Summer may have come and gone with a hiss and a roar but my goodness the intense heat was beating on every living thing. Everywhere (like so many other places) was dry and yearning urgently for water!
The roses, thankfully, hung on…. just, and the hydrangeas, but of course the natives always take the award for being outstandingly beautiful – no matter what the season!
The fruit trees were great over summer with plums, now apples and pears and with an abundant supply of persimmons ripening. The figs on the courtyard I thought were never going to recover from the Christmas/New Year absence of water, have resurrected themselves and they now have fruit on them – must be those wonderful Daltons products…..together with a little TLC!
Over summer we left our vege garden virtually empty because of the incessant heat except for capsicum and a few tomatoes with some salad greens and edible flowers growing in pots so we could look after them more easily! But where there is a garden – there is always hope and an exclamation of joy when you find something unexpected like eggplants hiding under greenery in the shade or a cluster of violas under the cool umbrella of the big fruit trees.
Although it is still dry, we are welcoming the autumn rain, and you can almost hear the garden sigh with joy! We will replenish the soil and start planting out some winter greens and do some pruning and maintenance as we move towards the colder months.