Green thumbs…

I garden for the love of it. It’s a form of organic meditation. Worries become smaller within the scope of the outdoors and there is the tremendous reassurance that life is solid and strong and that good things come again and again. And in between 84,000 words here and 90,000 words there, it’s a regular part of life…

Our autumn has been frighteningly dry and my gardens are struggling to cope. Not just with the lack of H2O but with wallabies that have come down from the bush seeking water and fresh green grass. We’ve fenced the gardens with wire to protect plants that through the summer had been eaten to the ground. Things are beginning to bounce back after bags of mushroom mulch and blood and bone, water and protection!

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Euphorbia Silver Swan in memory of my friend, Tricia.

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My poor auriculas, really struggling.

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Nothing like white lobelia. Love it. I only have white or black plants in my gardens.

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Little white ground cover, sturdy and strong. No idea of name.

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Pups on the side of agave potatorum.

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Miniature white cyclamen.

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Whimsy.

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White freesias in flower…4 months early. Saw a magnolia in heavy bud fit to burst the other day. Shows how mild it is.

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Prayer bells bought in Thailand. They sound heavenly when the wind blows.

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Part of the massive pittosperum eugenoides hedge that outlines the side and front gardens.

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A few years ago, we had lunch with David Howard, at the time HRH Prince Charles’ head gardener at Highgrove. He told a story of the Prince’s approach to weeds in the lawns. He was happy for them to spread because they were sturdy and kept the lawns green with a minimum of water. Who are we to argue with the Prince?

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Looking up through the skeleton framework of one of the weeping silver pears.

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White nerines – my favourite autumn flowers.

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And finally – once we had a magnificent hedge along the back of the town property to give us privacy. A new house was built behind and the owner trucked in tons and tons of soil as fillers behind his huge retaining walls. That fill had a disease in it called phytophthera which subsequently spread to our twenty year old hedge. There hasn’t been a word of apology or expression of sadness on what we must feel and how our private life has changed. We intend to leave the diseased trees there as they are struggling to survive and hopefully with drugs and compost, might just make it.

wonga wonga vine flowers en masse

But just in case, we are planting wonga vines between the trees, so that they can rapidly grow up, twist and twine and use the trees as support and become an ancillary hedge. One does what one can to keep a garden as beautiful as it can be…