DIARY

DIARY

The Veg-Garden, more flowers & colour than veg.

So…the Grey Fantails are training their youngest to swim…the Berberis is alive with Silver-Eyes…Scrub Wrens have chosen a Bromeliad that’s for sale for their new nest…the young ones are doing well…a bit noisy really! The Eastern Spinebills are already showing the first of this season’s offspring the door, (in no uncertain terms), while madly collecting blowflies for the next lot. Every twiggy bush has a coconut sized bundle of weed in the middle of it arumble with loudly vocalising finch babies…..every flower is fizzy with bees.
Two species of Whistler & the Tree Creeper are competing for the highest trill! On today’s list of chores is using the Leaf-Blower to blow the Wallaby poos off the paths…& the Superb (doesn’t he know it!) Blue Wren has found his way into the Visitors Toilet again &, so delighted with himself in all the mirrors, has danced on the toilet roll causing it to unfurl into a grotty pile of folds on the floor. He, or is it they, have merrily poo-ed (or “whoopsied” as an old friend used to say) on the cistern, on the seat, on the door handle, on the wall, on the mirrors, on the stained glass & of course the floor. So there is that to sort out.
But apart from that everything is peaceful.

Golden Abelia & Ceanothus thyrsiflorus (left). Moraea bellendenii. (top right)..unusual member of this nice family of bulbs etc...nothing foliage but lovely flowers.   "Scented Mountan" (bottom right)  ...Jasmine & Banksia Rose...Why did we do it!? ..too young to know better.

Kniphofia (left)...one of the myriad of these generous Sth African plants in our garden. We have many varieties, species & hybrids, dwarf & enormous in ivory, yellow, red etc. We have them flowering from October to August, delighting the honeyeating birds. The bigger birds tackle them to the ground in order to have their evil ways with them. We are constantly pulling out seedlings which come up in the wrong place or are the wrong colour for the scheme. This particular one will not last past this year's flowering...not yellow enough.  Alyogyne (right). The Native Hibiscus...this is the pink form. We also have them in white and a apricot. and purple.  Don't like severe frost.

Eupatorium megalophyllum(left) or blue Mist Flower...(now apparently Bartlettina sordida if you're a smartypants)... a big sub tropical beauty which needs a bit of shelter but pays off in Sprinter (Spring)...Being a denizen of the Mist Forests of Mexico it does not delight in our climate...but it only looks crap in Summer & Winter... nice leaves.  The first of the Clematis (Right)...many more to follow. Despite their reputation for being tender and snail-prone we find them  easy when snuck in between & scrambing up other plants. We tend to like the simple flowered ones in Lilac & Purple but there are plenty that are white, vomitous pink and ridiculously double.  Pholomis italica (bottom right)...loves the sun & a gravel mulch - Balearic Islands, Mediterranean.

Spiloxene (left)...an exquisite little bulb for the rockery, although it tends to get a bit lost in our gigaronomous rompant garden. Much better for us is this Asphodel (right) - Asphodelus species ...hailing from the Mediterranean, Africa and the Middle East, it is steeped in mythology. In ancient times it was planted on graves...the fleshy roots being thought to be the food of the dead..they were also eaten by hungry Greeks in times of extremes. It dies down in the Summer & can't be killed except in really boggy conditions. Nectar plant.

Aesculus carnea Briotti in the Red Bed.

DIARY 

This week...

Waterfront Grebe bedroom. 360 degree view. Grebe babies have to be the cutest things ever. About the size of a large walnut. Three hatched this week.

Australasian Grebe Nest

It's Echium-time. This be Echium simplex on the left. You should see the bees go. Towers of white jewels 6ft tall. And the purple/blue spires of Echium fastuosum. Delicious.

 

One of the few roses the wallabies have left us...Golden Wings...(or is it Winds) anyway it smells like bread. Delirious.

 

Cistus Brilliancy (top left)  and Halimium ocymoides (bottom left), together with Cistus Bennet's White. The light & colour & scent of the Mediterranean.



Grey Cheeks (left), a regular morning visitor, not looking very pleased. Melianthus major, Berberis x juliane Spring Glory (top right) and Berberis thunbergii atropurpurea superba, a magnet for Silver Eyes.




Umbellifers that send the bees demented - Ferula communis (Giant Fennel) A Mediterranean plant with ferny foliage and umbels the size of bread and butter plates. Can reach 3-4m tall.

A close-up of Heracleum ... another giant Mediterranean umbellifer for keeping the bees and other pollen-feeders amused.

Arum dioscorides (left). What is it about Aroids?  Ugly & smelly & irresistible to me & blowflies...it must be genetic!  Flower bud Amorphophalus Konjac (right) - another metre to go!
 

Osteospermum (Dimorphotheca) a long flowering Sth African daisy that provides plenty of entertainment for insects. The combination of the rich red flowers & the burnt stumps also delights me.

                                                                                        

USEFUL SAYINGS.

Every day is a gift…That’s why it’s called “the present”.


The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there. ~George Bernard Shaw,  1932

When weeding, the best way to make sure you are removing a weed and not a valuable plant is to pull on it. If it comes out of the ground easily, it is a valuable plant. ~Author Unknown


Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. ~Author Unknown


What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it. ~Charles Dudley Warner, My Summer in a Garden, 1871


There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling. ~Mirabel Osler


In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful. ~Abram L. Urban


God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done. ~Author Unknown

EXCLUSIVE!
THE DARK UNDERBELLY IN THE CONNECTION BETWEEN GARDENING & MENTAL HEALTH!
THE DIFFICULT TRUTH NO-ONE WILL  ACKNOWLEDGE!

Yes…It is Mental Health Week & you are bound to hear a lot of soft talk about the mental health benefits of gardening…which is without doubt “True” of course…but like most axiomatic “Truths”…the “Real Truth” is much more nuanced.

Of course, there being “nothing new under the sun”…there is nothing new about saying that there is a benefit to Mental Health to be gained from “Beauty”, “The Great Out-Doors” & “Gardening”. This is why all the “Mental Asylums” of the 19th Century were surrounded by beautiful, extensive & expensive gardens designed by the  best Landscape Designers of their time…(whilst the most needy of the “inmates” were dressed in rags and chained to the wall).

So the knowledge that gardening has a benefit for Mental Health goes back a long way….but this week you will hear it spoken of as if it is the result of “cutting edge” research!  What you will not hear spoken about anywhere, this week, or at any other time…is the other side of the coin when it comes to the connection between Mental Health & Gardening…& that is O.C.G.D….Or Obsessive Compulsive Gardening Disorder!

It can strike any keen gardener at any time & worst of all there seems no documented cure!

I’ve seen it destroy friendships, marriages, families & deeply divide communities. I’ve seen otherwise rational people turn over their whole “yard”…you couldn’t possibly call it a garden…to a veritable sea of polystyrene boxes filled  with a collection of plants with impossible to pronounce Latin names & often requiring a magnifying glass to differentiate one from the other…In the case of cacti, succulents & carnivorous plant aesthetics is not even a factor….In fact the uglier the better!

As a nurseryman I’ve sold plants to women who must take their purchases out of their pots before taking them home so that their husband/spouses do not find plant-pots in the wheelie-bin & therefore catch them out. Like any addiction or gambling it leads to secretiveness & deceit.

I have known perfectly happy well-adjusted gardeners who take off on their big overseas adventure only to return poor haunted creatures unable to appreciate their lovely gardens any more… & determined to tear it all out & replace it all with a detailed facsimile of something they have seen whilst away…often spending more on the garden make-over than their once in a lifetime overseas trip.

Needless to say a few years down the line these poor sufferers are completely disillusioned. Despite superhuman efforts & destroying their previously superb garden; their 17th Century French Rose Garden does not actually surround a lovely stone Villa…nor is it protected from the elements by a high stone wall…nor does it look out on a Medieval Provencal town…or a walled Convent! The savannah is not roamed by lion & gazelle. There is no view of a snow-covered Mt Fuji in the background & the cherry blossom only last a couple of days because of the hot winds in October.The dry Spanish hills have no Crusader Castle on the crag….& the verdant Balinese jungle idyll looks like it has been subject to Napalm attack twice a year…in the winter because of the frost & in the summer because of the north wind.

But worst of all for the O.C.G.D. sufferer is the “Event”…The Garden Opening or, worse still, the Garden Wedding are the most likely triggers for a “Melt Down” or even, in extreme cases, suicide.
Just imagine the extent of the crisis for a severe O.C.G.D. sufferer who has thought of nothing for months but a proposed Garden Wedding…carefully timed to coincide with the flowering of the Wedding Day Roses & white Clematis.When, as can happen, there is a Tornado followed by torrential rain on the morning of the event. Imagine the despair. Unthinkable.

But you will hear nothing about this “Reality” during this Mental Health Week…Instead the media, with its usual demand for simplistic answers, will be promoting the idea that if you have a trowel in your hand & some carrot seeds in your pocket then all your problems are solved!

On a related but lighter note….I have a Bi-Polar mental illness & the garden is my life-boat…Tina handles the tiller…& the birds are my mentors.