Well And Truly Spring

(© Country Patch Collections)

Today, for the first time this season, I sent my kids off to school without a sweater.

The weather is turning (Spring for us down under), activities and menus are changing, and we've entered into that lovely transitional phase between the cold, rainy winter and the stiflingly-hot summer. Also, Spring (and Autumn) are traditionally a little easier on our budget without the need to get the gas heater or ducted air-conditioner going.

What a lovely weekend we had! With the warmer weather, my thoughts turn to the garden, and trust me when I say, I'm no gardener! Hubs has long since removed all plant-buying privileges however several weeks ago he strangely agreed to my request to buy something...anything...in lieu of a puppy.

We settled on cute little pink daisy bush. We brought it home from the plant nursery along with some potting mix (our soil isn't wonderful) and prompty set about situating it in the ground. For the first few days, all was well. And then the flowers started to turn brown.

I panicked.

I distinctly remembered the conversation Hubs and I had had in the nursery the day we bought it. "If it dies, we're not buying another plant. Ever!" And so I fretted something fierce for days, as I watched the gorgeous pink daisy heads wither, shrivel, and fall off, one by one. Eventually, I told Hubs. He promptly informed me that Daisy was at the end of her flowering season and the plant was doing a bit of a natural 'dead heading'. And then he laughed. Because I'm that bad at gardening!

See? Still green!

This is just one of a vast number of examples I could bring forth to illustrate my utter lack of growing abilities. And yet I mention it now because, well, the garden really could do with a bit of a spruce-up now the sun is out and since I've survived the first few weeks of a new plant, my calculations tell me I'm ready to adopt another, LOL.

Okay, so we've established I'm a horrible gardener. However, one of the best parts of my garden (which is small, by the way), is a jasmine creeper growing on a fence along the side of the house. Oh, how I'd dearly love to 're-do' that whole narrow garden bed, but it sits in 90% shade every single day and all plants I like enjoy the sun. It would be a perfect spot for a vegetable garden if the sunshine would co-operate. Anyhow, I know exactly when the weather has turned for the season when the heavenly scent of jasmine starts to float on through the bathroom/main bedroom/bedroom 2 windows (all along that side of the house) on a warm day. I absolutely love the smell of jasmine. Ah, good days.


Oh, and a few weeks ago, we noticed a nest secreted away at the top of the vine attached to our pergola. Hubs eventually got up there with the camera this week and this is what we found:

That's an itty-bitty baby pigeon. We'd been watching it's Mama come and go for the last month and knew it had laid two eggs (we're still not quite sure if there's one or two babies). This nest is within 2 metres (6 feet) of our backdoor, and if you've got kids under the age of ten, you'll know the term 'barrelling out the back door' intimately, LOL. And that's exactly what they'd been doing. Us too, on occasion. The poor Mama would have a little birdie heart attack, fly directly upward, and almost knock herself out on the pergola roof! So each time a kid goes out back to play, there's always a qualifier attached - "But only if you don't scare the pigeon!" (And I hope our good deed is returned when the two of them go elsewhere to do their pigeon-poops!) Thankfully Mama just looks down on us with bemused detachment these days, having grown accustomed to the noisy intrusion. But I doubt she'll be back next year!

And finally, I offer you this:


This monstrosity is the work of my Hubs. Nope, its not dead. Yet. Can you see the edges of the plants next to this one? It's foliage was originally all the way out on all sides, easily five or six feet across and probably five feet tall, and Hubs decided he didn't like how 'overgrown' it looked. It took him a month, but he finally managed to clip the whole thing. We have a kerbside green waste service (similar to the usual trash pick-up) but it only comes once a month. We filled the green waste bin in time for pick-up one month, kept trimming and filled it up again, and in the time it took for the next monthly pick-up to roll around to empty the second bin-full, Hubs progressively cut a little more each week and stuffed it down the bottom of our regular rubbish bin. It was a LOT of greenery. Now it just looks dead, sitting directly in front of my front door, next to lovely green shrubs. Aughh.

I may actually have to pull some weeds today. That's how happy this weather is making me!

Cheers,
Lizzie