Looks like Spring in Fall at Hyrons Landing.

Came home from South Africa to an equally pretty picture.

Proteas at Kirstenbosch Gardens - more photos can be seen at www.tamsinandcooke.blogspot.com

Phylica pubescens veerkoppie Featherhead.

Giant King Protea - The National Flower of South Africa

Leucospemum cordifolium 'caroline'

leucospernum reflexum var. luteum

Proteas like hot dry summers; wet mild winters and have long tap roots to search deep into the earths surface for water with leathery tough leaves to avoid moisture loss.

Kirstenbosch Gardens Cape Town

Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens is the only botanical garden in the world that is included in a UNESCO World Heritage site. Located on the eastern slopes of Table Mountain in Cape Town, the gardens were established in 1913 and are devoted to indegenous flora.

Cape Daisies - Dimorphotheca Pluvialis


Clivia miniata var. citrina

More Cape Daisies - blue variety

More Cape Daisies - the Octotus variety

NIght Blooming Cereus

Just look what a professional photographer can do to one of the most beautiful flowers .

You can take the girl out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the girl.

Installing the water feature at CMLC .

Silpada Party

Just agreed to have a Silpada party with proceeds going to The Flat Rock Playhouse so we can go hog-wild with either a tri-color beech or hire weeders.
Keep tuned for this exciting event .

A wonderful work day - 19 of us.-

Lychnis Coronaria and ox-eyed daisies

Refreshing refreshments - Ice cold watermelon and elderflower fizz Marylou and Ann painstakingly tend the moss gardens.

Tamsin and Barbara discuss the need for a tall white flowering plant.

Sandra's weed - can it get any bigger?

Our very own roses come into their own prime time and 'Smiling Jean' does just that.

Our lavendar beds in full flower

Everyone at The Playhouse has a favourite plant, but Dennis Maulden has two . Oakleaf Hydrangea and Roseanne Geranium.

An exciting day as we open the topiary forms - now we turn to Bruce in anticipation of The Vagabond frame

Another wow at The Playhouse - our lupins - photo credits this week go to Bonnie Graupp.

You need to look carefully to see lassie and the cat frames . Over the next few weeks we'll work of filling them .

Turkish Wildflowers

I sent my sister to Turkey and look what she sent me. Us Muirhead girls have much in common but our love of all things natural and native to our environment seems to be paramount throughout our criss-crossed global existence.

Another work day at The Playhouse as the gardens begin to strut their glory for all to see.

One of the most beautiful native azaleas rescued by Alan Mizeras, who heads up the native plant rescue team in Henderson County . Do watch the native gardens come into bloom as Alan continues to tend this area of the Flat Rock Playhouse Gardens.

Chris and John spread mulch the hard way - bucket by bucket.

The beauty of contrast.

Madeliene plants a double Clematis 'Franziska Maria' as the focal point of our clematis ground cover.

Two rainy work days and the gardens look wonderful let alone the gardeners at The Playhouse

Thank you to all who volunteer at The Playhouse, you make such a difference to a place so dear to all our hearts.

MicroGiving Fund Raiser

My nephew in Cape Town has been in a serious biking accident which has shattered his C5 vertebra and dislocated his C6 . The good news is that he is going to be okay, but it'll be a long road to travel. Knowing Kevin he'll probably make it a short road and be racing again in 6 months .
The reason for posting this is that my youngest, Kevin's cousin, has started a fundraiser to help support him and his young family, (of which I must show off and add that their daughter is my name sake, just spelt differently - Tamsyn,) and needs a place to send donors to look at some of the pottery I am donating to the cause.. So while I love to garden and call it my passion for Live Mud - I also love to share my passion for Dead Mud - ceramics.
For more info see her website :- www.microgiving.com/profile/jallpress

Easter Sunday at Hyrons Landing

The first warm morning at the Playhouse. Gardeners turned out in force; 16 of us clipped, pruned, weeded, fertilized and applied herbicide.

Chris O'Leary takes a well earned rest.

Liz Curtis and Diane Turner talk 'shop'.

Barbara Gresh couldn't be a better match for the Japanese Maple.