A Pioneer's Out Back Trek

Grabbing the opportunity to soak up the winter sun and leave the wearying world of relentless work behind me, I packed a few life-support essentials and took myself to the outer reaches of the property for a bit of field observation... 

Now the drought is officially over, I'm hoping to get some of the plumbing repaired...

There ARE alternative water-sources, though, and handy little footbridges to reach them with... 

At last - my hideout - Australian vernacular architecture at its finest!

Others may have their gaudy palaces, but we in this land of bleaching sunlight are masters of the insubstantial, the perilous, the transitory...

How many artisans laboured here, burnt to a crisp, you ask...

Life is really a very simple matter of taking the world with you wherever you go...

Man can't live on bread and water alone, but adequately provisioned, the world is his oyster...

Not for me the fluff of the metropolis...

Observant as I am, I observe that Man needs no folly but to evacuate himself to the horizons...

Wherever he looks, Man shall behold beauty of one sort or another...

I cast my eyes about me, and see light in all, no darkness. Some would call this a wood-heap, but I see in it the way of the future...

There's always reason to revel...

Or just switch off. No doubt there will be further treks into territories unknown, if I'm not altogether lost in revelry. But I would sooner go to where there is nothing, than to where there is everything...

Devastating Garden Nightmare! Morning Tea-Party Utterly Ruined!

I normally consider my garden a sanctuary of hard-won tranquility, without any associated bitterness or frustration WHATSOEVER. This morning, however, just as I was about to take a breather and sample some light refreshments, I had a chilling premonition of immanent foreboding...

Was there something in the tea that made me lose my footing? Had the sudden burst of winter sunshine gone to my head? Who on earth put the wheelbarrow smack-bang in the middle of my repast?

Not being one to make a fuss or draw attention to myself, I naturally hauled myself up and took stock...

What a debacle! Thank goodness there were no witnesses!

Somehow I'd lost my appetite. Don't you just want to throw EVERYTHING into the compost heap some days and go and visit someone else's garden?

Why must I be so humiliated? I believe that was my very last lemon!

It's all really far too much. SOMEONE's going to have to clean this up. As if I didn't have a zillion things to do in the garden as it is!

I'll never eat al fresco again. It's time to buy a nice little high-rise apartment and sell my entire collection of 'Garden Perfectionist'.

At least SOME people are sympathetic...

Nest Box

 

 

Due to some unknown 'X factor', or perhaps the faulty electrical wiring to the house I live in, my computer will occasionally switch itself off. Sometimes, as lately, it will refuse to come back on for a couple of days. What impertinence! I have, however, had more time to weed and mulch ( which I won't show you ), and make what I can from what I find, as here... 

Unglamour ( As I Went Out One Frosty Morning )

Embarrassed as I am not to have revealed much of this garden - because so much of it is in formation, and lacks shapeliness or even shape - I took myself ( with frozen fingers ) and my accomplice ( with frozen feet ) out, this frosty morning ( throwing caution into the compost heap ), and took these arbitrary profiles...

Above, a couple of found beams...the redgum plank on the right will soon become a garden seat, giving me endless hours of outdoor entertainment...

Above, a stand of iris - species/variety?

Above, a faux woodland, or the beginnings of one...

Above, the area to the left is the largest of my compost heaps, interrupted by the careless intrusion of a shadowed figure in dressing-gown...

Fox in Socks - not bored at all... 

Above, some of the eucalypts I fortunately don't have to coax to survive...

I adore the orange daisy above, and there'll be some smart alec out there who knows what it is...

Some sort of Yucca thing...

Perhaps my favourite garden objet d'art...

Above, evidence of frost. I decided not to have breakfast in a reclining position...

At least I know these fabulous camellias are red...or crimson...

Above, two varieties of Hardenbergia climbing on a most attractive wire fence. The tougher and more common purple variety is determined to strangle the meek and delicate mauve variety - isn't it always the way?

I told you there was frost...

Above, my silvery bed with birch rods defining the circle, cut across by dramatic, gothic shadows. Go away, Fellini...

Above, lovely blue star flowers. Occasionally something grows according to plan...

winterflora

In a Way to Garden

How we do what we do in the particular informs how we do what we do in the overall.
Gardening is not only an expression of energy, but an approach, a delineation of temperament, judgement and attitude.
Gardens today encompass definitions they once never had, and perhaps there are others we no longer apply.
I'm not saying these images represent gardens as they are known, but they may be gardens seen from another angle.