Category: Gardens

The Barb’s oft stated question “To be, or not to be …”, was so sharp, so breathtakingly precise. Adaptable too; enabling ‘to do or not to do’, ‘to have…’ and a hundred other equally useful challenges to my daily uncertainties. I sat and pondered. Should I do it; tackle it, ignore it: my head spun.

The imponderables. How could the odds against an unknown, potentially disastrous outcome, be shortened? I considered the efficacy of legal or other professional advice; maybe input from friends or family; a dabble into Mrs Google’s limitless world; even tossing a coin or consulting a mystic. All had been tried, but history suggested there were no guaranteed certainties!

In a moment of retrospective zealotry, I poisoned the front lawn, and the nature strip. The Barb’s advice fell, forgotten, as I enthusiastically ignored his suggested cautious M.O.

I attended a seminar focussing on endemic native plantings of footpaths, verges, lawns and the like. I was inspired, imagining the flocks of birds fluttering down to enjoy my nectarial offerings, bees buzzing boisterously, insects visiting to enjoy the spoils. I would be joining a throng of enthusiastic green thumbs, a collective surge to reestablish our endangered landscapes.

As the grass died, I was at the local nurseries. So many choices! Grevillea, Eremophila, Correa, Banksia, grasses, ground covers and yellow buttons threatened my composure. I wanted seasonal colour, some privacy screening and the potential for that all important nectar for the birds, bees and insects waiting, somewhere off-screen, for this show to commence.

I was rummaging in the potting shed when I was suddenly brought up short. A long-distant gift from friends, an old dusty potato sack, partially obscured, in a corner. It was a residual from two houses ago, carried forward, house to house and now, finally opened. It revealed several hundred, old squishy tulip bulbs.

What the…, but then I remembered Bernard and Joan’s prized spring garden just behind Mount Dandenong, a garden always included on the Springtime self-drive itineraries. Somehow, I had never managed to engage with the bulb’s colourful cornucopia – always so foreign, so much out of synch with my preferred endemic plantings.

I remembered the confusion on the afternoon they’d arrived with the sack! We had just moved into our new house, and Bernard was in the garden within minutes, pacing out a suitable, sunny plot, coincidentally on the site I’d already selected for several Wicking beds!

I left the suggested bulb-site go unchallenged during the afternoon’s pleasantries, but that evening I tossed the sack into the deep recesses of the shed. Why it had followed us through two more houses remained a mystery, but those tulips never got any closer to planting!

The native, endemic plantings achieved local notoriety and were eventually included in our town’s seasonal fly-ins. Lorikeets, New Holland and Yellow-faced Honey eaters, wattlebirds, parrots, several finches, even the Glossy black cockatoo gave the garden their imprimatur!

An endemic native garden, or not, to be! The question had been resolved!

Margaret rose in the dawn. The returning light provides refreshed awareness of her delicate beauty. Soft morning highlights, prisms of dew catching, flashing and recasting diamonds across her being. I make a mental note to bring my camera tomorrow.

There is a hint of orange about her throat, an irresistible attraction for all who look; a space that demands further investigation, to confirm that these genetic traits are fixed, are heralding a successful new entity.

Eight years: I have the date marked in my diary, as if I would ever need that physical prompt to confirm when I embarked on this exercise! What a ride it has been!

Those first tentative ideas, wildly ambitious suggestions; collegial mockery, public ridicule; scoffing at my suggestion that it would be possible to take material from two distantly related, but unique species, and bring forth a third, independent, sustainable body.

I privately admit to self-doubt, more so in those early months. The faculty is shunned; there are overheard, none-too-subtle sniggers in the canteen, “Ah yes, …Joseph’s off playing God, again…” and similar taunts, that eventually have me working and living alone. There is nobody even to share my joyous recreation!

But I have a personal beacon drawing me ever forward; a siren on the headland, an irresistible muse. I know Margaret’s issue will be, and it’s that conviction keeping me at the laboratory long past home time, burning candles at both ends to challenge the dark.

I initially conduct trials with the Murray-bred rose, then with that sombre Lionel variety. But in hindsight, I conclude that both are from the wrong side of the tracks.

I know a breakthrough is close, but then … Jesu mio – disaster. The ‘truck’ runs off the road. Eight years’ worth of notes, detailed, annotated research gone in an instant. I have found an obscure 19th-century paper by Gregor Mendel. Fascinating stuff, quite gobsmacking to think that two centuries earlier, he is actually writing up the rules that continue to govern geneticists today.

I go to bookmark the site for further analysis. There is an upgrade for the App and with only half my brain in gear, I press the ‘continue’ button. Away went my Magnum Opus – gone into a cloud, or somewhere!

“Margaret, Margaret, come back”, I wail, hitting the Undo button repeatedly. I can’t believe it. How could I have just done this?

In a daze, I wander for hours around the laboratory, through the hothouses, into the gardens, back inside, outside again, tears of despair and frustration running down my cheeks.

On my third or fourth pass through the hothouse, I look wistfully at the trays. Several thousand cuttings, grouped in numbered batches, each in beakers of sterile medium. But the key to which group are in which medium is gone into Fantasyland!

Hang on. I look closer. My heart misses a beat.  There is a label, and I see a millimetre of greenery extending from several grafts.  Saints be praised, Margaret Rose cometh!

Have you ever seen those computer-controlled fountain displays? Jets of multicoloured water, sometimes illuminated at night, maybe with a musical accompaniment, erupting and dissipating, children running, squealing and laughing through those summer jets. Colour and form constantly changing. That’s what we want to create in our new garden – a riotous, seasonally-changing palette of colours.

We left an unending, tropical greenery in Darwin. We now want a new style of garden, an unending cornucopia of reds, blues, yellow, purples and pink daubs – a seasonal variety ever changing across our new, cool climate homestead.

Our ground is heavy clay below a thin veneer of ‘dirt’. We will bring in a rotary hoe and spread lots of gypsum, before topping with truckloads of premium topsoil.

There will be scallops of low, mounded soil embankments forming the front boundary. There might be a modest lily pond, with a little solar pump moving water and providing an aural tinkle near the front door.

The dining table is heaving with butcher’s paper. Ideas, drawings, circles and arrows; plant lists categorized by form, colour and size. We’ve hit all the local nurseries as our project takes form.

It is agreed that the front garden needs to achieve continuous colour. Winter-flowering daffodils, then springtime yellow Japanese, and blue Dutch iris spiking upwards through the spent daffs. I wonder about orange Californian Poppies taking things into summer and autumn. These could be interspersed with wild, red Iranian poppies. There will still be space for bird-attracting Wallaby and Kangaroo grasses. Their height will provide interest as they drift in the breeze!

We agree to sacrifice a section in the front for three small grassy spaces. These pockets will have an edging of red, orange, and mauve native ground covers, Running Postman, dichondra, a little purple geranium, and some yellow Everlasting buttons, all providing an abundance of colourful splodges throughout spring and early summer. They will eventually move up and over the mounds.

Trellises along the eastern side of the house will provide support for screens of white and blue Hardenbergia. While usually seen as a ground cover, we are hoping they will trellis and provide some spring wind protection. We will erect a two-metre-wide frame on the western side of the house that will carry a Wisteria vine. It’ll provide mid-spring, massed blue flower clusters, forming a dense green awning against the summer’s hot afternoon sun. Autumn pruning will enable valuable winter sunshine to penetrate and warm the house.

The backyard is going to be mostly dedicated to food production, albeit space is being set aside for a cubbyhouse and secret passages planned for small, future adventurers. Miniature varieties of European and Japanese plums, grafted apple and pear varieties, a Tahitian lime, Meyer lemon, and a cumquat. Space is being allocated for espaliered quince and cherry trees, but we both agree to forego apricot, peach and nectarines, acknowledging tiresome diseases!

We’ll build four self-watering wicking beds for seasonal vegetable production. A little garden shed will be partially screened by the installation of three large water tanks, one reticulated back into the kitchen, two to supplement our generally sparse gardening needs. All beds will be seasonally mulched heavily.

Marigold announces her pregnancy as we start to plant out the garden.  Gaia, our Earth Mother, bestows her imprimatur!

“Those bloody rosellas!” The trees are awash with splashes of red, blue and yellow feathers, each gobbling greedily, screeching loudly, confirming to the multitude that the fruit is ripe. I have the broom, waving it manically as I run into the orchard.

Frustrated tears fall as I race around, ineffectually shoo-shooing, flapping the broom, yelling and dancing around like a banshee. Individuals begrudgingly lift off from a tree, circle lazily overhead, unapologetic, obviously annoyed at my intrusion into an otherwise tasty meal. They remain airborne momentarily, before drifting downwind and settling into another, more distant cherry tree.

We have been arguing, acknowledging that the birds will be circling soon. We agree that netting the trees is now urgent. The fruit is starting to blush beautifully; provocatively. “Yer yer. I’ll be onto it directly.”

His mobile rings. I watch, and see his eyes take on a misty, hypnotic sort of glaze. “Yep. Yer. Wow. You bet. That’s great. I’ll see you down at the shed in an hour.” He grabs his gear, advising “Macca is meeting me down at the boatshed – the Snapper are biting something fierce!” He and the Ute are gone!

“Bloody thanks, Barry.” It is a two-person job to get the nets up and the birds are having a field day. Bugger him: the prick! I’ll do it myself!

I climb the stepladder, the netting tentatively secured over my shoulder. They’re awkward and weigh a tonne, but I get several lengths over the framework. ‘He and his bloody snapper can go to bloody hell’ I fume, as I climb down to reposition the ladder. The netting falls back to the ground. “Shit!”

I replace Barry with the broom, quite satisfactorily. I get an effective rhythm going. The netting stays in position and I move on to the next crossbar. “Take that, you bugger” as I stab the broom into a fisherman. He sploshes into the water and I gain extra netting over the frame.

Beady eyes watch my progress, the cackling suggests scornful appraisal, but by late afternoon, what remains of the crop is under netting. I grab the broom and race around underneath, yelling obscenities, loudly. I get the last of the rosellas out and tie down the sides. I laugh defiantly at the screeching protest from the nearby gums.

“Look at this beauty – I reckon it will go 3 kilos.” I grab the fish and walk to the kitchen door. I toss it out onto the back lawn. I yell “come and get it” into the approaching dusk, inviting any stray cats or fish-eating rosellas to a feast. “Hey, that’s our dinner!”

I throw a scornful look over my shoulder as I make my way to the bathroom. “I am ordering a small pizza, with extra anchovies, olives and a serve of garlic bread: for one! Enjoy the fish!”

Steamy suds sting several superficial scratches. Sipped sparkling shiraz starts soothing strained, stiff muscles, as I review and confirm what has been a long, defining day!

I was up early, wanting to maximise time in the promised warm, dry weather; to catch up on the weeding around the aubergine, bok choy and kale: she had always loved her Kale! I had been paying the blackbirds with bread, to scrape the weeds, but they were on a ‘go-slow’. I alerted them to a pending showdown.

Something was missing from my daily routine, but I couldn’t put a finger on it. No matter, it would come to me eventually. I was in the garden by 10.

An hour in, I saw but ignored the flashing lamp that alerted me to the front doorbell activation. Piss off, whoever you are.

It was Doug whatsit, he had my drill, the one he’d borrowed last month, “just for an hour or so!” We had met at a Men’s Shed shindig, me the newbie and him, as I was to learn, the Club’s dullard!

He was now striding purposefully down the driveway, waving my drill and what could have been a couple of meat pies. “Morning tea and ya drill” he proffered, as he put them on the potting table.

Lip reading had become a recent proficiency, so I obligingly read about his trip across town earlier in the day, and the terrible traffic. Apparently, a dog had run across the road in front of him, and he only narrowly avoided hitting it. He told me about his neighbour, who had a fall last week and had seven stitches inserted. I learnt about his meal last night!

I allow the glazing to descend as I set my auto-nodding and grunting routine into gear. Thirty minutes later, and I’m sure he hasn’t twigged to my hearing impairment. I have learnt about NATO’s latest Ukrainian counter-offensive; seen that Albo has found a rationale for exiting the AUKUS fiasco, and that the government had found and recruited fifteen thousand RNs for the Aged Care sector and extended the budget surplus by five years!

The Bok choy was weeded, and I was just turning my attention towards the Kale as Doug backed into the wheelbarrow and went arse-up. It was like Chernobyl: the barrow went into the potting table, which fell over, tossing the seedling tray, drill and pies high into the sky. It scared the bejesus out of Rover, but only for the time it took for him to smell and realise food was potentially in the offing. He scored both pies.

My chuckle was taken the wrong way. I helped Doug to his feet, but a testy “humph” was thrown at me as he stated his need for the loo. He stomped, unbidden, in through the kitchen.

He was emerging as I was putting the kettle on. We both saw the hearing aids at the same moment: on the table, charging, their green lights winking. The penny dropped as he asked “Are ya deaf, or sumpin?” I parried against his querulous look, “Ah yes, deaf as a post actually, without these little beauties!”

Every year, as the bleak Ballarat winter started to falter, and with the appearance of the occasional warm, sunny day, my sister and I would start to get a bit antsy with each other. We would avoid gardening talk, and actually, in recent years it got to the stage that we would avoid visiting each other’s gardens. We still talked on the phone every week or so, but we didn’t mention our vegetable-gardening exploits, AT ALL!

Talk of dinner menus was on the cards. She told me about a recent triumph with a pork belly – “… the skin was about half an inch high, golden, salty and beautifully crackly…” she crowed! I countered with my recent cumquat marmalade success. I went into great detail – the nifty way I had developed to de-pip the fruit, the decision to spend the extra effort slicing the fruit into 2mm strips, instead of just halving them; steeping the fruit overnight before boiling, sugaring and bottling. I mentioned that I was having great success holding back on the quantities of sugar, without affecting the Set!

Of course, we both knew the elephant in the room, but neither was going to acknowledge it, or give it any air! The stand-off would continue for months – a dinner invitation might be tendered, but countered “Oh, bugger, we have Emily’s birthday party on that weekend, and we promised to fly up and share the occasion!”

I had put a lot of effort into bed preparation. The composting had been a labour of love, many hours encouraging the worms, nurturing and ensuring the green and brown quantities of the mix were balanced, and a little regular watering. To raise the temperature, I had thrown a tarp over the mix, and I had sweetened the pile with a couple of handfuls of blood and bone! I didn’t think that was cheating.

I had heard that Tibetan monks took a planting queue from the heavens, only ever planting two days after the first full moon in July. I had that day circled in my diary and was ready. The seeds were sitting in the warmth of the kitchen window sill for a couple of weeks. On the auspicious day, I was up early. It was bloody cold, a slight frost but with beany, and longjohns on, I was ready.

The seeds went into drills along my string-straight rows, each planted 10mm deep, about 25mm apart, and with the same distance between the rows. I mulched the bed heavily, believing that this early planting and the blanket of mulch would give me a useful head start. As I sat back with my cuppa, I acknowledged Tibetan expertise with a salute of my raised mug.

The winner would be declared in October, and I deliciously contemplated that dinner invitation. I would serve lamb loin chops with the first of my new broad beans in a light minty sauce, maybe sauced cauliflower, on the side. Surely, this year my broad beans would beat hers, hands down!

It had taken Hyacinth decades to feel confident in her gardening skills. Sitting back now, a fresh cuppa’ on the bench beside her, she let the gentle pulse of her surrounds take her back to that first, tiny, Carlton balcony.

The flat was almost totally in shade, south-facing and the pot of petunias only lasted a couple of weeks! She thought it might have been her plant selection, so her next foray saw a small red rose. It also failed to thrive!

But a lover led to a wedding, in turn leading to a bigger flat: a light-filled, ground floor unit that accessed a small patch of ‘dirt’. A tentative trial of roses, planted in the sunlight and, with Spring, big blousy blossoms! The nursery had suggested hellebores and aquilegia for the shaded parts of the garden, and, as Autumn softened the heat, they too flourished. Bulbs and a selection of herbs went into pots. She acknowledged her own, small triumphs with quiet satisfaction.

Children, a move out to suburban Nunawading, a small house with a tiny garden, followed. The kids helped dig the vegetable plot, and with the planting of apple, pear, apricot and plum trees. She smiled as she remembered the day that the small helpers weeded out the carrot, lettuce and zucchini seedlings!

A Vacola preserving kit arrived one birthday, and with Margaret Fulton’s benchtop guidance, she stewed apples and pears. She made pots of jam, chutney, sauces and pickles. Her pantry became quite a family ‘conversation-piece’, brought up in dispatches as a new, labelled preserve found its way onto the shelves.

The children sometimes complained about the ‘home-made’ garnishes, and overheard remarks between school-friends, in the backyard, confirmed a need to cut back the production line. There was also a none too subtle hint that her birthday and Christmas presents needed to change, too!

The children started to leave the nest. Where had the years gone? Grandchildren were playing under the large, overgrown fruit trees. More space might be helpful for the kids to play, more sunlight, particularly as the winter days were getting bleaker nowadays.

There seemed to be not as many birds visiting the garden, except when the summer fruits were on offer! The exception were the blackbirds! People complained of their mulch-scraping habit, but she secretly thought it a small price to pay for their beautiful warbling.

Cancer took her partner prematurely; unexpectedly. A diagnosis, a few short months, and she was alone. She knew it was time to move.

She worked at a Kondo-declutter, restocking both the Salvos and Vinnies. She packed a few treasures, a shoebox of photos and moved to a delightful, two-bedroom cottage in Gippsland. A new start was on offer!

She had become a Peter Cundall devotee, forced latterly to follow that horribly-bearded Costa. She had lots of ideas and birds were going to be her gardening ‘thingy’. She drew up plans for lots of insect and bird-attracting natives. Swathes of Poa, Wallaby and Kangaroo grasses would combine with plantings of ground-hugging grevillea, callistemon, buddleia, leptospermum, echium, banksia and acacia. They would provide protective canopies for small wrens, finches, even the parrots. There would be shallow ponds for the frogs and lizards; maybe even a trickling fountain to provide an aural dimension. Each morning kookaburras were perching on the limbs of an old gum, and a family of currawongs were seen, busily fluttering through.

It took a few years, but the garden plantings worked. The birds had appreciatively taken up residence; nests were built, families raised.

Visiting grandchildren and the background chatter of the wildlife collectively endorsed Hyacinth’s gardening expertise!