Flower Flaunt on Friday ... It's the first month of our Autumn!

Autumn has arrived Downunder ... and in my corner of our great country, it's most welcome.  Here in the tropical north, Autumn signals the beginning of the best time of year for our gardens.  After the devastation wrought by the recent cyclone and the seemingly endless 'wet' season, it's difficult to find much in my garden that is in fact blooming.

The trees and shrubs are in a state of recovery as they have all been severely trimmed back ... as shown by the ever rising green waste pile in our fire pit.

I have to rely mostly on my potted plants for signs of flower displays.  Unfortunately, they too have suffered as a result of the leaching from heavy rainfall and from the lack of sunshine.  The only other spot that has just a few blooms is the tiered garden bed which also suffered from flooding as a result of the gushing water flowing downhill right through this area.

So let's see what I found as I wandered around.  I was amazed to find ...

...  the first bud on my new Justicia brandegeana or Shrimp Plant

... the first ever bloom on my Spathoglottis plicata or Ground Orchid.

It was almost as if my garden was apologising for its demise and was attempting to offer some type of salve for my rather saddened gardening heart.

There weren't many other flowering finds apart from  ...
... a few sprays of flowers on my reliable Pentas

... a bloom on my oldest and obviously hardiest Gerbera

...  a lonely spray of flowers on my Ozothamnus diosmifolius

... and just a couple of flowers on some of my Salvia splendens.

As if to make up for the pitiful lack of colour out there in my garden,  I've noticed a couple of colourful visitors popping by almost every day.  Can you see the colourful couple high up in the trees?

 This pair of Rainbow Lorikeets have been hanging around looking for food ...

... and one of them looks like it's been in the wars, poor thing!  I've been wondering if the wound was suffered during cyclone Yasi.

For more Fertiliser / Flower Flaunt Friday posts, please go and visit Tootsie at Tootsie Time

I'm also joining in Today's Flowers meme, so please make sure you go over and visit to see some lovely flowers.

Mosaic Monday ... our last day of Summer!

Yahoo ... our Summer is almost over!  Good riddance too!  I'm so looking forward to our Autumn through to Spring time this year and I'm hoping I'll see the garden recover very well during that time.

As the cleaning up is almost over, I took a stroll around the property looking for little signs of hope and beauty.  I think I'm getting over the disheartened state slowly ... and spotting these beauties certainly helped.

Cleome spinosa 'Senorita Rosalita' is coming back into bloom showing off its gorgeous lavender pink flowers.

The gorgeous Evolvulus pilosus 'Blue Sapphire' is putting on a show.

The pretty Barleria 'Purple Gem' is starting to bloom once more  ....

and this rather unique little bloom ... the inflorescence of Dorstenia bahiensis or the Mattress Button Plant is making a spectacle of itself.

For more fantastic Mosaic Monday posts, please visit our host Mary at Little Red House

I'm also joining Lisa's meme, Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos

Flaunt Your Flowers on Friday - end-of-summer and post-cyclone time

As February draws to a close, so does our Summer ... and I'm quite happy to say goodbye to the 2010-2011 Summer!  It was a season of some considerable change in my garden and right now it's difficult to find blooms to share for this Fertiliser / Flaunt Your Flowers on Friday post.

I've looked high and low for something to share ... and I was really pleased to find just a few flowers here and there. 

Around the property the dependable Hibiscus rosa-sinensis shrubs stood up the Cyclone Yasi with great gusto and have been flowering non-stop ...

...  and there are flower buds on the Crotons as well.

Out in the Greenhouse Garden there's just a few blooms ...  Curcuma australasica 'Anita', a tiny unknown Orchid, Calathea medallion, Dragon Wing Begonia and Barleria obtusa.

Out in the Courtyard Garden blooms are hard to find.  Most of the container plants suffered even though they were moved to a sheltered spot and were not out in the open.  The cyclonic winds still managed to reach quite a few of the potted plants even in their sheltered spot ... and the days when we had no running water meant I was unable to continue with their usual watering routine.  Still, in spite of the terrible time they had, I have managed to spot these few little flowers ... Torenia fournieri and Ixora 'Twilight Glow'.

For other Flaunt Your Flowers on Friday posts, visit Tootsie at Tootsie Time

I'm also joining in Blooming Friday at Roses And Stuff, where the theme is 'A Touch of Green'.

Wildlife On Wednesday - Black Cockatoos Searching For Food

One of the terrible results of the devastation caused by a Tropical Cyclone like TC Yasi, which swept through here a few weeks ago, is the loss of vegetation.   Thousands of trees across the city were felled literally overnight when Yasi struck ... and the trees that were left standing were stripped of their leaves, flowers and fruit. 

Not only is this habitat destruction a sad sight for us ... the human population ... but it's a huge loss for the local wildlife.  Around my city there are lots and lots of birds looking for food right now.  It's hard work for these poor creatures and just last week I spotted a group of Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos looking a little lost.


There's been a group of these magnificent birds hanging around here for ages and ages.  They particularly love the fruit of the trees in our neighbour's yard as well as the flowers of our Cadaghi Gums.  We hear them screeching away with pleasure atop these very tall trees almost every day during the summer here.

Well, unfortunately most of our neighbour's trees are now lying in massive piles all over their yard and our Cadaghis are almost completely bare.  The group of Red-Tailed Blacks turned up just a few days after Yasi had hit and were all in a flap as they searched for their favourite haunts.  The branches of their beloved trees were nowhere to be found.

They perched themselves on some nearby branches and there appeared to be a rather heated interaction going on between two of the males and the group of about five or six females all sitting together.  The males had found a little bit of food which they were obviously eating with great relish, while all the females appeared to be going without.  It seemed there was just not enough tasty food to go around.

Maybe the conversation went something like this:

I haven't seen any of the Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos since that day, so they've probably moved in now in their search for food.  I'm left wondering just how many of the birds that usually live around here might be missing for a while.  I've certainly noticed the usual daily bird song din has quietened down considerably.