Nature
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In the Garden February 2023
There’s been a few changes in the garden since last month. I finished the planting in the main beds with mainly a mix of indigenous and native Australian plants, with mainly purple/blue, yellow and white coloured flowers. I’ve also included a mix of leaf colours and forms for year-round interest. I’m looking forward to the plants bushing out and filling the gaps. We also got our new outdoor dining setting and our clothesline installed this month. Now for some close-ups …
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In the Garden January 2023
I had on my list for this year to do a photography project. As a start, I’ve decided to take photos of the garden each month. This will have the added benefit of documenting the changes over time in our garden. The Rules: We’re partway through the initial redesign and planting of the main garden beds at the moment. The beds on our east and west fences are now fully planted. The light can be a bit harsh in our courtyard, but hopefully, I’ll work out the best angles with a bit more practice. I’m also looking forward to more interesting flowers and critters for macro photography. The white flowers…
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Detouring from my usual paths
To get my project of running every street in a 5km radius of our house kick-started again, I added some detours to my usual run along the beach path. I found a couple more cut-throughs to the beach from some of the local roads. I also ran along the opposite side of the Elwood Canal. I enjoyed seeing a cheeky white cockatoo doing acrobatics from the power line before flying off to join its mates, feeding in the dry canal overflow. Blanketing the fence near the primary school was an overgrown passionfruit vine covered in flowers. Unfortunately, it looks like a sucker, but I will pop back there periodically; maybe…
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Indigenous Plants
One of the goals for our garden is to include plantings to enhance our local biodiversity. To this end, I’ve been doing some research. I found several helpful resources: Once I had a reasonable idea of the main plants in our area, I took notes as I walked and ran to see how they grow. Some plants I’m thinking of including: Banksia. Good for birds of all sizes, mammals and butterflies. Large yellow flowers Feb-Jun followed by seed heads. White Correa. White star-shaped flowers in spring and summer. Good for honey-eaters, small birds and butterflies. Flax-lily. Blue flowers Sept-Dec. Good for reptiles and butterflies. Common Everlasting. Yellow flowers in Sept-Dec.…
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Garden Goals
The apartment we are about to move into has a very large outdoor area. It’s actually larger than the inside! The garden has been planted out with a fairly generic, low-maintenance garden. This is fine but won’t really meet what we want from that space, so we will make some changes once we move in. To guide the changes we have several goals: Do you like to get into the garden?
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Black Swan Cygnets
Spotted on a run around Albert Park in September. Seen Saturday: several groups of cygnets of various ages.
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Let me ask you this
Let me ask you this.Do you also think that beauty exists for some fabulous reason? And, if you have not been enchanted by this adventure— your life—what would do for you? To Begin With, The Sweet Grass by Mary Oliver Superb Fairy Wrens were crowned the Australian 2021 bird of the year, and I can understand why. They are certainly my favourite local bird. The males have beautiful blue plumage, and the little birds certainly are “tiny little balls of pure joy.” We used to have a group come each year into the wattle at the back of my childhood home, but I hadn’t seen a blue one since my…