Mushie weather

You won't have much trouble getting most Sydney folk to agree that autumn is the nicest time of year here. The worst of summer is over, but the ground is still warm. Mornings and evenings are cool, so you sleep well, but the days are mostly very nice, in the 20s, lovely gardening, walking and being-outside weather. But autumn can get quite rainy at times, and in the last week that's what it has been. Rainy, or at least showery. And that means the mushrooms are popping up here, there and everywhere.

Down the back of the garden, where this green-leaved former pot plant of Pam's is slowly unfurling its plan to take over the world, this delicate little trio of mushrooms popped up under the protective cover of the new regime.

Pam discovered them (she has eagle eyes) and said they looked like three delicate little parachutes gliding down to land – and she's right.

Across the other side of the path several other kinds of mushies were popping up. In fact, no two fungi seemed to be alike – they're amazingly diverse. This blobby, bald-headed mushie came up around the sides of one of my favourite gnomes.

This is Tran, he likes to watch. He is a slow-mover, the perfect companion for a mushroom to snuggle up to.

I think it's the fact that I always keep the mulch topped up that makes the garden so mushie-friendly after a week of regular showers. The nice bit is that I don't have to do a thing. They just come up all by themselves, last a day at the most usually, and then they're gone, until the next showery week. A bit like fairies in the garden, only mushy. Now you see them, now you don't.