Maia is young slender girl with brown eyes and hair which hangs on each side with a silver hair clip. Her outfit is generally a light pink/white dress with a pink turtle neck and matching wrist bands with brown sandals. When she is a sleep she wears a pink or yellow T-Shirt with green or brown shorts. While on mission she has a white jump suit in various pieces. In episode 19 she wore a yellow sleeveless top and blue jeans shorts.
As the road nears the house it turns sharply, and on the inside of the bend, which is enclosed by rock-walls built from stone collected on the property, is a magnificent planting of Mollis Azaleas, 'Koster's Brilliant Red', 'Dr. Oosthoek', through the orange, yellows and pinks, and these also make a brilliant display in the late fall, when the leaves turn to scarlet and russet shades before they finally fall to the ground.
The path then leads downwards, and a large specimen of Pieris forrestii comes into view, its new foliage in brilliant shades of scarlet. A small crystal clear stream is then crossed, and its banks have been planted with Primula japonica which hybridize and increase naturally, their feet are continuously wet and they make an attractive foil for a bank of Kurume Azaleas which have been planted along a rock wall following the stream; a highlight is a group of Acer palmatum 'Dissectum Atropurpureum' which overhang the rock wall, and on a slope in the background are a group of Exbury Azaleas, which flower later than the Mollis, and their blaze of color can be seen from a number of vantage points in the garden.
A well graded path leads down the slope, on both sides of which are plantings of rhododendrons, Ajuga reptans has been used very successfully as a ground cover on slopes too steep to plant with grass for mowing and their spikes of blue flowers make an attractive background for rhododendrons in the white, cream and yellow tonings, 'China', R. wardii , R. wightii and two attractive small growing species, R. hanceanum var. nanum , only six inches high and covered with small yellow flowers, R. valentinianum another compact small growing plant, covered also with bright yellow flowers, and in the background, a large specimen of 'Alice Street', set off to advantage against the blue Ajuga, and probably one of the best yellow hybrids in the garden.
By the side of the stream and under a canopy of Blackwoods and tree ferns are a number of the large-leafed species, R. grande looking particularly impressive with its large leaves and attractive new growth, R. fictolacteum flowering for the first time, and R. hodgsonii , Series Falconeri, with its broad dark green leaves, covered below with fawn indumentum and attractive magenta colored flowers. One of the interesting characteristics of this species is the smooth reddish-brown bark which peels from the trunk. Other interesting members of the large-leafed species which flowered this year were R. calophytum , R. sutchuenense and R. protistum , and a species which is unusual and not often seen, R. irroratum 'Polka Dot', with its heavily spotted flowers, then a very fine plant of 'Loderi Pink Diamond' in full bloom, a rhododendron which is often somewhat shy in flowering, and a well rounded plant of 'May Day', glowing in the morning sunshine against a background of the blue spikes of the Ajuga. These are followed by 'Tally Ho', and an eye catching hybrid with enormous trusses of soft pink, 'The Master', a 'China' x 'Letty Edwards' hybrid raised by W. C. Slocock.
Walking around the garden, each turn of the path reveals new vistas and more rhododendrons to admire; in a corner of a rock wall, the small growing 'Elizabeth Hobbie' with its brilliant scarlet flowers, and nearby another dwarf species, R. chamaethomsonii S. Neriiflorum, S.s. Forrestii, with ovate leaves, glabrous below, carrying trusses of from one to four bright crimson flowers. The prostrate growing R. forrestii var. repens , in the same Series and Subseries, is quite difficult to grow, and rarely seen in the Dandenongs.
Walking along some of the same paths, but in the opposite direction, new vistas are continually unfolding, and a group of R. davidsonianum in shades of white tinged pink, and pale rose are complemented by several plants of R. augustinii and 'Electra', whilst in the Lapponicum Series, the dwarf R. russatum and R. scintillans , with their bright blue-purple flowers, have been strategically planted along the rock walls.
'Albatross' (Townhill), 'Countess of Haddington', 'Lamplighter' and 'Mrs. Lionel de Rothschild' are hybrids which attract attention, the latter with white flowers spotted red, being quite different to anything else in the garden, and amongst the trees planted along the walks are Abies pinsapo , the Dove tree, ( Davidia involucrata ), Cornus nuttallii , and an interesting specimen, Nyssa sinensis , which is doubly rewarding, firstly for its brilliantly colored new growth in the spring, and later, the coloring of the leaves in the fall.
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