At the bottom of my garden . . .

Where is Summer?

Already it is the end of December with only a few warm, sunny days this Summer. Today was beautiful (hooray)! It was wonderful to feel the warmth of the sun on your back. There is still some hope that the hot days will soon be here.

The plants seem to think that it is Summer. They have been enjoying the extra rain  and are flushed with growth.

The bark is shedding on the blue gums. Somedays it ‘rains’ bark. The tree trunks eventually change from pink to a cool green.

The spotted gums have gone all spotty!

  The black bean trees are in flower. Although not native to this area, these are a magnificent rainforest tree. The flowers are red and yellow growing out of the branches of the tree. It produces large seed pods, the seeds of which are fun to grow and often sold at Chinese New Year as ‘lucky plants’.

The rainbow lorikeets invade the trees making themselves ‘drunk’ from the nectar. Their racket is deafening!

The flowers of the hoya plant hang secretively along a fence.They look like upturned umbrellas.

They don’t look real at all, more like plastic flowers.

Whenever the sun does show itself, the seeds on the Hoveas start to pop. These plants have mauve pea shaped flowers in the early Spring. If the seed pods are placed in a paper bag, for collecting for propogation, and left in the sun, it will sound like popcorn popping as they explode.

 The many rainy days have caused some confusion with the fungi. These don’t usually appear until Autumn.

If these puff balls continue to grow, they eventually explode to release their spore. I don’t think this will happen if we get any hot days.

Meanwhile we can be like Bailey, on guard for any white cabbage moths around the tomatoes, and enjoy any warm days we are lucky enough to have.

Happy New Year everyone!

Cockatoo Island – Outpost

Cockatoo Island is the largest island in Sydney Harbour.  In the past it has been used as a prison for convicts, an Industrial School for girls and a Naval dockyard, but is mostly known for its large ship building yards. It is now a venue for public use. Many of its historical buildings have been retained which makes for an interesting space to explore.

A ferry trip on Sydney Harbour, on a glorious Spring day, to visit the island, happened to coincide with ‘Outpost’ – an exhibition of street art. There are murals, weird installations and yes, graffiti paintings.

Not everyone would want to make the trip to see street art, but I am sure they would find something that appeals to them.

This crane structure is holding a massively scaled up version of a sushi fish.

It represents unconscious waste.

A Belguim artist, Roa paints large animal images on abandoned factories and walls. I hope this one gets to stay around for awhile.

He chooses animals native to the location(country). Can you recognise any?

Some animals are placed in piles.

There are many more murals on display, too many to mention.

 We went through the Dog Leg Tunnel to escape the heat. It is lined with the work of 30 street artists. It used to be a bomb shelter during WWII.

There is an exhibition by the world famous graffiti artist Banksy. When you have had enough, there are places where you can relax with a cool breeze and a cool drink and take in the wonderful view.

‘Outpost’ continues until 11 Dec, 2011. You may change your view on street art if you visit this exhibition.

Cockatoo Island itself requires further exploration on another day.  The ferry trip back reminds you of how lucky we are to live in this great part on the world!