Summer Garden.

G'Day,
These pictures add to the record of my summer flower garden. The above picture is in the garden at the door of my pottery shed. The red things are seed pods of the green lily that pops up every year unbidden and has reseeded around the yard. The flower isn't much but the leaves which last all winter are pretty and I love these bright red ripe pods. Don't look at the weeds.
I don't know what this is called. It is a summer flowering bulb, one of those nice plant and forget things that pop up each year.
This purple plant is in a pot beside the pergola with Mum's violas. It is a Hebe, it fades away to a pale lilac colour.
This is the dam wall of Lake Hume, in Albury. We had to go there last week for a Dr's appointment re; Pete's shoulder. The water level is less than 50% at the moment. I used to go here for picnics often in my teens with my older sister and our friends. There is a little boat hire place where we used to get canoes. We had great fun . My sister's favourite trick was to paddle out and tip everyone out of the canoe then swim off laughing and leave me to drag the canoe back. She was a very good swimmer, I wasn't. What a fun way to get rid of a little sister.
Hume Weir again. Hume was an early explorer. Albury is a bit less than 2 hrs drive drive from Wagga. It is the damming of the Murray river, and is huge. Before the drought there was concern for cracks that had developed in the dam, and danger from the dam wall last time the water was up to there which would have caused havoc downstream in Albury if it broke.
Summer flower arrangement on my kitchen table. Roses and Fuschia. My daughter used to call these ballerina flowers because we would float them in a bowl of water and they would dance when we wobbled them.
Plectrantus, Mona lavender.
White verbena in a pot on a pedestal out the back. Good value plant.
A red gladioli on the pergola.
A Sydney rock orchid on the archway out the back. It struggled for years and never flowered until I moved it to here, it still hasn't flowered yet but it has grown 5 new bits, or arms or whatever you call them.
A beautiful double orange day lily. From Edie's garden. Another friendship plant to keep.
Seduction rose. A variation on the famous Ice berg rose, at it's lovely best.
Laegerstromia or Crepe Myrtle.
I know this as beauty bower vine. it is at the door of my pottery shed.
This is the big old iceberg rose on the back fence in full flower. It is a semi climber.
Petunia. This one is supposed to cascade down over hanging baskets. It must be too hot for it, as it hasn't done so yet.
Isn't this gorgeous. A purple Gladioli. Dame Edna would love it.
Christmas day. Princess Grace, one of Pete's great nieces. Pete's sister Maureen and his Mum in the back ground.
Aren't these great! Big gum nuts I pinched from a tree at work for my Christmas decorations, the nuts are about 4 to 5cm long, they have now been added to a dried and silk flower arrangement in my family room. Note the psylid damage on the leaves, I think it adds to them.
Christmas tree and some of the presents, now gone for another year.

Today is my first of three days off work. I am in the process of organising the Potter's club renovations. The painting was supposed to be done before the floor sanding and resealing but I don't know if it will be now, re; depending on other people to do part of the organising, and work persons fitting in around each other. I should have done the lot myself.
Pete had a phone call from Canberra to attend a psych test next Thursday for the new jail job. Should be no problem, he's done them before. Don't know if I would pass at times though. Lol. We are still vacillating between selling here and buying in Canberra or renting. Houses are so expensive there, but most rented places won't allow pets so that will drastically cut down on our chances of finding something to rent. I will miss my garden soooo much, but if we buy I would be able to rebuild a new garden.
I spent a lot of last night lying awake thinking about the processes to go through for the mural I will be making soon that will go in the new hospital. It is to go in Dr Pott's memorial garden. The idea was to have as many of the staff involved as we can and none of them have done any pottery at all before so it will be busy busy. The hardest thing will be keeping the clay from drying out while we are working on it for a couple of days, because it has been so hot lately. For the last week and a half it has been in the high 30's each day which is over the hundred mark (37) on the old Fahrenheit scale. I must be getting older, the heat didn't bother me too much before. It said on the news a few days ago that 2007 was the hottest year on record since the beginning of record keeping of weather in Australia.
We had a dust storm yesterday but got no rain out of it, even though it was looking good. I have gone back to watering each evening for an hour. I tried to use the new water tank a couple of nights ago but the tap that came with it is useless and I could get no more than a slow trickle out of it. I will have to action it and get a new one fitted, so I can at least use the water I have saved. my little plot of corn out the side is ready to use, beautiful. I had some about a week ago and it was a bit young so it should be good now. I have had a few ripe tomatoes, very few so far and the potatoes in the straw garden have not been looking healthy so I had a look at those and rescued a few small straggly potatoes to try from that. Nothing very special, although they were the purple colour that I expected.
I had better go do some work instead of siting on my bum here, Bye. Love Linda.