Rain, the sound of plants growing

Gentle rain, the kindest rain of all. Soaking into the soil without damaging the tender seedlings, or even making the flowers sad. (Edit: well, that was how it was until last night's downpour!) We're into our second day of gentle rain now, after a record midwinter dry spell, and the garden definitely needs every drop it can get.

More usually, after a long dry spell we get pounding rain that brings damage and much needed relief in equal doses. (Edit: talk about speaking too soon ... the more usual pounding, damaging rain arrived last night.) I originally wished a special thankyou to Huey for this lovely, gentle, nurturing rain, but in this re-edited posting, it's "thanks Huey for the rain, but you can back off now".  

Anyway, it's good to have the rains arrive, so here's a quick lap of our garden, camera in hand.

Still bare, our frangipani is wearing strings of these watery jewels now.

Poppies never cope well with rain, but today they're just
drooping their heads a little. They'll look up when the sun
breaks out.

Rosemary in bloom with vivid green new growth, too.

A week away from full flowering, the scadoxus are already
glowing like beacons, and opening rapidly now there's rain.

Aeonium 'Schwartzkopf' looks like it's trying to resist getting wet. 

While in a dark, shady corner this Vriesia
bromeliad is putting on a colour party.

The foodies are loving it. Lettuce planted less than a week ago.

Potato babies growing noticeably every day.

Thai limes were fertilised on the weekend, and with this steady
watering they'll be flowering and fruiting through summer.

As I've mentioned before, I am so glad the roof over the rear part of our house is galvanised iron. There's nothing more pleasing to this gardener than enjoying breakfast, fresh mug of coffee to start the day, listening to the sound of rain on a tin roof.