An Australian Spring

I love these cool morning and sunny days and that vague scent of Spring that assails one's nostrils if one steps outside. At the moment the perfume is wattle (acacia or mimosa if you live in Europe) And yes, the urge to springclean is with me, so it will be interesting to see what I might unearth over the next few weeks. I will let you know if anything exiting turns up.

Clematis microphylla

This is a true harbinger of Spring around Victoria. We were on the Bellarine Peninsula, south west of Melbourne through the week, and poor Ray screeched to a halt when I yelled as I spotted this wondrous plant, Affectionately hugging a roadside native tree. It was stunning and the flowers appeared to be a pale lemon colour, but look more white in the photograph. It is, as you will perhaps notice, a very delicate clematis, with small, but not at all shy, flowers. The vine scrambles its way over anything in its path. It has a rather nice perfume as well, reminiscent of honey. It looks lovely scrambling over fences and through shrubs and trees. Sometimes, if there is nothing very high to climb, it grows over itself, and fills hollows in the nearby ground.

Acacia boormanni, looking quite spectacular
growing happily between our house and the house next door. It forms a nice open hedge and when in bloom is truly spectacular. A true bright gold colour and everybody stops to ooh! and ahh! over it. We met some new neighbours some time ago, before the actually moved into our court, because they stopped to admire, and to ask of the gardener (himself) what variety of wattle it was. He happily obliged and oh happiness, the newer neighbours are native plant people. The same as the new friends next door, so we are quite happy with the gardens around us these days. It is so nice to see more and more people growing Australian native plants. Mind you, I still like the English garden too, but unfortunately, he and I sometimes confront each other with shovels at 20 paces as I attempt to plant another non native. We haveln't done too badly on a compromise though, and I have some camellias and azales and even a poor little stellata magnolia that struggles to keep its head up, not being particularly fond of our hot summers. It tries hard to oblige, but the flowering period is brief and not spectacular. I think we will be passing it on to someone in the not too distant future. You will also notice that at this time of year there are a lot of yellow flowers in bloom. Lots of grevilleas and hakeas in different colours but just now, the yellow is superb. We have been madly pulling weeds today, and I managed to plant another half dozen shrubs which we hope will survive if we have another very dry summer. The soil is still very dry underneath, but, we live in hope.

and her, of course are two examples of my favourite English places. The lovely wisteria scrambles over this lovely Cotswold stone cottage at Broadway, in England. This is my favourite Cotswold town, follwed closely by Bourton on the Water. I suspect only because of this lovely plant, which hasn't let me down any time I have been to Broadway in the Spring. I just adore Britain in the Spring. The soft, but bright, colours are everywhere, and one can actually smell Spring in the air, even more so than here at home. Lilac, wisteria, blossom and everything beautiful, as only Britain can show it.

I really would like to live in Britain for 12 months so that I can experience the distinct change in seasons. The seasons tend to blur a bit here in Australia I find, whereas in the northern hemisphere the changes are very distinct, and seem to happen suddenly. (Just my opinion folks!)

And this photo on the right is Hidcote Manor garden at its spectacular best. I was on overload here and I loooked at all the beauty around me.

Not just the tulip beds, but everywhere I turned
there seemed to be something spectacular. We
spent a long time browsing the beauties of Hidcote, finding it very difficult to tear ourselves away and head back to our B&B. However, the time came wlhen we had to say farewell and move on. We were actually on our way home and were only 3 days away from flying out of the country and back to my dear old Oz. Dorothea McKellar's poem really sums it all up when she says "I love a sunburnt country, a land of sweeping planes....the wide brown land for me.'

I actually heard her evocative words sung earlier this week, and it really should/could have been our national anthem. A bit jingoistic I guess but lovely, for all that. I think many Australians become embarrassed about expressing their love for their land. I must admit that I used to cringe whenever I heard Waltzing Matilda, and I still prefer it without words, but as I get older I realise that I am nationalistic after all. Despite having been of the generation reared to be British, celebrating Empire Day and all the other British events. But hey, it hasn't done me any harm and I love both countries to bits!

I found those 'lost' photos at last. It was such a simple process when I finally got serious in my search for same.

Happy days, bloggers!