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.