Bulb Season

Hi there folks. Id like to introduce you to the first Daffodil of the season. We dont have a great deal of daffys at work, and due to their location not all of them flower. Daffodils need an ammount of full sun in order to make enough food to produce a flower and store enough energy in their bulb to grow the next year. If they dont get enough sunlight, then they omit flowering in order to survive the next season. So when you plant your Daffodil bulbs, make sure you put them in a full to part sun position.

Also, if you are growing Daffodils for a cut flower, please try to avoid putting it in a vase with other flowers. Daffodil sap will kill other cut flowers in your display. Little trick I picked up in floristry. Jonquils will do the same thing.

Tastyful

This little annual, is commonly called Alyssum, or Sweet Alice. Lobularia maritima. It is native to the Mediterranean, and as such, thrives in our Western Australian climate. The flowers come in shades of pink through to white and if left to grow, will seed very easily. We have not grown any Alyssum in the annual beds this year, this one has grown from seed and we have missed it while weeding the bed. One of the things I like the most about this little plant, is its actually part of the Mustard Family. As such, the leaves, flowers and seeds are edible. It has a peppery taste like mustard, but a much mellower flavour.

Thermometer

I have found a new way to measure the cold. This photo was taken last sunday, durring the rubbish run. It is a piece of cardboard lying in one of the parks, with the dew frozen onto it.

Just Chillin

I made a friend today. This lovely little gecko was just chillin on a brick ledge at the Rangers. I love little lizards in the garden. They help to keep the insect population down, not to mention they are adorably cute. A neat trick that Geckos have, is they can change colour to their environment. Please dont think he is a chameleon. Geckos cant turn every colour of the rainbow. They come in a shades of brown, however based on what they are sunning themselves on they can be a grey brown, to an almost blacky brown. I think this is a neat trick, considering the best I can do it is turn lobster red when I wander out in the sunlight for too long without sunscreen.

Unsuspecting

This is something you begin to dread on wet days when you just want to stay dry. I will bet you any ammount of money that chances are, if you are working underneath a large shrub or a tree after an ammount of rain, guaranteed a breeze or something just as sinister will shake those droplets from the leaves down onto your back. I also bet that you will jump ten foot when it happens.

Before and After

The other day the casual employee came up to me while he was spraying and showed me the lovely caterpillar in the top photo with the comment "I wonder what it will turn into". Well, the internet is a marvelous thing, with a quick bit of googling I discovered that this is a caterpillar to a Wanderer Butterfly, also commonly known as a Monarch Butterfly. I even found a species name, Danaus plexippus. That is the only photo I have of one of these butterflies, they are revoltingly camera shy. 

These butterflies are more famously known through out North America for their massive migratory habits. They are found all over the world though and in Australia they only really have small migrations in cooler climates. The caterpillars feed on plants like Milk Weeds and such. So having some of those weeds as 'Sacrificial Plants' in your garden will encourage the butterflies and help keep the caterpillars off the plants you want to grow. Wanderer's also have a neat little survival adaptation. They use the toxins in the plants they eat to derive a toxin of their own which makes them unpalatable, making some of their predators ill. Clever little buggers.

Sailor Takes Warning

Why do I love what I do? Because I get to see things like this. This was the sunrise on the morning of Monday 15th July. As the saying goes; Red Sky in the morning, Sailor takes warning. Red sky at night, Sailor's delight. The weather turned from cool sunny days, to rain and rain and rain that evening and continued through to the next day. Im fine with that. I love storms. Especially when warnings for them come in the form of beautiful sunrises.

Time For A Cuppa

There are blessings and curses that come with working outdoors. When the weather is that beautiful sunny, not too warm or cold kind of temperature, I lose count of how many people tell me that they are envious of my job. Being outside when the weather is like that, is really a wonderful thing. When the weather is winter storm misery then nobody is envious of me at all. I get asked quite often if I have to work in stormy weather or the torrential rain. If its patchy drizzle or very light, patchy showers then yes, I do have to work in it. We are provided with wet weather gear and at the end of the day, the job has to get done. When the weather was like it was on Tuesaday then I am told to get out of it. Storms are dangerous to work in. Strong winds, lightning, hail, etc. All of these make for an unsafe working environment. The last thing that work wants is a workers compensation case, so when the storms show up we just retreat to the bunker and watch the storm pass with a cuppa to warm our frozen fingers.

Web

I always thought this was a Saint Andrews Cross spider, however I think I might be mistaken. This spider tends to sit more straight up and down in its web, unlike the St Andrews Cross spider, which usually decorates its web with zig zags in the center and sits in the middle of the web with its legs in a distinct X shape. I think it is some kind of Orb Weaver Spider, due to its beautiful round web, but cant seem to find much information on the little guy. I actually nearly walked through his web doing the rubbish run one morning.

Warm Fuzzy

We get alot of graffiti at work. We normally have to clean the small amounts of it off benches and what not. This was in the women's toilet near the town hall. It has since been removed, but it made me go 'nawwwwww' when I saw it. If your computer is struggling to pick up what the writing says, it says 'You look beautiful <3'. The particular toilet block it was in doesnt keep a mirror as they typically get smashed and ruined. To see this, kinda made my day.

Oh To Be Little

Im afraid to say that Im running out of things to say about fungi. My knowledge on them is quite limited, other then how to kill the ones that affect plant growth. So for something different, I thought I would give you some form of mushroom/toadstool ... from the perspective of a fairy. Enjoy.

Home bodies and Nomads

I would like to stress, I dont study insects or arachnids. I know enough about them to maintain a garden, however I do love to learn about things. Curiosity is a magnificent thing and learning should never stop! So, after a bit of research I classified spiders into my own groups. To me, they are either Hunters or Gatherers. Hunters are like the little guy in the photo, I think that he is a little baby huntsman. They are spiders that go out and hunt food for themselves. They typically have very noticeable eyes, with 2 that are particularly large as they usually require good eyesight to find their prey. Gatherers are web building spiders, they sit and wait for insects to get caught up and then wrap them up in silk for a later meal. Their eyes are small as eyesight isnt as important to them. The reason I tell you about the eyes is it is how I tell them apart. If the eyes are tiny or hard to see, then its a spider thats web has been destroyed and is on its way to build another. I feel a little bad for this as it is typically me who has made the poor little bugger homeless. It is has quite large eyes, then it is a gatherer and usually a nomad, wandering from place to place. Please note, this is my own rule of thumb. There are and will always be exceptions to this rule.

An Early Start

This was taken the week after Super Moon in June. I had an early start at work as my leading hand had time off and I needed to start at the bunker to put the bins out. The sun was barely peaking from the hills behind meand the moon was beautifully framed between the trees. I honestly love mornings like this at work. You feel like the only person in the world, its very calming.

Little Nymph

I met this little guy a few months ago. Ive been so busy of late, I have quite a back log of photos that I will eventually get round to putting up. This is a young preying mantis, its hard to get photos of the nymphs with their arms outstretched. They typically keep them close to their body, from what I understand they do this to help with camouflage. I enjoy finding them in the garden as they help to keep the pest insect population down. Interesting to note, as the preying mantis grows and matures, its diet also changes. With quite a big difference of size between the first nymph stage (a few millimeters) to adult (up to about 15-20cm in length), they will eat anything that will fit in its mouth. So the Tiny nymphs will sometimes cannibalize each other after hatching or eat tiny insects such as aphids. It is impractical for the adult Preying Mantis to eat such tiny prey, as they would struggle to hold them in their front forelegs, so they tend to eat larger insects like bees, beetles and such.

So Small and Dainty.

This is one of my favourite native plants. I love it because of its tiny little dainty flower. Its called Thryptomene (Thryptomene saxicola) and it is honestly such a bland little shrub til it flowers, from a distance it looks like the plant has turned pink. The leaves are about 2mm in size and it is typically a small compact little shrub. You need to give it a good prune after flowering to encourage new growth, otherwise it has a very bad habit of getting very deadish and woody. The flower come in 2 colours, either shades of pink or white. They are usually less then half a centimeter across and look similar to Geraldton Wax flowers. The reason for this is the plant is part of the Myrtaceae family and the basic round 4 petal shape is typical of that family. They grow best in full sun and detest being wet, however will benefit from an occasional deep watering in the summer. They are a forgiving and rewarding little plant and I hope you'll come to love them as much as I do when they are in bloom.

Bazookas

We recently had a heap of Tulip Bulbs donated to the counsel from Araluen Botanic Park. The easiest way to plant them is with these things. On the end you dig into the ground, there is a little flap that you open by standing on the lever at the bottom. This creates a little hole in the ground where you drop a plant/bulb down the shoot, lift the contraption and press the dirt around the plant. This makes it easier to plant things. You then press the small lever at the top and that closes the flap and you start again.They are called a Pottiputki and I really wish I knew what silly person decided to call them this was thinking. Nobody knows how to pronounce it and when you do say it right, nobody knows what you are talking about. I call then Bazookas. I wish more people would call them this. I gave them this nickname because of how we use to play with them. At a job I had many years ago we had to use these all day, so to liven things up we would open the flap and lay the 'Bazooka' on our shoulder with our hand on the grip handle at the top. Someone would come up behind you and tap you twice on the hard hat, call "Clear" and you would press the little release lever making the flap close with a loud CLANG. We were easily amused.