GPE #4 : Dinahmow's Down Under Jungle

Welcome to the fourth garden of the

10th Anniversary  I N F O M A N I A C  Garden Photos Event 

 We have journeyed to the southern hemisphere to take in the exotic delights of Dinahmow's garden on the east coast of Queensland, Australia where Dinah can often be found "wafting about the yard in my Morrissy Florrissy gown.  Maybe in a sun bonnet with a cute little trug on my arm."*

 First on the agenda is Dinah's triffid, followed by a rant about bananas(?!), and then some choice specimens from her subtropical surroundings...

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 You're welcome to use this, rusty chains an' all, in your triffid collection. I'll try for a photo showing the miniscule flowers. 

[IDV - I happened to mention that the little/normal leaves made me think it was some type of Hoya, and this is what Dinahmow came back with:] 

 Hoya-arghh! Bloody ants! I did have a Hoya, but ants totally wrecked it. I think there may have been one flower... 

 You do know they will NOT flower unless pot-bound? That said, mine should have romped away, but the ants were sheer hell. And I do not spray nasties so... 

 Now, about the Dischidia...I did snap a pic of the flowers; not easy with the wind going bananas on the Beaufort scale. Oh! Bananas... that's another thing! I may come back to England ... where bananas are not a problem! The ones we have in this garden are commonly known as "lady fingers" and I'm not sure why; I'd say they are more like short, fat, man fingers. Anyway, this is the only variety allowed for back yard gardens. The Cavendish, grown commercially, is far superior. But the Man actually LIKES these horrid things! Fine, he can eat them with his breakfast fruit. But any banana plant is horror in a small yard.

 Here's the teeny weeny flower approx .5cm of the Dischidia pectinoides. You can see some of the seed pods (My chap calls them turtle shells) beginning to form.

[Clockwise from top left:] 

1. Dischidia pectinoides  

2. Dwarf heliconia (crab claw) 

3. Tacca (bat plant) 

4. Zyzgium wilsonii - renamed by Jon "Drag Queen"  

 

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5. Green Ice callistemon

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6. Petrea volubilis (sandpaper vine)

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7. partly-open Drag Queen

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8. "Abraham Darby" rose

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9. one of the Zygos

 I'll stop now as I have had a very slack year in the garden and missed much of the best.

 

* All lies, of course, but the image is prettier than the truth!  Elderly woman in grubby denim, stuffing flowers into a daggy old plastic bucket.  Oh! and wearing purple [redacted], but don't tell MJ!

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 Well, that was certainly very informative and exotic, Dinahmow!  As a little treat (because I know you like him - and what's not to like?  Phwoaaarrr!), may I present the lovely Rob Smith fingering a moist, dark pot, and getting his kit off for World Naked Gardening Day!  

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  Next on the 10th Anniversary Infomaniac Garden Photos Event is Mitzi's new lanai and a sad story of a bungled rose propagation operation!