Post 129 Roma St Parklands

I went for a wander through our Roma Street Parklands recently. The whole area used to be a railway shunting yard and quarry only a few years ago. It is now a beautiful park bordered by apartment buildings. There is a great garden called the Spectacle Garden there too with long term plantings and topiary intersperced with annuals. It's always a great display and a feast for the eye.

Here is a group of taxodiums - swamp cypress - growing on the edge of a large pond. They were just coming into leaf after winter at the time. With lots of water around in the gardens, much of it moving our local water dragons love it there, and they behave like a protected 

species, which of course they are.

They are beautiful animals with really long tails. When they want to they can propel themselves across the water with grace and speed.

This little pond is fringed by a wet garden and a group of tropical birch. It is amazing how these have grown over the years. I've never seen them used for bonsai but they would have to be a great candidate. Make a note to self - find a tree to get some cuttings going!

These two shots are from the Spectacle Garden.

This fella has lost the tip of his tail - no doubt the result of a territorial dispute.

I think I'll have to make a small ceramic dragon to go with my Swampy bonsai.

The big pond looking back towards the swampy planting.

And finally another swampy but this one is growing in a property in my neighbourhood. It is a great model for a bonsai with the lower branches bent down with age and the higher ones less so. They are very much single leader trunked trees when grown naturally. That natural habit is always a good lead to the style to adopt for a bonsai of any species.