Spring has sprung

October 30, 2011 Leave a Comment

yardinspring 114 640x323 Spring has sprungBryce’s arrival in early October was perfect timing. Gone were the cold nights and frosty mornings – we were opening up the windows and bi-folds to enjoy the warmer temperatures and cool breezes. So was our garden.

This winter was, by all accounts, an unusually cold winter. Our neighbour counted 21 frosty mornings this year (at one point 5 consecutive days!), compared to 6 the year prior. While cozy when sitting by the fire, it’s not ideal for the garden. But with that said, our plants did surprisingly well considering the requirements for a tropical garden. The casualties can be counted on just one hand.

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Filed Under Landscaping Tagged With dead, frost, garden, hardy, landscaping, plants, spring, survive, Sydney, tough, tropical, winter

A tropical garden in the heart of winter

July 9, 2011 2 Comments

frost 101 A tropical garden in the heart of winterIt’s cold! This morning we experienced the heaviest frost of the year thus far, and while it makes the surrounding area look like a winter wonderland, it’s kept the fire working overtime, and us scratching our heads wondering why some of the plants are coping better than others.

Our goal has been to create a tropical garden to complement the plantation style home we’ve built, and as a we mentioned in a previous post, we planted a number of different types of plants in an experiment to see what might work, and what won’t. While we’re just entered the coldest time of the year, we’ve already had some interesting results.

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Filed Under Building a House Tagged With best, cold, damage, frost, gardening, plants, protection, tolerant, tropical, winter

A Cold morning

May 15, 2011 Leave a Comment
frozentundra 105 A Cold morning

Frozen Tundra. Frost covers the golf course.

Western Sydney gets its fair share of cold morning, and regardless of whether you’re a cold weather fan or not, the accompanying frost makes for great views. We woke up this morning to what I believe was the coldest morning of the year thus far, and our coldest since moving in at Stonecutters Ridge.

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Filed Under Expat Life in Oz, Photography Tagged With cold, fireplace, frost, plants, stonecutters ridge, sunrise, tropical, view, weather

Cold mornings make for a wonderful view

June 29, 2010 3 Comments

It’s cold today. Frankly, it never really warmed up. Topping out at a balmy 15c (59F), we had the oil heaters working overtime and the fire stocked with wood. The nice thing about these cold mornings is that it seems to motivate our soon-to-be neighbour Amanda to get up, brave the cold, and take some amazing photos of Stonecutters Ridge in the morning light. You may remember this shot, when the golf course turned white with frost. This morning, it was our new roof!

frosthouse Cold mornings make for a wonderful view

I can only assume that the tradesmen installing the roof were working that much harder to keep warm this week. It’s Tuesday, which means the majority of the roof, barring joints and rivets has already been installed. Our site supervisor said the roof takes a week to install. Maybe it will – I honestly have no idea. But for one days work, I’m very impressed. It’s finally starting to look like a house! Granted our Woodland Grey Colorbond roof is looking a bit lighter than it will on any other given day, but finally – it’s all coming together.

Well have heaps more photos this weekend of a completed roof (fingers crossed). After all, it will give me a chance to try out my new camera, a Canon 5D Mark II. In case you haven’t seen, I’ve got quite a bit of my work on the website – it’s a big hobby of mine. Be sure to drop me a line if you’re into photography as well – I never turn down the chance to talk a bit of shop.

Filed Under Building a House Tagged With cold, Colorbond, frost, roof, view, weather