Unicorns and White Tritelias

The tritelias are out, lately. The thing about them is that they are amazingly tough, and don't ever need watering. There are blue ones, but the white ones, also known as ''White Stars'', are quite spectacular and pretty, and have that purity of whiteness that one associates with ''Snowdrops''. They'd make a nice subject for embroidery. You can buy the tiny bulbs in autumn. A very worthwhile species for Australian gardens. You might like to consider them for a waterless spot. They go dormant in summer, and get by on winter and spring rainfall, alone.





Speaking of pretty white things, here is a local unicorn--with horn retracted.

MOTH CAMOUFLAGE

This moth, snapped on a piece of shadecloth, is very interesting. It is pretending to be a dead leaf. Very clever. It had me, too, fooled for awhile.

Cestrum nocturnum?

One of the last times I saw Gavin Scobie, a couple of decades ago now, he was walking by the wild fennel in Centennial Park--not that far from the wild cestrum. Years later my boyfriend found a tiny sucker of that cestrum, and it did take root. Was it Cestrum nocturnum? I'm not sure. There are cestrums and cestrums. Some have greener flowers and some more of an orange or yellowish colour. I'm not a botanist. You see the odd cestrum around Parkes and Forbes, NSW, surviving abandoned in very hot dry conditions. I wouldn't know what sort they are, or how they got there in the first place.

There was once a cestrum growing--all green-flowered--in a tiny postage-stamp backyard in Victoria Street, Potts Point. Possibly from a bird's dropping. The landlady told me her friend said it was a ''jasmine''. Cestrum, with its toxicity, is certainly not a jasmine, but it has been called ''Jessamine'', so clearly someone's wires were a little crossed. Of course, jasmine are not toxic, and we like to sip jasmine tea--so fragrant and cooling.

You have to credit those wild cestrums, though. So very tough and drought-resistant. Beautiful fragrant flowers. Clive Blazey, in his Digger's Seeds catalogue, said he smelled the most wondrous and enchanting fragrance on the isle of Rhodes--or was it Crete? It turned out to be Cestrum nocturnum. Well, they do have a beautiful nocturnal scent. Nothing like the scent of Cestrum nocturnum wafting up into your window, at night-time. Seems especially strong after rain, too. So sexy, if a perfume can be described so. Intoxicating. I think it's related to other night-scented members of the Nightshade family--like petunias, night-scented tobacco, and four-o'clock flowers.

I love Four-o'clock flowers. It's fantastic and amusing how they open up reliably, every afternoon, at four-o'clock--all depending on daylight saving, of course. I especially like the self-sown harlequin ones that survive around hot summer pavements in Paddington and Darlinghurst. Like cestrums, they tend to smell especially nice and fresh after the rain. They are very easy to grow from seed. Very sexy and beautiful scent--very evocative, and aphrodesiac, on hot summer nights. They are quite tough, but will need extra water in the hottest and dryest of conditions. They come up year after year, from the tuberous root they form.

Walking in the Fumitory & Shepherd's Purse

Shepherd's Purse




Fumitory


God, I love walking in the fumitory and Shepherd's Purse! Both are in bloom at the moment.

The fumitory with their light pink flowers--with dark strawberry jam centres. Such fine and delicate foliage. What a wonderful and pretty weed. Apparently there are Zero-resistant fumitory, now, as a result of the plants evolving and developing resistance to weedicide. Well, they make me very happy, with their frilly pink prettiness all about my house and yard, and all along the roadsides.

I find Shepherd's Purse is quite a pretty partner to fumitory. With its lovely white flowers, Shepherd's Purse has a visual impact similar to that of alyssum. The heart-shaped seed-cases are so unique and interesting too. In the old days, Shepherd's used to carry purses that were made out of animal's hearts--dried out like leather, I suppose, with the inner chambers for filling with coinage.

Yes, fumitory and Shepherd's Purse make a lovely and pretty combination of colours from the wild gardener's palette. Nice colour display in late winter, and then into spring.

Where have all the ibis gone?

Where have all the ibis gone?

We used to have wonderful flocks of ibis here. The same ones used to come every year. I know, because one had a bad leg, and I would recognise him.

Then, about 10 years ago, the ibis all suddenly disappeared, and have yet to return. They all died out. Apparently it was due to a poison--an agricultural chemical used in the cotton-growing regions of NSW, hundreds of miles away--which killed off the ibis in very great number. An environmental disaster, basically.

I've not had an ibis in my yard for years and years, now. They'd get around, all day, busily picking up snails in their beaks; and then smashing them on the ground, to soften them; and then swallowing them. This was the ibis' home. Such beautiful, graceful and elegant birds. All gone now. A terrible tragedy. I don't suppose the long drought has helped them to recover, either.

I wonder if I'll ever see an ibis here again?

Drought-resistant plants once grown at Murga

What drought-resistant plants were once grown at Murga?

Well, a walk through the Murga Parkland ruins, over a decade ago (before the recent and terrible drought of several years duration!) revealed the following specimens still surviving from the old days:


*Photinea serrata
*Some sort of cotoneaster
*A crepe myrtle
*A pink honeysuckle--probably Lonicera hispidula.


These plants had survived, obviously, for decades without extra water or care. The honeysuckle was sick and miserable with aphids, but it--to it's credit!--still managed a few pink blooms.

Looking around the valley at Murga, there are a few other drought-resistant sights to be seen near abandoned farmhouses and old garden sites. In the paddock next to the sawmill, there's an old yucca, surviving and blooming unattended. (Good for honeyeaters!) Also a super-tough pink climbing rose of some description. Elsewhere I see a couple of oleanders blooming nicely, and a couple of japonicas, outside an old farmhouse now used as a shed.