The Garden in Autumn

As suspected, I am now strongly attached to the idea of adding photos to the blog. In fact, this evening’s storm means two whole entries devoted to photographs (perhaps a little odd, given that my ostensible interests are reading and writing, but everyone likes attractive pictures to look at on the Internet, surely?)

Brisbane is not known for its autumnal foliage. Those plants that are deciduous—the mulberry tree outside my study, for example, or the little frangipani out the back—tend to be the less-interesting kind of deciduous; the leaves just turn yellow and fall off.

But sometimes, the autumn seed pods are attractive in their own right:

Despite my woeful lack of anything approaching botanical knowledge—made worse by the fact that my father now refuses to use anything but Latin names, which I can’t remember and, in fact, now make no effort to remember—I’m fairly certain that these are the seed pods of the Cat’s Claw, a weed that spreads prolifically but does produce gorgeous, bright-yellow, bell-shaped flowers.

I also like the seed pods, mostly because they look like they’d be fun to pop—like the flowers of fuschias. Since Cat’s Claw is so noxious, I don’t pop them—not that I think the creeper needs my help to spread its seed, but I don’t need to make the situation worse—but I certainly enjoy thinking about it.

My bougainvillea is still in flower, too:

It’s only a small bush, growing at the end of the garden, but the magenta flowers are magnificent, even when they’re towards the end of their life span and yellowing:

I think, ultimately, that’s what I like best about Brisbane: the greenness of it all, even in the approach to winter.