While in the front garden I noticed a plumbago I'd trained to grow up a nearby eucalypt (gum tree) had really taken off and is now producing blue flowers nearly at the top of the tree. This is a photo I took of it but you may need to enlarge it to actually see the blue flowers high up in the tree.
Also we have a fiddlewood that has always been rather confused. I've often said we seldom see much in the way of autumn colours in our city but this fiddlewood decides in early summer that it will produce autumn colours in its leaves and then by now (mid-summer) it actually drops leaves as most deciduous trees do in winter. This shows the tree this week with some branches quite bare.
Actually a chap that used to work in our garden tended to be very heavy handed with the shears and when I asked him to 'prune' the fiddlewood he cut it right back to the stump. I feared the worst but it coppiced and now once again stands about 10-12 ft high. An apple blossom hibiscus really suffered at his hands and has been battling over the past year or two to regenerate but it's slowly getting there. He gave the impression that tidiness was more important than beauty in the garden. I prefer a bit of a wilderness which to me looks much more natural
Another reason we decided not to let him loose in the garden any more was his poisoning grass without telling us before he actually did it. When you have cats that eat grass it is a dangerous thing to do. We also lost a crop of grapes about 3 years back. They hang over our fence from next door and the same fellow cut them all off even though you could see grapes forming. This year there are a dozen or more bunches which look as though they are going to be delicious. We just hope our neighbour keeps up the water to them as we are lacking rain right now and everything is very dry.
P.S. Added at last minute....Daughter saw her doctor yesterday and has thyroid problems....swelling etc. I recommended the endocrinologist that operated on my parathyroid in 2014 and she will be seeing him on 25th Jan. If anyone can help her he can....I had a lot of faith him. More news of that at a later date when we know more. Seems goitre may be the prominent thought. Just thinking positive thoughts on her behalf.
