Winter Can be Beautiful...

Here's two pictures I have taken of glorious daffodils blooming in Mansfield near Mt Buller. They are probably King Alfred daffodils. These are by far the most beautiful ones I have seen. The ones I have in my garden are Little Mist and are smaller. (see http://organic-is-better.blogspot.com/2009/08/my-dream-private-garden.html to see more pics of daffodils) Daffodils just take my breath away. Recently I taught my son William Wordsworth's poem on Daffodils. I told him I had learnt that poem when I was a teenager and even though I had never seen one before until I live here in Australia, the poem just illustrated how beautiful they must be and daffodils just got etched in my memory since then : Winter. It feels cold and gloomy much of the time. And windy too. But when we look around really carefully, we will notice that winter can be beautiful. Bare trees can look really pretty without their leaves. I thought it's artistic too! And winter is the time of recuperation, rejuvenation and quiet growth. Without winter, there wont be spring and flowering. Winter feels just like the 7th day when God rested after all the creating. And when I looked at my garden, there are the gorgeous flowers blooming in the midst of winter. How wonderful! A gorgeous perfect calendula flower with dew on its petals. I have no word to describe the beautiful blue on these marguerite daisies. They are small and many but the close-up shot of them is really pretty. When I used this picture as my desktop picture, even my husband who is not exactly a keen gardener commented that they looked gorgeous!

Flowering Plants Growing

My gorgeous jadeplants have put on their tiny pink flowers. In fact, lots of neighbourns have these plants and they are all in bloom. Very nice! One calla lily flower is starting to un-twirl. Better get a nice picture before it opens completely.

I bought two packs of tulip bulbs from Bunnings and planted them around my two conifers. Samuel helped me with the planting and watering :

The three cyclamens are growing well at this spot under the pomegranate tree. The one in the middle has produced some white flowers but they are quite small.

These daffodils which I have bought from Dandenong Market have appeared from under the mulching. Their shoots look a little different from those I have bought in Tasmania. They are supposed to produce yellow heads, I do hope so because I only like the large yellow ones.

This pot of daffodils is doing great eversince I took it out from the garage. I predicted there was still life after the previous bath (which did not yield a single flower)and I was right. I hope for this season, I would see some flowers. I told myself that I will not fertilise the pot in any way this time. The bulbs were bought during our 09 trip to Tassie.

Over here, gorgeous daffodils at the patch next to the garage that died down last summer are coming up again, with even more shoots and I will expect more flowers this time. They are of the same type as those in the pot.

One of my candy tuft plants at the patch next to the garage has died leaving the one as shown above. A small part of it has also died and I pulled it out easily. Since its planting in early 08, it has put on a single flower. Disappointing.

My trailing kalanchoe in its pot has put on loads of buds. I thought it would be difficult to get it to flower from some reading up that I have done, but it has done so on its own. This beautiful plant has been the subject of moth caterpillars from spring to autumn and I had resorted to netting it. It has been resilient and sprang back with flower buds as mid-winter approaches.