Wattle, Blossom and Old Friends

I'm fascinated by the way plants respond to the changing seasons and welcome the flowering of different species each year as if they are old friends. Winter's last few gloomy weeks in this area are brightened by numerous golden wattles and blossoms of both fruiting and ornamental trees. Bees buzz around the blooms as they search for nectar and pollen, and pollinate my fruit crops as they go. Sometimes the sun breaks through, for a moment or a day, and glistens on the raindrops that linger on the flower petals.

Especially colourful this year are a few wattles that seeded in the mulch around the vegie garden and were subsequently potted and planted into the garden. Seeds from a tree that hangs over the fence make the most of conditions in my garden and dozens of tiny trees come up every year. Mostly I pull them up, treating them as weeds because I don't have space to plant many, but I'm glad I have found room for three of them to grow. It did seem a waste not to use more of them. Then I thought of an old friend who lives on a farm out of town. She does have space, lots of space. Now many of the seedlings are dug up and sent to a new home. As well, last year some mysterious little plants grew in a pot of soil that I'd left in the vegie garden. When they had developed a little, I identified them as callistemons, also from a tree next door. They too have found a new home on the farm.

The other day my friend brought me a beautiful bunch of camellias from an old tree on the farm. Life would be less colourful, less interesting, without our old friends.

      

'My Mum Collects Plants'

When my daughter Stacy was a litle girl (maybe about 8 years  old), she showed off her collections one day to a visitor: shells, gemstones, rocks, feathers, Barbie dolls. The visitor asked her whether her mummy (me) collected anything. Stace replied, 'My mum collects plants and I think she'd die without them'. I was astonished at the time that she had even thought about how I spent my time in the garden, much less come to such a conclusion. I was reminded of this incident today.

I have never been a plant collector in the way we often think of people who go out of their way, travelling to far-flung locations, or paying others to do so, to obtain rare and unusual specimens, but I do get excited about buying and planting new plants. Today, encouraged by a mild, sunny day, I visited a nursery in a nearby town, came home with a car loaded with plants and spent a happy couple of hours getting them in the ground.

The whole experience was a pleasure, from browsing around a very well set up nursery, to having a simple lunch in the garden cafe, to choosing what to buy, then coming home and deciding where to plant the new babies. At the present stage of its development, my garden is full, with no room for more trees or shrubs. However, replacement of the edging around some beds has extended their perimeters and given me some planting-around-the-edges opportunities.

The new babies are delphiniums, ericas, pansies, sedums and kangaroo paws. The delphiniums, which are worth their the effort for their gorgeous colour, will stay in pots on the deck because snails love them and this is a very snaily garden. The other plants have been placed around the edges of existing beds and will give the beds a lift when they grow a bit. The ericas and kangaroo paws, as well as looking good and being very hardy, will provide more food for nectar-feeding birds, which already frequent the garden regularly.

I don't know that I would die without new plants, but obtaining, planting and nurturing them is certainly one of life's great pleasures.


  

Life and Death in the Rainforest

Visits to Noosa never seem complete until we have walked the coastal track to Hell's Gates, or at least part of it. Spectacular ocean views on one side and tangled forest on the other make it a popular walk, or run, and the track can become quite crowded. On our recent holiday we noticed a track heading inland, labelled 'Palm Grove Circuit' and decided to explore this one. Wow! What an experience.

There was no one else there; that's right, not a single other person did we meet up with on the whole circuit. The track wound through an area of lush rainforest, with some of the tallest and oldest trees I've seen. 

Groves of palms reached for the sky, their canopies a lacy network far above us. The silence was a gift. The combined aromas of rotting vegetation and living trees were strangely heady. The soft humidity seemed to be the comforting breath of the forest. All combined to create an atmosphere of primeval fecundity, a glimpse of a world before humans. 

Most of all it was a huge ecosystem reminder of the relationship between life and death. There were strangler figs slowly killing their host trees. In any gap where larger plants had died or fallen and sunlight could penetrate the canopy, numerous seedlings had germinated and were competing for nutrients and light. The dead trees and fallen leaves, as they decompose, are a source of nutrients for new life. A rotting stump might support mosses and seedling trees. Even living tree trunks support new plants that have taken root in any available niche.

Our gardens are smaller scale examples of the way that death and decomposition drive new life. We use many once-living plant materials as mulch and fertiliser. Added to these are multitudes of dead bodies of insects, birds, frogs, lizards, spiders, micro-organisms and other (mostly unseen) denizens of the soil. As they decompose, they release nutrients that feed our chosen plants. Without the process of decomposition vegetated ecosystems would die under the weight of their own detritus.

Similarly (though without pushing the analogy too far), how often do we hear of the death of a grandparent or great-grandparent at about the same time as the birth of a new baby? It is all part of the cycle of life and death, in the rainforest, in our gardens, in our lives.