Brilliant red with large flower heads, Nerine Sarniensis grows in tough spots and is happy to be ignored for most of the year. I have several clumps growing along the pathway around the pond.
Another tough shrub but with beautifully, rich coloured leaves and small pink "fringed' flowers. We saw this shrub growing along the road verges in China. If it can grow in China, with the extremes of temperature there, then in can grow in Camelot Gardens, It is very, very slow to start with but after a couple of years it takes off and matures into a shrub over a meter high. It can be pruned, clipped and shaped too. This one is growing over our pond.
I have come to appreciate how tough and useful Buddlias can be. I like that they keep there leaves throughout the year, that they are quick and easy to grow and that there are lots of different varieties. My favourites are the pink, purple and mauve flowered ones but I also like the ones with silver leaves and petite orange flowers like the picture below.
I am thinking of growing this climbing spinach in my flower garden because it has been so ornamental. It now has dark red berries where the pink flowers once were and still deep red stems twined around each other decorated with little heart shaped leaves.
As we pruned the aphid infested Potato Trees, that we have on the edge of the back veranda, we found some very fat praying mantis. This one kept climbing over the camera and up my arm. It wasn't until I looked in a mirror that I could see that my tee-shirt was covered with aphids that had fallen from the tree as I pruned back the higher branches.
The Plectranthus create a purple haze at this time of year. The are an Australian Native and have lots of varieties. Mum has two unusual varieties - one has a white flower and the other has a soft pink flower. One of my favourite varieties has silver leaves. We have to grow it each year from scratch because the frost kills it during the winter months.
The silver leaves of the native Plectranthus compliment the soft pink Belladonna - lovely together in the garden.
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