Cloudehill is a must see garden at the top of The Dandenongs where a maze of stone walls and jewel-like garden rooms are set within woodlands of magnificent and historic, cool climate trees. Some 20 garden compartments are threaded through glorious 80 year old European beech, magnolias, maples and a collection of fabulous Himalayan tree rhododendrons, all beautifully grown and a testament to the lush, moist soils of the Dandenongs.
The garden is highlighted by glorious herbaceous borders which focus on two of the finest Japanese weeping maples to be seen anywhere in the world. There is a cafe on site offering a wide selection of dishes and with views into the heart of the garden and to the mountains beyond, it is a perfect place to spend a lazy afternoon.
The nursery provides a range of the plants to be seen in the gardens. They regularly have very limited numbers of extremely rare plants, but always carry Australia's finest range of herbaceous perennials, Lutea hybrid tree peonies, 30 varieties and more, wide range of grafted magnolias, an excellent range of Japanese maples, especially weeping maples and other ornamental trees and shrubs.
This post is part of the Water World Wednesday meme,
Last Saturday when we were in Preston, we chanced upon this little fête, which was being held outside the Preston City Hall. This was largely something for the kids, with some farm animals for them to touch and cuddle, face painting, colouring in competition, mini golf, food and drink and general merry making.
This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme.
Preston is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 9 km north from Melbourne's Central Business District. Its local government area is the City of Darebin. At the 2011 Census, Preston had a population of 29,925. It has traditionally been a blue-collar, working class suburb, although it is becoming gentrified.
As part of the City of Darebin, Preston has an active and eclectic artists and DIY community which is contemporary, experimental and culturally diverse. Writers, musicians and visual artists flock to the locality for performance, collaboration and acceptance. Notable contributors to the Darebin arts community are locals, Saint Jude, Downhills Home, The Contrast, The Melbourne Ukulele Kollective, Performing Older Women's Circus (POW Circus), and members of Little John, but this is only a drop in the ocean.
Public art works abound and this is an example of a mosaic mural on the High St Shopping strip.
This post is part of the Monday Murals meme,
and also part of the Blue Monday meme.
Princes Bridge, originally Prince's Bridge, is an important bridge in central Melbourne, Australia that spans the Yarra River. It is built on the site of one of the oldest river crossings in Australia. The bridge connects Swanston Street on the north bank of the Yarra River to St Kilda Road on the south bank, and carries road, tram and pedestrian traffic. The present bridge was built in 1888 and is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. Because of its position, Princes Bridge is often a focal point for celebratory events in Melbourne such as the Moomba Festival, New Years Eve and many celebrations taking place on the Yarra River where it flows through the city.
This post is part of the Sunday Bridges meme,
and also part of the Scenic Sunday meme,
and also part of the Nature Footsteps Waters meme.
Fairfield, a residential and industrial suburb east of Northcote, is 6 km north-east of Melbourne. It includes a southerly portion surrounded on three sides by the meandering Merri Creek and the Yarra River, chiefly consisting of open space and once containing institutions dating from colonial times.
The Fairfield Village shopping strip along Station St, is our local shopping area. As well as greengrocers, supermarkets, delicatessens, butchers, bookshops, giftshops and service-type shops, the strip is full of cafés, restaurants and patisseries, with a surprising variety of good quality food and drink.
This post is part of the Weekend Reflections meme.
As we progress towards Autumn our days are getting appreciably shorter. We still have daylight saving so when I get into work it is now quite dark. All the more opportunity to appreciate the wonderful sunrises over the River Yarra in the City.
This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme.
Bougainvillea is a genus of flowering plants native to South America from Brazil west to Perú and south to southern Argentina (Chubut Province). Different authors accept between four and 18 species in the genus.They are thorny, woody vines growing anywhere from 1 to 12 metres tall, scrambling over other plants with their spiky thorns. The thorns are tipped with a black, waxy substance. They are evergreen where rainfall occurs all year, or deciduous if there is a dry season. The leaves are alternate, simple ovate-acuminate, 4–13 cm long and 2–6 cm broad. The actual flower of the plant is small and generally white, but each cluster of three flowers is surrounded by three or six bracts with the bright colours associated with the plant, including pink, magenta, purple, red, orange, white, or yellow. Bougainvillea glabra is sometimes referred to as "paper flower" because the bracts are thin and papery. The fruit is a narrow five-lobed achene.
Many of today's bougainvillea are the result of interbreeding among only three out of the eighteen South American species recognized by botanists. Currently, there are over 300 varieties of bougainvillea around the world. Because many of the hybrids have been crossed over several generations, it is difficult to identify their respective origins. Natural mutations seem to occur spontaneously throughout the world; wherever large numbers of plants are being produced, bud-sports will occur. This had led to multiple names for the same cultivar (or variety) and has added to the confusion over the names of bougainvillea cultivars. This particular type illustrated has a stocky, upright, "tree-like" habit with abundant flowers. Bougainvilleas grow luxuriantly in Melbourne's climate.
This post is part of the Floral Friday Fotos meme.
The Black Swan (Cygnus atratus) is a large waterbird, a species of swan, which breeds mainly in the southeast and southwest regions of Australia. The species was hunted to extinction in New Zealand, but later reintroduced. Within Australia they are nomadic, with erratic migration patterns dependent upon climatic conditions. Black Swans are large birds with mostly black plumage and red bills. They are monogamous breeders that share incubation duties and cygnet rearing between the sexes. We very often see black swans on Melbourne waterways and the Yarra at Southbank is no exception.
This post is part of the Water World Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme.
Southern Cross (formerly known as Spencer Street) is a major railway station and transport hub in Docklands, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is on Spencer Street, between Collins and La Trobe Streets, at the western edge of the central business district. The Etihad Stadium sports arena is 500 metres north-west of the station.
The station is managed, as part of a public-private partnership with the state government, by Southern Cross Station Pty Ltd, a private consortium which includes ABN Amro, Leighton Contractors, Daryl Jackson Architecture, Nicholas Grimshaw and Partners and Honeywell Limited.
The station is the terminus of the state's regional railway network operated by V/Line, The Overland rail service to Adelaide, and the Countrylink XPT service to Sydney. It also served by suburban rail services operated by Metro Trains, being one of five stations on the City Loop, a mostly underground railway that encircles the CBD. Based on suburban passenger boardings it is the third busiest railway station in Melbourne. In 2009, passenger traffic averaged 42,900 per day.
This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme.
