My deciduous trees and the roses are risking sudden death by budding while the possum’s still about, but it’s in the forest that Spring has really made a grand entrance. Its greens and browns and greys are being splashed and draped with mauves and purples, whites and creams, as shrubs and vines flower.
The delicate Indigofera is prettier than any garden shrub, with its pinkish/mauve spires and ferny foliage.
Above it was Clematis aristata, which climbs saplings and crowns them with its drifts of white stars and new green leaves, bending them in graceful arches.
Nobody planted them, nobody tends or prunes them. They’re just part of the annual Spring show here.
But this is the Garden of Eden, so the snakes come with the flowers.
Today I saw my first red-bellied black snake, a few metres away from my low bedroom window.
It was very fat and alert, head erect, bright of eye, but not moving quickly; it’s still a bit chilly here. I needed to watch where it went in case it was a new co-tenant.
But no, having come through the fence to let me know to watch where I’m walking even more carefully from now, it wound its way back up the slope and out under the gate.
Nevertheless, I put my gumboots on to go over to the vegie garden, and each slinky curve of hoses half-hidden in grass was suspect!