Another autumn

11 May '08 1:41 am

I like the sound of Scottish New Zealander Smile

but I must apologise if I've misled you. I'm an Aussie who loves flaxes (profile now updated, I don't know why it looked so confusing the first time I tried, I guess it just takes me a while to figure out new websites) and I'm a Mac by marriage. I really didn't think I'd posted very often. I guess I should say something about my own garden soon.
I love your latest lot of photos. Pic 5 in particular is inviting me to walk in. And the last pic, especially that golden tree, yes it's hard to find words.

11 May '08 5:27 am

We look forward to your pics - meanwhile look around and get to know us and our gardens... we're an easy-going bunch; we'd be homely if we weren't so gardenly!

Here are still more pics from last Sunday. Tomorrow my Rotary Club will be here and much of what was spectacular a week ago will be only a memory. C'est la vie! I walk up into the arboritum now, standing among the trees and shrubs that form the background to the view from the house across the bridge, and then moving along until I look down on the big house and its dam.

11 May '08 8:40 am

Jack, How can you get your Azaleas to flower in autumn? Is this some kind of deep South African land wisdom? I don't know anyone around here who can do this.

You certainly have some wonderful coloured trees. I reckon it's because you have 'avenues'. It's like having a rugby team of liquid ambers, all lined up, short ones, fat ones, tall ones...

Hope the Rotary visitors enjoy everything. Cheers, and happy mothers day to any appropriate mothers.

12 May '08 6:23 am

Well, you see Moosey, (you'll understand this because NZ is even further from civilization than we are): our azaleas just don't KNOW any better Laughing

I actually don't know; there are four or five of the highly bred, big flowered double types that do it - perhaps they are tetraploid hybrids, if such things exist in azaleas - which I think means they've been genetically tampered with (not modified) to have twice the number of chromosomes per cell, if I understand and remember correctly. This leads not only to greater vigour but also stouter structure (think athletes who take steroids.)Then there is this mauve which is in a group of its own - it is halfway between the deciduous and the evergreen azaleas. I must admit my technical and nomencular knowledge is limited...(hows that for creating a word!)

Well, we might have had oak leaves garnishing everything from wine to ice-cream, but the colour was still admirable today, and the leaves did look rather lovely drifting down into the water on the slightest breeze and gathering in shimmering bands against the shore... My friends, some who have never been here and others who remember it from 7 years ago, as well as those who know it well, all said that I live in paradise and I had to agree. We had a lovely day which only ended as dusk fell. We were 19 people who sat down to lunch and by the time I had carried in the last of the debree, it was dark.

12 May '08 2:38 pm

Glad you had a lovely day. The panorama is wonderful and the tree dahlia against the autumn leaves is absolutely stunning.

12 May '08 5:09 pm

I hope that those Rotarians were as unshabby as your beautiful autumn trees views vistas and panoramas, Jack!

18 May '08 6:05 am

Some pics from the last few days - more of an Indian summer, weather-wise, with temperatures still mainly above 8 degrees even at night... no Moosey frosts down here yet..

We've past the mid-May cut-off when things usually start to deteriorate; there is still much colour, but now it is the unseasonal warmth that registers. This time last year we took wonderful frosty pictures when my cousins were here.

Lastly a few orange flowers, specially for Mark, photographed at the big house.

18 May '08 7:58 pm

I was fiddling this morning and came across this pic; when I checked I saw that I have already reported on the early days
( http://forums.mooseyscountrygarden.com/viewtopic.php?t=1556&highlight= ) but to place this picture amongst the current ones just helps show what we have achieved over the years!

The view is similar to 'Somber late autumn dawn' above - note the Carpet Garden (the stone structure) standing all alone in the early pic but surrounded by trees in yesterday's photo.

19 May '08 11:03 am

Holy c**p Jack! Your place is stunning. Here I am wibbling on about my silly cherry trees being all orangey this season... they need to see what proper trees look like!

I am shamed... I dared refer to our watery bit as a pond/lake. Compared to your vast expanse of wateryness, we own a mere puddle! I think you can definately get away with calling it a lake Jack! And it has dams and bridges and everything!

It is a picture postcard of a place - just the type of thing we are trying to do here. Very very inspiring. It helps me put things in perspective - keep planting those tiny spindly trees and keep the 'big picture' front and centre.

Thanks Jack. Can't wait for the next instalment - I suspect Spring at your place is going to awe me once again!

19 May '08 3:11 pm

More wonderful pics. The before and after is interesting.

Another autumn

Hi to MacFlax from Canberra!

Autumn azaleas and Rotary picnic

Shabby?

Late autumn

18 years on...

WOW!