as high as the heavens: Aussie Pilgrimage Part 7

It's hard to believe we've been in Melbourne for nearly a month.

John is in Papua New Guinea (PNG) this week to meet with a group who are using his literacy software. (he was when I started writing this!)

Yesterday our Aussie Pastor, Peter Yip, from Glen Hill Community Church, and his wife Roslyn (Ros) took me to lunch at a place called Beasley's Nursery and Tea House. It's in Warrandyte, a suburb of Melbourne about a 15 minute drive from where we're staying in Ringwood, North.

I love how Aussies have cafes in interesting places, usually with really good food made fresh to order. I even saw one once in a large hardware store, though I think that one just served fancy bakery items and coffees. It was small but they had a few tables to sit at, not just vending machines like the big box hardware stores have in our area in Dallas.

After lunch we took a wander through the nursery. I couldn't resist taking photos. (Some of the plants were inside a greenhouse, in case you are wondering.)

These miniature cacti reminded Ros and I of buildings. My Mother-in-law (MIL) later said the bottom right one looks like a dog. What do you see?

One of several carnivorous plants for sale. Wikipedia says these in the center are a type of pitcher plant.
They had venus fly traps too. Ros said her son had one when he was young and used to spend a lot of time watching it and feeding it, because she said, "we were poor". I thought, maybe he was better off than kids now who spend all their time looking at their phones.

Another carnivorous plant.

I didn't get the name of this. Sorry.

Violas

I thought the honey bee violas in the back were an interesting color

Chinese lantern

Sorry no idea what this one is called either. But it's really amazing looking, isn't it?
I thought being a nursery I would get the names for everything. But there were so many things to see and the labels were not always obvious.
Later note: I discovered that it is a Parrots Beak Lotus Vine

Pansies

I love daisies. I've never seen fluffy ones like these English white daisies before.

Ferns do well here. One of several kinds they had.

Another carnivorous plant. Note the large brown pitcher like things hanging from tendrils. That's where the bugs, or whatever, get trapped.

enlarged from the above picture

Trailing Kalanchoe

A bonsai

This is called 'string of pearls'

Euphorbia, martini, I just looked up euphorbia and was surprised how many different kinds there are. A few that I've seen and wondered about. So now I know what they are too.

After we were done at Beasley's, Pastor Peter and Ros took me to my MIL's to stay with her for a couple of days.

One day when the weather was nice she and I went for a walk around the grounds where she lives at Weary Dunlop Retirement Village in Wheeler's Hill.*

The gardeners do a beautiful job there. We took a lot of photos--of course :-).

The gardener said this is a hellebore or 'winter rose'. This is the underside of the flower. I turned it upside down for the photo. The flower looked kind of like an umbrella from the top.

Many of the residents also like to garden

Mum next to the bowling green she can see from her balcony.

The hedge on the right gets its color partly from its purple leaves and partly from its interesting bright pink flowers. The next photo is a close up.

This area is used by residents that want to grow veggies. Not much growing here in the winter of course.

A resident found a way to make this bush bloom year round!
(yes, the light pink roses are silk :-)

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It is now Monday the next week from when I started this post. John is back from PNG and we hope to visit his brother and family for a few days, leaving tomorrow. That is as long as we are both well. John got sick just after he got back. He is still recovering. We are hoping he'll be completely over it and I won't get it. (it may just be from something he ate in PNG.)

Yesterday he felt well enough to speak at Edge Church in East Doncaster. It was good to also catch up with old friends that attend there, especially since we had to cancel our 'at home' the day before due to John's illness. (several people who planned to come to the 'at home' happen to attend there.) I wish I had thought to take photos with them!

Here he is being introduced by a fellow Wycliffe member John Tan.

John Tan and his wife Remy attend Edge Church. He works in computer support at the Wycliffe center here in the Melbourne area. They took us out to lunch after church.