Tag: spring

Floriade and Friendship

Many a weekend is spent on housework and chores. That’s a fact of life for those of us who work full-time. But there’s more to life than dishes and socks. Weekends also need to include recreational activities to recharge us.

This week my dear friend Heidi announced she would come to visit. We live about 110 km from each other but even with this relatively short distance in Australian terms, we don’t see each other often. I suggested going to Floriade, a Canberran institution which is held every year in September. She readily agreed.

Floriade is a celebration of spring held at Commonwealth Park each year. An overall theme is selected for the various garden bed designs. This year Floriade features 12 large garden beds highlighting Australian Scientists through the contribution they made to a scientific field. The garden bed themes have names such as Molecular Structure, Spectrum and Petri Dish. By carefully observing the design of each bed, the theme presents itself. My favourites were the double helix for DNA and the Atom.

While massed tulips are the main attraction, there are many varieties of flowers in an assortment of colours. There are Pansies, Chrysanthemums, Hyacinths and Violas to name but a few. Each display is painstakingly planted to represent the facets of science it celebrates. It can be difficult to discern the images portrayed from ground level but when viewed from above, the images become clear.

I suggested going on the Ferris Wheel to get a better view. After a long wait, we clambered into a swinging carriage that was to take us up for a better view. From above, it was much easier to discern the themes. It was very windy at the top and we rocked from side to side which made taking pictures difficult. Our best photos came from when we stopped half way up.

Heidi and I had a wonderful time exploring the gardens. We were mesmerised by the variety of colours of the flowers we encountered. Black Pansies and deep purple hyacinths! We had never seen either of these. We marvelled at the ingenuity of the of the garden bed designers.

While the flowers occupied the centre of attention, we still had time to catch up with each other’s lives. We are empty nesters; our children flapping their fledgling wings. We talked about our plans for retirement, the joys of having a dog, our fears for future generations.

There is immense comfort in a friendship that has lasted forty years. Surprisingly, in all that time, we have only lived in the same town for roughly two years. Yet like tulips at the Floriade, our friendship has returned season after season, surprising us with vivid palettes of colour and the patina that the years provide.

Weather Whiplash

I must have blinked and missed it. A week ago, night-time temperatures were in the single digits but today spring has arrived and daytime temps are in the twenties. Trees that seemed dormant a few days back are suddenly blooming. Not just one or two trees, but rows of trees along streets that appeared bare the last time I looked.

Officially, spring is at least another week away, yet Sydney basked in 27 degrees today. This past year has been the second warmest on record, but fortunately rainfall has been average, at the very least in the Eastern states. Luckily, because bushfire season is starting earlier each year and dry vegetation acts like kindling.

For the 16 years that we lived in the Blue Mountains, every spring brought with it that heart-in mouth feeling as fire trucks raced by. My daughter developed a keen sense of bushfires. She can smell one miles away. This is the inadvertent training young children get who live in fire prone areas. We saw the destruction around us with alarming regularity and knew several people who lost their homes. I never knew the full extent of the effect it had on me until I left.

Unfortunately, it is expected that we will have to endure more heatwaves, extreme conditions in summer and increasingly hazardous weather conditions earlier than ever before and not just in Australia. We will all have to learn mitigation tactics and put an end to being complacent about our impact on the planet. It is high time we stop talking about the weather and work together to actively improve the climate.

The wild garden

Blackbirds sing their songs of love to my crushed heart. I look to the garden you planted only a few years ago and am astonished at the height of the trees. The wind rustles slender silver birches and the leaves of ornamental pears shiver in rapport. Bees head for an overgrown patch of woody lavender, then to the purple snake bush and the rosemary. These are the only flowers in bloom this early in spring, but I can see budding carnations which are only days in the offing. Apart from these blue hues, the garden captures the full range of verdant tones from olive to sage, emerald to St Patrick’s Shamrock green.

The riot of roses that will transform the garden to a perfumed oasis are yet to emerge. I won’t cut their first blush for your bedside this year. The table shall remain bare, a reminder, should I need one, that you are no longer there. The roses will bloom, and I will reminisce, yearning for the gardener who brought life to barren land. Yes, I will see the beauty of the roses and I shall feel the full sting of their thorns.

A summer without you, in the garden you have sown, is hard to envision. It will live on, your creation, even if you are no longer here to tend it. My heavy hands will attempt your work and every flower will remind me of you.

I asked for an untamed garden, a garden of reckless colour, a garden that reflected my heart and you delivered. And now, now that you have left to return to the eternal, I grieve in the wild garden of my soul.

Spring

Spring has come suddenly. A week ago, temperatures were still in single digits and icy Antarctic winds blew across paddocks. This week, an azure sky greets us each morning and buds are shaking off their winter mantle, emerging from their deep sleep.

In a single day, leaves appear and apple blossoms beckon bees to their nectar. The first flies emerge and even they are a welcome sight. A young green backed crimson rosella who has come looking for seeds is quickly set right when she intrudes on an adult pair feeding. Stocky, crested pigeons arrive and there’s a stand-off between the birds. A dog barks and the pigeons take off with a characteristic whistling sound. This is created as air flutters between narrow feathers on its wing. A pied currawong lands and has a furtive look but is driven away by a pair of magpies. They feed, crane their necks towards the sky and warble in gratitude before leaving.

In the backyard, the lawn is overgrown. A languid blue tongue lizard emerges from the shadows seeking the sun. It could be mistaken for a garden ornament until something catches its eye. Suddenly it moves with diagonally opposite feet at unexpected speed. It is a reminder that snakes are also coming out of brumation and are looking for food, warmth and a mate.

After a wet winter, water lies in flooded ditches and the Eastern froglet can be heard from a distance. The deafening sound is easily confused with that of a cricket except that the chirp is at a slightly lower pitch. There must be dozens of these critters creating such a racket. Not even walking past with dogs disturbs the male frog’s amorous call.

Ornamental prunus blush pink along the nature strip, like bridesmaids at a wedding. They sway in the September wind, decidedly underdressed in blossoms without foliage. Other trees experiment with sending their first leaves to their stem tips. Is it time to let the next ones unfurl or is it better to wait? The silver birches err on the side of caution and hold tightly onto their buds. They aren’t ready yet to trust the change of season.

It seems the birches are right. As the afternoon progresses, the wind pulls across a blanket of grey clouds to cover the sky and temperatures drop back to single digits. Trees shiver and blossoms begin to lose their precious first petals. Tree branches knock against the windowpane as if asking to be let in from the cold. Spring may dither in these first few weeks of September but there’s no holding back its promise of abundant splendour.