Spring, Round 2

Spring is well and truly happening. My wonderful yellow rose is trying to flower.

The bottlebrush is just showing the first flowers, but I think the main display is a few weeks off.

The lawn has flowered magnificently much to Stuart’s dismay! Known as Cape Daisies, they make up much of the lawn.

And my lavenders are in full bloom. The grape vine is a mass of leaves and buds.

The apple, apricot, pear, quince and still unidentified soft fruit with a hard stone (most likely peach or nectarines) have all had their sudden flurry of flowers and are now starting to leaf (or grow more in one case, out leafs before it flowers).

The Jasmine is probably no more than a week away from full flower, but already smells heavenly at night when it is still. The family of weebills are raising yet another brood in it again but this year have made no attempt to hide the nest.

We’ve moved some of the agapanthus from deep under a pine tree where it was really struggling from lack of water, to under the 2 main bedroom windows. It still gets little to no water but it is where we empty our grey water to and where I’ll be planting courgettes and squashes very soon. We keep on getting warmer and warmer spells but each weekend it drops again back to frosts overnight. So, this week started with the fire lit on Monday morning because it had been only 3°C overnight, but by Tuesday it was 26°C and yesterday was 33°C. The forecast is for another 3°C again on Monday morning, so we’re not yet out of the woods or no longer needing it when it comes to planting out my seedlings into the veg plot or to no longer requiring a fire!

The only thing that is definite is that water is going to be a very precious resource this year. We’ve had very little rain through Autumn, Winter or the start of Spring and the water table is very low.

I’ve found a lovely unknown and unidentified flower at the bottom of the garden, hiding behind both quince trees.

All I know is that it is a succulent so I may try to transfer some of it to the stone circle in the front lawn.

We’ve been having some interesting weather but usually without rain. It’s happened elsewhere as in these 2 pictures taken a day apart on my daily walk to the letterbox.

And one of my chickens had taken to joining me when she can!

I have even met her at the road but she always follows me back home again at a brisk run.

We did spot water on Lake George on one occasion, but otherwise it remains dry.

A sharp comparison to when we first moved here back in winter 2016.

Other photos I have added include some sunrises

And a few shots of flowers at a roundabout in Canberra.

Otherwise I’ll leave you with this wonderfully atmospheric shot of a sunrise a week ago.

Spring has Sprung

But don’t be fooled. We’re still getting frosts but we’re also getting 20-30°C daytime temperatures! It’s that difficult time of year when you haven’t a clue about what to wear. You need almost everything within the space of a few hours and to top it off you need your sun hat and your sunscreen as well.

A little while ago now, we managed to get out to the first few days of the Canberra Floriade. Sadly neither if us where overly impressed with the displays but some of that was to do with the fact that the tulips that the display was really relying on, were not actually even in bud yet and were it not for the fact that everything was under planted with winter pansies, there would not have been much to see at all.

We soon left, sadly. We decided to leave the Hidden Valley Tulip farm for another day.

Otherwise not much had been happening. I’ve got a bad shoulder at the moment, I didn’t do anything to it, it just flared up. An ultrasound has shown that there’s a problem with the bursa in one of the rotor cuff muscles and it has to be rested.

I’ll cover our garden in tbe next brief ‘postcard’ home.