Backyard Gardening

I love the old fashioned flowers for my garden. 

They have stood the test of time. 

Old fashioned plants are often drought tolerant, needing little water. They are good at keeping the weeds down. 

They are good at flowering, often repeat flowering.

Flowers are good colour therapy. We plant the flowers that we are attracted to in shape and colour. 

Colour is very important in our lives. 

 Australian hibiscus - Alogoyne, flowers in the summer months.

 Beautiful golden rose.

 

Belladonna lily flowers in summer before the leaves come.

Echiums grow into a big bush. 

They have lovely blue, stately flowers. 

They look just as lovely when the blue flowers fade and the large head is all green. 

I never need to water these flowers. 

This hot pink pelargonium is bright and stunning.

 It flowers for many months. 

It is very drought tolerant.

Kookaburras

Kookaburras are an Australian bird. They have a large head and beak, much larger in proportion to their body than other birds. They also have an extra large beak. Their body seems to get smaller the further it goes away from its beak. It has a small back and even smaller tail. It really looks top heavy.

However what kookaburras have going for them is their laugh. It makes a resounding noise in the Australian bush at dawn.

Kookaburras can be friendly. They eat worms and small lizards and they like meat. It is not unheard of for a kookaburra to swoop onto a barbeque and steal a sausage as it flies though. 

On our recent holiday we met a wild yet tame kookaburra. He liked meat patties. He liked them so much that he came to within 30cm (12 inches) of my feet to get his reward of small pieces of meat. 

Trees Give Us Peace and Serenity

I had been feeling the need to visit some more trees. There is nothing like being among the tall gums trees of the Australian bush. Often the colour of these trees is not bright green but a dull, muted, blue-green, the colour of the Aussie bush trees. 

We went on a road trip for a few days to visit some trees.

We found some tall gum trees with grey-green foliage along the Murray River. They were offset by the bright emerald green of the lush grass. 

Along the Campaspe River we found some young trees just starting to grow. These will be beautiful, large trees the next time we visit them. 

The trees also also stand in their stark splendour against the evening sky.

You might also like to see the kookaburra that befriended us while on our trip. 

Friendly Birds

We have just met some overly friendly wildlife. We visited Moama and Echuca, towns on opposite sides of the Murray river, the dividing line between Victoria and New South Wales, two south eastern states in Australia. 

We stayed in a lovely cottage with very friendly birds. 

 This lovely Kookaburra sat on a tree near our unit most of the time we were there. Every now and then he would fly down and catch a worm from under the grass.

Kookaburras are known for their wild and loud that they make. Koo koo kaa kaa koo koo kaa. It sounds as though the birds are laughing. The sound echos through the Australian bush.

This lovely fellow was so friendly. He came up to 30cm or 1foot from my feet. These birds love meat. I had a meat pattie left over and broke it into little pieces. My friendly kookaburra enjoyed it bit by bit. 

My kookaburra had a friendly rival for the meat pattie. It was a magpie. This cheeky bird visited inside our unit on three separate occasions. He visited every room in the house and even checked out under the couch. Here he is strutting his stuff in the kitchen.