What is this pretty purple pea-flowered tree?

Any suggestions would be gladly accepted. Saw one at the Perth Zoo and then a piece got bought into my work. I'd love to identify it and am stubborn enough to keep looking until I find out.

According to one of the clever folks at the id this plant section of gardenweb, it seems I have an answer.
Bolusanthus speciosus - tree-wisteria

Nothing to do with permaculture but personal health.

On Wednesday I had a hemi-thyroidectomy, the left half of my thyroid gland removed. It was lumpy and had been bothering my breathing sometimes by choking me. Luckily it was the first time I'd had to attend hospital for any surgery or other overnight stay, so I've been lucky so far. Even better, I had a room by myself and with a great view of Fremantle oval and the markets.
I have been getting looked after since I came home by my lovely 'husband'/boyfriend and his aunty, who came from the eastern states for the purpose.
I think the worst thing about the whole event has been the drugs I was put on. The pain relief is doing my head in and the stronger analgesic is just too horrible to take more than at bedtime. Fortunately I am a quick healer and am managing to lie about a LOT and nap a LOT so the wound is already looking better, although invisible stitches leave it looking fairly open and a bit nasty. I'm hoping to scare some kids with it at Halloween.
Generally I have a fairly healthy diet, largely organic and biodynamic with plenty of vegetables. The drugs and antibiotics are knocking my system about. Last night, and again now I am awake at a ridiculous hour, having relaxed and snoozed all day I am now wide awake at the wrong part of the day. The pain drugs seem to be making me have bad dreams, too, rather disturbing. They seem like a highly addictive substance so I'm not very keen to take them much if I can help it. The paracetamol are mostly doing their job during the day.
So here I am at 1 am typing and having a snack before hopefully sleeping the rest of the night.
Its difficult doing nothing and asking for help so I do get to heal quickly. We have been eating lots of fresh foods and vegetable juices, healing from the inside.
One thing that made me happy this morning was discovering that our frogs have made a big batch of tadpoles so I will soon be able to ring some of the backlog of tadpole wanting folk I that have been in contact with me over the last few months.
Cute little squiggles and plenty of them.
Goody..now ...can I go to sleep yet??

Hydroponic buckets of herbs at home.

Hydroponic basil

More and more food plants are being grown using water as a medium. It allows intensive growing, providing a lot of food in a small space.

What you'll need:
A large plastic pot
Chunky coconut fibre/mulch block (pref. no added nutrients)
A bucket or deep plant tray
Basil (or other herb) seedling
Coco specific hydroponic nutrients (hardware or hydroponics shop)

Soak the coconut fibre block in water. Once it is expanded it may be a good idea to rinse it a couple of times to remove some of the tannin. Don't let it drip on pale paving, it may stain for a while.
Simply pot the seedling into the coco mulch as you would any other plant, it will have lots of spaces in it but that's okay.
Give it a water in with the nutrients. Only make up how much nutrient you want to use.
Remember to give it a drink every couple of days, more often when it's hot and as the plant gets bigger. It's best not to let the plant sit in deep water for too long, but again, once it warms up, you may need extra watering anyway and it can use a bit up in a day.
It will need a few hours sun a day to keep it happy. We started ours a bit early this year but it should be okay once it warms up.

I also am trying out a little window box Roma tomato in a hydro bucket too and so far it looks good.

Enjoy!

Molluscs..slimy slugs and snails.

At this time of year the garden starts to get seriously munched by snails. They take one night to destroy many hours worth of seedling growing and planting. My preferred method of ridding the garden of these greedy destroyers is by simply collecting them. Around dawn or dusk is when they are most likely to be out and about. I go out there with a container of soapy water and just drop them in it. The detergent breaks the surface tension and they can't get back out.
It may seem daunting but I have seriously knocked back the number of slimy beasts in my vegies in 2 years. There are more slugs this year because less were collected last year but I keep a spoon with the soapy water so now they are easy to get too.

I have become a little obsessive with it at times but it is kind of a satisfying feeling to know your vegetable growing efforts have a better chance of succeeding.
Oh, yeah, and the snails and their icky water can just go in the compost pile or a hole in the ground.

Happy hunting.

It's been a sad week.

Coastal sword-sedge: Lepidosperma gladiatum.
On Sunday an old friend died. He wasn't old, I'd known him a long time. Not as well as I could have but he was a very kind and intelligent man who knew more than anyone about Perth's local species.
Greg was a former boss of mine at the revegetation nursery in North Fremantle. He was the friendlier face of the two managers, though still seemed a little intimidating at first meeting, tall and seemingly surly at times. He did however have a very dry sense of humour and had some interesting stories of growing up around Fremantle.

Making thousands of cutting of sticky Scaevola crassifolia was much more fun when Greg was in the room. Any question about local plants you could ask and he could tell you. Some of my favourite local species remind me of him because we made many many cuttings of them or he tested me on their names while out looking for cutting material. For a boss he was an excellent guy.

We'd been waiting for Verticordia season to come and were going to go and visit him and his family in the country where they moved to a few years ago. He'd told us that there were lots of different species and he knew a great spot to show them to us.
I'm glad he got to move out to the country for a while; to the heart of the beautiful wildflower country.

So many things remind me of him because I love so much of the vegetation he did. I'm going to be a complete blubbering mess at his funeral. I think there will be a lot of us there the same way. He will be missed by many people.