This pale yellow clivia is by the path to the front door. It has moved around a little but seems to have found its niche. Poor clay soil, deep shade in winter, not so deep in summer. I cut off the seed pods after the first show of flowers and sometimes get a second. Plants [...]

Often called blue ginger, but is not really a ginger, and not a native. Given to me by Jeff S. Moved into the new front west garden. Full shade. Discovered by the blue-banded bee on the first day.  

There are two ways to get shade – to build it or to grow it – and I need shade on the western side of the house. When we moved here there was a mock orange hedge – horrible thing.  It was two metres high but didn’t block the sun, it billowed out and filled [...]

This stuff grows anywhere, tolerates poor and dry soil, strikes from small pieces. Small yellow flowers.  The blue tongue lizards like it. I was a bit concerned about weed potential but it seems to spread, not jump and is easy to pull out.  To kill completely, just sheet-cover or out-compete. Alyssum can beat it. August [...]

Pentas have hairy green leaves and clusters of flowers in shades of red, white, pink, and purple. I planted some in the front bed from a punnet of seedlings and forgot about them until a year on I found this one thriving despite considerable neglect.  And today I saw them again at the Bribie Island [...]

This is reason enough to grow sunflowers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYSLYrHalOs This sunflower is beside the pond and gets the morning sun. It has lots of tiny native bees and a single larger one. I’m not sure what type of bee it is. And here are some more against the fence facing west. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxJxmnMzVu0 Note to self: get [...]