grevillea

  • Tokyo’s Wonderfully Whirled With Aus

    Walking around central Tokyo over a couple of days this week, I got to discover a pocket garden filled with Aussie plants, including blooming grevillea and kangaroo paw. This little circular garden created a wonderful whirled of Aus, right in the Marunouchi business district. Flowers weren’t the only wonderful sights of the city. Walking around gifted me plenty of wonderful sights to see.

  • Bloomin’ Freezing

    After an Indian summer and unseasonably warm autumn, this morning finally sent a message that winter is on its way, even as the warm weather grevillea in Kangaeroo Corner continued to thrive. We have three grevillea trees in the garden, all of which are fantastic growers. (And a fourth, ground-covering, grevillea that has also done well this year.) Only one of them has ever flowered, though. But, oh how well it has bloomed! The star of our garden began shooting flowers in about April and has not stopped. It currently has about eight buds ready to flower. The onset of cold weather probably means the flowers will no longer bloom…

  • Virtuous Cycle

    Today’s title is more than just a play on words to boast about the beautiful bicycle photos I have been able to take recently. It also refers to what’s going on in my life at the moment. I can’t stop pinching myself to check that I am really going through what’s happening. Essentially, it revolves around the various miracles that have occurred to get me into a great new company, where I am surrounded by extraordinarily talented people and working in an environment so supportive that it is difficult to believe. Hence the pinching. This has brought about such an enormous difference in my sense of well-being and contentment that…

  • Death Revival

    Today looks like it’s going to be all about Lazarus-like feats centered around reviving death in all sorts of ways. First there’s the Death Machine; the name I give to my recumbent bike because riding it always feels like it could be fatal with each ride. It needs a tune, new chain and brakes to get back to fighting fitness. Hopefully, this won’t lead to a chain-reaction effect requiring increasingly more parts and labor, as is often the case. That segues into dealing with another form of death: that of my career. I can’t find a job and it seems like my working life might be over. I understand I…

  • Breaking The Banksia

    It’s becoming increasingly obvious that we’re finally going to get a banksia flower in the garden. We’ve had a banksia in the garden from the outset, but yet to get a flower some three years down the track. And we’ve had plenty of troubles along the way. In addition to the coastal banksia we started with, we also bought a hairpin banksia last year. It was a ripper and we grew it in a pot. It withstood the blistering heat of the summer of 2023, but I planted it too early into the autumn and it withered and died. We picked up some cheap but very nice birthday candles banksia…

  • Not Getting Cocky

    Some years ago, I got too far ahead of myself and lost my humility with the upshot being daily humiliation now. Over the past 14 years or so, I’ve attended a 12-step group pretty much daily to make myself a better person, and to be more decent to others. As my character improved, I gained a little more self-confidence. But it turns out that I also lost a lot of humility and didn’t show enough respect for others. One of the things I learned in my early days of going to AA was the importance of being respectful to every person who walked into a meeting because, as the old-timers…

  • Tea-ing Off for the Hot Stuff

    Yesterday gave me an absolutely delightful surprise that I am now hoping will be a tee off toward better things as our tea tree bloomed as we hit the heat of early summer, long after I had given up hope of it doing so this year. I was thrilled to see the tiny white flowers appear. As I’ve mentioned often previously, this year had a darker than normal winter, which is usually bright and sunny in Tokyo, and even though it has been warmer, it has had an impact on blossoming. But our tea tree has clearly joined the party now. The next few days should provide even greater enjoyment…

  • Shots for Paws-terity

    It’s an unbelievable joy to be able to go into the garden in the mornings and see the kangaroo paw grown from seed flourishing so well. Today I captured some photos for posterity, which was prompted by the solstice and realization that days are getting shorter from now onward. The flowers are growing unbelievably well. Not all of the plants have flowered, though, which is also OK, but I have been blessed with lots of glorious colors, which has been really pleasing. Some of the flowers in pots are bigger and thicker than the kangaroo paw I’ve been able to grow in the ground so far. I attribute that to…

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    Jacaranda Journey Provides Purple Haze

    Mrs. Kangaeroo and I woke up early, let the dinosaur roam free for a while to stretch her wings, then headed off to Atami for one of Japan’s few jacaranda festivals. We’ve got a jacaranda in our garden and it has proven to be pretty fickle, so I was very interested to see how more experienced, more skillful gardeners such as those good enough to hold a festival centered on the trees would handle the South American natives. And it was interesting, indeed, because the 100-odd trees the city has grown in the 34 years since being presented with a pair of jacaranda from its Portuguese sister-city, Cascais. (My memories…

  • Bloomin’ Bewdy!

    It was the D-Day anniversary today and it sure felt like I was storming enemy territory for most of the day, but the fantastic flowers blooming in the garden warmed my soul. And the magnificent Mrs. Kangaeroo took the ugliest flowers in the garden, the Australian native hops, chucked in a few snow in the summer blossoms and created a stunning bouquet! Words cannot describe her brilliance! I hope her terrible taste in men remains eternal.