Rain in MtLawleyShire

It’s the last day of Winter, by the calendar at least, as Spring has been here for a couple of weeks or more.  But it is a suitably wintry day with rain and wind and gloom, though at the moment it’s sunny.

But when it rains, I love to go out with the camera and see what I can catch.  It was too windy to be really successful, but I caught a few amidst the rain and gloom.  I love it when I actually get the rain:

amidst the wind, there were moments of stillness where I caught raindrops on jasmine leaves:

 

on hanging remains of spider plant fronds:

 

on leaves of dead spider plant fronds and the ends of jasmine twigs:

 

on the loops limbs of jasmine branches:

on the thin fronds of tiger trees:

on the petals of a nasturtium and amongst clumps of unbowed freesia:

 

& then the sun came out:

Bees in MtLawleyShire

I do love bees.  Who doesn’t?  They help all the flowers, all the fruits, all the yummy things in life.  And they make honey.  The ones here are all the European bees.  I have seen our native bees which have blue bands, and seen them in my garden as well, but have as yet to catch one with the camera.

so – here are bees on native flowers, Grevillea and bottlebrush type flowers:

 

 

 

on other flowers:

 

 

 

on borage:

 

on a daisy:

 

and finally – in my garden, on the lavender:

 

 

I do love it when I get their little faces:

MtLawleyShire’s early spring wildflowers

It is Spring.  there is no denying it.  It has been Spring for a few weeks really, a short, not-wet enough winter, with little run-off for the dams.  But the flowers are coming out.  So I went walking around the neighbourhood and down to Hyde Park.

There aren’t flowers everywhere yet, but they are coming.

Grevillea are around most of the year, but they are even more lovely with all the new green everywhere, whether in people’s gardens, growing over the walls and fences, or in the middle of roundabouts:

 

 

 

and you find them in roadside native gardens – I love these pale creamy ones:

 

and these Grevillea in a playground:

 

 

The street bottlebrush trees are coming out and other trees have blossom as well:

 

and this rare loveliness – a native hibiscus in someone’s garden:

In Hyde Park, there is a native plants section and here, the flowers are coming out.  They are not massed clumps of colour yet, but for individual photos, there were enough:

Leschenaultia with its startling blue:

Various myrtles – I love the myrtles:

 

 

& I love these: pink fluffballs

Banksia. these I think are called Candle Banksia:

 

the remains of a different variety are almost as spectacular as the flowers:

 

Gold ones:

 

 

multi-coloured ones:

 

 

small Grevillea:

 

different bottlebrush:

 

kangaroo paw just starting:

Purples and mauves/pinks:

 

and this: a stunning creeper – it  apparently grows very well in gardens.  I am tempted:

A wonderful MtLaweyShire sunset

It has been a while since I posted a sunset.  Not because there haven’t been some beautiful ones – there have been – but this one was so unexpected.

It is the end of winter, and there have been inconstant clouds and many of the sunsets of the last few months have not ben what you’d call spectacular.

This one was the same: heavy grey cloud towards the west and a line of gold:

 

 

The cloud began thickening and I thought it was going to swallow the sunset as had happened for the last few weeks, even as the colour grew richer:

 

I thought, seeing as there was an almost full moon, I would scamper home and change the lens so I could photograph the moon at least.

And these were the only shots I got as the cloud was now piling in from the south-east:

the sky looked little different in the west, except – the colour was spreading:

then exploding into a glorious glow!

 

 

then the clouds caught on fire:

 

flaming light rippling out across the undersides of the clouds:

 

firing the entire sky:

the range of colour, the richness of it!

shadows across the clouds enhanced the flame colours that picked out their texture:

 

& slowly it faded, the luminous air darkening almost imperceptibly

then the darkening blue from the east began to claim more and more of the sky, pushing the light back towards the western horizon

it faded to luminous glows and greys

till it was nothing more than a memory across heavy clouds presaging rain and storm for the following day.

Far from MtLawleyShire #4: Views of Araluen

The last of the posts of Araluen.  these are photos of views of the park – though it was a dismal (but delightful) day.

I saw many birds: fairy wrens – the boys in their iridescent blue, the girls in their soft browns, New Holland Honey eaters amongst others – & this little fellow: a robin in a wintered tree.  So suited to the European aspect of the gardens.

The bridge over the pond was closed, so I could only get these photos of the – um – whatever it is.  I love the trees around them.

 

 

From the tearooms – you can see wattle gleaming amongst the sombre greens.  The twisted wood is wisteria – huge and only just starting to bud.  It would look beautiful in full flower.

 

did I mention it rained?  The 1st of these photos is my favourite.

This was my attempt to capture water running through a rocky stream bed.  I need more – much more – practise at taking those photos (fast or slow shutter speed) to catch moving water:

And this was at the entrance to the gardens 😀  It was too cold to worry about snakes, but should I go there again, before summer, before the flowers fade, then I will bear it in mind.

One the way home, we decided to try a scenic route and got delightfully lost.  And as we descended the hills, the Swan River coastal plain with all its city was laid out before us, including the eruption of the CBD of Perth with its skyscrapers.  Much hilarity was caused by me trying to get these shots through the windscreen.  Every time I thought I had it, round a curve we’d go, or a tree would obscure the view or she’d go over a bump.  But I got these.  And the last (& best) is proof there was some sun on the day.

It was a lovely day.

I hope you enjoyed these posts.

Far From MtLawleyShire #3 Trees

Trees.  The Araluen Botanical Garden is surrounded by them.  This is the third of four posts on my expedition to the Gardens.  No tulips this time, but flowers are still visible.  This post is devoted to trees.

Just before you get to the carpark, there is a bare patch because it’s a rose farm, but that’s not visible from the gardens.  Mostly they are native Australian trees with the odd plane tree or European spruce.  Basically, if the branches are bare, it’s not from around here.

And here are 2 examples: ghost-pale against the darker greens – though in the 2nd photo, some of those greens are conifers and it was raining too much t go and check what kind they were:

 

the brilliant gold of flowering wattle lifts the subtle greens of the West Australian bush

 

in some areas, the fact that it’s a park, not wilderness is visible

 

 

in some areas, it looks like pure wilderness 🙂

 

 

this massive tree on the lawns, with neighbouring ghost gum and the background of ghostly deciduous waiting for spring’s touch:

 

and some of the shapes made wonderful silhouettes:

      

Far from MtLawleyShire #2: raindrops

This is the 2nd post of photos from my excursion to Araluen Botanic Gardens, and as I mentioned in my first post, it was raining.  Frequently, heavily every now and then, but there were clear spaces.  Time enough for photos of raindrops on things.

In tulips:

 

On tulips and stems:

 

on their petals:

 

on buds (one is a close-up of the other):

 

on tulip leaves:

 

on other flowers:

 

on magnolia twigs:

 

on a conifer type:

 

on a variety of twigs:

 

 

and finally, the slender blades of a grass tree:

Far from MtLawleyShire #1 Flowers.

Far far from MtLawleyShire’s most extreme borders is Araluen Botanic Gardens.  It is set within the slow rising of land towards the Darling Escarpment, south-east of Perth.  It’s a good hour on good highways from the city, so a fair distance.  It is not exactly a native flora park, though set within some lovely bushland.  Araluen Gardens are famous for their tulips, so, despite the weather (rain & storms) and friend and I went.

and it was lovely.  Rainy, gloomy, but lovely.  And filled with flowers, trees and raindrops on things.

This first post is Araluen’s flowers.

There were azalea and camellia

 

wattles and trees in blossom & the occasional native beauty:

english violets (well, that’s what I call them):

poppies weighed down with rain:

 

a magnolia tree:

 

 

but the main attraction was the tulips.  The massed beds of single and mixed colour (the reds were especially vibrant):

 

 

 

 

 

and the individual flowers themselves: