The House(s) of Fran_mart

I was contacted by Denis to say he was coming to Canberra in the hope of finding a few orchids on Black Mountain and wondered if I would like to join him. Of course the answer was "Yes".  So after a bit of excellent advice from Jean about where to go and what was flowering, we met on Belconnen Way and off we set to see what was around.  We had a great time: 2 pairs of eyes are a lot better than 1, especially when one of the pairs are attached to Denis! What follows are my images of the flowers we saw. Denis will post some images on the Nature of Robbo when he returns home. I'll begin with a general habitat shot.  Some of the areas we visited were not quite so badly burnt.  At least they didn't fire the place up in peak flowering season and seem, unusually, to have kept it out of the crowns.    In a creek line we found, as suggested,  Myrmochila trapeziformis. Interestingly in the Australian Plant Name Index this has reverted to Chiloglottis trapeziformis .

The COG Wednesday Walkers toured the base of McQuoids Hill some 5 weeks ago, but I did not blog this event.  Today the ANPS group ascended the heights of the Hill (gaining about 90 vertical metres to 732m AMSL). According to the ACT Place Names website " This feature is named after Thomas McQuoid, Sheriff of New South Wales, who was given the grant over "Tuggeranong" in 1837. (Ref: Frederick Robinson (1927), "Canberra's First Hundred Years and After".)" It was a somewhat quiet day botanically (no orchids of any description!) but a few interesting things were seen.  For a change I will start with birds. These two cockatoos have set up  a nest inside a spout on a large eucalypt.  At one point they were both inside but then emerged to be chased by an Australian Raven, also with a nest in the area.  Somewhat later I came across this specimen of Cacatua galerita inconcinnus ....  ... which soon returned to Mr Smooth.  Talking of smooth, this

The climate of Carwoola is such that there is not a great deal of gardening action from May until September.  It isn't quite as bad as Ottawa, where the ground is frozen for 6 months and then waterlogged for 2 months, but over Winter here very little grows and it is not pleasant being outdoors.  However we are now into the kick-off period. One of the bright spots over Winter has been a display of 'standard' Hellbores.  Spring has been greeted by this less common species appearing in the sunroom bed.  A grevillea has also thrust forth some flowers, much to the delight of the Eastern Spinebills and other honeyeaters. At the other end of the life cycle, the salvias and penstemons are looking a bit the worse for wear so got a prune.  Here are before and after.  Of course one also has to get the fertiliser happening.  We tend to use a lot of compost which is greatly assisted by having animal poop added.  We are lucky enough to be able to get the stuff by the tra