Tropical garden inspiration

Wow!  Looks my last post telling you I was back to blogging was a bit premature. Here's what happened.

After I came back to Australia and wrote my last post in October, I headed back to Papua New Guinea to complete my contract. I returned to Australia early November, but had lots of problems with my computers and downloading photos (dropping my laptop on the tiled floor didn't help). I'm finally back on track with that.

However after 7 months away, my own garden is in a sad state so I headed out and about in search of inspiration.

Two weekends ago, on the last Sunday in February, I visited an open garden - Taman Air in the southside Brisbane suburb of Sunnybank - where there was no shortage of great ideas for the tropical garden.



The main street entrance to Taman Air - the Sunnybank garden of Rene and Carolyn Hundscheidt - flanked by bronze coloured (Aechmea blanchetiana) and burgundy Alcantarea bromeliads

This beautiful potted bromeliad is Aechmea 'Del Mar'; I snapped up one at the plant sales adjoining the garden.



A spirit house with Rhapis palm to the right - a plant I am planning to add to my front garden - Croton to the left, Rhoeo in the foreground, and Brazilian Red Cloak behind..

A pretty miniature bromeliad in spectacular Balinese stone planter.



Beehive ginger

The entry to the residence - great concept but this would be asking for trouble for anyone as clumsy as I am.

A selection of bromeliads, mainly neoregelias.

Lovely blue-flowered water plant

Love the stone and pebble pathway and the red and white caladium (I added to my own collection with a visit to the on-site plant shop).

Selection of Guzmania bromeliads - think I have had all of these at some stage - hopefully they are still there.



Exit/entrance to side street.



I love this heliconia.

The property boundary from the street

Delicate pink frangipani (Plumeria)

Rene can supply all the finishing touches to add Balinese style to any garden. You can check out his website at www.islandimports.com.au  And if it you want more tropical inspiration, have a look at my earlier post where I explored the garden of Rene's brother, Dennis here

Orchids and authors

'Head on down. The orchids are just about to peak.'

I'd phoned brother Tony to ask if a friend and I could stay overnight with him and the lovely Leanne and use their home outside Ballina as our base for visiting the fabulous Byron Writers' Festival last weekend; the orchids were a bonus.

We were a bit late leaving Brisbane on Saturday, so we went directly to the festival, but I got up early Sunday morning to give myself a quick tour of the garden, and especially those orchids.

Tony had already headed to the beach for a surf, so I didn't get the full run down on names, but generally speaking there were two main types in flower, the strappy-leafed Cymbidiums and the daintier-flowered Dendrobiums, including his 'speciality' the Australian native Dendrobium speciosum.

Cymbidium orchid

Orchids were everywhere.



A dendrobium orchid



Dendrobium speciosum

Dendrobium (not in flower) on the upper branch, and a cymbidium on the lower fork of a frangipani in the front garden.

D. speciosum in various stages of flowering in one of the orchid houses.

One of my favourite cymbidiums - I think I gave this one to Tony.

The dendrobiums are epiphytic and happily grow on tree (or palm) trunks or rocks.

More D. speciosum about to flower

Elsewhere in the garden, the always reliable bromeliads were in flower.



This bromeliad is Guzmania wittmarkii

 

Bromeliad Aechmea gamosepala is known as the matchstick plant.

Tony and Leanne's house was named 'The Magnolias' by its previous owners. Although sometimes these beauties get a bit lost in all the tropical growth, this is their time to shine.

Heliconia 'Red Christmas'

... and the festival itself?  We had a fabulous time in a beautiful setting at Belongil Beach, just outside Byron Bay.

Indonesian writer Ahmad Fuadi. His novel 'The Land of Five Towers' was my only purchase on the day, but I have added some other great books to my wish list and hope to get a chance to track them down and read them later in the year.

And just over the hill from the festival, we were able to take in a final dose of beauty before heading home to Brisbane.

Looking towards Byron with its famous lighthouse on the distant ridge just to the right of the couple on the beach

Julian Rocks with Belongil Creek in the foreground.

Belongil Creek