Innocence and trust

The happiness of that afternoon was already fixed in her mind, and always would the scent of freesia recall it to her mental sight, for among the smells of the roses and violets and lilies and wall-flowers, the smell of the freesia penetrated, as a melody stands out from its accompaniement, and gave her the most pleasure.

The Way Things Happen by Hugh De Sélincourt

 

Freesias make me happy.

It may be just that they forecast the beginning of the warmer spring weather, but I just adore their colours too: white, cream, yellow, mauve and purple. Don't they look beautiful bunched together like that and sitting in my kitchen?

In the language of flowers, freesias symbolise innocence and trust. I can see why.

Modern freesias have little scent, but the older, less brightly colourful ones are gloriously fragrant. Mine are old. Possibly even older than me. And they smell every bit as wonderful as they look.

 

Drunken Parrots

Each year around this time we have a rather interesting problem. The Drunken Parrot Problem.  No, it's not too much Christmas glögg, either.

Musk parrots are a type of lorikeet, mostly green, with a yellow patch at the side of the breast. They have bright red forehead and ear coverts, which make them rather Christmassy, doesn't it?  Their call is a harsh, metallic screech, and they constantly chatter while they're eating.  'Muskies' are nomadic, travelling widely in search of flowering and fruiting trees, and we see them here a couple of times a year - when the eucalypts are in flower, and around Christmas for the pears.

Ah yes, the pears.

Each year the birds arrive in a large flock, ready to gorge on their Christmas dinner.  For a couple of days all is well, but then the birds begin displaying some very odd symptoms.  They get aggressive - even more pugnacious than usual - and lose coordination, falling out of trees and having difficulty in flying straight.  This is all very funny, but not long after, they start attacking their own reflections and fly, screeching loudly all the while, straight for our floor to ceiling windows.

Mostly, these foolish birds die in their noble attempt for supremacy, but enough survive to keep us busy rescuing them and keeping them safe and warm until they recover enough to fly away.  Those that fall into the pool are bravely rescued from a watery grave by Jemimah, who remains in her bathing suit at the ready.  At the height of the silly season we can fish up to twenty of these silly inebriated birds from the water each day.  They don't make it easy, either.  Often they manage to escape down the leaf trap under the deck, where rescue is far more difficult.

Australian poet, Judith Wright wrote a lovely poem about the parrots that came each year to feast on her loquats:

There’s not a fruit on any tree
to match their crimson, green and gold.
To see them cling and sip and sway,
loquats are no great price to pay.

We pay a much bigger price, I think - I would love it if they would leave a few of the pears for us - but I would be sad if they stopped coming to visit, with their funny antics and their beautiful red and green festive display.  We can always buy pears from the market.

Don't you love Jemimah's face?

Here's the rest of Judith Wright's poem.

Parrots

Loquats are cold as winter suns.
Among rough leaves their clusters glow
like oval beads of cloudy amber,
or small fat flames of birthday candles.

Parrots, when the winter dwindles
their forest fruits and seeds, remember
where the swelling loquats grow,
how chill and sweet their thin juice runs,

and shivering in the morning cold
we draw the curtains back and see
the lovely greed of their descending,
the lilt of flight that blurs their glories,

and warm our eyes upon the lories
and the rainbow-parrots landing.
There’s not a fruit on any tree
to match their crimson, green and gold.

To see them cling and sip and sway,
loquats are no great price to pay.

Judith Wright 1960

Tussie-mussies

I've written about these little spring bunches before.  That's the problem with house and home type blogs - what gives you pleasure one spring time is likely to give you the same joy the next.  So it is with these little tussie-mussies.

Their alternative name is nosegay, and if you could breathe the sweet fragrance of my little posy you would smell rose and freesia and the spicy scent of coriander.  Such a gentle, peaceful treat.

Flowers have a language of their own, and it is this bright and particular language that we would teach our readers. How charmingly a young gentleman can speak to a young lady, and with what eloquent silence in this delightful language. How delicately she can respond, the beautiful little flowers telling her tale in perfumed words; what a delicate story the myrtle or the rose tells! How unhappy that which basil, or yellow rose reveals, while ivy is the most faithful of all.

Collier's Cyclopedia of Commercial and Social information and Treasury of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge by Nugent Robinson and Peter Fenlon Collier, 1882.

Traditionally, the flowers in a tussie-mussie were chosen for the message they would convey to the recipient. Amongst Victorians, the term posy itself meant 'a brief sentiment', and that's before you even began reading the meanings on the individual flowers.

 In my posy, roses mean love. I don't know the meaning behind any of the others, but love is good enough on its own to me.

Floriography is so interesting, don't you think?

Peryan - Wildflower season

It may be still winter for another ten days, according to the traditional European four seasons per year model, but in Gariwerd, our nearest Indigenous area, it is peryan - the season of wildflowers. The wattle is in bloom, and in our own native garden, so too is the Happy Wanderer, Hardenbergia violacea, and the pretty mauve Grevillia sericea, along with its lovely unnamed cousin, below, with its fire red blooms.

Our favourite resource for Aboriginal Seasonal Calendars is Banksias and Bilbies - Seasons of Australia, written by Alan Reid, and published by the Gould League in 1995.

In Australia, Aboriginal survival depended upon their close affiliation with the sequence of seasonal events, especially the life cycles of plants and animals used as food, but also the risk of natural disasters such as fire or flood.  Aboriginal tribal calendars relate to these seasonal events.  Those in the North of our country have been in continual use; many in the south have been resurrected or rediscovered in recent years since Alan Reid introduced the calendars in his book.

Reid suggested the gathering of natural history observations within distinct regions in order to identify true seasonal patterns, and in 1994 he launched the Timelines Australia Project, which aimed to develop - or recover - seasonal calendars in each major region in Australia.  Banksias and Bilbies was published, in part, to assist with the monitoring and recording of these seasonal events.

Alan proposed a six season calendar for his region, the Middle Yarra region of Victoria.  His seasons were Autumn, Winter, Pre-Spring, True Spring, Early Summer and Late Summer.

The closest region to us, Gariwerd, uses the Brambuk calendar, which also recognises the six seasons proposed by Reid, reflecting the changes in temperature, rainfall and availability of plants and animals for food in our regional area (well, sort of our area).Seasonal weather calendars for Gariwerd as well as other regions of Australia are displayed in the Bureau of Meteorology's Indigenous Weather Knowledge website.  The site is in its early stages - further regions will be progressively added to the site, but it is worth checking to see whether your region is already featured.  The website is a good amalgamation of thousands of years of indigenous weather knowledge, complemented by the scientific and statistical approaches implemented by Alan Reid.

Each of the six Gariwerd seasons is about two months long.  The Jardwadjali and Djab Warrung people have both lived in the region, and both recognised these same six seasons.

Of course, European plants also follow our unique Australian calendar.  Petyan is especially beautiful in our garden because of the swathes of daffodil species that we have planted under the pear tree, as well as the blossom along the drive.  Later in the year, in ballambar, or early summer, the English garden comes into its own.  Sadly it is such a short season here - possibly even shorter than the two months in Gariwerd.  Kooyang, or late summer arrives all too soon with its bushfires, hot winds and drought. European flowers do not like kooyang very much.

Banksias and Bilbies is part nature diary, part week-by-week information guide. It is a wonderful book if you can find it cheaply, but is not worth the exorbitant prices currently being asked for on Abe.  Go for the website instead.

While you recover from that shock, I hope you'll enjoy some more peryan-time photos of our garden.  I'm so glad we arrived home in time to see this.

Daphne

The fairest and most fragrant
Of the many sweets we found
Was a little bush of Daphne flower
Upon a mossy mound,
And so thick were the blossoms set and so divine the scent,
That we were well content.

Hungry for Spring I bent my head,
The perfume fanned my face,
And all my soul was dancing
In that lovely little place,
Dancing with a measured step from wrecked and shattered towns
Away... upon the Downs.

From Home Thoughts on Laventie by E. Wyndham Tennant, written in Belgium, March 1916.

I can't believe I've never posted about Daphne.

I truly believe that this is the plant perfume I love the best, and I'm so very, very glad I arrived home in time to enjoy her divine citrus scent. My mum loves Daphne too, and she has aways had numerous varieties in every one of her beautiful gardens.  Perhaps that's another reason that I love it so - its spicy, delicious fragrance also reminds me of a very, wonderful lady.

I'll be back shortly to talk to you about other stuff like my holiday, but somehow I just needed to talk to you about Daphne first.  Do you love her too?

Timberrrrrrrrrrr!

We had the tree loppers in today to remove the huge gum tree that was overhanging Jemimah's cubby.  I was quite sad it had to go - large trees are so glorious, and this one shaded and cooled the cubby beautifully, but alas it had grown at a huge angle seeking the sun and it leaned dangerously  right over the playing space. It would have caused disastrous, potentially catastrophic damage if it had fallen, and as it increased in height it also increased its lean.

You can see how large and gorgeous it was here.

And here from the other side of the garage you get some idea of its angle.

Before it disappeared Jemimah took advantage of carving her initials into its truck.  Doesn't every kid want to do that?  I know I certainly did.

The lopper himself. He was so good with small girls and silly dogs and eager photographers as well.

The dangerous bit. The cubby survived without a scratch, albeit a bit more exposed than before. The garden didn't fare quite so well, but plants have to be sturdy in the Children's Garden. They'll recover.

It was fascinating watching how they removed the tree in pieces, first using a long handled chain saw and later by attaching a rope to each section and cutting it away from the trunk piece by piece.

 Hmmm, I'm sure that if I think creatively enough I could count it as school somehow. What could I call it?  Environmental Sustainability? 

Pruning roses with my Dad

Y'know, my darling Dad speaks to me the whole time I'm pruning roses.

"Go on, give it a go, lass," he'll encourage when I don't know where to begin. "Just get started. It'll be obvious once you start to cut." He's right, too. The hardest cut is always the first one. "Roses are pretty forgiving. It's hard to make a mistake," he'll counsel.

Sometimes he'll give me instructions. "Cut out the little scraggly growth," I'll hear him say. "Look out for the nice strong water shoots." "Cut to an outward facing bud." "Clear out the centre of that bush." "Remember that you're wanting to fan the branches of those climbers. Roses can't flower on branches that are curving downward, but you want them almost horizontal." "Chop out those forward facing shoots that won't tie back against the fence. Take a risk!"

"Cut at an angle about half an inch from the bud or you'll end up with dieback at the tips." ( My Dad speaks in Imperial; not metric.) "Cut with your secateurs straight or you'll damage those blades."  Um, yes, Dad.

This is the third time I've pruned my roses since my Dad died. The first time was only a few weeks after his death, and I wept through most of it. I remember him apologising to me only a few days before he died that he wouldn't be able to help me with them that year.

This year, though, I'm loving it, because when I'm out in that garden my Dad is helping me prune my roses. He's out there beside me. He's instructing me every step of the way. He's encouraging me. He's keeping me at it.

 Pruning my roses is keeping my Dad speaking to me. And that is a very nice feeling indeed.

Self indulgence

An unknown red floribunda in the Red and Green Garden.

Looking up into the canopy of trees in the courtyard.

Rosa 'Madame Isaac Perriere' with happy little 'Johnnie-jump-ups' in the background.

The splendour of 'Abraham Darby' lining the front fence.

Rosa 'Pierre de Ronsard' covers the pillars of the front verandah. If only he were scented, he'd be pretty near perfect.

Butterfly catching in the Side Garden near the front steps.

Callistemon 'Kings Park Special' and other bottlebrushes in the Native Garden. The firepit in the distance.

The English Garden - notice the concentration on Jemimah's face. The Small Citrus Butterfly, Papilio anactus is proving difficult to net.

The cluster flowered Hybrid Musk Rosa 'Buff Beauty' hedge is more than 30 metres long. It is underplanted with blue Agapanthus.

The lovely once flowering Rambler Rose - Rosa 'Albertine'.

The front steps.

Peaceful greens in the Front Garden.

Broccoli, cucumbers, courgettes, mixed lettuce, basil, coriander, tomatoes, Thai basil, rocket, strawberries, silverbeet and chives vie for space in the Kitchen Garden along with the apple trees and pots of herbs. The Children's Garden and Jemimah's cubby in the background.

The Native Garden again.

The White Garden.

And again close-up. Rosa 'Heideschnee' at the back.

This was so pretty I went a picked a bunch of these blooms after seeing this photo. They're sitting at the table as we do maths. Larkspurs, 'Love-in-a-mist', 'Kiss-me-quick' and a David Austrin rose that I can't remember the name of.

More larkspurs in the English Garden.

And again.

' Albertine' again smothering the concrete tank in the Courtyard.

'Buff Beauty' as seen through an arch of Rosa 'Clair Matin'.

This is the post where I shamefacedly show off my garden in its spring glory.

In reality it is not all beautiful. There are many areas where the flood has left its mark - lovely tall trees are dead or dying; the native garden in particular has taken a beating. Natives really do not like getting their toes wet.

This post, though, is not about that.

My garden right now is giving me incredible pleasure each and every day. This post is about the good parts.

I hope these pictures of my Peaceful Garden will give you a bit of pleasure also.

Spring delights

Is there anything, anything, anything more delightful that a freshly picked herb salad in a blue Japanese bowl for dinner?

I am getting such incredible pleasure from my garden this spring. Despite losing many plants and established trees in the flood, our garden right now is looking just divine. If I must say so myself.

Our herb salad - mixed lettuces, mint, Thai basil, Italian basil, coriander, and Vietnamese mint is all home grown. We're eating it it with a dipping sauce of Nam Pla Prik - salty, sour and spicy - with chillis and limes from the kitchen garden, alongside a main dish of Beef and Asparagus braised with Cassia and Star Anise. I didn't grow the asparagus, but a neighbour did, and that's almost as good.

I can't wait to show you photos of our spring garden. I can't wait to tell you about our wonderful weekend of horseriding. I can't wait to tell you about our holiday to Daylesford. I can't wait to talk to you about the books I've bought. I can't wait to tell you what's gone well and what hasn't in this last term of school. In a couple more days we'll be on holidays and I'm going to tell you about all of this. Can you wait that long? I almost can.

There is one thing better than collecting all these wonderful ingredients from our very own garden, and it's pictured below. A punnet of homegrown deliciously sweet strawberries each and every day. Mmmmmm. There's not much better in life than that.

Except eating them of course.