Well this is quite a change. Here in Cairns, its the rainy season, nothing too dramatic about that except we have rain pretty much on a daily basis. Coming from Melbourne where its sooo dry this time of year rain is a novelty and flooding is always in the back of my mind. Cairns is after all built on a flood plain.
So I'm sitting on my verandah watching the rain literally bucket out of the sky, Some of our guttering has huge holes in it which will need to be fixed, but thats fine. Our roof is not great either but will keep us dry for now.
As the rain falls pools gather around the garden. We have a bull nose verandah so the water just flows off that onto the lawn below and has driven a bit of a gutter into the lawn . I suspect if there were plants and mulch there instead of just lawn there wouldnt be so many pools around the place. Although our garden is only small it would be great to create our own tiny jungle. Where the frogs can sing, the doves can coo and we can create a small peice of paradise here in suburbia.
There's not much to it at the moment but we do have a beautiful climate on our side. Coming from Melbourne its a little bit surreal to be living now in a place where everything is so green and lush. Now I will have to plan what to do with a garden that can very possibly be sodden at certain times of the year.
I'm looking at beautiful species and plants with amazing foliage. Sadly I dont have the room for bigt trees but can manage a few small ones for sure. Crepe Myrtles up here are amazing, and of course you cant go past the Frangipanis, and Hybiscus - native or hawaiian. Some of the understorey plants are gorgeous and some of the palms are quite nice, if a bit weedy. The heliconias come in all shapes and sizes as do the bromelliades, which of course the frogs love?
By the way these are pictures i took up on the tablelands , sadly only two of these are actually at my place, but my imagination is running wild. So much to choose from and so many colours!!!! My head is just swimming!
We had a bromelliad in a pot in the garage and a small green tree frog came and lived there for a while. I didnt have the heart to plant it in the garden until he moved on!
our visiting green tree frog
Looks beautiful Serena. I can imagine it is surreal. Tropical is something I have never experienced except when it gets humid and I don't like that. I believe gardening is really different up there. Dry in Winter and wet in Summer. You should grow really good water chestnuts though!
ReplyDeleteI've just caught up that you've moved. You are going to love gardening in Cairns. I lived there for 8 years and was constantly amazed at how everything grew so well.
ReplyDeleteStunning images, great information..
ReplyDelete