• Daily Life

    Little Things Bringing Great Pleasure

    Spring can never come fast enough, especially now that I’m into gardening and have been able to experience the almost indescribable delight of watching the seasonal transformation of plants. But, having been teased into taking action only for nature to take a U-turn, I’m being drawn to the less obvious delights on show in Kangaeroo Corner. Heading into the last few days of March, my expectation was that we could see plenty of flourishing grevillea, bottlebrush, banksia and protea, not to mention the explosion of pink from Japan’s national flower, the cherry blossom, which transforms the country into what I…

  • Daily Life

    Garden of Weedin’

    Spring has sprung (for today) at least, and the garden at Kangaeroo Corner looks resplendent thanks to early morning weeding, a mow and planting plenty of new plants. Weather helped, too, with delightful sunshine and warmth as the temperature topped 20 for the first time this year. I had planned to transplant some plants bought over the winter next week, when we have a holiday, but circumstances conspired against me and I won’t be able to do it that day, so things turned out perfectly by forcing me outside from just after dawn. With last year’s lawn woes in mind,…

  • Daily Life

    No Paws for Thought

    Kangaroo paws, the big success story of my Aussie seeds saga, and the one that most mattered to me, reached a new stage in their progress from propagation. Mrs. Kangaeroo noticed that they were crowding the large pot that I had planted them in, and if they weren’t moved they could end up choking each other. Showing a turn of speed I’m not known for (unless there’s chocolate around), I was off to the local 100 yen store to fill up on pots and stones to put at the bottom of them. Along the way, I put in an order…

  • Daily Life

    Fully Fern-Ished Garden

    Kangaeroo Corner has now got a fully fledged fern in place, with the amazing Alex Endo planting a dicksonia tree fern this morning. The fern went into the back entrance where the nandina had been. BEFORE Alex, who specializes in Aussie plants and creating gardens filled with Australian native plants and a magician who conjured up a magical transformation on Kangaeroo Corner a little over a year ago, also pruned the garden and got it looking even sharper. DURING It was important for me to have a dicksonia because they’re a tree almost synonymous with the Dandenong Ranges, where I…

  • Daily Life - Strine Tucker

    Saving Things For a Rainy Day

    It’s drizzling and miserable weather today, which provides a wonderful opportunity for an update as my customary lunchtime ride can be substituted. Lots has happened since my last post, but there’s little time to write about it, so this is a bit of a summary of the past couple of weeks. Perhaps most important is the passage of the first anniversary of my garden, Kangaeroo Corner, earlier this week. Amazing Alex, his mate, Mrs. Kangaeroo, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law built the garden as I was out with a broken leg at the time. It has since become one of the…

  • Daily Life

    Everlastings Love!

    Everlasting daisies have become the first plants I’ve potted after starting to grow them from seed. I planted the seeds in humidity pods on February 19. They germinated in a flash, with buds clearly visible within a week. They were starting to grow too big for the pods, so I decided to move to the next stage of the challenge to grow Aussie plants, which was transplanting in larger pots. I had 15 pods of everlasting seedlings to transfer, so I prepared the bigger pots for them using the recyclable pots I bought from the local Daiso. I filled the…

  • Daily Life

    Gentle Soul

    During a brief visit to Australia last year, after a separation of about 40 years I got to meet a schoolmate who I had greatly admired as a teen-ager, and he referred to me as someone “who always was a gentle soul.” It was one of the, if not the, nicest things anyone has ever said about me, in my opinion. Having something like that said about you would likely impress most, and I was deeply moved. It touched me enough that I remember it now, months later, when I struggle to recall anything that has happened just hours earlier.…

  • Daily Life

    Wattle Happen Next?

    It’s becoming increasingly clear that spring is not too far away, and the wattle tree in Kangaeroo Corner is giving hints of something about to spring into action. March, which starts tomorrow (der!), is traditionally a coldish month, with a warm day every few days here and there. This winter has been mild, especially when compared to the chilly one last year. But it’s still too bloody cold for too bloody long for my liking. Nonetheless, starting today we have a week of relatively warmer weather forecast. And I’m excited for the garden, particularly our wattle tree, which looks poised…

  • Daily Life

    Open Up Your Eyes, An Everlasting Bud!

    Kangaeroo’s Aussie seed experiment is moving forward, and today resulted in its first buds. Seedling growth came from an everlasting, a pink, yellow and white flower native to Western Australia. I potted everlasting seeds last weekend in humidity pods. They’ve been growing under lights daily ever since, except for Tuesday night when the power plug short-circuited. I’ve checked the pods daily to see how they are developing, so was delighted to see the little leaves sprout. Might have some stronger seedlings in the works. Once they have grown big enough, I will transplant them into pots and move them into…

  • Daily Life - Strine Why Atorkin/Australian Methods of Speech/豪語の話し方 - Unknown Nichigo - やばいリンガル - ストラインと日本語 - 豪cabulary

    The Fountain of Strewth!

    Has Kangaeroo mentioned that he’s got a garden? And he loves it! Just in case he hasn’t, let me remind you again that Kangaeroo Corner is a little Aussie plants garden in comfy outer suburb of Tokyo. And playing a prominent role in that Aussie garden is the Fountain of Strewth. At first glance, there seems to be nothing untoward about the fountain (which is actually a bird bath with a solar-power water sprayer, but still….). Except, of course, that few Tokyo homes have a fountain. But this is a little special, and that’s where the strewth factor comes into…