My garden had morphed into a jungle. It’s been a long, hot and sometimes very wet summer in Byron Bay and everything in the garden has followed the example of Jack’s beanstalk: growing…growing…and growing some more. It was a situation made worse by high humidity. As you may have gathered from previous posts, Kenn and I could best be described as enthusiastic rather than erudite gardeners. Unfortunately, our enthusiasm wilted like spinach in a stirfry as the humidity climbed, ensuring that efforts in the garden were confined to the occasional lawn mowing effort to provide a line of sight for spotting visiting snakes and assorted reptiles.
But Autumn has arrived. The nights are cooler and the humidity has dropped. Kenn, armed with his pruning shears has attacked the overgrown shrubbery with a zeal reminiscent of the Texas chainsaw massacre. When he reduced the pink hibiscus by two thirds, we saw that the red frangipani cutting that we had been given two years ago was flowering and that the baby stag horn fern was a baby no longer.
The veggie garden was full of weeds that were fence high and a large blue tongued lizard had decided to call this patch, home. Kenn took pity on me, weeding and relocating ‘Bluey’. ( I just don’t seem to have a rapport with anything scaly.) Soon, herbs, snow peas, an espaliered lime tree and silverbeet were able to see the sun, always a good thing for plants! We could see that the passionfruit vine had fruit and lots of flowers.
As we mowed, trimmed and weeded, we noticed little spots of colour in the garden. To my surprise, the white Jacaranda was spot flowering.
Bird of Paradise made a statement in the front garden, the Tahitian hibiscus finally had a flower and the pink mandevilla trailing over the side garden arch revealed that it was indeed, a flowering plant.
But tragedy also hit. We had a lovely standard daisy bush that didn’t survive the heat and our absences over the summer. A new azalea, chosen from the great range at our local nursery, Eden at Byron, now takes its place.
So the garden is somewhat tamed … for a while. Have you, like us been busy in the garden?
Byron Dreamer 