winter garden

It's been too wet and cold here to spend much time in the garden lately but luckily constant rain and grey skies have given way to beautiful crisp, sunny winter days.
The garden is still in flower, our colder months are ahead, and I'm always quite surprised at the plants that are doing their thing in July. Of course the sasanqua camellias are always beautiful now. This white one is new and tiny but I love the simple elegance of its flowers. In contrast I always buy punnets of pansies for their colours. I'm a sucker for purple ones.
The lolly pink pompoms of the Hakea have been flowering for a month at least and bringing all the nectar eating birds and bees. The Callicarpa is doing its thing too with these totally unreal magenta berries.



The Red Hot pokers, well orange pokers in this case are a great splash of colour in the garden as is another favourite, and one that should have lost it's leaves by now, Euphorbia cotinifolia. I just love red foliage and this one catches the light beautifully.


The vegetable boxes down the side are starting to settle in and I've planted baby beetroot and peas and spinach. I was quite pleased with myself when I thought of this use for the grape vine prunings, with their little dried tendrils they make fantastic climbing posts for the peas.