Springtime in a Sydney suburb

Time for another international guest post! Maddy sent me this absolutely beautiful photo essay from Australia, where it looks to be a lovely spring. I’m jealous, sitting here in the cooling, darkening US! Please enjoy her spring flowers, and then go check out her blog, Maddy At Home.

Thank you Bethany, for inviting me to post on your blog.

When people think of Australia, they think of extreme heat, the outback, and perhaps gum trees. They may not be aware of the wonderful flowers, shrubs and trees that we take for granted as we go about our business every day in the city.

My name is Maddy and I live in an inner suburb of Sydney in New South Wales. As the Northern Hemisphere heads into the depth of winter, I wanted to share with you the colorful springtime that we are privileged to enjoy.

Over the last few weeks I have been having a lovely view from my kitchen window. When the afternoon sun plays on the brilliant pink bougainvillea it is a sight to behold, but the photo really doesn’t do it justice. My outlook is otherwise not the best, but in spring it really is a treat! Moving round to the small garden in the front of our units, I have another bougainvillea in deep purple that you can see in one of the photos below. I have to constantly cut it back lest it completely take over my balcony. Many people find this colorful shrub to be a nuisance because cutting it back only makes it grow quicker. The job of pruning it is not a pleasant one because it has sharp thorns all along its stems.

Mandevilla is a climbing plant that flowers for the whole of the summer, so I am trying to train some of that over my side fence and further, to cover an ugly structure of corrugated iron that my neighbor has built. I have mandevilla in the front as well where I want to screen off a concrete slab that used to house dustbins when they were made of metal. So far I have pink and white flowers and I’m hoping to get some port wine colored ones as well.

As I look up I can see that the Jacaranda tree that shades the front garden is about to put on its display of blossom as the leaves turn a fresh and vibrant shade of green before they completely disappear and are replaced by a few flowers here and there, later to become a wonderful purple canopy which will eventually drop a matching carpet of petals on the ground beneath.

Here, just a few streets away, are two whole rows of Jacarandas – unfortunately I accidentally deleted the original photos I took and had to go and take them again. By that time it was raining! I like the way they contrast with the row of palms. Underneath you may just be able to make out the blue and white agapanthus that are a common sight on the sides of the roads all over the city.

Heading homeward for a walk up my own street with my camera, there were any number of colorful flowers to snap. In these days of cell phone cameras, I didn’t think I would cause much alarm, but I did get a few suspicious looks! I was tempted to trespass into the front gardens to get a better look at some of the plants, but thought better of it. I don’t know the names of most of the plants in the photos below except for the ones that everyone knows, such as azaleas. The last photo is a frangipani tree about to come into flower and when it does, the beautiful scent will mix with that of  jasmine to tell us that summer is really coming!

I hope my trip around the neighborhood has brightened up your winter a little bit! Do come and visit me over at Maddy at Home where I write a blog for Seniors over Sixty.