Garden Envy

I visited a subtropical terraced garden with our local garden group last week and was amazed at what would grow under a canopy of pines and ponga. 

  

There was lots of garden art scattered amongst the plants and pots of succulents placed around the house, which gave me lots of ideas for adding interest in our garden. 

I was very taken with this water feature made from glass insulators from a decommissioned pylon. 

I solved yet another plant mystery too. This deep purple flower is on a tibouchina shrub. We have one at the back near our camellia and above our pink carpet rose (another new identification). 

The gardener's friend recommended a New Zealand book on subtropical plants which I've added to my shopping list so that I can identify a few more of our plants and learn about them. 

I'll miss the next trip to a community orchard as we'll be in Australia but I'm sure there'll be plenty of interesting plants there too...