@ Head

November is the month of flowers…

Straw flowers in the rockery:  very bright !!  (is it just me or does that photo look kind of surreal//photo-shopped ?  It isn’t, it’s straight form the camera, but those young flowers look like someone has pasted them there <g>)

Around the straw flowers some ground covers are growing nicely.  I like these daisies:

The scarlet callistemons (aka Bottle Bushes) are in flower:

As too are the lemon callistemons:

And the luecadendrons add that lovely flower/foliage contrast:

luecadendrons up closer :

a different kind of leucadendron:

and a broader view of it:

And of course there’s the king proteas:

and lots of other proteas:

Over by the veggie patch this climber I planted last year flowered this year.  It died back a lot over winter but seems to be taking off again well:

Even the veggies are getting into the flower power thing…..

celery in flower:

And carrots :

And even the first of the tomatoes:

But of course a veggie patch needs to have vegetables….

Potatoes :

There’s actually snow peas growing between those potatoes. And that’s beetroot flowers on the right, and on the left the remnants of some broad beans that are currently being harvested.

And more broad beans grown from my own seed:

Bush beans, which got eaten by slugs badly:

When I introduced the straw mulches this year I disrupted the balance in the garden badly, and slugs thrived and attacked a lot of the young seedlings.  This was compounded with some dodgy seeds which had very poor germination. And because the straw brought in lots of parrots (seed not slug eaters), I suspended old msdn CD’s above the garden as bird deterrents.  They worked well, but the slugs thrived more than any frogs or lizards could keep up with.  I removed the CD’s, moved the mulch off the beds putting it in the furrows, and went on a couple of night excursions with a torch squishing slugs.  Seems to be back in balance now :)

The weather has been dry. Not really hot, only had one day or so in the 30’s (90’s on that quaint old american scale), but dry. It’s been record low rainfall again the last month or two, and after years of drought a lot of the country is at risk of not only severe fire but also loss of ecosystems.  Here it isn’t too bad, but then again this is one of the wettest parts of the state. Either way it’s certainly not weather you’d call “nicer weather for ducks” , although this duck by my dam seems rather oblivious to it all ;)