[Photos] Photos of the day - Garden

[moonvoice]

I've been working on the garden over a couple of weekends,
reading it for artificial turf.
My fingernails have black mulch embedded in them
but it's been pretty awesome,
and I can't wait for our new baby plants to grow up.


The praying mantis that visited our garden.






Stay away from meeee.





With the sky as contrast.





The left-hand side.





The right-hand side! The colour difference between the new and the old mulch is startling.





Chorizema cordatum, or the 'flame pea.' One of the new local natives, welcome to our garden!





A young Dampiera.





This is Esmeralda (Nephila edulis). She's lovely. She's also been considerate enough to build her substantial web (complete with multiple barrier webs) out of the way of my gardening / watering path.





A mature Verticordia mitchelliana. This is one of my *favourite* plants. Because looking down, they have this lovely circular habit (naturally), with grey-green foliage. But the abundance of blossoms actually happen *underneath* the plant, creating this lovely fringe of red.





And the flowers look like this:

Comments

[jensurvivor]

Erhmagerd! That's a big cool praying mantis!

[aries_ascendant]

The mantis! LOVE. Your mantis is a yogi in the greet-the-sun pose. :D

The spider is gorgeous too. Your whole garden is lovely.

[clare_dragonfly]

What a gorgeous spider! I love the flowers, too.

[silverjackal]

The flowers are gorgeous, but your spider is more glorious by far. (Yes, yes, I know I have a bias, and I do not deny it.) Regrettably, the photos I took of the most beautiful spider I've ever seen did not turn out. She was an Orb-weaver also, a soft dove grey banded with black, cream, and cherry red. The spots on her back were cherry red bordered with black. Never have I seen a spider more beautiful, not even the metallic gold orb weaver I saw last fall. They are incredible! And of course I appreciate mantises also. :)

[moonvoice]

Hee, it was awesome! It was sitting on our bricks when I went outside, but I didn't think it'd catch much there, so I relocated it to a large grevillea. When I walked out a little while ago, it was gently swaying and hunting, and I know there are lots of food-type insects around, so hopefully it catches something!

[moonvoice]

Heh, it is in a greet-the-sun pose! With extra bitchface, because that was the threat pose. I mean... not that I didn't gently nudge the praying mantis into a more photogenic pose.

[moonvoice]

Esmerelda is lovely. I'm so glad she's placed her web in a safe area.

[moonvoice]

Esmerelda is lovely, and I've developed quite a soft spot for her. I was actually going to remove her because I was worried about it impacting the recent gardening, but a closer look at her web, made me realise she's entirely in the safe zone and I didn't bother her at all while gardening. Actually, she doesn't seem entirely bothered by many things. Even me getting my iPhone camera really close to her a few days ago didn't bother her. I've had another spider do a threat pose at me for that.

[feralkiss]

The Verticordia mitchelliana is fascinating! I don't think I've met a plant like that before.

[ariestess]

The mantis is kewl, but I am in LOVE with Esmeralda!

[endlessbees]

I've never seen a Verticordia mitchelliana plant but it's certainly stunning. I like how organic your garden looks, with low plants and high plants, and plants in the middle. I have to say that while I do like orb weavers the ones we have tend to build their giant webs near the door leading to the backyard. I usually remember to walk around them, but once or twice I've walked smack into them late at night or early in the morning...and it's just a bit unpleasant to have a face full of web and spider. But Esmerelda looks quite happy where she is!

Aaaaand I just remembered that I have bulbs in the fridge that I entirely neglected to plant.

[laughinglotus]

The flowers are beautiful. I especially love the spider. And if you don't mind me squishing comments for two entries into one, I like your pictres a lot because each one seems to have a very different feel to it.