BEAUTIFUL PORT DOUGLAS

 

Ruffled fan palm (Licuala grandis)

 This fan palm appeals to the dressmaker and the ikebanist in me. I’d love to use it in an arrangement and I’d also love to make a pleated skirt with it. 

Hello all,

My sisters and I and our men spent 8 days in Port Douglas in Queensland. For my overseas readers, this is a tropical part of Australia and a popular holiday destination. Here the vegetation is lush and vibrant, with palms, tropical foliage and brightly coloured plants creating a rich, green backdrop everywhere you look. At Niramaya Villas & Spa, where we stayed, this is elevated into beautifully maintained gardens—calm water features, manicured lawns and dense tropical plantings that made the ikebanist in us swoon. In terms of flowers there are not as many as we have down south but the myriad of colourful foliage more than makes up for it.

My favourite plant is the lipstick palm (Cyrtostachys Renda) with its scarlet to bright red stems and contrasting, green foliage.

On our first foray into the town I was quite taken by this shrub with rather large, jasmine-like flowers. Thanks to AI, I was able to identify it as Wrightia antidysenterica.

I managed to resist the temptation to use some of the abundant materials for ikebana. However, on the last day I gave in. The villa in which we stayed has a garden, which backs onto some boggy ground. I cut some materials from the very back, where it would not be noticed and created two arrangements using vases which were at the villa.

The dry, black material in the arrangement below, is an inflorescence, which fell to the ground, most conveniently for me. It came from the grey coloured palm (Bismarckia Nobilis). The rest of the materials are heliconia - leaf and flower and some unfamiliar, green leaves. I used thread from my sewing kit to tie the inflorescences together and managed to position them at the top of the vase.

In the second arrangement, I bent a long, heliconia leaf and added a mass of brightly coloured foliage at the back and some cream coloured ixora chinensis at the front. I placed a plastic water bottle inside the vase into which I placed the stems, so that the materials did not rest on the sides of the vase. 

Another plant in great abundance and which fascinated me is the beach spider lily (Hymenocallis littoralis)

 I took the photo, below on one of my solitary walks through the compound. It took me about half an hour during which I saw no other person. These geese were my only companions. 

We took a number of walks after dinner, when it was quite dark but the strategic lighting of the trees and shrubs gave an otherworldly feeling. The weather was perfect! During the day there are very pleasant sea breezes but at night all is calm and balmy, with only the sounds of night creatures in the trees.  

We enjoyed a number of indulgent meals. The photo, below, is of the six of us having lunch at Osprey restaurant in Thala beach. If you’re traveling that way, I highly recommend it. 

Sisters three - Emily, Lucy and Vicky

Bye for now,

Emily