Caught up with work, study, travel, health checks and poor weather over the past few days, it was a delight to get back into the garden this morning to find that we were blessed with the season’s first bottlebrush and kangaroo paw flowers.
Cooler temperatures have caused a delay in blooms compared to previous years, so the slow progress of the plants in the garden have had me worried. We’ve got lots of kangaroo paw plants, but none had started flowering until this morning, which was a disappointment as I had grown them from seed and wanted them to flourish considering the kangaroo connection. It’s hurting especially as plants in the pot that thrived last year appear to have died. Today’s bloom gave some hope.
It’s a similar story with the callistemon. Social media reminders all week had been telling me that this tiume last year we had a flourishing bloom of scarlet bottlebrush flowers, but our tree was bare so far, even though there were many buds. I heavily pruned the callistemon after it flowered last year and was horrified to learn that if I had only cut off the tips of branches, I could have had it flowering for months. I had since been concerned that I had gone too far and hindered the plant’s flowering progress. The couple of flowers I saw this morning gave me a semblance of relief.
Of course, the grevillea remain simply stupendous! They are providing a great deal of delight every day with several flowers blooming and more yet to come.
