From Cactus to Macrame!

Let us all worship at the altar of the cactus god...

No, I haven't joined a cult. A little while ago we joined some very dear friends on a little day trip to the nearby town of Lara which is between Melbourne and Geelong. It's smaller than a suburb. In fact it's close enough to Melbourne now to almost be a suburb!

Our first stop was to Roraima Nursery and display gardens which specialises in cacti, succulents and unusual plants. I was utterly blown away by how amazing the gardens are!

There was a family of fruit bats (also known as Flying Foxes) hanging around in one of the large gum trees. We were captivated by them for ages. 

They're super cute and about the size of a cat and have huge wingspans.

The plantings in the display gardens were spectacular. There was a huge range of cacti, succulents and other exotic plants.

I loved all the unique sculptures as well. Some of them like that massive big cactus in the first pic looked completely constructed out of new materials and other sculptures were made from reclaimed objects such as garden tools, car parts etc.

The nursery was filled with hundreds of cacti and succulents but also thousands of other plants such as frangipanis, orchids, shrubs, deciduous and evergreen trees, perennials etc.

A special guardian just in case someone had thoughts of sticky fingers...

They had a few pots of Dioscorea elephantipes on display. These succulents can grow up to70 years old and grow a large tuberous base. Slender vines with heart shaped leaves grow out the top. They're so gnarly and fascinating!

I loved how they incorporated interesting plantings in the nursey. Like this massive water fountain filled with all sorts of plants, then surrounded by potted clivias for sale. I think they're clivias. I didn't take note of the label so now I'm looking at this photo and my brain is going: "Clivias? Agapanthus? No, Clivias! Wait? Maybe agapanthus?"

We then drove a short way to the other side of the village to the Serendip Sanctuary. It had a good picnic table area where we set out our lunch. There was a little trio of Tawny Frogmouths sitting in the tree above us.

Tawny Frogmouths are often mistaken for owls, but they are a different species as they don't have talons. They can be really well disguised!

There was quite a few different types of birds in the walk through the sanctuary. Such as this Cape Barron Goose.

This Tawny Frogmouth was basking in the sun. I don't think they do this often as they prefer to sleep up in the gums during the daytime.

This strange looking bird was getting the full mite-pecking treatment from a Bronzewing Pidgeon.

A flock of Magpie Geese.

Before travelling home, we quickly stopped back into the Roraima Nursery so I could grab these sweet little treats.

A baby Cattleya orchid and Epidendrum orchid.

I had a leftover coconut shell (actually 2 halves) so I decided to do a bit of recycling...

I decided to make a little macrame hanger. Instead of sturdy macrame cord, I wanted to create something smaller and more delicate. I cracked out some cotton yarn and beads.

I first worked cords of spiral knots, then popped some hot pink beads in. I have a huge bag of beads a friend gave me which she found in an op shop. More recycling! I've never worked beads into macrame before but it's fairly straight forward.

After another short length of spiral knots, I left a 10cm length, then started a short bit of square knots, added some funky black and white beads, then another length of square knots.

This looked ok!

And here is the finished product!

I have one more macrame coconut shell holder to make for the other orchid...

But it's still a work in progress :)

Thanks for visiting!

Louise

Red Haired Amazona