Happy New Year everyone, wishing all gardeners, readers and online passers-by the very best for 2023. May it be a much, much better year than the one just finishing.
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Frangipani 'Serendipity' is enjoying the late arrival of the Sydney summer. |
It's been quite a long time since I posted anything here at 'Garden Amateur' (more than a year in fact), and over the course of 2022 I am pleased to say that a lot has happened in our garden, but nothing much has changed, either.
For this Happy New Year posting I was going to include some more photos of the most eye-catching plants in our December 2022 garden, but when I checked on the previous photos from my last update from November 2021, they were almost identical, so just one photo this time, of our very colourful frangipani.
And that's when I realised nothing important has changed here. It's still full of colour and all the key plantings seem to be healthy.
The good news is that Pam and I are just like our plants: still healthy. Somehow we've managed to dodge the Covid virus and are enjoying the good but quiet life. I am such a homebody that "staying at home" is my preferred lifestyle option, anyway. Pam's much more social than me, and she's enjoying having restrictions lifted a bit. But homebody me? I'm happy in my garden and my kitchen.
Our major news this year is the sad passing of Pam's lovely 93-year-old mother, Val, who slipped away peacefully in her sleep back in July. How we all would like to go after a good and very long innings.
Val was a truly green-thumbed gardener of the old school, who could snip off a cutting of almost anything and have it thriving in a pot three months later.
Val had often said that she wanted to be buried in our garden as she loved being here. I think she was serious, because she didn't like it much when we explained that the authorities might not be so keen on that idea. So we've found a nice place for her to spend a well-deserved eternity of peaceful rest at a proper lawn cemetery that has lots of lawn and native trees nearby.
