• Daily Life

    Budding (and Blurred)

    Spring can’t come quick enough, not just for me, but also for the blossoms in Kangaeroo Corner. For weeks now there have been signs of flowering in the garden. The silver wattle (acacia dealbata) has shown signs of budding since at least the middle of February, looking to repeat its wonderful bloom from last year when the tree turned into a series of puffy, yellow flowers. Next to it, the golden wattle (acacia pycnantha) seems poised to burst forth in a blaze of aureate befitting its third year in the garden and flying the flag as Australia’s national flower. Also…

  • Daily Life

    Welcoming In Winter

    Like it or not, and I’m firmly in the “not” camp on this one, winter is here again, but I’ve been kind’ve happy to see how well Kangaeroo Corner has held up this year as the cold sets in. This year is the second year of our garden and for the most part it has thrived. That’s especially fantastic considering the harsh summer we went through, followed by an Indian summer that extended deeply into the autumn. I’ve previously experienced summers in Japan as hot as those of 2023, but none as dry. The lack of rain might have been…

  • Daily Life

    Mean and Green

    After a few months of being jealous of my neighbors for enabling their lawns to evade the effects of the blistering hot summer, I woke this morning to find myself transforming from being green with envy to being verdant with chlorophyll! Kangaeroo Corner’s lawn, which started May in a generally strong state albeit being slightly patchy, took a drastic turn for the worst in early June. At what should have been the onset of the rainy season, I made the mistake of heavily fertilizing the warn to boost its strength for what I expected would be a hot and wet…

  • Daily Life

    Summertime Blues….er, Browns?

    Summer in Tokyo this year was just how I like it: boiling hot and dry, probably the driest I have experienced in 35 years of living in the Japanese capital. But while I loved the heat, my garden in Kangaeroo Corner had mixed feelings, especially the lawn that went from vibrant green to burned brown. Trees thrived! Most delightedly, the jacaranda we had written off as dead in the spring powered back into life and is now one of the tallest growths on the block. The “branch” silver wattle goes from strength to strength and the golden wattle beside it…

  • Daily Life

    Bested by Busyness

    Little things in life have kept me scrambling and stumbling in such a way it’s hard to get much else done. Work is always much busier in the warmer months. This year has been particularly demanding as our tyrant boss drove more staff out of the door and their tasks were often imposed on me. Early morning starts have been the norm and I’m often exhausted by the time the sun sets. Health hasn’t been great and the teeth I neglected for decades have come back to haunt me with a vengeance, which will result in two more of them…

  • Daily Life

    No Time to Paws

    Work is dominating my life at the moment and I have little time for anything else, yet we are fortunate that our kangaroo paws are leading the way in a thriving summer garden. I’ve detailed my attempts at growing Australian plants from seed. While most failed, the kangaroo paw, the ones I really wanted most to survive, are flourishing now. I’ve even managed to give away a few to neighbors, which was really awesome! I hope to be able to spread the joy even further. All this is even better as I thought that I had killed my original kangaroo…