Succulents

Not particularly my cup of tea these plants but they are brilliant for the garden in times of drought which we have been in for some time now, although we've had 3 weeks of flood and rain the cynic in me isn't entirely convinced it's over!

They aren't planted into soil but a mixture of sand and pebbles and some soil and can go ages without water as they store an abundant supply in their leaves.

All Cacti are succulents but not all succulents are cacti! That is many don't have the spiny leaves and are in a different family altogether.

Here's some pictures of the prettiest ones, when I enlarged them on the computer the design of them are really quiet intricate!

I do have aloe at home purely for medicial purposes - fantastic for sunburn and some skin disorders, otherwise my garden is largely succulent freee but I did enjoy looking at these ones.

Unique recycling in the garden

Today we went to the Glasshouse at the Botanical Gardens in Ballarat. Wevé been a lot recently the atmosphere is so serene and peaceful, they serve coffee although not so much other food - but we take cut up fruit and biscuits, with 5 in the family you have to improvise and the flower display is simply awesome.

I was really interested to note last time that pretty much all the decorations are made from recycled items. I have included a picture of flax sitting inside a portion of painted and cut off 44 gallon drum. I believe in another picture the rest of the drum is painted the same colour and is holding up a table of flowers. The big purple flowers are painted onto a corrugated cardboard and attached with these bits of curly steel or come sort of metal (I didn't want to poke about too much and get us thrown out) and the use of the steel corrugated borders looked great against the vibrant flowers. There was also a hanging cicle with 3 inner cicles which turned ou to be handpainted paint lids, amazing some people are so clever!

I really love flowers they are such beauty in a world where sometimes beauty can be hard to find as I found out soon after at my sons soccer game!

Candles

With the price of electricity going up and they way they make it I thought it would be wise to invest in some candles. I just love the ambient light produced by candles and also the fact the mood just appears calmer when they are lit, although I do need to remember to be careful to put them all out at the end of the night, I have been caught before and whilst it's handy being married to a career firefighter, he's often working nights and that's when I've been woken with them still going!

So I've attached some of my special candles, I also love fairy lights, which possible aren't that good on the environment but they do look gorgeous! Here are some of my favorite sconces and candles, I have also included my Himalayan salt lamp which are supposed to help with negative ions and they give off a lovely soft light too, I use one in my massage clinic and also my 5 year olds bedroom as a night light.

I've also brought a ton of lanterns for tea lights for outside, as I think this will hopefully draw the bugs away from us in Summer and look great in our new patio area. Otherwise a lot of the lighting outside is just solar, I went a bit manic and brought up a few years ago on $3 solar lights, and while the puppies are having a good go at chewing them I do still seem to have a lot left over!