The Garden awash with rain

Saturday 29th June 2002.

It is raining and it has been raining for a month now. We only have three days to garden in the country garden and I have been holed up inside the house every weekend for four weekends and feeling very frustrated. Kees has dashed out, between squalls and managed to prune most of the roses. I have been changing the sheets [today] and cooking a few biscuits and cakes to place in the freezer for when we get unexpected guests. Last weekend was great because Fiona, our four-year-old grandchild, came to stay for the weekend. On Saturday we travelled by car ferry to Bruny Island, the land mass I am now looking at through the sunroom window. It was the first time that Fiona had been on a ferry boat and it is so wonderful to share a first experience adventure with one of the little people. Do look at the Rosella birds attacking Fiona's lunch in the attached photos

So, what is happening in the garden? A few trees are clinging to their Autumn dress, though we have also had many windy days, the Weilgela has buttery yellow leaves and the liquid amber shows a gleam of red-brown in the orchard garden. Most of the native birds have finished dining on the apples in the old orchards and travelled somewhere else where the pickings are more plentiful. The parrots are intermittently flying in to tear the manfern fronds to shreds and half an hour ago, a honey eater visited the honey suckle [also outside the window next to me] but flew away when I reached for my camera.

I look out the window again and note that Bruny island has completely vanished into the low grey clouds, so it looks like there will be no gardening tomorrow. The hydrangeas will have to wait to get rid of their ugly brown flower heads and achieve a more respectable appearance. I show how horrible they look in my photo page. The Camellias, which are starting to bloom, are standing up well and give some cheerfulness to the gardens, almost making up for the newly ruined lime tree and cumquat tree whose branches have been broken off and strewn around the vegetable garden, by the hungry bush animals. Ever since they have clear felled the bush adjacent to our property, we have noticed a considerable rise in the despoiling of plants in our gardens.

Go To Page: 1 2