Spring has really kicked into motion, one of the upshots being that our garden presents us with a new gift nearly every day. Our garden is providing us with a series of new flowers one after another. Hardenbergias have been giving me great delight for a few weeks now, particularly because I grew all of our four thriving plants from seeds I brought back from Australia. But our biggest surprise this year has come from the white paperbark teatree, which we picked up in a bargain basement bin at our local home center and have now been rewarded with a…
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Our garden, Kangaeroo Corner (even though it’s not a corner), is unabashedly at its best in the spring, though it also thrives in places during the other seasons. Flowers are blooming now, bringing immense delight. Flowers I grew from seeds–hardenbergia and kangaroo paw now, a dwarf wattle that briefly flourished last year before I killed it through neglect, and hopefully some banksia–bring a special kind of joy. Having said that, the garden hasn’t provided the comprehensive delight it had brought at times in previous years. Part of the reason is that it hasn’t needed to. For the few years up…
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I’m in a mad rush today because my customary morning riverside bike ride continued for almost twice as long as usual despite being roughly the same length as I was mesmerized by the spectucular blooming of spring flowers, which mostly means cherry blossoms. I was waylaid by the sights on a number of occasions. One beauty trap lured me along a river I rarely traverse. I was rewarded by a whole series of breath-taking views. The upshot was that I was late getting home. And didn’t shower until half an hour or more than my usual time. Which meant I…
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Nothing really remotely related to the lyrics, except the hardenbergia has bloomed beautifully and I am loving the dainty violet flowers popping up in the garden. And I am even happier because I grew the flowers from seed, which is an accomplishment I had never imagined possible (despite its mundaneness), and one that brings immense delight. Work is a little bit crazy at the moment, and I am also supposed to be studying, so I have little time on my hands. Added to that, the new fiscal year starts today and for the next 12 months I will be serving…
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Cherry blossoms have started to bloom in Tokyo’s suburbs. For the most part, flowers have yet to reach peak bloom along my most-traversed part of the Tama River. But in some of the areas where the flowers are at their best, the view is lovely. It was a bonus to be able to see them in flower this morning as I had presumed the entire weekend to be a washout. It rained incessantly yesterday. It gave me time to do some much-needed study for work, which is paying me to take the course I’m doing. I should be putting in…
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It’s getting darker in the mornings, already much more noticeably than before the equinox, which was still less than a month ago. But there is some sort of light on the horizon, literally and figuratively. Although we haven’t seen much of it this week, the sun shines over the horizon at certain photogenic points along the Tama River, enabling some pretty impressive photo opportunities. For an instant, too, it seemed like the long wait for new hope on the career front had finally arrived, too, but it doesn’t seem to have turned out how I had sought. But the rainy…
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Today looks like it’s going to be all about Lazarus-like feats centered around reviving death in all sorts of ways. First there’s the Death Machine; the name I give to my recumbent bike because riding it always feels like it could be fatal with each ride. It needs a tune, new chain and brakes to get back to fighting fitness. Hopefully, this won’t lead to a chain-reaction effect requiring increasingly more parts and labor, as is often the case. That segues into dealing with another form of death: that of my career. I can’t find a job and it seems…
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Having not had the remotest interest in gardening until well into old age, it constantly amazes me how much hanging out with plants brings me joy and wonderment, and one of the greatest pleasures is being able to share that. On a visit back to Australia a few years ago I bought a lot of native plant seeds and tried to grow them by myself. Most failed, but a few got through, like the hardenbergia, dwarf wattle and, especially, kangaroo paw. With the blog association and our huge kangaroo statue in the garden I really wanted kangaroo paw to grow…
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One of my great delights over the past few years has become gardening, and unaccustomedly I’ve taken on numerous challenges, including growing plants from seeds, and the kangaroo paws I wanted to bloom and flourish more than any other plant have started to flower. I picked up dozens of different types of seeds when I last visited Australia in September-October 2022. I started growing them in February 2023. I’ve now got about half-a-dozen blooming in the garden, either in pots or planted in the ground. All but one is orange. Many of the seeds germinated and propagated, but of the…
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Nature delighted me this morning when I went into the garden and found something I would never have expected: Our cherry tree was blooming! This came weeks after most cherry blossoms had flittered away in the Tokyo area and long after we had given up hope of our plant blooming. The little flowers were tremendously enchanting and gladdened my heart and soul. The garden overall is playing a pretty similar role as the April rains bring their nitrates and give the greenery a bit of extra sparkle. I’ve also been lucky enough to install an arch that I hope will…