Crumbs

Around my work there is a little collective of banidcoots. They look like rats and I thought thats what they were when I first saw them. They nest and breed in the garden bed behind the bunker. Over the past 3 months or so, we've occasionally had this little guy join us for lunch. I detest the feeding of wild animals, unfortunately my workmates dont feel the same way. So in the beginning the bandicoot would come in and munch down on all the spilt crumbs on the floor. Now, the guy I work with breaks off part of his sandwich or cake and throws it for him. As a result the little banidcoot comes back quite regularly now. We've called him Crumbs. He use to hide under the fridge (and has spent a couple of nights locked in the bunker when we couldnt get him out), until I put a layer of shade cloth in the way. He got a nasty shock when he discovered that, tehehe.

BUBBLES ^_^

The pictures really say it all! This happened twice about a week or two ago. $2 bubble bath in the fountain at work. It seems like a harmless prank, but the retic guys dont find it so funny when they have to drain and clean out the fountain. I however giggled like the proverbial school girl! 'Go clean away the bubbles from the fountain' was my order, I was given a blower and a rake in which to achieve such a task. Bubbles everywhere!!! My god they can float about and if you ever get the task of clearing away copious amounts of bubbles with a blower, I highly recommend you do it, and embrace your inner child. I love my job! I loves it so much! Squeeeeeeeeeee!

Lechenaultia biloba

This is one of my favourite native plants. FYI people, never ask a gardener what their favourite plant is, Its just too hard to narrow down. I have a list of favourite plants, Lechenaultia is quite high on my native plant favourites. It is notoriously hard to grow in a garden, it prefers to grow wild. So even though I spent a good hour or more digging 50 holes to plant these in, I dont hold much hope that they will survive. For now though, they look quite pretty.

Dazed and Confused

I met this little guy a couple of weeks ago. I began the rubbish run and spotted what I thought was a large mushroom underneath the ficus in the park (in my defense here, we have been growing some extraordinarily large mushroom like fungus in the parks of late), then it moved. I parked the ride on vehicle and wandered over to look at the, what ever it was. Turns out to be a bird. Im ok at recognizing bird species, I know he isnt a sulphur crested cockatoo, but as to what sort of cockatoo he is, I couldnt say. He had obviously had a bit of a rough night. When I walked up to him, he would plod towards me and then seem to register that there was a human there, so would turn around and plod away from me. He showed no signs of attack (Which Im quite grateful, as there are quite a few cats and dogs about the area) and had obviously spent the night on the ground. He could open his wings but was very much unable to fly as he seemed to have absolutely no strength was shivering. I wrapped him up in the bit of hessian and stuck him in a bucket. I had the intention of taking him to the rangers, but nobody was in when I banged on the door at 7am. So the cocky sat in the bucket at the bunker til I finished the rubbish run, when I got back, he seemed to had perked up a bit and had managed to unwrap himself from the hessian as was happy sitting in the corner of the bucket. Also by this time, the vet was open so we bundled into the ute and dropped him off. The nearby vet has an arrangement with a local bird sanctuary and they are a drop off point, so the sanctuary can pick them up, rehabilitate and release them back into the wild. So I filled out a form to say what was wrong with him, and where and when I found him. I'll be optomistic and hope that he will be able to be nursed back to health, rehabilitated and released back into the wild so I can get narky at him for destroying the plants in the park, like all the other birds in his flock :)

Rocking The Straight Lines

ok, I suck at mowing. Well, not entirely true. the grass is noticeably shorter when I mow and I dont miss patches. The rules with cylinder mowing at work is 2 up 2 down. In layman's terms, when you mow with a cylinder mower, you typically do a line up and a line down then do a ring around the edge to tidy it all up. At work, we have to do two lines up and two lines down, as this looks nicer in the eyes of the guy who basically runs all of the gardening section. Im blonde, I get muddled very easily, so I can do anything along the lines of 2 up, 3 down, 1 up, 2 down, 2 up, 1 down, etc. Then there's the issue of getting the lines straight. I wont even go into detail of how much I fail at straight lines. Now, this photo is one of those rare occasions where the stars have lined up and the wings on the butterfly are positioned in exactly 43.85 degrees with a subtle blue haze, as I had gotten the mowing exactly PERFECT! Squeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

Antirrhinum majus

This years snapdragons. Snappies are amongst my favourite annuals. I prefer the old fashioned ones better, but I take what I can get. These are a newer variety, so they dont grow as tall, are alot more compact and 'shrubby' and tend to have shorter flower stalks. These look fabulous even if I do say so myself. We planted them as they have more height then the violas we have planted elsewhere. The red you can see in the background is the mass planting of Big Red Geraniums. I cant wait for the trees (pot wine magnolia) in this picture to flower, as they smell like bubble gum.

Autumn Leaves

Ok, deciduous trees have their place. They suck when they drop leaves and as a gardener, I have spent way too many hours tidying up after the dratted things. They do, however, allow in winter sun and block out the harsh summer sun. As a gardener, I may hate some plants for various reasons, but I have discovered that no matter how much I may dislike something, it still has a use and a place in a garden. Liquid Amber's are like this. I detest cleaning up after them. I love the deep green foliage they provide in summer and the delicious shade they provide when its too hot. I love the winter sunlight filtering through their naked branches and I love watching the leaves change and add colour to the park. Even though this is one of the first photos I took when I began work in the parks, its a little out of focus and its not quite as perfect as it should be, this would have to be one of my personal favourite photos.

Fruit Salad

Ok, Ive nicknamed this an Armadale Fruit Salad. Not the sort of thing you want to see first thing of a morning during the rubbish run. Im guessing the rubbish truck that empties the bins from the fast food places obviously hadnt emptied the bins correctly and spilled it all over the roads. So, multitudes of semi rotten and strangely fresh fruit and veggies strewn about the round-a-bout. I did have to pick some of it up with the rubbish pickers, and would like to say that squashed pear is an absolute COW of a thing to pick up. Slippery little sod it is. Needles to say I got the road sweeper to take care of the majority of it.

Winter Sunrise

This shot is from the beginning of winter sometime either this year of last year. Not sure. I love sunrise, Much more then sunset. Im a morning person after I have accepted the fact that the alarm must always come between me and my bed, and its mornings like these, where the first thing you see at work is so beautiful that Im almost glad that the alarm clock is jealous of mine and my beds relationship.

Tama!

Baby Turtles!!! pretty much everything is cute when it is a baby. I would personally like to vouch for the infant cuteness of western long neck turtles. I have seen them as adults, they definately arent that cute. Actually the first adult long neck I saw, I thought it was a snake or something as its neck was so long and the rest of its body was hidden in a box. So yeah, not overly cute in my books. And I do like turtles, I promise, I just dont think they rank up there much on the cute stakes. The babies however .... I think Im going to get diabetes, theyre that sweet to look at.

Talking to a couple who sit in the park, there apparently was a nest or something near the bunker as they had been hatching out all week and running the gauntlet of ducks, dogs and crows to the lake. This little guy in the  photo was wandering around the gravel in front of the bunker when we found him. He is tiny, I would like to emphasize this. He barely fits into the center of my palm, so he would be between 7-10cm long (head to tail). We plonked him in the water and he took off swimming. I hope he survives :)

Tiny fungus best part of winter

Toadstools!

The best bit about winter is all the fungus appears. I dont know about you, but I love fungus. ITs weird and unusual and you just want to stick it in the bed of somebody you dont like as a payback ....
At any rate when it shows up, its never around for a very long time and is quite facinating when it shows. These little guys are only about 5cm high and growing in a lovely little clump. I still expect to see a smurf of something skipping amongst a group of toadstools. Makes me happy.

Double Rainbow

ok, not the greatest photo. Im aware, but it was taken on my rather old phone which wasnt the greatest at taking photos. This photo was taken last year. I have only ever twice seen a rainbow at sunrise, this was my first, and its a double rainbow to boot. Rainbows are awesome! there is no denying that, and useless information for you, the light needs to be at an angle of 42 degrees for a rainbow to be produced. Pretty cool huh (please dont get too specific with it science nuts, Im a gardener, not a light refractor genius). This rainbow was a precursor for an ENTIRE day of rain. It started raining within an hour of this photo being taken and didnt stop all day -_- We usually dont work in constant rain unless there is a big improtant job of some description. So we spent the whole day drinking cups of tea and cleaning out the bunker (yes, the garden shed at work is a bunker). I can remember being so disappointed as the weather man promised storms! Storms are awesome, I love storms. Following this rainbow, we had nothing but big fat grey clouds spewing out boring old rain. Rain is nice dont get me wrong, but a day of it will set your brain to white noise. The rainbow was awesome however.

Everlastings 2012

At the beginning of June, we planted a heap of Everlasting seeds around work. Unfortunately, due to the lack of rain this year, they havent done as well as they normally would. The ones we spread at Town Hall managed to cop some water from the sprinklers, so they look quite magnificent. These are photos of the first flowers that opened. They will last for a good month or two before we have to whippersnip them down so they seed for next year. For some reason the white flowers are more photogenic then the pinks. Go figure.

Dragonfly Stalker

ok. So this is the favorite one so far out of all the photos I have taken. I have quite a back log of photos and will upload over time .... starting with the favourites.

The story behind this little fella. I was spraying weeds amongst the native garden bed bank at work. This little guy was following me. He followed me as I moved along spraying for a good 10m or so. I take these photos with my phone. It takes a few goes to get a decent one, as the phone doesnt always know what to zoom in on. This picture I managed to fluke quite magnificantly.

Why Im doing this

ok. I work as a gardener. I have done so for most of my working life. I love it. I get to be outside for pretty much the entire day. This sounds lovely to most people, I promise you its not always that grand when its 43 degrees and you have to whippersnip 6 large parks or when its pouring in rain, your rain jacket is soaked through and you still have 5 large trees to plant. I wouldnt trade it for the world though. I love the outside. I have collected a bunch of friends though, and the vast majority of them are indoor workers. They dont see sunshine unless I drag them out amongst it. So I usually take photos of the prettier aspects of my job and share them amongst my friends to brighten their day. This blog was a suggestion from one of them as he quite enjoys the photos. So, Ba Na! This is my blog of pretty things at my work and essentially what I do for a living :)