Spring In the Garden

 Tiny Tim - Tiptoe Through The Tulips

 The winter was plenty cold enough to chill these delightful bulbs.

I love it when a photo reveals something you missed when you were taking it.  A little praying mantis is standing guard over my Hollyhock buds.

  

Our avian visitors are wreaking some havoc in the vegie patch. Goodbye Romanesco broccoli - you weren't doing as well as I had hoped in any case.

I can't resist letting them out of their cage at times, even knowing the damage they will do. This is Henny Penny, she and Owen (a gender confused chicken) are given more free reign as they are not nearly as destructive as their white counterparts, who really like to scratch up seedlings and mulch.

 The little Bowerbird chose these for the garden, they are a rainbow of cheer, I like to let her choose a punnet when we visit the nursery and she was very firm on her choice of Polyanthus.

 A mystery fete plant is finally flowering, tiny bugs are visiting it daily, some sort of lanky indigenous Billy Button.

 The smell of this tiny plant travels far and is an all time favourite of mine.

If I only had smell vision. Three of my favourite scents in the garden right now are (from left) Fresias, Buddleias, and Brown Boronias (I am amazed this plant has lasted a full year and is now flowering a second time). The Buddleia tree (which should really be a shrub) fills our backyard with a heady scent.

 Pink Boronia, also scented although not as strongly as the Brown Boronia.

 A good year for Bearded Iris.

 Broad beans, just need some bees to do their thing.

A meadow of self seeded coriander, broccoli and silverbeet. The onions are competing for some space.

 Rhubarb and Alpine strawberries are filling this bed. Potatoes have been harvested and replanted here.

 Strawberries waiting for warmer weather, they are covered in tiny buds.

  

These are not fallen petals, the Rosellas and Cockatoos take great joy in stripping the plants of their buds. Always so sad to see a tree doing well under siege.

 Second year for our nashi and it has a number of buds. last year their were a few fruit but the possums broke through my defences.

Not well shot, but my successfully grafted apple. New green shoots have sprung from the graft that I put on this time last year, I thought they had all died so this was an unexpected find. I am quite jubilant to have success at my first attempt at grafting.

  

 A spinebill watches me fussing around in the garden.

 Camelia flowers are bringing in the Red Wattle birds, there is no shortage of flowers to visit.

 Lilac buds

The ever abundant Grevillea flowers

I really need to start tearing open some seed packets, summer will be here before I know it.

Playing along with Squiggly Rainbow's Tuesday Garden Journal.

The Earth Laughs in Flowers

Bitterly cold here today, but everywhere there are joyous signs.

 Big bold Camelias, luring in Wattle Birds and Eastern Spinebills, for me to watch from my lounge.

The window view is more often than not, marred by wet washing. 

Winter roses add a blush of colour near our front door. 

 Snow Drops, reminding me of my Ballarat Nanna who loved bulbs.

Daisies and Correas 

Pansies 

 The neighbourhood is alive with variously arranged pom poms of gold. A giant Cootamundra Wattle greets me with its musky scent, every time I return home. 

A Golden Wattle smothered in Clematis.

Lacey Hakea flowers softening those dramatic spikes. 

  Taming of the Pigface - we have rediscovered our garden's edge.

Even with snail holes they are lovely - it's going to be a big year for pansies and violas at our house, I may have gotten a little carried away. My Mildura Nanna always grew beautiful beds of these.

We tried introducing Cumquat and Babushka to the garden, they were terrified.  I think they may have always been indoor guinea pigs.

A new Holland Honeyeater in full song. 

Little birds fill the air with their chorus every time the rain stops, I share their joy.

  Magpies are gathering nesting materials and yodelling.

The weeds are running riot over our violets. 

 The first daffodil has arrived.

 Chives re-emerge after a winter sojourn and are quickly gobbled up.

  Just need the bees to do their bit and we should have an abundance of broad-beans.

 A delicious spear of Spring.

 "Earth laughs in flowers" 

Ralph Waldo Emerson

linking up with Squiggly Rainbow's