SoS 15/1/21
Gosh, after a busy Christmas, a dry and hot week or so of the New Year and a tumultuous international affair, I’ve finally got back into my garden. We welcomed a full day of rain yesterday and showers today.
Gosh, after a busy Christmas, a dry and hot week or so of the New Year and a tumultuous international affair, I’ve finally got back into my garden. We welcomed a full day of rain yesterday and showers today.
It’s been an horrendous couple of weeks with the seasonal equinoxial gales. We live at 42 degrees south latitude, commonly known as the Roaring Forties, so gardening has been something we’ve done only if we really really have to. Best to stay indoors or find a stretch of the coast under the shelter of cliff.
Our house painter says the winds make him melancholy, the teachers all say the pupils develop a kind of madness; our Jack Russell certainly does. I have a balance issue and so the sound-buffeting and the visual disturbance of trees waving and gyrating can bring on an attack of vertigo. But the gales are abating now and I’m in clean-up mode. Masses of whippy branches from the two willows, cossetting the gardens with as much water as possible and starting to shovel mulch all around after much water, so that summer doesn’t dry everything out.
Here’s my lot for this week:
Back in the Matchbox in the city, we’ve had a bucketload of rain. (Actually we had it on the coast too. How do folk in the UK cope with days of rain? Yikes!) But in the one hour of sunshine yesterday afternoon, and between planting lots of summer annuals, I took a few pics.
(SoS is part of a blog hop called Six on Saturday for gardeners and garden lovers across the globe. The theory is that anyone can contributes pics of six gardening subjects from plants and weeds to tools, landscaping, you name it. It was begin by our MC, The Propagator, and one learns an awful lot in reading all the participating blogs.)
My gosh!
The weather today has been a reminder that spring is here and summer is just around the corner.
The air was filled with such fragrances and even after sunset we were still in short sleeves!
Gosh, snow last week, and flooding rains this week. It makes gardening difficult to say the least as spring begins to burst around us. I have plans and it seems as they’ll have to be put on hold for a while. At least the ground of the orchard will be wet enough to plant a couple more trees. We planted a 6 foot high flowering gum before the rain yesterday, and a slightly smaller bay tree. But knowing SoS was almost upon us, I dashed out before the resumption of rain today and snapped a few plants:
I’ve been a bit busy lately getting a new book ‘out there’ and dealing with the oddness of publishing something so far outside my usual genre. A pillowbook, for heaven’s sake!
And in amongst that, taking time to push on with the next in a hist.fict series – this one entitled Reliquary. Such things serve to remove one somewhat from the garden and gardening. Then again, it’s been so damned cold that one could barely pick up secateurs, let alone open them.
Here we are again! It’s astonishing to think how quickly the week goes as one day rolls seamlessly into another so that days even lose their names at this current time.
Before I start, happy birthday to SoS and congrats to Mr.Propagator for starting the whole thing three years ago. It’s been such a bonus for me, watching and learning about different shrubs and plants and meeting gardenaholics. So thank you, Jonathan!
My pics today are from earlier in the week when it was springlike and sunny. Today, on my end of the globe, it’s wet, windy and chilly with frequent little cold cells drifting across the radar and preventing any outdoors activity at all – something I don’t take kindly to.
This week on SoS, I’m offering two gardens.
The state of one is the direct result of Covid-19.
We’ve been in lockdown with borders closed for quite a while here in my state of Tasmania (Australia). If one had a shack anywhere, (a second residence on coast, rural or highlands), one could stay there for the duration of the lockdown, only venturing away for food, exercise and medical requirements.
It’s similar to the UK, I believe – Stay Safe, Stay Home.