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Wind and rain do not deter the spring flowers - here the slightly crumpled soft pink blossom of the dwarf almond tree "Garden Prince" - a very early spring delight.
And here the much thicker petalled magnolia flowers, still elegant and sumptuous despite the elements.
Bruised petals squashed against a branch, a petal lost - but the weather damage allows us to glimpse inside the flower to see the jewel-like conical receptacle. And the sky is blue again.
The curious looking brown buds are bursting out in glorious golden yellow
- food for the tui and for the eyes of the winter-weary. The tightly clustered flowers dangle in great profusion, lit from the side by the late afternoon light.
Kowhai come in different shapes and sizes - from small shrubs with divaricating branches to good-sized trees. The flowers are also varied - long and elegant, short and stubby, golden or lemony-yellow, in large clusters or small groups, shaded by the compound leaves or on bare branches before leaves open.
We don't have many native plants that put on such a bright display so they are particularly welcome. It is barely early spring and their bright sunny appearance, harmonising with early narcissus (not native), is a lovely harbinger of golden days to come.
These ones are growing in the grounds of our Parliament buildings. Now, if only the politicians would sweeten and soothe themselves on the sight and nectar of this lovely plant - maybe some more grounded and sustainable decisions would be made!
More often pictured in glorious golden flower - kowhai is the Maori word for yellow - this kowhai tree bore tangles of soft brown buds, framed by emerging leaves.
They are seen at an unusual angle - I looked up into the tree and saw the late afternoon sun lighting up this curious sight. I, and the tui, look forward to these buds bursting.
Here I am in Auckland for a brief visit. Coming in from the airport along a leisurely scenic route to enjoy aspects of the Manukau Harbour we passed what used to be oxidation ponds (500 hectares!) used for treating sewage - now being rehabilitated, with extensive native plantings on the affected shoreline (13km!) already looking great. I had no idea they had been so extensive. The Mangere Wastewater Treatment Plant now uses land-based technology (reactor clarifiers and ultraviolet filtration) which takes only 13 hours to process the wastewater. That is a great development for all kinds of environmental and cultural reasons.
Further along the shoreline, on Kiwi esplanade near the Mangere bridge, there was another surprise.
The still waters of the Manukau - it is a sheltered harbour, with fine mud rather than sand along the shore - but the bright and contrasty noon light revealed some ridges, fissures and lumps.
It doesn't take long to be reminded that New Zealand is a geologically active place. These dark rocks and ridges are volcanic rock - lava flows from nearby Mangere mountain. There is a Hawaiian term describing a type of lava flow with a surface that has a ropy appearance - it develops where very fluid lava has continued to flow beneath a flexible crust, which twists and wrinkles into ridged shapes.
It is called pahoehoe. It is slightly obscured by the mud, but I can still imagine the dark lava flow buckling and ridging - like the images of active Hawaiian lava fields that are so dark and dramatic.
And these dark rocks are scoria. I am more accustomed to seeing scoria in Auckland - which is, after all, built on a dormant volcanic field of monogenetic (they erupt only once) volcanoes. Scoria has a vesicular appearance from gas bubbles, whereas the smoother lava rock which you can see in the background was not gas-charged. Glasswort, which I have described in other posts, is growing on this not-very hospitable base.
Leaving the shakes behind, I am reminded of other aspects of the awesome activity of this earth.
Changeable weather means lots of interesting skies. A rainbow had just faded last night and the golden pink glow seemed to light the heavy clouds over Island Bay.
But the colours quickly paled to soft pinky greys over the calm waters of the bay.
Today more showers, then sun, then rain - and another rainbow.
A midafternoon break in the weather, but the clouds suggest more rain to come. Rainbows are often welcomed as a sign that the rain is breaking. But when I think of the dry period in summer I realise that the rainbow message is welcome both ways - that rain has happened and that the sun will shine.
Glowing in the soft light of late afternoon, flowers that were very popular in Victorian gardens...
No longer fashionable but pretty and tough - Chaenomeles, still sometimes called "japonicas". It is officially only late winter, but already flowers are clustered along the slender bare branches. The shrubs generally have a rather tangled appearance, even when they leaf out. In autumn they have large fruits that look a bit like quinces - so another name for these plants has been "Japanese quince". Plants grown in gardens are generally hybrids, and the species are not only from Japan, despite the popular names.
The clear pink of these pretty flowers is a foretaste of the bright light colours of spring.
The days are longer, the sunlight seems stronger. Spring is definitely in the air - more happy days ahead!
Late winter, late in the day, and the bell-like tones, chuckles, whistles and clicks of tui song were to be heard. Up high in some trees (specifically Banksia integrifolia, an Australian native also known as Coastal banksia) several tui were busily feeding, singing and playing - swooping from tree to tree, down to the ground then up to another golden flower spike.
Even though the light was low, and my poor camera struggles in such conditions, I had to snap away...
And even though I have had to crop these images furiously to get anything like a close-up, here goes...
The flower spikes consist of numerous flowers. As they age they change from a greeny yellow to a golden colour, then brown as they fade. Their nectar is a good late-winter food source for the tui before the kowhai and flax start flowering. The slender silver-backed leaves are elegant and wind-hardy.
The tui are agile, perching and contorting to get their long beaks into the flowers.
Although they look black, the feathers have a blue-green iridescent sheen which glows when it catches the light. This unexpected colour, the collar of white tendrils around the neck, and the comical white neck tuft that bobs a bit like an "adam's apple" make the tui a distinctive sight.
But what is this one doing in the gutter? Tui can appear drunk on fermented flax nectar, and this bird was being pretty bold - but not intoxicated, just thirsty and letting me see its wonderful plumage.
I had a lot of fun. Sorry that the images are not of great quality, but I hope you get some idea of the pleasure of watching these birds in action.
Along Wellington's south coast the damage from the severe storm becomes more evident as time passes. On the beach at Tarakena Bay the bent and skeletal looking remains of a taupata (Coprosma repens), festooned by dead seaweed and pale fibres from a grass or flax, reminds me of the ferocious winds and high seas. Amazingly there are a few tiny new green buds on this denuded shrub.
Since the storm legions of ghostly mounded shrub shapes seem to have taken over on the exposed hills. Above this beach is Rangitatau Reserve. It is named after a Ngai Tara pa (a Maori settlement, usually a fortified hillside one) that was on a headland, with another, Poito Pa, below it on a spur in the valley. There are tracks up the hillside, towards the pa sites. A little way up, I was able to see that the ghostly mounds were mostly mahoe - Melicytus ramiflorus, appropriately also called whitey-wood. It is a NZ native, a shrub or small tree with pretty bright green leaves - sadly missed at present.
This is a windswept site and from the pattern of damage you get a sense of the salty gales being funneled up the valley. The pale skeletons of the mahoe contrast with subdued greens and browns - less-damaged taupata (Coprosma repens), bracken, and other shrubs, and the wind-shredded strappy leaves of Cordylines and NZ flax. Although it was a grey and windy day, and although it looks quite bleak, I know that in a few months life will be springing back. But will the mahoe? Watch this space!
A bright display of glistening silvery tracery - the leaves of Tanacetum ptarmiciflorum give this perennial shrub the names "silver lace bush" and "silver feathers". They look lovely all year but are particularly bright and welcome on dull days in winter, and are enhanced further by raindrops.
Also known as Canary Island tansy, it is an endangered plant there. The area where it is found is only 4 square kilometers in size. There are many special plants from the Canary Islands in similar peril - dwindling populations of mature plants growing in increasingly disrupted habitat.
Although rare in the wild, where it grows in pine forests and on cliffs and rock faces, it has been quite popular as a bedding plant where it enjoys much more coddling. But it is quite tough. The white hairs on the leaves and stems help it to cope with wind and drought and thus survive in my garden.
My plant is about five years old and had become quite overgrown and woody, so I pruned it quite hard after it flowered in summer - small white daisy-like flowers, possibly the reason for the name (ptarmic means "substance which causes sneezing") although they don't get me sneezing. Obviously plenty of seeds were produced as I have been delighted to find little seedlings popping up in the last few weeks. And there is a lot of fresh new growth - altogether lots of silver to be had!
Wellington is known, even notorious, for its powerful winds. But we also have beautiful calm interludes - sometimes a day or more, sometimes just an hour or so - while the wind changes. And then, as we like to say, there is nothing like Wellington on a good day.
A day or two ago it was one of these days - a sunny winter morning when all was calm. Looking across from Island Bay (the island is just out of sight) we can see Baring Head and soft clouds still hanging around the Orongorongos. The bright canary yellow sails of a little becalmed yacht caught my eye.
At Baring Head there is an atmospheric monitoring station. The air arriving there comes from the Southern Ocean and has not been over land for about a week, so measurements taken there are not skewed by nearby human activities. Since 1970 CO2 monitoring at Baring Head has provided the longest running continuous record in the Southern Hemisphere. Unfortunately it shows a steep rise in CO2 levels, in keeping with global trends.
So, not all is well. But I found this study in blue (with a dash of yellow) to be a very calming sight, and an invitation to be at peace with the environment around us.
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