My pink lilli pilli that hangs over the front fence put on its best spring show ever – hundreds of pink puffballs bobbing in the breeze. Even saw a landscape gardener’s truck pull up to have a closer look.
Alas, then came the rain. My puffballs turned into a bedraggled mess. Ah well. Such is life.
Though, ever the optimist, I think there might be a second flush on the way.
November 2021
Only just learned that our grand native tree grevillea robusta, whose flowers are currently golden against the clear spring sky, is classified as a weed in much of NSW.
And the name robusta is not because it’s vigorous. It’s because its wood is so strong and rot resistant, it is prized as timber for anything from window frames to guitars.
Just goes to show one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.
October 2021
My summer basil’s on its way.
October 2021
You’ve helped keep our spirits up over the long weeks of lockdown.
October 2021
I used to catch this tram home from school in the 40s as it headed to Watson’s Bay. My mother, in her gloves and hat, used to catch it in the other direction to go to ‘town’ to shop. The last tram left more than 60 years ago.
Times have changed. Now a shady walking path following the same tram track is nearly completed. Enhanced by huge vegetation growth in the intervening years, the path winds through the very same rock cuttings to the Gap as the old tram did. Don’tcha love it when councils decide to do something interesting?
September 2021
Last spring my daughter bought a little brown boronia and transplanted it from its small pot into her garden.
I, who have regularly lost many a brown boronia to the same treament blaming Sydney’s summer humidity, muttered to myself, “Well, enjoy it while you can, darl”.
Yet look at it this spring, triple the size, perfuming her whole garden! And she lives in Sydney!
Seems to prove something. Not sure what.
September 2021
Twenty years ago, this historic Mughal garden, one of the glories of Kabul for centuries, was a dusty remnant, studded with mines and other explosive devices and piled with the rubble of years of civil war and the Taliban.
In 2002, international money came to its rescue. Beautifully restored, taking many years, Babur’s Garden is once again the much loved green oasis used daily by Kabul residents. Engaged couples. Children playing. Family picnics. Elderly strolling. Their green and shady park. Their history regained.
But for how much longer? The heritage experts of the world are understandably extremely worried right now. Not only about Babur Park, but about all of Afghanistan’s cultural treasures. Recently, the Taliban raised their white flag in this very one.
Unbearable.
September 2021
Can’t make up my mind which stage of my lovely little native orchid (dendrobium kingianum) I like best – the anticipation or the full flush.
August 2021
Rummaging around the house on a dreary lockdown day, it’s surprising what you can find tucked away on a top shelf.
The Keith Winser, published back in 1953, is the gardening equivalent of The Commonsense Cookery Book. Written in a sort of easy Australian Women’s Weekly style by a series of “experts”, it urges using plenty of “fresh fowl manure”, warns against dahlia bulbs of “doubtful origin” and provides lots of of charts about planting times etc.
The Alec Blombery was published in the 60s by Angus and Robertson at the height of the suburban fashion for planting native gardens, so there are probably many Blomberys lurking on top shelves.
The Stan Kelly has 250 of Stan’s exquisite watercolours (one plate per page) of 250 different eucalypts. The plates are identified by a botanist and a taxonomist. Stan’s day job was as engine driver, chugging trains through the forests of regional Victoria.
P.S. Both Blombery and Kelly effusively thanked their wives for “their help and patience”.
August 2021
B. It’s strange isn’t it?
G. What?
B. That we are not spending much time in the garden this lockdown.
G. That’s not strange. It’s these beastly winds – no, not winds – gales. Who wants to be out there battling them?
B. And the temperatures I suppose…still in single digits mid morning.
G. And our general feeling of gloom now that Covid has hit again.
B. And the early dark. But we do go for our daily walks, so why not garden?
G. Because our walk’s our one chance to be out in the world. See something new. See another human.
B. Nevertheless we’ve become fair weather gardeners I’m afraid.
G. Come on. Only last week I planted those two garlic cloves that sprouted in the kitchen and they’re doing nicely.
B. And I did scatter some left over rocket seeds I found at the bottom of the basket – and they’ve come up too.
G. So there’s hope for us yet. Sunset is already after 5. Just hurry up, spring. We need you.
July 2021
