• 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

    Rav-AGE!

    Getting old is not much fun, nor, as the late, great thespian Bette Davis once famously said, it’s not for sissies. But I’ve becoming increasingly conscious of age over the past few weeks. My eyesight is going: quickly and rapidly. I’m seeing less in the dark and rain, vision is cloudy and peripheral vision untrustworthy. Arthritis in my hands is making even the most minor of tasks a tough one. And my professional life, such as it is, is slipping from disaster to disaster. All these things are adding up to fill me with fear and trepidation, which has become…

  • Daily Life - Strine Strife - Strine Tucker

    Paws and Reflect

    Possibly the most meaningful part of my Australian seeds experiment arose today when I transplanted my kangaroo paw seedlings. The great experiment, which I expected would result in me proving to have a green thumb and presenting all my gardening mates with exotic plants has proven only that I am all thumbs. I’ve killed nearly everything I planted, even the everlasting daises and golden everlastings that appeared to be growing so well. I bumped them off by putting them in a hothouse on a boiling hot day, then giving too much fertilizer to the plants that survived. A desert pea…

  • Strine

    Wistful Wisteria

    There’ve been better times than the past week, and hopefully the climbing hardenbergia comptoniana planted today augurs a rise out of the doldrums. I couldn’t sleep, so as soon as it was light, I got out into the garden, moving the lawn, weeding and my efforts culminating in re-potting the hardenbergia comptoniana, better known as the Australian native wisteria, which had grown too much for the humidity pods. Most of the seedlings have failed, so hopefully the wisteria will be a shining light. There’s still the promise of kangaroo paw and dwarf wattle. Not much else promising going on. Work absolutely…

  • Daily Life

    Blowout! Even Fartilizer Couldn’t Help

    Well, strong winds have put paid to a lot of my experiment in growing seeds from Australian native plants, and even fartilizer couldn’t help. Gale-force winds daily for pretty much the past week made life tough for the little seedlings on the patio at Kangaeroo Corner. Watering, care, and even magical powders were not enough to save the golden everlastings, with one or two sickly looking seedlings barely hanging on and the rest returning to their organic origins. Two of the three desert peas that seeded were blown over and destroyed. They’ll get an Aussie garden burial anyway, in some…

  • Strine

    Golden Girl

    La Cangura is the name of my bike, a beautiful gunmetal and gold-trimmed machine from Orbea, a manufacturer from Spain, hence the name (which means The Kangaroo in English). She looks delightful in among the canola, the yellow hues of the bike and the flowers a wonderful match. Just wish I was having as much luck with my flowers and other plants in the Kangaeroo Corner garden. I’m relatively new to the gardening caper, only having really taken a great interest in it since Amazing Alex made the Aussie garden for us in March 2022. While the garden is, for…

  • Daily Life

    Blowin’ In The Wind

    Tokyo spring tends to be windy, and it is blowing up a gale in the suburbs of the Japanese capital right now. This morning I got to fly for a few kilometers, backed by a tremendous tailwind. Of course, barring a meteorological miracle, where there’s a tailwind, there’s almost always a headwind that needs to be addressed. So, while the first stage of the ride literally flew by in no time, the home straight was a much greater grind. Still, it did allow me the time to stop and take a look at the late-blooming cherry blossoms, with a stretch…

  • Daily Life

    Otherwordly!

    Strange things are at play today, starting with a sunrise that for a fleeting moment created a scene like the cover of a pulp science fiction book from the ’50s or ’60s. The sun was shaped like a perfect disc and rose above the horizon, turning the early morning sky into a hazy shade of pink. Gradation of light meant that this blended into the gray and specks of blue that were also evident and made for a spectacular sight. It was lovely to ride. The light is enormous, and being able to see from the get-go makes a huge…

  • Daily Life

    Minding My Peas, and Queues

    In my Aussie plant grow from seed experiment, desert peas moved outdoors today, with more budding plants queueing to join them. Only three of 12 desert pea seeds germinated, but did so strongly. Nonetheless, having struggled with clumsiness when repotting everlastings last month, I was better prepared this time. By that, I mean Mrs. Kangaeroo stepped up to the plate. She would handle the task of gently shifting the seedlings from humidity pod to pot. As always (except in her choice of men), she was superb. We used a potting mix containing soil for Australian native plants, starter soil from…

  • Daily Life

    Putting the ‘Ning’ Into Gardening

    Despite parents who were avid gardeners – Dad even worked as a part-time gardener – and growing up surrounded by greenery, I never got into horticultural pursuits until I got a plot of my own and became enthralled, even though I’m a bloody ning-nong in the yard. I don’t really know what I am doing and have a garden of Aussie plants that probably need a little bit of special care because of the climatic conditions they may not be suited for. It’s a case of live and learn, but I love it. I wish my ignorance was less harmful…