Every time I make a ratatouille I am reminded of how beautiful vegetables are.

August 2018

No need to be bored on your daily constitutional. There’s a great way to make time pass: give the ancient art of garden-reading a go. Little do the householders that you stroll past each day realise they have laid their personalities bare in their front gardens just waiting for you to analyse. Surreptitiously check them out by pretending to take a breather. Here’s a few neighbourly types you might encounter. Plenty more listed in subsequent posts.

Aggressive. Aggressive people grow noisy gardens. They have large barking dogs. Their iron gates clang shut. There’s often a loud splashing fountain. They prefer leathery plants that make a strong statement like rubber plants and agaves. There’s lots of hard surfaces – all the better for striding on. There’s a strong line between garden and path to keep the plants constrained. It gives the owner a feeling of power.

Free spirits. Their gardens are a jungle. Bushes overflow the front fence so you have to step off the footpath to continue your walk. You can’t see the house for the vegetation. These people don’t believe in discipline. Bonsai is anathema to them. Some might call these gardens unkempt. The owners feel creative, unstructured, free.

DINKS. Double income, no kids. Their gardens not only look expensive, they positively exude taste. They are designed to show that within live persons with not only money, but discrimination. Finding the right landscaper to achieve this has been a dinner party chore lasting months. Clues to look for are a pair of cumquats, or possibly two clipped box trees, in matching wooden tubs flanking the front door. Or a grove of palest pink sasanquas bordering a sandstone flagged courtyard.

August 2018

Every gardener has a pet hate or two. What’s yours? Mine is the crepe myrtle. Those altogether-too-pink flower clusters thrusting at me from suburban gardens wear out their welcome long before summer ends. And that ugly clump of stumps they become in winter thanks to overzealous pruners is even worse. Years ago, I had the pleasure of hacking a fully-grown one down…much to the horror of Mrs McClemens next door. The bad news is, they’re currently in favour for street plantings.

August 2018

                                       a back garden

B. Weren’t those bonsais we saw at the National Arboretum impressive?

G. Of course. The whole intention is to impress, isn’t it?

B. That’s a bit harsh. I loved them. The miniature shapes. The pots. The moss. Some in Japan are 800 years old I hear.

G. So how would you like to have your feet bound for 800 years? And your arms wired so they stick out just so?

B. Hold on there. Plants don’t want to walk. And plants don’t feel pain.

G. All I see is distorted bushes. Clip clip, twist twist. It’s all about power, about domination. Grow the way I want, bush. Same with topiary.

B. Come on. These people are artists, garden artists.

G. I tend to think of them as control freaks.

B. So are you a control freak every time you mow the lawn?

G. Oh, that’s different. That’s just giving it a haircut.

B. Mmm. Seems facts are OK to be distorted, but not bushes.

July 2018

Don’t you love naif artists? Whoever else would draw a flowering gum looking like that? I guess the yellow bushes are wattles, but the Xmas tree shapes elude me. This charming scene is by Oswald Blair, Australian painter. He’s better on the birds. He’s got the rosellas pretty right, and there’s a couple of sulphur crested cockatoos in the foreground. But is that a croc they are perched on or a log? And I think those are emus at the back along with three xanthorrhoeas, but the four big blue birds beat me. Brolgas maybe?

July 2018

Answers to QQ9

(a) a jolly swagman (b) Monet (c) Popeye (d) Burke and Wills (e) Persephone (f) Barry Humphries (g) Moses

I tell my two how a kookaburra once dived straight into the flames of our BBQ fire and flew off with one of the chops.

I tell about the ENORMOUS zucchini we grew that was as big as a two year old kid.

I tell them how kids their age used to keep silkworms in cardboard boxes and feed them mulberry leaves.

We remember how Heiner once mistook a weed-covered pool for a hard surface, emerging as a very surprised weedy dog.

We laugh together about that, but truth to tell, they are probably just longing to get back to their screens.

July 2018

This summer, it was an afro (armeria). Last year’s straight bob was better (mondo grass). Would a pony tail be possible?

July 2018

Willow. Camphor laurel. Bamboo (technically a grass, but tall as a tree).

It’s true they clog the drains. Lift the footpaths. Degrade the waterways. They’re invasive. Spread themselves everywhere. Compete with native vegetation.

But aren’t they beautiful? All three.

Those graceful skirts of the willow swaying in the wind. That huge green spring canopy of camphor laurel contrasting with its dark striated massive trunk. Bamboo canes as black as a calligraphic pen stroke or with golden segments as thick as your forearm.

July 2018

B. Some people are making a fortune out of us gardening oldies.

G. How do you mean?

B. The products they come up with.

G. Such as?

B. For a start, that fancy garden kneeler you bought the other day.

G. Well, that person deserves a fortune. Wouldn’t be without it now.

B. But others are kind of laughable. Here’s a device you wear round your waist that inflates when you fall so you don’t break your hip.

G. Like the inflatable air bag in a car? Bags you test that one. Not me.

B. And then there’s the gifts they suggest people give us. Solar powered butterflies on a stake that flutter.

G. Hope no-one chooses them for us. Fluttering all day they’d drive us mad.

B. Then there’s a polyresin crocodile in three life-size sections. You bury each section a bit apart on the front lawn so it looks like it’s hiding.

G. To frighten the postman?

B. People must keep buying these things or they wouldn’t keep making them.

G. Put on your thinking cap then. We could always do with some extra dosh.

June 2018