The Small Things In Life

It is often the smallest things in life which give the most pleasure: a sunny day, the voice of a friend, a smile from a stranger, a tiny flower. And I was reminded of this as I grappled with my obsessive desire to weed every last cape weed out of my garden, but no not just my garden, my paddocks too. Who does that? Well me it seems. Whilst having an aching back and stiff hands I was suddenly noticing the small things, which I might not have otherwise seen, as I crouched down low amongst the native grasses: a frog, disturbed no doubt by my digging nearby, a tiny native orchid, Diuris chryseopsis, brightest yellow Hypoxis hygrometrica, and Wurmbea dioica (commonly known as Early Nancy). It was early in the morning and the native ducks were calling from the trees and the Rosellas chattering nineteen to the dozen. The magpies were following behind me searching for breakfast in the newly disturbed ground. All this made me so glad that I am obsessive about eradicating cape weed from my patch!

That was in the paddock where things are encouraged to be ‘au naturel’ but I have found equal delight in my garden. I have quite suddenly seen an explosion in numbers of brightest red lady birds. These tiny busy bodies are definitely welcome in my garden where they will quickly snaffle up any aphids silly enough to hang about for long. I’m so excited to see my plants delighting in the moist, warming ground and showing it by growing apace: an early abundance of flowers, fresh leaves and new growth.

We have had good rain this last month but never the less I have been putting in new irrigation lines where I have done new plantings so that I can put drippers to the youngest of plants. I seriously do not want to be hand watering  these young plants weekly through summer. The weeks go way too quickly if I do that. At the same time this year I’m planning to turn off more drippers to the larger of my plants which should by now have put down deep, deep roots.

At the nursery we have a couple of welcome additions to our Correa collection: Correa ‘Pink Frost’ and Correa ‘Lemon Twist’. ‘Pink Frost’ is a small pretty Correa, 0.5mH x 0.5mW, with pink bell flowers and unusual crinkly leaves which give the look of being frosted with icing sugar. ‘Lemon Twist’ is a vigorous ground cover Correa, 0.2mH x 1.1mW, with relatively large creamy green bell flowers. In my garden both are growing in full sun. Both these Correa have recently come out of the cutting bed and are currently growing into their pots…..keep an eye out for them at the nursery in the next few weeks.

We hope to see you up at the nursery this season but in the mean time get in amongst it all and enjoy the small things in life.