The urban garden 3

Festival to festival

Christmas 2021 brought more surprises than the contents of Santa’s sack- the overnight and spectacular flowering of a cactus that had been dormant forever.

Then completely out of the blue, the flowering of the porcelain plant or Hoya Carnisa with its weird waxy flowers. After years in a pot, and me wondering if I was cultivating a weed, it produced the strangest of blooms.

Summer proceeded with the fragrant jasmine with its white star flowers, the native frangipani beloved of our local bird life and the purple blossomed tree with the yellow pods that I haven’t yet identified.

By far the most dramatic event of the season was “treegate” – the chopping and chipping of the gorgeous palm that adjoined our yard from the adjacent laneway. One day I was horrified to see an oversized truck roll up the laneway and hear the angry snarl of a chainsaw. I rushed outside to intervene but before I could chain myself to the tree (metaphorically) it was disappearing into the woodchipper. Gone was our backyard privacy and, more importantly for the garden, afternoon shade for the plants. As a solution, a potted olive tree from the shady front was moved to the rear. It is thriving in its new sunny position but it will be a long time until it provides the same effect as the palm.

Now at Easter the sense in the garden is of the coming of winter. The summer blooms are in their final flush although the purple tree is going strong along with the rejuvenated olive tree.