I always enjoy a visit to Sydneys’s botanic gardens, but I have never been just after the new year, mainly because it is really busy. I decided that I would just get myself out while I have the time and have a walk through these lovely gardens.

This isn’t one of my two favourite fig trees in the gardens, but it is still a good looking fig tree. The gardens have many really good fig trees within their boundaries, so I thought I would show some different examples.

Gaura flowers are always really pretty and usually surrounded by bees. Unfortunately I didn’t see any bees here on my visit.

The Gaura flowers are in this lovely garden bed. I like the fact that it is so colourful and cheerful.

Also in this garden bed are pink and white cosmos I really lie the contrast between the textures of the leaves, along with the soft colours of the cosmos flowers and the bright, loud colours of the other flowers.

These zinnias are the bright and colourful flowers in question. Yellows, reds, bright pinks and some orange ones all show that summer is here in Sydney at the moment!

These white delphiniums are really stunning in this same garden bed. They are flowering away like there is no tomorrow.

Here they are again, surrounded by the many colours in this garden bed.

Fern fronds are always really interesting to me-the way that an often large leaf can open up from something small is what I find the interesting part, along with the fact that they open up in a different way to other plant species. I also think they look good.

This pretty little plant is a native rhododendron, called Rhododendron lochiace. I really don’t know anything about this plant at all, so this is one plant I will be looking into more!

This showy flower comes from spiral ginger, Costus spiralis. I think this is the correct species, as I couldn’t find a plant label next to this plant. I will do a bit more research and correct this post as required if the species is incorrect.

This is on plant I find really interesting and shows how plants can be rather brutal too. There are two trees here-the first is a prickly-leaved paperbark (Melaleca styphelioides, read about it Here). The second is a strangler fig, which you can see more of in this photo. There is a native strangler fig to Australia (Ficus watkinsiana), but I cannot tell you whether this particular fig is that species. Strangler figs germinate in the branches of other trees, send their aerial roots down to the ground. Eventually, these will thicken and surround the trunk of the ‘host’ tree, which causes the host tree to eventually die. This will be te fate of the melaleuca eventually.

While many people would argue that such a fig tree is a ‘monster’ and ‘should never be “allowed” anywhere near urban areas’ for some potentially valid reasons (usually related to pipework and foundations), these trees are amazing in the way they work. They key point is to look after your trees in your garden, and if you see different leaves within you tree-remove them where possible-while a plant will carry on trying to survive, if the leaves and stems are constantly removed, they will run out of energy eventually!

I am going to leave this post here, as it is already long! I have many more pictures to share as the gardens were amazing on this visit-I really did enjoy my time there on this visit. Another post with the remaining photos will appear tomorrow. Until then, hope you enjoy!