Winter in NZ

[vilakins]

I posted these photos to show_me_a_world for this week's topic on the season, and thought I'd put them on my journal too as people may be interested.

It's winter here, ho hum. It's often dark, grey, wet, and unrelieved by any bright spots unlike northern winters. It's not helped by all our native trees being evergreen, but at least there are some flowers out in our garden.

I took all of these over three days (wet, misty, and sunny respectively) in our garden or from a window.


Wet lower deck.


Ferns reflected on wet railing


Rainy view from bedroom window


Misty morning, which turned into quite a sunny day


White camellias. These always bloom in June, and seeing them come out a week ago reminded me of my cat Claudia who died on the 18th last year, a beautiful sunny winter's day on which I saw the first camellia.


The tree beside that one has deep pink camellias which bloom later, and the buds are starting to show colour.


Vireya (tropical rhododendron). This is on the deck in a pot and badly needs repotting or planting in the garden. I am not a good gardener.


European tree and neighbour's house. My sister is lucky enough to have all European trees around her house in the country, so she gets lots of light in winter.

Comments

[samantha-vimes.livejournal.com]

Oh! Getting light through the trees is the issue. Having walked around amidst "dead" trees in winter, I couldn't see how evergreen wouldn't be preferable at first.

Mind you, looks marvellous to me. Fogs and rain bring out the green. Flowers blooming. I'd be jealous except Santa Cruz is just as good.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I used to live in Germany and loved the bare trees in winter: so much light and air and lovely views! Then in summer, leaves when I wanted shade.

These particular flowers bloom in winter. We're lucky that we have them; most gardens are just green at this time.