A couple of do, I went for a walk around the botanic gardens in Sydney, the first time I’ve been at the start of January in almost fifteen years. I had a really nice time, with the gardens looking absolutely great. This is the second blog post about my visit as there was too much to share in just one!

I’ll start with the hibiscus flowers as they are one of my favourites. All of these shown, including the flower bud, are various cultivars of Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Now onto some local wildlife. The butterfly in the picture below is a Yellow Albatros, Appias paulina. It is found in several countries, including India, Samoa, Japan, Thailand and Malaysia, as well as Australia.

There are a few bees in action on this photo-they loved the coneflowers in this garden bed!

This golden orb weaver butterfly in the genus Trichonephila, is rather awesome. I don’t know what people are scared of with spiders-they help keep pests at bay (both in the garden and in the home, depending on where you find them) and are just as much part of the ecosystem as kookaburras and koalas, just less ‘cute’.

This delightful euphorbia is Euphorbia ammak, which is a rather good looking plant in my opinion, especially in the sun. This, with the group of flower photos, all come from the cacti and succulent garden. I have never been in this area when the cacti are flowering

I loved seeing these coneflowers on my walk. They are so bright and cheerful and were loved by the bees.

Finally for today, this fluffy cactus is in the Oreocerus genus. I don’t have any more information at this point, but I do like it.

That’s all for my walk around Sydney’s Royal Botanic Garden for now-I’ll probably go again in the autumn and see what’s going on.