:: linaria purpurea ::

I can't make up my mind whether I like this flower - purple toadflax - its name isn't particularly flowery (pretty-sounding), no, and its habit disturbs me as well...it kind of lolls about in weird corners of the garden - sort of surprising me. And, it has a sort of straggly, couldn't really be bothered feel about it...the colour is really rather fetching, though...

:: cactus ::

Thank you Huhana for this gorgeous photo of a cactus at her workplace in...sunny Auckland - look at that blaze of blue...

:: pansy ii ::

A little lovely antique colouring to this variety of pansy...very glad I bought two punnets...I will smile each time I see their faces peeping at me this Winter.

:: rosa x ::

 Miss P loves her roses and it is now a regular part of her birthday ritual, to receive a rose as part of her gift.  This one is from the year before last...

 ...it is an interesting one called 'chameleon' and like its namesake, it changes, not due to its surroundings, but just with the passage of time...blending and brightening and then softening again...

:: hebe ::

Hebe, the Greek goddess of youth, gave her name to this pretty flowering shrub, native to New Zealand, South America, French Polynesia and the Falkland Islands.  

A prolific bloomer through Summer and Autumn, hebes are very pretty and do a great job attracting and feeding many beneficial insects and butterflies.

These beauties are on a large hedge, on the morning walk rounds.

I love that the flowers are described as being arranged on a spiked inflorescence - how marvellous!

:: trifolium ::

Trifolium, or clover, I perhaps could have posted on St.Patrick's Day, being that it was he, who gave the humble clover the symbolism of the holy trinity and coined the name 'Shamrock'.

The name, trifolium comes from the Latin words which, surprise, surprise, mean 'three leaves'.  Although sometimes there is a lucky four-leaf and even rarer, are the 5 and 6 leaved clovers.  There are some fantastical numbers of leaved-clovers in the Guinness Book of World Records, but the notion of 56 just blows my mind!

I love this little plant because it hangs out on the ground, quietly going about some very helpful business in my garden. It has invaded the paths between my vegetable beds and I've decided, actually, that's very okay. 

For one, it helps provide nectar for our bees, who in turn pollinate the clover.  

Secondly, the clover is a nitrogen-fixing plant, which will serve my vegetable-garden, so long as it doesn't take over the growing space. 

Thirdly, the excess I weed away, goes to the hens, which gives them a pile of lovely fresh greens to munch on. 

Fourthly, it makes a very pretty, if slightly dangerous, path, all those lovely rounded bright green leaves running between the beds.

Thank you clover!

:: bromeliad ::

This is another of the amazing flowers blooming in the vast sub-tropical gardens at the village where my Nana lives in Central Auckland, the bromeliad.  The garden is all dark, leaves of all colours green, and there are these shots of colour, bursting out, made even brighter by the contrast of all that lush, dark foliage. It is a very beautiful setting and much more thoughtful than a swathe of grass - it almost feels a bit jungley.

One of the fascinating things I discovered reading about the Bromeliaceae family is that the varieties include tiny air plants - epiphytes - like Spanish Moss as well as terrestrial species like the pineapple!

I hope to happen on more of these in the future - they are so interesting, especially the plants that save water between the layers of their leaves and then host more life, creatures and other plants...I will keep you posted on that one!