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Expansive Curves

© Gary Buckley

Alright all ready, so it was a mistake to post my number on the net, said this writer reading Krishnamurti and watching his cypella bob about in the breeze.

Please see time chart before dialling. http://www.swissinfo.net/cgi/worldtime/

I tend to like my sleep ins, so please try not to phone before 0930Hrs,Tasmanian time.That's Eastern Standard Time or Melbourne/Sydney time, from the map.

It is another overcast day and winter by the calendar is with us, though the humidity and mild temperatures do no speak to winter.

I wish I could report that plants were struggling, but everything seems to be singing along. Brunsvigias are still in bloom, so too are many Cypellas and cyclamen randomly planted, all bursting towards leaden skies. Drinking in glances of passing strangers, humans amongst their number.

Nerines: let me get this out of the way; before starting in earnest. If there is anyone living on the North West coast with dead common nerines; regardless of hue, could you please contact the writer. Said writer is in need of same.

The few nerines we have planted are in gay bloom, lighting the pain of a very broken foot.

Should Wendy Kbe reading this, could you please drop in next time you are on the North West coast.

Small oxalis and Ixia species are in bloom, along with some lemon Narcissus bulbocodium.

The winds have made me rethink what I will be using in the future to top up plantings. I have always liked the look of fine bark, but the cost and labour factors now needs consideration. The older we get the more feeble the body becomes. Oh..... for the heady days of ones first half Century.

Which brings us to the title of this article, Expansive Curves.

A recent visitor to our patch of dirt commented about how lucky we were to inherit an established garden, be it a postage stamp.

Well, we didn't.

My limited landscape works, expansive in views, captured in very vivid terms by the careful planting of bulbs and corms.

Our personal landscape, is void of Twee mass plantings. Such a lyrical outburst of colour, is one thing this writer can not abide,for it looks too staged en masse.

Whilst my gardens, regardless of size, have never been formal; they have evoked a feeling of the wilderness, or more truly, a feel of domesticated neglect.

This is easily achieved with the casual plantings of seedlings, best viewed from a distance; giving the impression, that a clump of this bulb or that, has prospered and naturalised over many years.

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