Fellow Traveller

We had a trip to Brisbane this week, it seems we took this lovely Green Tree Frog along for ride, How and why he got into the car door cavity we're not sure.

Rainbow Lorikeets

These delightful parrots are having a ball in our font garden at the moment. They are spending time between a flowering Corkwood tree and a Eucalypt "Summer Red" It's probably the only time I find squawking relaxing. The photos didn't turn out too bad, my camera has a telescopic lense on it but quite often it doesn't focus well. I wouldn't get this close without it

Our Tree change

Well, we are fully retired now and living in our lovely home at Tamborine Mountain surrounded by a beautiful garden full of Camellias, Vireyas and Clivias. The Vireya pictured is Souvenir De Mangles. Up here we are often in the misty clouds during the rainy summer season as you can see from this image. We have left Frog garden behind at Balmoral but we take with us lots of wonderful memories which are recorded on this blog. We have lots frogs on Tamborine Mountain but they might be a little harder to catch on camera. It has been a long time since I've posted. Larraine was ill for a long period and her recovery took priority. Hopefully I can keep it updated now that we are settling into our new home.

Open gardens Toowoomba

At the Carnival of Flowers which is held in Spring each year, a day is hardly enough time to take in all of the beautiful gardens that are open. The Wisteria at the top is growing on a large circular metal frame and makes a stunning feature in the back garden of this home.
Centre photo. This Clivia looks so much at home nestled in the tree. Bottom photo. I'm sure we'd all love a garden bed like this to grace our driveways. These photos are worth a click on.

Vireya Rhododendrons

I think that fascination with plants increases with age. That's not to say of course that some young people are not avid gardeners. But an analysis of the demographic at various garden/orchid shows etc. would suggest that some of us old timers predominate. Goodness what am I saying! I'm only 64 maybe i might be classified as a mid timer. Anyway enough waffle, my latest interest are Rhododendrons of the subgenus Vireya sometimes referred to as Tropical Rhododendrons. Like my other interest Hoyas, many of these plants are epiphytic in nature and have very small and fine root systems. They are found at altitude in mountainous regions of S.E. Asia and New Guinea. There is an abundance of hybrids in cultivation and most flower twice a year some even more. Above are just a few that have flowered for us this Autumn.

Tamborine morning

Edit PostsThe mornings at Tamborine Mt. are just glorious, so quiet and peaceful. This is the front garden. the Kangaroo paws are about 1.5 metres high now with lots of flowers. All the other plants in the garden are getting new growth as spring approaches. There are Grevilleas, Callistemons, Banksias and Eucalypts of various sizes and colours . It should be a paradise for the native birds when every thing grows.

Camelias

The Camelias on Tamborine mountain are delightful to see at the moment. The climate and the more acidic red soil seems to be perfect for growing them. We have a Camelia japonica growing at the side of our garden seat, the flowers of which are the 2nd photo down, we just love the compact form of the Japonicas and the attractive deep green foliage which doesn't seem to attract many pests. The final shot was taken at an open garden scheme plant sale at the Mt Cootha Botanical Gardens. This was a display table on the stand of Camelia Glen Nursery , a specialist camelia nursery on the Sunshine Coast. The array of different flowers was quite amazing.

Mt tamborine wildlife

A couple of shots taken recently in our garden at Mt Tamborine. I contacted the Queensland Museum about this yellow spider, it's the first time I've seen one and I couldn't find a reference in any of our books. Apparently it's called a flower spider and they can also be white. Larraine with her keen eye spotted the Kookaburra having snake for lunch. It sat there for about 20 mins occasionally bashing the snake against the tree branch.

More frog actiity.

Thankfully Brisbane has had the traditional wet Summer that we so desperately needed. As a consequence there has been no shortage of frog activity. These shots were taken late Summer (mid February) Normally we wouldn't see a Striped Marsh Frog so exposed as this one, whats more it stayed there for quite a while. Marsh Frogs are prolific breeders and they call just about every night and the sound varies in intensity between a tennis match ( the "toc" "toc" sounds like a tennis ball being hit) and Chinese New year (firecrackers) It's a coincidence that the bowl at the side has the same markings as the frog. I thought I'd mention that in case anyone thought the frog had camouflage capabilities. The two little Sedgefrogs finally became an item. A little late in the season perhaps, we couldn't find any eggs in any of the ponds the next day. Maybe having a practice for next year. We are into Autumn now and the weather is starting to cool so our little friends will be looking for or will have found homes to hibernate no doubt.

The deluge arrived.

Well finally this week South East Queensland has had a bucketing of rain. The dams are starting to fill up and there is talk of possible easing of level 6 water restrictions. Some suburbs in Brisbane received a 100 mm. in an hour. When a deluge like this happens it always causes flash
flooding, and sadly a young man was drowned in the Brisbane suburb of Capalaba. Our thoughts and prayers go out to this family at what must be such a difficult time.
The frogs pictured are residents of our garden, the common name is the Graceful treefrog or Dainty Green treefrog ( Litoria gracilenta) We very rarely see them until heavy rain arrives and then they are everywhere and they call all night long. As you can see, you can get quite close with the camera and they don't move. All of our five species of frogs have been active this summer now, and its good to see them in good numbers.

Mt tamborine resident

We spotted this little frog outside the Mt Tamborine post office in the main street. It was perched on a tiled pillar about 60 cm. high. No doubt thoroughly enjoying our welcome run of wet weather. This is what we love about Mt Tamborine its surrounded by so many National Parks you are never very far from nature.

Christmas Colour.

This is one of the grafted Eucalypts that we have planted in our garden. It gives a nice splash of seasonal colour with the red and green. This is the first good flush of flowers we've had on this tree, last year the possums nibbled the new buds. One of the parents is E. ficifolia a red flowering Western Australian species and it's grafted on to rootstock of E. phytocarpa which has the common name " Swamp bloodwood" this is able to tolerate our more wet and humid summers. They are not cheap to buy, but certainly worth it for the beautiful colour they bring to the garden, plus they attract the native birds. For any fellow bloggers dropping by we wish you a joyful Christmas and happiness and health for the coming year. God Bless.

Neighbours become good friends

Sometimes as you browse through the garden at night you come across special little happenings that send you scurrying for your camera. I didn't know until tonight that they were sharing acommodation. So we were pleasantly surprised to be greeted with this sight.

Neighbours

There is something nice about two different species of frog being neighbours in adjacent pots. I was fortunate to be able to take a snap of them as they popped their heads out the other night. The first shot has a Green tree frog in the lower pot and an Emerald Spotted tree frog in the one above. The second shot is two Green tree frogs, I'm not sure if they are an item and live in the same pot or not. It's quite fascinating to watch the little Eastern Sedge frogs making their calls, they are in full chorus tonight after a storm today. I once again apologise for being irregular with my posts. We have been regular visitors to Tamborine Mountain ( an hours drive south of Brisbane) for a number of years now. We've always loved the place and we've finally bought a little place to share with the family and friends. As you can imagine it's kept us pretty busy over the last few months. I will post some shots of Tamborine soon.

How cute is this?

Well..... we had the most unusual visitor come into our little gift shop last week. This dear possum came through the front door in the middle of the day and took up residence in the display shelving ( after dislodging what was there of course) There has been a bit of road works in the area recently so he was possibly a bit disturbed. Our main concern was to remove it safely, because should he run amok there was plenty of breakable giftware around. After finding out how expensive it is to get a possum removed we decided to do it ourselves. We taped a box to front of the space hoping it would move in. It was a very obliging possum and within a couple of minutes we were able to slide a piece of cardboard over the top and put him in the garden. Maybe he wanted someone to buy him. Just as well Larraine found him first, people might have thought it was a stuffed toy. I think you would get quite a shock.
Our Green Treefrogs are starting to get very active, the storm season is underway and there is quite a cacophony of frog sounds at the moment.

Our little favourite .

I have to say that the little Eastern Sedgefrog would come close to being our favourite frog. Firstly they are very cute and friendly . Unless you make a clumsy movement they generally let you get close with the camera without jumping off. They are quite often found resting in the daytime on a leaf or the stem of a reed. It's chirpy call is quite pleasant to listen to in the early evening. Hopefully if we get a little more rain with our spring storms they might breed. From what I've read Sedgefrogs like to breed from the end of winter onwards. the tadpoles need about 90 days to complete the cycle so they like to breed early.

A rare sight

Well, here we have a puddle. Quite a rare sight in South-east Queensland of late. This was the result of two or three days of good rain which we had at the beginning of June. People were remarking on talkback radio that some of their little children had never had the pleasure of jumping in puddles. A pretty amazing thought when you consider most of us have fond memories of playing in puddles as children. In the reflection you can catch the sun just bursting through the clouds. We've had very little rain since unfortunately and our collective dam levels are down to about 17%. Like our frogs I've been in hibernation over the winter.

Beautiful Autumn

Autumn is such a beautiful time of the year, lovely fresh mornings and warm days. Actually when I say warm it has been unusually warm for this time of the year 29-32deg. The good news for Brisbane gardeners has been that level 5 water restriction still allow bucketing the garden for 3hrs late afternoon on alternate days. Dendrobium and Cattleya orchids have been a delight this year and our Achmea Bromeliad has flowered for the first time. We hope everyone is enjoying a beautiful Autumn/ Spring depending on your geography.

Driveway project

Because we have no garden on each side of the driveway Larraine came up with the lattice idea.
we already had plenty of the terracotta hanging pots. For our first planting we chose compact miniature Zinnias in white , pink and orange. Below is Liriope which has a nice mauve berry type of flower. It's quite along driveway so it was good to brighten it up a little. We really are garden tragics just when we think we've done it all we find something else to do.

Finally some decent showers.

Apologies for being somewhat slack in posting over the last month or so. I've been doing a few markets recently selling Hoyas, Bromeliads and Succulents as a fundraiser for African Aid, plus life is very busy as well. I hate making excuses but also I think I may have had a touch of bloggers block (something akin to writers block) . I must organise myself better to do a regular post and visit some favourite blogs. Anyway here in Brisbane the heavens have opened briefly and given us a few welcome showers, which as you can see has made froggarden's little inhabitants very happy. Unfortunately we still need what they call a "rain event" to stave off level5 water restrictions which take effect in April and could mean no outdoor watering at all, We'll have to wait and see.