SPRINTER:

For many years I have suspected that Spring started a little earlier than the 1st of September. Now it’s official. Professor Tim Entwisle, planticular honcho of the Melbourne Botanical Gardens has announced that we have 5 seasons & this more or less coincides with my intuition & observation…Except that his Sprinter…(early Spring,)… starts at the beginning of August….and for me…here…it starts around the 15th. Mind you, August this year was not so Sprinterish as usual. Very cold cold…lots of frosts…& dry!

Yes a very difficult month, August… with virtually no food left out there for the wild birds they gathered from near & far for the handouts. So whilst the business had virtually no “in-comings”…”out-goings on bird food was $350 for grain & nearly $30 for scrap meat for the girls (chooks)! Still it should ease off now…plenty of grass for the chooks…as long as we get some rain….& if we haven’t given the King Parrots some grain for an hour or so they gather in the Prunus trees & hoe into the flowers…One must have plenty of salad…one simply must!

So its certainly Sprinter now…Prunus are flowering…Almonds almost finished …Scads of bulbs are doing their thing & the UV cream has reappeared. The koalas are singing, like glottally-stressed wart-hogs & moving through the forest looking for victims to harass. In my sentimental days I had not an inkling that these cuddly creatures were such unrepentant sex-pests.

Despite the cold and dry the frogs are working themselves into a ferment in preparation for an annual full-moon event, usually in October, that we call “Frog-Sprog”. Sometimes we go out with a torch to observe…but it is definitely MA viewing. In the morning the herons gather up the casualties

Today I discovered a Scrub Wren nest in a bowl of Kalanchoe Quicksilver…At first I thought this would cause agonies of guilt about watering…but the brood had already left the nest & were following their parents around the garden squawking like demanding toddlers in a supermarket. These tireless little birds are not flashy & pretty like the Superb Blue Wrens but they are great characters & thrive here  with all the low shrubs & prickly bushes. Often they nest in my shed which gets me much chastised! Within a couple of weeks the babes will be able to contribute to their own feeding & Mum will be back in her nest in the Quicksilver sitting on eggs again. It is nothing for them to be able to raise 4 or 5 broods per year…more in a good year, which this year will not be.

Asarum maximum

Something new which, though obtuse & obscure…(& very nearly unobservable), is delighting me at the moment,  is the Panda Faced Ginger or Asarum maximum. It is a low-growing perennial for the shade…particularly deciduous shade. Nearly unobservable because the delightful, black & white flowers are practically hidden beneath the dark green marbled evergreen heart-shaped leaves!  We have grown ours In a bowl so that they don’t have to compete with the tree roots in our awful gravelly soil. This also allows us to place them to good advantage when in flower, rather than have to get down on all fours in order  to enjoy their discreet beauties.

Aloe hybrid

The Aloes are still with us….(I’ve never met an aloe I didn’t like!)…We have dead ordinary ones as well as drop dead gorgeous hybrid beauties that cost us an a liver & a kidney. Their seasons starts in Autumn running through Sprinter & beyond. At the moment the common Aloe arborescens varieties are making grand displays combining with Cotyledon macrantha & contrasting nicely with the limey Euphorbia rigida. They certainly give the honey-eating birds something to think about.

My favourite plants this month are violets & Euphorbias…we have quite a few varieties of each. On a warm afternoon the garden is more deliciously scented of violets than Grandma’s hanky drawer. Mind you by October I will be cursing both the violets & the Euphorbias & pulling them out all over the shop.
The Euphorbias, of course, will inevitably get their own back, because of the toxic sap…especially Euphorbia myrsinites, my favourite species; a lovely prostrate thing, most resembles some form of sea-life. Whenever I cut them back my eyes swell up & get red  & bloodshot. I look like I’ve been drinking too much Methylated Spirits!…so, of course, I get no sympathy at all!

About now we are starting to cut down the big grasses…which have been “fountains of hay” through the cold months. First we must check them carefully because even at this early date a finch nest could spill a dozen or so naked babies onto the path…& then, tortured by guilt, you have to run indoors & drink something sturdy….When you return the parents & aunts & uncles have inevitably gathered the scrum into the undergrowth. Success, after that, depends very much on the weather, of course. At any rate I then lay the chaff on the ground & run over it with the ride-on mower to make a useful mulch or addition for compost…We do have a very good muncher but it doesn’t like the big grasses…like Miscanthus…not one little bit.

“Now is the window of our discontent”….The theory would be that now is the time to get all the plantings done that we have had planned for however long….The frosts have finished…(more or less) so it is important to get all the planting done before it dries out…Oh! Hang on…it already has!…got to go…things to do!


See: Sprinter & Sprummer” by Professor Tim Entwisle…or check him out on Google or Radio National.