a visit to Healesville Sanctuary

I've always been unsure about zoos.  I don't like it when animals are seen as objects for entertainment. If there is a real attempt to understand the needs of wildlife in relation to their environment, then I don't mind so much. But when there are also programs to protect the environment, raise community awareness and rescue individual animals, then it is definitely worth supporting.

In the wild you can't count on spotting a Barking Owl, Platypus, Dingo, Koala, Greater Bilby, Red Kangaroo, Emu or Tasmanian Devil. In Healesville Sanctuary you will definitely see these creatures, and in as natural an environment as possible.

The Satin Bower Bird has a unique and complex courtship behaviour.  In the bird pavilion I was privileged to see - and video! - a bower bird in the process of constructing a bower.  The males build a structure, called a bower, and decorate it with brightly coloured found objects, mostly blue, in order to attract a mate.

The Superb Lyrebird is a ground dwelling bird that is notable for its ability to mimic natural and man-made sounds in their environment. The male has a large beautiful tail that he displays in courtship.

The Australian Wildlife Health Centre is based at the Sanctuary.

My friend S. from Scotland and I saw two orphan babies: a wallaby and a wombat.  They were being raised by caring staff members, who took it in turns to take them home for night care and feeding.  These animals need special lactose free milk, and staff take it in turns to take them home and feed them during the night.

what do you see?

What do you see?
Well, I see a lot of different shades of green.

What do you see?
I see some trees and tall bushes, and of course they hide what is behind them.

What do you see?
I see gaps!

I really did not want people, other than family and friends, to see the garden. I felt it would be an invasion of privacy. And so it was.

But, maybe paradoxically and certainly surprisingly for me, something powerful happened over the weekend. I think of it as an epiphany.

I was standing on the deck looking at the garden, and slowly scanning the space so of course what was focal changed as I moved my focus from one side to the other. What struck me as never before was the enormity of what Catmint has achieved and the extraordinary beauty of the totality.

I guess that for the first time I saw the garden as an enormous canvas that is enormously rich and variegated. So, for the first time I saw the garden as a highly complex art work that is for ever changing, and yet, despite the change, there is a frame. The frame is constituted by the fence and walls that separate the garden from our neighbours and the street. In addition the frame is constituted by the meandering paths that take one through and round the garden. There are parts and sections but they all coalesce to form a stunning creation.

- written by R, the man Catmint shares her life with.

open garden weekend

It's over. The money's banked, signs taken down, plant labels removed.  In all nearly $600 was raised for Bush Heritage Australia.

I enjoyed the weekend immensely and think a good time was had by almost all the 241 visitors. One notable exception was the man who diligently walked round and round the garden looking for the garden. When he failed to find it, he returned to the entrance table and bitterly complained that he was conned.

One of the visitors was blogger and cyberfriend Faisal, from the wonderful, aesthetically quirky blog Gardener in the Distance. Faisal stepped outside of cyberspace especially in order to visit my garden. It was great to meet him in person.

The garden performed brilliantly, responding to the special occasion and to perfect garden weather - a bit of heat followed by good rain.  Dietes grandiflora metaphorically gave me the thumbs down by coming into flower today - too late for the visitors - but there were plenty of other flowers and it wasn't missed.

The group of Leptopsermums in front of the deck have never looked better and I should have known they would be a star attraction. Since I wasn't sure exactly what kind of tea trees they were, there was much debate about them. Some people thought they weren't a tea at all, but were a thryptomene. I said I thought they were tea tree flowers and thryptomene flowers were different. And I thought thryptomenes didn't grow so large.  But several visitors were unconvinced.

Then I learned something very interesting. Everyone believes the person who sounds most authoritative. One visitor said it was a definitely a New Zealand Manuka and we all bowed to her authority. It was the next day that I trawled the net and discovered that Manuka is the genus name in New Zealand, as is Leptospermum here in Australia. So we still didn't know the species name.

I decided it must be L. laevigatum and labelled it as such. Now I was the one who assumed authority and no one challenged me. After the last person left, the phone rang and it was a Saturday visitor who had taken a sprig, showed it to her sister, an Australian native plant expert, who said it was without doubt L. brevipes.  I'm inclined to believe her, so unless proved otherwise, that is what I shall call these graceful shrubs.

Many people wanted to know the names of plants, and mostly I could help.  There is one unusual fern, however, that has been in the garden for at least 28 years, and the only other place I have seen it is in the Botanical Gardens. I don't know its name, and hadn't put in the work to identify it. It is a little clump quite tucked away, but at least 3 people noticed it and asked me what it was. If anyone knows that will be great, otherwise I will get onto it soon - when I recover my voice and my energy.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day - October 2011

This is a small selection from the spring happenings in the garden ... I think my passion for pinks and purples is showing ...

Australian Native Hibiscus: Alygyone heuglii

African and Seaside Daisies: Osteospermum ecklonis and Erigeron karvinskianus 

Diggers Speedwell; Derwentia perfoliata

Chocolate Lily: Arthropodium strictum

Spindly Gervillia: Grevillea endlicheriana

Crab Apple: Malus ioensis

creating and filling spaces

about 1985

There used to be a cubby in the garden.

Jan 2009

When it became unsafe it was dismantled.

Feb. 2009

That left a gap.

Feb. 2009

You could see the fence.

May 2009

So I started planting to soften it and cover the fence asap.

Oct. 2011

You can still see the fence.

Oct. 2011

The picture is getting better, softer...

Oct. 2009

Oct. 2011

Oct. 2011

...it just takes time.

March 2009

March 2009

 18 months ago I planted this snow gum - Eucalypt pauciflora.

Oct. 2011

It just took time ...

it's not fun

Blogging for me is not about making money. It's supposed to be for fun.

It's not fun when photos are replaced by sinister black squares with exclamation marks in their middle and you don't understand why or how to fix it.

It's not fun losing your favourite photo of  fluffy cosy possums sleeping in their nesting box because you didn't back it up.

It's not fun when different browsers do different things with your blog's photos and you dont' understand why or how to fix it. Firefox is the browser that Blogspot recommends but I find it the worst. Photos I load either are weirdly large or nonexistent.  Chrome used to be more reliable but  now it's got nearly as many black squares where photos used to be as the other browsers.

It's not fun when you don't know if you've been hacked or whether you're just not computer literate enough to solve the problems.

It's not fun ...

21 sleeps to go

Have been busy gardening whenever I have the time. I've dug out about half the leaves and soil in front of the back fence so there's a trench to stop it rotting. That's because the garden's on a slope and I don't have anything so sophisticated and sensible as terracing. I've put the leaves in the side of the compost that's ready for the garden. When I've put the rest of the leaves there I'll spread the whole lot on the garden and then transfer the big pile to the other side so the top is on the bottom and the bottom is on top.

In other gardening tasks I think I am learning a bit of restraint, managing with some difficulty to avoid short back and sides haircuts.  I'm still liberating paths and cutting back overhanging branches. Yesterday I did move a couple of smallish plants but I'm basically finished the re-arranging - probably ...

The garden's filling out, appreciating the deluges of rain we've had lately. So the gaps are still there but not so stark and awful as they were a few weeks ago.

I have decided to try to put photos of as many plants as possible in the pages on the home page of the blog. It's quite time consuming, and trying to organize them neatly is a bit like sitting on a bucking bronco. Not that I've ever done that, or ever intend to do it.


Best news of all:  I didn't know if the nesting boxes were occupied. Then V. took this brilliant photo of  furry cosy sleeping bodies.


this photo got lost in cyberspace - will be re-inserted when re-photographed.


Just now a Red Wattlebird stopped by to eat nectar from the Gastrolobium celsianum that has climbed up into the tea trees. I managed to photograph it through the window. The red Gastrolobium flowers are the same colour and shape as the distinctive red wattles on the bird's neck.  According to Wikipedia, a wattle is a fleshy dewlap - a longitudinal flap of skin that hangs beneath the lower jaw or neck of many vertebrates. A bit like a rooster.