of summer here in north Queensland, the weather has been as predictable as ever:  hot and humid.  It's the kind of heat that makes gardening a race against the clock - anything after 10.00 a.m. become a challenge.  Despite the discomfort, there's still joy to be found in brief, early morning strolls through the garden.  

This wet season has been underwhelming.  After an exceptional December with the highest rainfall totals in over a century, the new year has brought little relief.  The soil is parched, and the plants are yearning for more consistent rain.  Yet, even in these challenging conditions, the garden continues to offer small surprises and delights.

Blooms Spotted In The Garden  

While wandering through the various garden spaces, I've noticed several resilient plants resplendent in their blooms of many colours.

In the outdoor garden beds ...

Cassia fistula  (a summer bloomer)

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis  (all year round bloomer)

Lagerstroemia indica  (summer bloomer)

Mussaenda philippica x flava 'Calcutta Sunset'  (a summer bloomer)

Combretum constrictum  (a spring & summer bloomer)

In the sheltered courtyard garden ...

Coleus

Justicia carnea  (a spring / summer bloomer)

Various Impatiens  (all year round bloomers)

Various Torenias  (all year round bloomers)

In the shade house garden ...

Costus productus  (all year round bloomer)

Evolvulus  (all year round bloomer)

Dianthus  (spring & summer bloomers, and one of my all-time favourite perennials for this dry tropics garden)      

Calibrachoas (spring & summer bloomers).

I'm joining this week's Floral Friday Fotos.

Mosaic Monday .... Spring Colour and a Spring Clean!

It's the middle of Springtime Downunder ... and here in my the north-east Oz garden there's lots of great colour right now.  Almost every day there's another fantastic Oriental Lily bursting into bloom ... this is the first time I've grown them and I just adore their stunning colours and their perfume!

The Courtyard Garden is the place I'm spending all my free time over the semester break ... the colour out there is fantastic.  The heady perfume of those Oriental Lilies wafts around on the breeze.  There are butterflies fluttering around everywhere.  It's the perfect spot to sit back ... and relax!

Springtime is a time when my husband and I do a lot of cleaning-up around our property ... picking up loads of discarded palm tree fronds, trimming back a lot of foliage and pulling out weeds in the outdoor garden beds.  Some of this garden rubbish is used for mulching and some is thrown on the firepit.  Over the last few weekends we've been doing a whole lot of cleaning up and the pile on the firepit was enormous!  It was time for a bonfire ... our grandchildren who have been visiting during the school holidays sat mesmerised by the sight!  There's just something about huge flames leaping into the sky!!!!!

For more wonderful Mosaic Monday posts, make sure you visit Mary at Little Red House

Dining in the Courtyard Garden.

The Courtyard Garden is my favourite spot in the garden ... it's where I expend most of my gardening energies and it's the spot that is lavished with most of my attention ... although it's not lavished with heaps and heaps of money!   In my efforts to add lots and lots of colour to this space, I've ended up with a whole lot of inexpensive containers filled with lots of annuals and colourful plants like Cordylines.  Right now the annuals are coming into bloom and it's beginning to look quite lovely as our Winter marches on.

While I so love the Courtyard Garden during the day, it's at night that I absolutely revel in the surroundings.  We enjoy many evening meals out there or sometimes just drinks and nibblies.  Last night was our first Winter's dinner evening spent with family and I thought I'd share some photos taken while I was setting up.  As you can see there's nothing extravagant or sophisticated about the table setting ... it's more the homely and unpretentious touch!  Bit like me really!

I like to scatter little candles around the courtyard to light up the lovely flowers.   I plan on getting tall candle holders ... they're on my never-ending list of things to buy one day.

As the evening draws in, it's time to light the candles.

What was on the menu last night?  Well it was a rather cool Winter's evening ... gosh the temperature got down to chilly 17 degrees C / 62 degrees F!  Oh yeah ... time for the warm winter comfort food ....
Beef and Guinness Pie with mashed potatoes, string beans and corn ... and a few glasses of a fabulous red!

Followed by Sticky Date Pudding with Caramel Sauce and Vanilla Ice-cream ... then coffee/tea and chocolates.  Oh ... and a glass of Bailey's Irish Cream Liquor.  

Luckily we have enough beds for our guests to sleep over ... it's a long drive back into the city!!!

Mosaic Monday ... Our Winter Has Arrived!

This is the best time for gardening in my corner of the world.  Usually Autumn is the start of the terrific gardening time ... but not this year.  The showers of rain we received almost daily ... severely restricted the amount of time I could spend out in my garden.  The number of overcast days also had an effect on the growth rate of most plants.

But now, I'm out there every spare moment I can get ... outside working hours of course!  It's not like I'm rushing home from work ... no that's definitely NOT my car you can hear screeching out of the staff carpark maybe a little earlier than I should. Ok, so it is, but you would too if you had glorious Winter's weather exactly like you see highlighted in the photo below.  This is Winter in my part of the world!

With Autumn being a bit of a write-off this year ... I've only just now finished potting my many, many containers for my Courtyard Garden.  It's taken the better part of three weeks to complete ... using whatever spare time I could.  This has been an absolute joy for me, as I love the colourful display that lasts out there well into our horrible Summer!

I only started the potted plant project last year.  My pots are not fancy, not all that chic or sophisticated ... just a mixture of cheap clay pots and plastic pots from those discount warehouses, but they do.  So this year I have pots of petunias, pansies, violas, zinnias, gomphrena, bracteantha, nasturtiums, erigeron, gazanias, verbenas, dahlias, torenias, pelargoniums, cockscomb and snapdragons sitting out in the courtyard waiting to bloom.  I've had to track the patches of direct sun during the day and position the pots carefully to take advantage of the lower angle of the sun's rays.   So here's the Courtyard Potted Garden ready to go for our wonderful Winter/Spring/early Summer.

My Wilful Younger Child!

I look upon my garden areas rather like a parent looks upon their children.

First, there's the older kids ... the adult children who've left home and you have almost no control over their lives any more.  While you drop in to visit every now and then, you really can't do much other than watch over them as they mature ... that's my outdoor garden beds which include the Front Garden Beds,

the Driveway Garden Beds,

 the Pergola Garden Area,

the Back of the Courtyard Garden Area,

and the Hill Garden Area.

These are well-established beds that don't need me any more ... well, maybe only for an occasional watering or general tidy-up.

Then there are the young teenagers ... the ones that are trying to find their own identity but still rely on you for the essentials like food, shelter, money for clothes and you still have a say in who they can play with!  That's my Shadehouse/Greenhouse garden ...

and my Courtyard Garden.

I work almost daily keeping them watered, fed, free from pests and just generally behaving!  They each have their own character ... which I have a hand in forming.  So I can do things like change the colour scheme of the plants out there and choose new plants to add to the collections.  These are the places where I spend most of my time gardening.

Finally, there's that rather obnoxious, wilful and prone-to-temper-tantrums toddler.  You really love them, but they just won't do what they're supposed to ... and it's exhausting!!!  Well, that's my new outdoor garden bed.

The relationship started off really well when it was a baby ... hubbie built these new garden beds in a spot that was ugly and unsightly.

I was so excited and planned out just what these beds would look like ... I chose a different colour for each section.  I was looking forward to seeing my 'rainbow' garden develop ... and for a while, things were just great!

I spent money and filled it with lots of lovely plants ... Scaevola, Pelargonium, Gazanias, Bracteantha, Daisies ... the list goes on and on!   Mmmm ... well ...  'rainbow garden' has turned out to be more like a wilful toddler who's screaming for attention and all you want to do is ... give it to someone else until it's grown!!!

The long 'wet' season wreaked havoc with lots of my carefully chosen plants and there's no resurrecting them ... just like a toddler that won't wear something because it's yellow!!!!   It's just not going to happen!

All I can do now is look lovingly over the photos and reminisce about how this darling used to be!!

So, I've been very busy lately ... hence the relatively few blog posts.  After spending a couple of weeks getting my favourites into shape ... the Shadehouse/Greenhouse Garden and Courtyard Garden ... I just couldn't keep on avoiding the new garden bed anymore.

I've now removed all the dead plants with tears in my eyes ... the lovely Calibrachoas, Buddleia, Celosia spicata, Gomphrena leontopodioides and Kalanchoe pumila.  Why, oh why???

I've checked over the critically ill ...and trimmed them (hoping they come back) .... the Osteospurmums, Plectranthus and Saliva farinacea.  I'm keeping fingers crossed and hoping I'll see the return of the Sprekelia formosissima and the Gladiolus callianthus too.

I've removed all the invaders ... that Giant Sword Fern has a lot to answer for!!! I've added fertiliser and compost to the soil.  I've tried digging over all sections  ... but parts are now totally root-bound from something and I haven't quite figured out what it is yet!

Finally, today, I did a stocktake.  The Daylilies survived ... the Poinsettias survived ... the Angelonias survived ... the Gerberas still there ... the Turnea Ulmifolia is still thriving ... and the Mesembryanthemum 'Pig face' is still hanging in there!

So, while there's some good out of all this, I'm now left with the next job ... trying to decide on what I should try now!!!  This bed is proving to be the proverbial pain in the ####!!!!  Now that the day is drawing to an end, this is how the toddler looks ... rather grotty, with a grumpy look on its face and looking decidedly unloved!  Mum needs a sleep!

The 'Wet' Season is Finally Over !!! Time Out In The Garden Can Begin.

Over the last year and a bit, I've been trying to create a more colourful garden space in the courtyard by adding lots of potted plants.  Unfortunately, after months of rain ... whether it be the torrential downpours of late summer or the constant and most unusual autumn showers we've been experiencing ... the Courtyard Garden was beginning to look like a rather scruffy distant relative.  You just know you should love them, but you can't get past the outward appearance!

So it was time to look critically at my potted plants.  Time to move the aged or maimed out of sight for some intensive care ... and time to move the terminally ill to the bonfire pile.  Because my seedlings had not survived the endless weeks of damp, moist conditions and dull, overcast skies, it was also time to treat myself to some new annual seedlings from the nursery. Definitely time to re-pot any plants that have roots growing out of drainage holes in the bottom of the pot ... and if roots have grown down into the paving, it was time to cut them off and raise the pot up on pot feet.

Many plants are now craving some strong sunlight, while others needed some pest management measures. It was definitely time for action.  Out I went and started pulling out all the potted plants so I could get a decent look and see just how they were faring!

So what did I find?:

Plants like the Cockscomb really needed some sunshine ... we've had far too many overcast days over the last three months.  I'm going to have to find another spot away from the courtyard for these to get a decent dose of rays.

 All my Portulacas ... Sun Jewels, as we call them .... also needed a healthy dose of Mr. Sunshine.

My Euphorbia 'Diamond Frost' needed a decent haircut ...

  .... as did a couple of my coleus.

 As a matter of fact this whole area outside my kitchen window needs some attention.

The stunning coleus that had been in the large white pot had been attacked by nasty little critters and had given up.  The Streptocarpus on the left hand side really suffered because the drip irrigation that waters it had broken and, as I was never home when it was on, I failed to notice anything was wrong until the plant started to look half-dead.

There's also way too much green in the spot and it definitely needs a lift.  It needs other colours!

The area on the other side, outside our bedroom came through well, but needed some colour as well.  Both areas need bright colourful plants that survive shady spots. 

Hmmmm!!  Choices to be made .... more coleus, more cordylines, more begonias ... another trip to the nursery will be a priority.

The poor cordylines that were already out in the courtyard suffered horribly from those greedy grasshoppers ... not much that can be done about that.  They will, of course, grow lovely new leaves ... but in the meantime they will look less than their best.

My gorgeous new Salvia ... Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue' ... had survived the 'wet' but had also been attacked by some little muncher!  Still it's now full of blooms so I'm quite happy with it.

Both my Cleome spinosas 'Senorita Rosalita' were covered in blooms too, but they were also covered in mealy bugs and needed some TLC.

On a more positive note ... the Diffenbachia are thriving.

The Crossandras are flowering so well again ...

So are the Salvia splendens ....

The Jacobinia have survived and continue to flourish....

 

The Bracteantha (also known as Helichrysum) or Paper Daisies, grown from last year's seeds, are beginning to bloom ...

Then there is the forgotten tub that had Amaranthus growing in it.  The Amaranthus had died ... the pot hidden behind others and never given another thought during all the rain.  Well now ... there's new growth!

So there's some good after quite a long 'wet' season ...

 ... and now the recoup and recover session has begun.  I've started rearranging the newly potted annual seedlings, the re-potted favourites and the brand new colourful additions to create a far more attractive vista.  But it's time to get back out there ... so the rest of the story will have to wait.