The Tiger lilies are on the prowl. Beautiful waxy green leaves cluster at the top of small canes which will leap out of the earth to reach waist height within a month or two. Then the orange and black flowers open and the garden beds which contain them take on a jungle like shape. The fifty or more Tree Ferns will take decades to all be reaching majestic height so this garden will be at its best in perhaps thirty years...... as long as the privet, ivy and bramble are kept at bay.
I lived in a boarding house opposite Manly Wharf thirty years ago.
Driving cabs and needing little, I quite cheerfully lived in one room with a shared kitchen...... along with - mainly elderly men on pensions.
It comes to mind because I’ve always cherished having plants around me and the succulent varieties - the hardiest of plants - thrived in that one room.
It’s not a healthy life - driving cabs. Twelve hour shifts, sitting, driving. Stressful. I’d juice a pint of mixtures like butternut pumpkin with chili or celery and carrot. Then I’d have my cigarettes and coffee. That was breakfast..... plus a half dozen rounds of ‘Salute to the Sun.’
Echeverias are a variety of succulent which take the shape of a rosette. Picture a jade green rose - they’re exquisite - they grow in families and I’ve had them growing in pots for a very long time. The pots outlived their usefulness a few years ago and the bright idea came to mind to place the individual rosettes along the trunks of the larger treeferns within the garden. They thrive on almost nothing and sit quite happily among the crevices and ridges left by the long ‘dead and gone fronds.’ It adds to a sense of friendly jungle - along with childishly bright flowers which grow within the carpet of blond sugar cane mulch which blanket the beds.
So they look like sandy islands in a sea of green lawn and it’s the closest I come to living on a beach - sugar cane mulch substituting for white coral sand - here a mile high. The shape of the garden beds, in total, form a mandala from the air - or so I assume and worked towards without a conscious purpose....... ‘For the love of it’ springs to mind.
Sang three songs the other night, at the songwriter gig, and broke the two high strings towards the end of the first song - ‘Started off low” - quite apt really. Stopped for repairs and broke another string towards the end of the last song. Apart from that it was very good - playing with others. Very simple songs - two chords .... four at most.
Played again last night and although I’m not enthused with my own songs it’s not hard to find three which are fun to play for other musicians. .... Belinda on flute, Pete on lead and Wolf playing a snare drum from the audience.
I’ll play this weekend at an old house with a sad and somewhat dark past.
Spring is sprung. Blossoms are everywhere but I’ve yet to see a bee.
Somehow that feels like a discordant note in an otherwise beautiful melody.
Perhaps they're busy elsewhere.