The Carnival has begun....

The 2017 Carnival of Flowers has begun and thankfully the weather has improved since Thursday when some friends and I visited Laurel Bank Park. After really lovely sunny weather lately it was a bit of a shock to the system to have some 'winter weather' finally.

It was so blustery on Thursday that I didn't take any photos and decided to go back the next day to take some with my Nikon Coolpix. I handed it over to my son to take the photos to save me the effort of getting my glasses out of my bag. Ha ha! Some people are lazy! We were walking through the scented gardens when I spotted a galah up high in a yellow jacaranda tree so I asked my son to zoom in and get a shot. 

Then another galah appeared and we realised that there was a nest high in the tree and before long we could see the second galah pop in and out of the nest and I think there may have been a baby with her as well.

 

The reason I think it was a 'she' is that every time she appeared she would toss something out of the nest which looked like leaves so I would say she was doing her housekeeping :-)

 

I had heard about a panorama option on some cameras and found out that mine had that so I suggested that my son learn how to take such photos before the visit as I wanted to fit the theme garden this year into one photo instead of having to join three photos together like I usually do. This was the first photo taken as we walked in from the car park as I wanted one of the horse but for some reason my son did a 360 degree one and I ended up in it as well. I was calling out 'Is it working?' LOL!

Then we walked up the stairs to the viewing platform from which you can see the theme and the various gardens in the park. The theme this year is 'This is Australia' but I didn't realise until I got home and put the photos on the PC that it hadn't worked out. Never mind, practice makes perfect as they say and so I was pleased ...

...I had taken one of that section on my phone for Instagram.

 

At the bottom of the stairs there is a photo of the theme garden and an explanation of what the others are about e.g. Sea Turtle, Snake and so on. The above photo would have been taken from a cherry picker.

Once again there is a veggie garden growing near the scented gardens...

...and the cream coloured  Cliveas feature in many of the gardens.

Plenty of tanks for water use in the hall.

Unlike some previous years the wisteria is already flowering beautifully.

The following day I headed out early to the Farmers Market to beat the visiting Carnival crowds and on the way home popped into the Toowoomba Backyard Gardeners and Produce Market. As I was arriving Sophie Thomson from Gardening Australia was leaving so I said hello as she passed by. She seems to be a lovely lady and was speaking at the Food and Wine Festival.

While I was there I picked up a really hot chilli 'Contorted Coco' from Steve the Chilli Man which he told me is a pretty rare chilli which is chocolate coloured and has hot pods. Apparently it has a really weird mouth burn that gets both sides of the tongue :-) I can only eat mild chillies so this one is for the menfolk.

Then I headed home to pick up the CEO and we paid a quick trip to the Bromeliad Society Show 
not far from us as we usually buy a new-to-us Bromeliad  each year....

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...and we bought this beauty. They grow well here and the CEO has heaps of them.

The Carnival of Flowers doesn't finish until the 24th September so there is time to visit the Toowoomba Clivea Society Show, the Teapot Extravaganza , the Quilts, Stitches and Textiles Trail and some of the Chronicle Garden Competition gardens. There is so much on it is hard to choose. If anyone is planning on visiting Toowoomba this week check out the timetable as some of the events finish on Wednesday but most go until Sunday. You can find all the information on the Carnival of Flowers website. The temperature is going up again and it is forecast to be 32C on Saturday so hopefully the cold, windy weather has gone. 

Have a great week everyone!