garden

And the walls came down…

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My house yard fence, so painstakingly erected and heightened over the last 17 years, is slowly being dismantled. No easy task, as the tussocks have grown through the netting, but my helper is so much stronger than I am.

As the four gates have been open to the wallabies and roos for nearly two years, and I am no longer likely to have visiting horseriders or dog owners requiring a yard, there seemed no point.

And there are many advantages. I can mow directly across my firebreak more easily and I can see to the forest edge unfettered by wire netting. Much better for photographs too!

Only two sides are down so far, and I am noticing how the overall feeling of the outlook has changed as the netting falls and the line between domesticated and wild disappears.

Much more convenient for the wallabies too.

The gates still standing look symbolic rather than functional. I must take note if the animals still go through the gate, following the track they have worn, or ‘jaywalk’ at will.

For me, it’s as if I can breathe better as my self-imposed barrier disappears. In The Woman on the Mountain I did say it was Wallaby World here; it’s even more so now!

Twisteroo

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The kangaroos are being driven crazy at present with some sort of bitey insects. They are choosing to lie in any dusty spots, which are mainly on the track, where their swishing tails sweep it smooth. 

This male grey kangaroo was ‘caught short’ by the horse flies or fleas or whatever they are, just inside my gate. (There’s no fence now, just a gate!)

His contortions to reach them were impressive for such a big fellow.

Claws and teeth are employed in search of relief; he’s better at reaching those awkward spots than I am.

Job done, he glances around and notices me watching through the window. The look he gives me — ‘So what are you gawking at?’ –—makes me feel a little ashamed of my voyeurism.

‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘but I’m admiring you!’

I am very glad these big fellows are coming in more often; they are still wary. I hope they will accept my respect and that I will keep my distance. In turn, to see them lying down at their ease, big as ponies, in my yard, is a true honour.

Exotic whites

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Whilst I live in the middle of 165 acres of natural bushland, a huge ‘native garden’, I appreciate my small pocket of exotic botanica, introduced plants that don’t want to go walkabout.

From my desk I am treated all day to the ethereal beauty of the white wisteria on the verandah, flowering for the second year, after 15 years of refusal. It has a light perfume, well worth keeping the window open in front of me.

On my way to the clothesline I detour around the long arches of the May bush, its clusters of simple flowers adding honey scents to the spring perfume mix in my yard.

The bees like it, but not as much as the pretty flowers of the enormous Nashi trees, although they smell rather unpleasantly like bleach, not honey.

But once past those, I can compensate with one of my favourite scents, from the friesias around the fig tree. Even better, I can pick some to take the scent inside. 

None of these exotic beauties will last long, so I make sure to look my fill while they are here. As you may have guessed, I like white flowers.

Damp delights

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After a week of rain, cabin-bound except for squelching dashes to get wood, it was a treat to be able to walk about outside. 

While the cloud was keeping its weeping to itself, it was hugging the ground, reluctant to depart.

But still much easier weather for a perky kookaburra to keep an eye out for grubs on the move or emerging worms.

My dam overflow gully was running like the stream I wish it was, gurgling over rocks and bringing the moss to its brightest, greenest velvet.

When we first moved here in the 1970s, living in a tent, we got our fresh water from this springfed ‘stream’ for weeks.

But it’s not only the moss that loves the damp weather. The lichens are positively leaping into prominence from their encrustations on rocks and bark and whatever else will stand still long enough. They add cold colour, icy greens that shade to white and mimic coral. 

Fashion fungi

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Under the big stringybark tree the leaf litter is deep. It is home to a whole world of bugs and grubs I am sure, but also an incubator for some astonishingly beautiful fungi. The winter colours in vogue this year are striking — and both are new to me.

This solitary smart purple number poked its head through the other day. It is quite small.  From my book I can only guess it might be a Cortinarius, but is it C. archeri or C.aff.violaceus, or another variety not in my book? Is the stem pale lilac really?

There’s only one so I’m not going to break it to check its gills or flesh to be able to get the name right!

Under the same spreading tree, about three metres away, I spotted several of these; elegantly coloured two-tone, olive-green above a subtle amber yellow. In the surrounding leaves, more are getting ready to make their debut.

Green is not a common colour in our fungi, so I hope I am right in guessing this is Dermocybe austrovenenta.

Miniature marvels

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I am a sucker for miniatures, natural or man-made.  Having taken many photos of large and impressive webworks, presumably by large spiders, I was charmed to come across these creations by smaller artists.

Jewelled perfection slung between two twigs, yet smaller than my thumb. Awe-inspiring.

I walked about the garden seeking more treasures, and on a birch tree I found a tiny horizontal arrangement, a diamond net to catch a cloud-drop.

Such beauties are why I love living close to nature. They keep me sane, in a wider world that does not value these intricate riches as I do. After all, there is no export ‘demand’ for ephemeral diamonds.

Perfect pods

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The small details of the plant world often make me wish I’d become a botanist. In my day, if they were ‘going on’ after high school, girls did nursing or teaching — to tide them over until they got married.

I have been unable to decide whether, had I been born later, I’d have studied botany or industrial design. I see similarities between the two – functionality and beauty.

The young indigenous Native Frangipani trees (Hymenosporum flavum) that I have raised and planted are themselves seeding now. A new generation. The pods look like green four-lobed fruit until they brown, split in two, and fan out their channels of round, rimmed seeds like decks of cards, or stacks of coins.

These delicate and quaint beauties made me think of Leunig’s Mr Curly cartoons, of swans, of shy creatures unknown.

I couldn’t draw a more exquisitely curving line than they each have. The seed pods are woody but feather-light, carrying one black seed each in a shapely niche.

The shrub they are from, a hakea, is not indigenous and to my shame I have forgotten what it is called, but it had creamy fountains of flowers and the butterflies loved it.

I usually note down everything I plant, so if someone can please enlighten me, I will remedy that omission!

Marsupial mowers

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Having opened my house yard gates over a year ago, I never expected to have to mow grass again. Given that I was sacrificing so many garden plants and shrubs to the apparently omni-herbivorous marsupials who took up the occupancy offer…

I should have known better. They don’t like long grass, tussocks or certain introduced grasses that must have come in with horse feed. They were too busy with roses and lavender and jasmine and grapevines and citrus to bother with most of the grassed areas.

When I finally began to mow the jungle again, the kangaroos appreciated it, immediately claiming the ‘lawn’ section as their afternoon lolling spot.

Then the mower gave it up as too long, too dense, too damp, and so it remains.

But wallaby or roo, they love kikuyu.

Hearing clicking sounds floating in through my ‘office’ window the other day, I went to investigate.

Several wallabies were so assiduously working on the kikuyu near the cabin that they were audibly chomping, pulling up the grass and snapping the stems.

On the other side of the cabin, a young wallaby was sitting in the trench, paws on the table as it nibbled its way through the grassy fare laid upon it — not kikuyu.

The elongated rear view thus offered was interesting because of the distinct colour changes in its fur.

They are called Eastern Red-necked Wallabies but they are also Red-tail-based and the shadings to grey and back again are soft and subtle.

When it abruptly sat up, its little dark-rimmed ears erect and alert and its childish elbows tucked in close, I followed its stare. A black snake, scooting into the long grass, too fast for the camera.

At least I can see them in shorter grass; keep eating, I urged the wallaby!

Lemon Tea trees

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I love all natural lemony scents and flavours. I love lemons, and have many lemon trees of the cultivated and bush varieties, never wanting to be without lemon juice or peel in the kitchen.

But I also have two native trees with lemon-scented leaves.

This little beauty is the Lemon Myrtle (Backhousia citriodora), and I pick and dry its leaves to add whole to my teas.

On the tree, you have to crush a leaf to get the perfume. The beautiful starry clusters of flowers are a bonus I hadn’t expected from this Queensland rainforest tree.

The other is a Lemon Scented Ti-Tree or Tea Tree (Leptospermum petersonii). It too can be used to make tea, although I haven’t. It’s grown into a lovely spreading shape, and the slightest brush against the leaves does release a strong lemon scent.

From a distance — like the house — the simple white flowers seem to dust the tree with light snow.

This one has a history: it seeded itself into a pot of aloe vera I had sat beneath the only tree in the tiny back yard of an inner-Sydney semi I was renting.

I love chance seedings — and freebies! 

Green Glory Vine

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Noticing that the first reddish tones of Autumn were appearing in some leaves of the Glory Vine that clothes the western ends of my verandah and mud walled cabin, I decided I’d better celebrate its green stage before I lost it for the year.

I am always astonished at how vigorous it is, how far it grows over summer from being totally cut back to woody stumps each winter.

Despite — or perhaps because of? — the wallabies nibbling the lower shoots and trying to get at more from my verandah, it was even more far-reaching.  As you see, I netted the bottom vines, barred my verandah access, and off it took!

As it reached higher I strung more wires for it, which were greedily seized, enveloped and looped about, gradually  greening and cooling the afternoon light through the windows.

Don’t worry about it blocking that door — there’s a bookshelf on the other side anyway!

The door is there because the cabin was only ever half-built, one wing of the original — and still intended — ‘V’ design. One day.

Once on the verandah the Glory Vine takes second place to the Wisteria, threading its broad fans through the finer fronds, adding texture as well as pattern and of course, more shade, to this western corner.

So before I start waxing lyrical about the riotous colours of Autumn — glory to the green Glory Vine!

Back to normality

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I had been worried about the aberrant, non-fruit pinching behaviour of the seasonal fruit-pinching birds like the King Parrots and the Bower Birds.

They had allowed me cherries, mulberries, figs and peaches — as they never had before.

But then last week normality returned, as the King Parrots squawked  and gorged in the tall and heavily-laden Nashi tree, knocking many fruits and quite a few leaves and twigs to the ground, nibbling bits out of many other Nashis in the tight bunches. I had judged them not advanced enough to pick and let ripen indoors, but clearly I was wrong.

Look at the expression on this one’s face, caught with a beakfull of Nashi flesh, on the alert in case I was going to shoo them off, or approach too close.  What a gorgeously coloured bird!

I’m sort of glad they are behaving normally again; but I’d better pick what’s left of those Nashis…

Lemon tree life

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On one common lemon tree in my yard — and I have raised many, never wanting to be short of lemons — I have discovered  a busy metropolis of green creatures.

This bejewelled and banded, spotted and spiked emerald caterpillar is one of about a similar six that I could easily see — the inquisitive bristling head of another is just visible to the lower left of the beauty on full display.

Plenty of evidence of leaf munching, and plenty more leaves to munch. Other caterpillars looked less relaxed, and a couple were arching, perhaps getting ready to change from the butterfly larva it really is, to the next stage, the pupa.

A few years ago I had photographed a similar knobbly green pupa or cocoon on another ‘proper’ lemon tree in my orchard and my web visitors had identified it for me as that of the Orchard Butterfly.  But I never saw it hatch, or the Butterfly.

You can see the fine ‘silk’ attaching it to the stem — and what great camouflage!

Coincidentally, while circling this tree looking for more butterfly life cycle evidence, I found my tiny New Year frog again. This lemon is right next to the hydrangea where I saw him then, so it could be the same Eastern Dwarf Tree Frog.

And then, on the same damp day, but on a different and very non-citrus tree, I was lucky enough to spot the Orchard Butterfly herself — big and boldly patterned and very still, perhaps drying those gorgeous wings.

It’s interesting that all the three stages of the life cycle are present at once. Is this usual?