In My Autumn Days

It is four o'clock in the afternoon and the sun still shines brightly in the pale blue sky and the birds are singing in the garden. I have been watching, through the window, a New Holland Honeyeater sipping from the ever blooming Abutalon bells. Due to circumstances beyond my control, we have been absent from the country garden for nearly two weeks. Arriving late Friday afternoon, I could not help feeling regret that we had missed the two best Autumn weeks in the garden. And this year has been the very best for superb Autumn colouring of our deciduous ornamental trees! I do not know if this is due to weather patterns or because our trees have grown to adulthood over the last two years.

The wonderful scarlet, butter yellow and orange leaves are now making Persian carpets throughout the garden and the whole personality of the garden is quite different. Real Winter is just around the corner and I saw frost on the paddocks beyond the garden although Kees insists that it was "heavy dew". Our garden is so closely planted we rarely see frost settled on the earth, though sometimes when I remove a dead flower head, the shriveled petals feel icy.

How quickly the garden scene changes but I feel that we are lucky in the beautiful state of Australia, Tasmania, to experience the four seasons in our gardens. Many areas of Australia do not have that pleasure but it does mean that chores in the garden are on-going for twelve months of the year. Unfortunately, the weeds are not told that it is Winter time and they may take a few weeks rest and if I don't hurry up and prune the too large and floriferous bushes of hydrangeas, they will be very muddled and upset. The same may be said for the rose bushes and I do have to write that I rather envy the English gardeners who seem to just slash their rose bushes almost down to the ground everfy year and get an abundance of blooms. Then again I do have preference for my roses to look tall and natural and that means selective pruning by finding an outwood looking shoot and snipping just above it. It is from here that the fresh leaves and blooms will excite when early Summer is the season of joy.