At the side of my house I have this rather large Kurrajong tree, and it does a good job of shading the pergola and that side of the house. It was there when we purchased the house back in 1998, and I love the trees, and listening to the birds come. It is also a lovely shady area, and since the fence was built in 2015, it is where I have planted ferns, clivias, bromeliads, and other shade loving plants.
And due to some serious neglect it looked like this. The worst part of this tree are the seed pods that hang on the tree, and drop off in the wind. I do periodically rake all the mess out of this area but it has been awhile now. We have had a lot of strong winds lately, and it looks like most of the pods have fallen. As we are in for a long spell of hot weather from this week, I decided that I better get to this job this afternoon.
In spite of the neglect I found a couple of bright spots in the middle, with this hydrangea flowering....
....and underneath the leaves was this bromeliad flower.
It now looks like this, and is ready for a dressing of compost and some new plants that I have.
And this is the rubbish that I raked out, now waiting for "someone" to take it to the rubbish tip.
And out the side garden, I found the first dahlia flower, in a pretty soft pink.
This morning I went to church, and listened to a good sermon. It expressed exactly what is happening with the commercialisation (is that even a word??), of the Christmas season. I felt like taking notes, and have asked if I can have a copy of the sermon to share.
A couple of friends and I had agreed not to buy each other Christmas gifts, when we don't really need for much. Instead we went for a drive after church and had a coffee together. Can you guess where we went?
If you guessed the Frances Strawberry Farm you are correct. These friends had not been there before, and this was my 3rd trip in a month!! The strawberries, and the coffee and the scones are worth driving 50 km for though. And we had a lovely afternoon out together.
Since then I have been in the garden, and now I think it might be time for bed. I have been playing Christmas Carols for the last couple of days, and thinking about the real reason for the season.
I have been reading the blog of Desert Sky Quilting, whose link you can find on my side bar, and she has written some very thought provoking blogs, including some video clips, that you might like to hear. First is Come to the garden and the other is O Holy NIght and Hallelujah. (I just realised that Come to the garden, is almost the title of my blog post!!)
Blessings, From Jude
3 comments:
The garden is looking good Judy, much better than mine. Take care & have a lovely Christmas.
I think O Holy Night is my favourite. Merry Christmas and a happy new year xxx
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about the Advent posts. That makes my heart happy that it pleased you enough to share. Your garden is lovely. I guess I'm sort of a slouchy gardener, because I thought the before picture looked fine. LOL Around here, the garden has to sink or swim on its own, but it mostly does well ... everything that can't has pretty much died out and not been replanted. You have a lovely area there, and the flowers starting are exciting, all such pretty colors! I think I'd love to sit out there and read my scriptures in the mid-morning time.
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