Mid-October Rain in MtLawleyShire

It rained today – in an October that has seen more dryness and heat than is normal.  So I celebrate with a page of photos of raindrops.

On leaves of jasmine:

 

 

on jasmine flowers:

 

 

 

on leaves of dragon trees:

petunia leaves:

on dead tendrils:

 

on petunia flowers:

 

scorched roses:

 

daisies (& the alien exotic is a hoarder, even when barely open):

 

magnolia bud:

and on Bauhinia buds & flowers:

  

MtLawleyShire’s Buhenia flowers

Buhenia are huge, magnificent trees.  Wide and tall, wonderful beings.  they lose their leaves and flower in Spring, grow leaves and the flowers become long bean-like sed pods that in February spring open explosively, shooting teh seeds far & wide.

A few years ago, I lived on the top floor in a small apartment block – the 3rd floor – and outside the flats was a huge buhenia tree.  A white one.  It was wonderful looking at the flowers at night – it looked like a Japanese painting.

When the seeds were dispersed, all of us in the flats became accustomed to the seeds hitting the balconies and windows.  And they fell into my potplants.  I ended up with a  veritable forest of them – seedlings that continued to grow.  The landlords took most of them (with my permission & thanks) and I was left with two.  I have planted one out the front where the growing conditions aren’t brilliant, but it is growing, slowly.  It has yet to have flowers.

The other is in a pot in my courtyard, and while it hasn’t grown very big, it has in teh last two years, begun flowering.

The other day, when we had a little rain, there were clouds in the east and sunlight in the west – for a moment.  The white of the flowers against that sky was just beautiful:

 

and with the bright sunlight on them against a blue sky:

 

Just a short post.

 

Raindrops in MtLawleyShire

And not much more than raindrops.  Our promised rain amounted to 1.8 mm in MtLawleyShire – which is barely enough to wet the soil.

It was good for some photos, though other areas of my wee courtyard remained quite dry.

the daisies received some of the glittering bounty:

 

the alien exotic hoarded:

and the rosebud was gifted:

the ‘wild’ parsley caught some, as did the empty hook:

 

but mostly, the drops were entangled in the now flowering jasmine – amass of flowers and sparkles, leaves, tendrils and tangles:

some closer shots of leaves and tendrils and buds:

 

 

 

 

& I love this shot!

Now to the flowers:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and this – epitome of a pure white jasmine flower:

Bees and others in MtLawleyShire

and mostly in MtLawleyShire’s garden, but not entirely.

My lavender is usually filled with bees., but one morning, I had the most awesome visitor – a grasshopper.  He was huge!

he shifted and I was able to get more detailed photos of him:

 

Portraits:

 

a more normal visitor: bee 🙂

 

 

 

this little hoverfly is a very common visitor, but soooo difficult to catch in a photo, so these are very lucky shots:

 

On a verge garden just down the road from me, there are all sorts of flowers and many attract bees:

 

on this particular day, in the french lavender that flowers there, the bees were busy:

 

but then (& apologies for the photo but everything is so tiny & so fast…) – a NATIVE blue-banded bee and a European bee in the same space:

I followed this native bee – they don’t stop as do the European bees – the hover, flit, pause, zag, flit, zig, pause, dive, flit…you get the idea.  But I got these:

 

peekaboo:

& these of it flitting:

 

and back in my garden, shortly before her take off to the ground & cuddles – the prettiest flying thing (well, maybe that’s stretching it a bit) entangled in early morning sunshine:

 

 

 

Flowers in MtLawleyShire

But we will start in the city with flowers and bees in the small city orchard.  A riot of colour, of beauty.

Borage

Borage and bees

 

more flowering herbs: yarrow and tansy

 

& I know this is a herb, but can I think of the name?  No 😀

A sort of poppy (though it’s probably not)

and in a brighter orange variety – a bee burrows for the rich nectar & pollen

Action shot!

Paper daisies, eternally cheerful

 

a solitary blossom in a courtyard

This should be up with the herbs: valerian flowers:

 

and to my delight – a cornflower.  That blue is just lovely.

 

one of these is a marigold, and the other – pretty but unknown.

 

Kangaroo paw en masse:

 

and these were my delight – when I was a child, we had yellow ones in our garden and called them ‘granny’s bonnets’.  They are columbines 🙂

 

 

 

In MtLawleyShire itself, there are still bottlebrush flowers.  I love the pink variety.  So delicate:

 

some flowers seen in a verge garden:

 

the stunning architecture of a dandelion seed head:

the heavily perfumed flowers of the rainforest tree – they are street trees and I walk through perfumed air sometimes

roses in one of the gardens I walk past:

 

 

and a bee on a clump of roadside lavender

but here – this is the prettiest flower of them all 🙂

 

MtLawleyShire goes to the city

This post is all buildings – OK, a couple of trees and some green, but mostly buildings.

Perth is a young city with a fairly well-established disregard for its heritage.  Old buildings are in scant supply and many old houses are being bulldozed to make room for environmentally ill-designed housing and loss of established gardens and mature trees.  But these photos concentrate on the centre of the city, in the ‘cultural precinct’ where the mix of old and new is sometimes stark and other times lovely.

This is, I think, the tax building, squaring off in monotones and sharp lines behind the bell tower of an old convent (I think)

 

 

north down William Street is this building, and in its context.

 

The buildings around PICA, looking north away from the city with a huge hotel complex, and towards the city with its skyscrapers:

 

PICA – these buildings are amongst my favourite:

 

The brutalist Alexander Library and a corner of it with a small hotel nearby:

 

& that small hotel cried out for this treatment – it’s a black and white box;

 

though balconies add some texture:

the james Street avenue is filled with new summer green.  We will need that shade this year!

 

another favourite: a slice of the old police courts which now form the admin part of the art gallery (very un-photogenic building, the art gallery)

And here are some shots of the newly cleaned and revealed Battye Library and the Museum buildings:

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed these.  Next – city flowers.