The Summer Crisp

How quickly things have turned a crisp brown in the garden.  Certainly we had the decade of drought - supposedly the worst ever in our part of the world, and the plants looked like they were doing it tough... but somehow most of them seemed to harden up, and to endure.  Two wet summers ensued (the wettest on record!), and our gardens looked a million dollars.  I should qualify that - our home patch was a little  under the million-dollar-standard measure according to the internal assessment panel on which I hold a minority vote.

But the rain has tapered off, and now we are in the middle of perhaps a 'typical' hot, dry January.  There has been no significant rainfall in our part of the country for some weeks now - and we live in a part of Victoria that can usually rely on at least a couple of summer thunderstorms to keep the dust down.  The plants in our garden that had enjoyed the two years of plenty, and those of many friends, are looking like they have given up the fight.  Oh, I know that most of them will survive, and when the rains come sooner or later, they'll perk up a little just before closing up shop for the winter.  Just now they look like a scene from the epic film 'Giant'.  You know the one - James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson... all house, dust and meaningful scowls, and a little oil.  That's our garden right now... without the oil, I should point out.  If we had oil, then things might take on a new jauntiness.

That is the thing about gardens, particularly in southern Australia.  The passage from spring flush to summer crispness can be remarkably short, and the overall appearance of a garden can change markedly week by week.  But equally, given a few good falls, it can all turn around again, and the softening tinges of green growth can appear if not overnight, then certainly within a few days.  That characteristic underpins the inherent optimism of gardeners in our part of the world.  Thank goodness!

I'm looking forward to seeing the garden 'Sedum' over at Hepburn Springs this weekend (open with Open Gardens Australia www.opengarden.org.au) - a garden that has been deliberately planned and planted to reduce the threat of bushfire damage.  Given the past week that we've had in most of Australia, and with fires still burning in most states and territories, the garden of 'Sedum' might present some pertinent features from which to learn.