This Azalea is looking the best in years. The leaves are a healthy, rich green colour. Previously they had a paler mottled appearance. It is autumn, yet it has a couple of flowers. I am not a fan of the frilly, pink flowers of some varieties but I like these flowers.
This plant was given to me by my mother. I receive her excess and unwanted plants. She enjoys buying plants and I enjoy receiving her rejects - a good arrangement. #Melbourne#GardeningAU
@Susan60 I have not done anything to deal with any pests or diseases which is why I am so surprised it has got rid of whatever pest that was causing the leaves to go pale and mottled.
Stuck on a westbound Collins Street tram near Parliament, something seems to have happened up ahead; can hear the odd siren. Eastbound trains are running OK though. Wonder what the issue is? #melbourne
I was being silly with an Australian Crawl reference. Reckless. :-) I guess the song was set in Sydney so Melbourne Trams aren't quite the Manly Ferry.
Eating lunch in the sun outside Docklands Library. This is much nicer weather than we normally get in late May - usually it's icily cold all day by now.
Someone has stolen the salvia that was thriving in our street garden and covered in flowers for months. It has been carefully dug out.
One of our neighbours has given up on a nice front garden because of people stealing his plants. This is why I stick to nasturtiums and geraniums - free and easy to grow from cuttings or seeds. No-one wants to steal them.
I took a photo yesterday of the IOOF Building as I was passing the corner of Elizabeth and Collins Streets. It opened in 1973 as the MLC building, and I believe it was the tallest building in Melbourne back then. I like the modernist curve.
@timrichards It would be so much better without the boring building at street level. #Melbourne seems to do a lot of tall buildings that don't connect to the ground so you have to look up to even notice they are there.
'Ditch the lawn' movement in southern Australia shows the benefits of removing the traditional patch of grass in front of homes and planting things that will attract birds etc.
My mother ripped up her front lawn in 1987 and again in her new place in 1993. At the time I thought it was strange but the results in both gardens convinced me that this was a great idea.
If we needed a place for our children to play we walked to a park
@perkinsy astonishingly, this wild garden is in the Adelaide hills, the driest state in Australia! Its watered by irrigation system rainwater from tanks, not the sky, and with many layers of natural mulch. Not the meadow area though.
Ive only been here a month. I’ll be interested to see how it fares over winter.
Went to the Albert Park farmers market this morning. Oddly I never buy much at these things, it's mostly an excuse to meet up with friends who do buy stuff while I walk around admiring the produce and meeting dogs. So many dogs!
The Albert Park market is in a park once occupied by a gasworks, nice spot. Also easy to get to via the number 1 tram. 🚃
I am looking forward to running a meetup in #Melbourne next Thursday for technical writers and anyone involved in IT work. In it I will explore some fun activities that you can run with teams of engineers to help them improve their writing skills.
There's lego and games involved.
There is still space for you to come. We also would like to hear your ideas and experience in running activities to help people improve their writing skills.
Artificial turf is really bad for the environment and can heat up to 80 or 90 degrees on a sunny day adding to the heat of the house.
When we bought our house it had a backyard with artificial turf covering a large concrete pad. What can we do to cover the concrete with something better? #GardeningAU#Melbourne
@perkinsy You could build or get some raised garden beds. Wicking beds are good for requiring less water. You can plant veggies, herbs, flowers, natives …
@perkinsy Large potted plants will do a lot for shade and lowering temperature. Hanging baskets, plants that can run along fences. Try to add a mix of flowering and leafy green. Eventually you'll start to see a little eco system develop for the birds and insects that visit.
These squarish flat-fronted houses in Oxford Street, Collingwood, are interesting - don’t really fit with the style of other houses of the same vintage. I wonder if they had a specific purpose other than residential? #melbourne#architecture
@timrichards And interestingly, one angle of Street View shows that sign mostly covered over, with just a few letter poking through. Seems like it's only been relatively recently restored
"...most intersection are unsafe to have an automatic green man, as pedestrians j-walk and it creates a dangerous situation with possible filtered right turners. A scenario where people see a green man and run to cross the road creates one of the most dangerous situations, with regards to left and right turners.
Studies conducted by VicRoads and the Australian Road Research Board have proven the safety issues with the above."
I contacted VicRoads to ask about making a pointless pedestrian crossing green automatically when it's safe to cross and their response was very telling.
@augustusbrown It's the middle pedestrian/cyclist crossing across the tram tracks in the median when Punt Rd turns in Fitzroy St in St Kilda.
No interaction with turning traffic at all.
It's kind of pointless because it's just tram tracks, but it's also silly because it's always red even when the trams have a red and the cars have a green.
Today I feel emotionally exhausted. I feel like my life is going to be pre 11 May Aurora and post 11 May. I've been planning for the solar maximum for at least 6 years - would I go to Canada? Finland? spend 6 months in southern New Zealand?
In the end I spent 4 hours on a beach an hour's drive from my home. It was more than I ever dared hope for.
As the beams shot over my head with awesome power I was overwhelmingly grateful to my mother earth, whose magnetic field and atmosphere keep me safe every single second of my life.
Sigh.
I think I need to get a rail replacement bus or something to ground me again. #Aurora#Melbourne#Australia
