5 Minutes in another corner of the garden : Part 3…

Periodically I am going to show you just one small corner of the garden. I will spend 5 minutes photographing it.

It is 2 months since the last 5 minutes I spent photographing a corner of the garden. That time it was a section of the back garden. This is where I left you last time (for another look click here). You may notice a few more pots have joined the ranks. They are the natives I bought at Tenterfield and will be planted in their permanent place in the garden in spring. The pink Bauhinia on the fence is still flowering in the background. Meanwhile the camellia is struggling into flower. I have a soft spot for camellias,  they give out such a soft, delicate perfume as I pass by them, they bring back memories of New Zealand. But I don’t think they really like this climate. I never get the overwhelming flush of blossom I remember from my New Zealand gardening days.

Now I’m going to move round the corner to the warm northern side of the house. In summer the sun hits the red brick wall and heats it like a furnace, it gets all day sun.

But the Desert Rose loves it here and all Jack’s baby Desert Roses and his Buddha’s Belly are revelling in the heat, especially now Autumn is here, they are protected from the chilly southern winds. We still get lots of sun right through autumn and winter keeping that wall like a heater. The agave enjoys it here too.You can see how narrow this section is. 20 years ago when we moved in this was all grass. The tiles that Jack used to make the crazy paving were offcuts from a neighbours landscaping around his pool. They were being thrown away, so Jack, being a master at recycling and repurposing things, and never liking to waste anything, brought them home. The hose, normally wound up and tucked away in the corner is snaking out from the spear pump hidden behind the Golden Cane Palms. At the moment we are going through a dry spell so it is getting used almost daily.

We installed the spear pump 18 years ago, just as the drought started, that lasted for 10 years. Without it I don’t think the garden would’ve survived. The drought broke, catastrophically, in 2010, the year we set off around Australia. The jade plant on the right was here when we moved in. An old wives tale says that they are a sign of good luck and this one has thrived. If you want to take a rest for a while there is another bench waiting in the sun for you.But now to open the gate and move into the front garden.Another bench to sit and meditate, this is such a peaceful, quiet area. It is facing east so gets morning sun, then in the heat of summer it is a shady place to sit and relax after pottering around in the garden, maybe with a cuppa or a glass of wine.

Notice the frangipani is home to bromeliads, staghorn ferns and  Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides), while more bromeliads cluster around its base.I am carrying the phone in my pocket with the alarm set for 5 minutes and just as it rings I take this photo of the next area I will show you around…

But next week I have my daughter coming from New Zealand to visit. So we will be making memories together, and I won’t be around the blogging community for a while.

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I am inspired to do this by Desleyjane and her “5 minute regular random” challenge…

• choose a subject or a scene
• spend five minutes photographing it – no more!
• try to not interfere with the subject, instead see it from many angles, look through something at it, change the light that’s hitting it
• have fun! (sure did!)
• tag your post #regularrandom and ping back to this post