Bush Bernie's Blog

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Yahooo ... I'm Back!

Well, that was a very interesting 36 hours!!!!

Google shut down my account while I was sleeping and I awoke to find I could no longer access my email, my blogs, my Google+ stream or my Picasa albums ... all of which were associated with my google account. Apparently somebody out there was messing with my account ... what is wrong with these people who seem to love hacking into others accounts? How I wish there were some serious consequences for those individuals!

Anyway, it seems everything is back to normal ... well for now anyway. I was suffering from some serious withdrawal symptoms for a while. But I can once again participate in the online gardening world. Happy days!

Friday, February 10, 2012

Flower Flaunt Friday ... On A Steamy End-of-Summer Day.

Whoa! Old Man Summer has ramped it up a notch or two in the last couple of weeks. We've had very steamy sticky days where the mercury has climbed up to the mid-30 deg C mark (around 91-92 deg F). It feels like you could wring the air around you like a damp rag and watch the waterdrops fall. We've had some magnificent tropical thunderstorms in the evenings ... complete with resplendent lightning shows and crackling thunder. The rain buckets down every few days, about 6 inches (154 mm) since the beginning of the month.

There's actually not all that many flowers to be see out in the garden right now. The plants seem to have taken a break from blooming, as if it's all just too hard. Thank heavens for the colour produced by these hardy heat-tolerant, sun-tolerant and humidity-tolerant few.

Torenia 'Violet Magic',

Angelonia angustifolia,

Portulaca,

Cosmos sulphureus,

purple Lagerstroemia indica,

pink Lagerstroemia indica,

Galphimia glauca and Ruellia tweediana,

Neomarica lonigfolia,

and Anthurium.

I'm joining Fertilizer Friday / Flaunt Your Flowers

Floral Friday Fotos

Monday, February 6, 2012

Mosaic Monday ... It's Our End-of-Summer Month.

Only a few more official Summer sunrises to go now. The end of Summer is drawing near ... February is our last Summer month ... but the hot, sticky and muggy conditions will carry on until at least mid-March. It's not much fun getting out into the garden right now and I'm avoiding it as much as possible.

I can wander around in the early morning and in the evening when the sun goes down though, and when I do go out, there are some lovely flowers to see. Here's just a few of the end-of-Summer blooms in my garden at present.

I'm joining Mary for her Mosaic Monday meme.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Friday Flower Flaunt ... as our last Summer month begins.

Yes, February is our last month of Summer. The heavens continue to open either in the late afternoon, overnight or early in the morning, but during the day it continues to be bright, sunny and excruciatingly hot. I feel like I'm walking around all day with a sticky wet blanket draped over me. The humidity levels are extremely high. As a matter of fact they reached 99% again during the late afternoon this week as the rain fell.

Out in the garden there hasn't been much change over the last few weeks. The usual Summer bloomers are on display, but as the rains continue to fall there are a couple that are starting to suffer with the rain and humidity levels. My Pelargoniums are starting to look rather sickly and the Gazanias haven't flowered in ages now.

Still, there is colour out there. There's some lovely whites, which I love.