A time of peace and reflection, with the promise of spring
The Age
Saturday July 18, 2009
I LOVE this time of year. The leaves have finished falling and are safely in the compost bins and the roses are nearly all pruned. It is lovely and damp, so the pea straw that I spread with a liberal hand is settling in and I am still able to keep just ahead of the extremely healthy weeds.It is very peaceful looking out through the bare branches into the green world beyond the garden fence. It is also relatively tidy because most plants are recovering from their autumn cut-back.While it may be quiet, it is not dull because the bulbs are coming up. The camellias are flowering, too, and winter vegetables are more interesting than summer ones - less work, too. The broad beans are so restful when they are just dear little seedlings and not falling about and needing support. The cabbages and cauliflowers are not being attacked by cabbage moth, the silverbeet and parsley and sorrel plants look small and healthy and not about to go to seed.What is particularly nice this year is my bed of Australian plants that replaced a large rose bed between the kitchen window and the chicken house. I had not appreciated the fact that "natives" flower in winter, nor had I looked at their flowers much. I am used to the idea that plants flower in spring and summer and, on the whole, that flowers will be very showy.This bed, which is in its third year, is a wall of delicate colour and I can see it clearly because the leaves have fallen from the huge deciduous trees that usually conceal it from view. It is much nicer than an uninterrupted view of pruned roses. I got expert advice about what to plant and I followed it.Only one plant variety has seemed sulky - Grevillea 'Winpara Gem' - but I don't know why. Possibly, it does not like the chicken manure with which I had been trying to encourage the tired old roses. Or it just does not like it here. All its companions do, so I shall replace it with one of them. The prostrate G. stenomera would certainly like the job as it is a ground cover, so lovely and dense and rampant that I wonder what it does to its companions in the wild.I need something taller though, so it is a toss-up between westringia or templetonia or Melaleuca armillaris 'Green Globe' with its soft foliage.If I have a chance, I will visit a nursery that specialises in native plants. My mother-in-law's advice "to never risk a plant you haven't seen at its best" is just as true for natives as exotics. The "best times" are just different. -- LUKI WEATHERLY
© 2009 The Age
