The aftermath

Yes, the hail really WAS that big!

Melbourne copped a you-beaut storm on Christmas Day (thanks SO much, Mother Nature), which you can read all about over here. We were lucky in that our house is undamaged; not so lucky when it comes to cars.... but hey, stuff can be fixed. It's unfortunate that even with insurance, there's mega-bucks involved, but lots of people are worse off than us, so I'm not moaning too loudly.

I'm still cleaning up around the garden though. I sorted the front yard out on Boxing Day, sweeping soil and mulch off the footpath and back into the garden beds, righting pot plants and clearing up masses of shredded leaves, small broken branches, etc.

I'd had a quick look around the back yard, but it was only yesterday that I looked really closely:

Smashed

Smooshed

Punctured

Pulverised

Shredded

Before - Christmas morning

After 

Some grooming required

I have no idea how the Kaffir Lime escaped damage, but - phew!

Today I'll be out with the secateurs and the broom, restoring some order. If only cars could regrow damaged parts like plants do, we'd have nothing to worry about.

It's been a little wet here...

The tropical cyclones up north are having a nasty effect on our weather in the south, with stupid amounts of rain dumped on us yesterday.

This is our creek on a normal day; just a trickle of water that you can't even see from the bridge amongst all the vegetation:



This is the creek this morning, after 60-70mm of rain in the past 24 hours:



Note the little spillway in the billabong:



Uh....what spillway? (If you look carefully, you can see a line in the water that shows where it is):



We stood on the bridge and watched thousands of dragonfly larvae and a lot of tadpoles happily swimming in the billabong. The birds were pretty happy too - lots of food for them.

We humans could do with a bit less rain, thanks.

Things are pretty good around here - a few road closures, but we got off lightly compared to some parts of Melbourne, which received up to 180mm, most of it in a very short period last night. We have no flooding, no leaks and the only signs of the torrential rain is some mulch washed onto the footpath from the front garden, and one top-heavy potted plant that's having a lie down.

Cross your fingers for us; there's more on its way.

Curse this crazy weather!!

We've had weeks of completely nutty weather; not just Melbourne, but the entire east coast. Rain, storms and wind have been the order of the day. Rain is great, especially after a prolonged drought, but you can have too much of a good thing...

While the sub-tropical species I planted are loving the warm, wet conditions, some of my plants are not so happy. Remember this cactus from last year?



Well, this year it sprouted three flower buds. I noticed the tiny bumps early this week, and as usual they grew very quickly. All three decided to open fully at the same time - on the wettest day we've had so far; Thursday. I left work early to beat the combined horror of heavy rain and peak-hour traffic, and made it home just before the heavens opened.

I remembered my cactus, and wondered if it would maybe hold out till the next day to bloom. I pressed my face against the sliding door and peered out at them in the pelting rain, and discovered that nope, it was way too impatient to wait. The flowers were open, but soggy and droopy. The next morning, this was how it looked:



Very disappointing. :(

On the other hand, the feijoas are mighty happy:







Let's hope we get some fruit in autumn/winter.

Into each life some rain must fall

There's been zero progress on the garden front. I've been busy with work, and then the rain kind of got in the way yesterday, when I might have actually had a spare few minutes.

On the plus side, this morning I scored a heap of free plants from one of my lovely clients. Her husband grew these from offshoots and had plenty to spare, so I gratefully accepted the offer of some drought-tolerant plants to help fill out the backyard garden beds ...which, as yet, are non-existent.

Score! Four agaves, five yuccas and some cute little cacti that I have plans for:



There may have been less doing, but there's definitely been more thinking. I've been pondering the back yard design and my ideas are beginning to take shape.... I can see it in my mind. Now I just have to transfer that, first to paper, then to reality.

Batten down the hatches!

I've just been outside and moved all my pot plants into the al fresco room, put away watering cans, brooms and so forth in the garage and made sure there's nothing loose lying around to be picked up by the ridiculous WINDS we're expecting tonight and tomorrow.

Hope the experts are wrong. I'm sick of this fire danger crap. And I need to water my garden tomorrow - doing that in a howling wind is no fun.