February   

As a child I loved drawing. 

My father could paint beautiful pictures and I loved sitting next to him watching. 

I liked very much when Papa took the paper and pen I got from his desk for him, started drawing and after a line or two would  asked: “What is this going to be?”  “A fish.” Next line. “A dog.”  Another line. “A bird.”  And then a few lines more and it turned out to be a seal! 

My sister and I had to help with washing my baby brother’s nappies. Disposable nappies were not yet invented. After our mum had cleaned and soaked the nappies, we had to rub soap onto them, then they were put into the big cauldron and boiled, then rinsed and hung up. We both sat next to each other at the side of the bathtub, a big cake of soap in our little hands and rubbed and rubbed the nappies. To have more fun we each got a piece of differently coloured soap, mine was green and Hannelore preferred pink. And then the real fun began: we decided to draw pictures on the nappies. Mostly we painted smily faces, sometimes trees and flowers.

When I got new colour pencils I was often sitting all by myself  drawing lots of pictures. Many of my pictures had a little houses with a garden and flowers all around. Some times I also drew some people. One of Papa’s artist friend admiring my drawing and said: “Remarkable that children always draw people with far too big heads”. He just had no clue! Really, he, who could paint so well, should have known that the face is what is most important. 

I was about ten years old when the school had an art competition asking all pupils to draw the school, or one of the nearby  lakes, anything of the surrounding parkland. I wanted to participate. Papa gave me nice paper, good pencils and colour pens and off I went. I wanted to draw the small lake. It never seemed to turn out right. Papa said: “You are  drawing the lake like a map, but from where you are looking the lake appears really like uneven broken horizontal lines. You are not a bird flying over the lake.” I tried again and again and never got it right. My lake never looked good and I never finished the picture. Not many pictures were handed in and only a few made it to the school hall, but those which did were really very good. 

January  

The year started with painting. Lots of painting. And very different kinds of painting.

Each year the little town Bellingen on the Mid North Coast stages ‘Camp Creative’, a week filled with a variety of exciting courses in art, music, dance, craft and life style. Acrylic painting sounded interesting. And it was, but far above my abilities. Still, I had fun and learned a lot. Most of all I learned that although I like making little pictures I have no real talent. But never mind, I will keep doing in my limited way what is fun for me as long as I enjoy it. 

Here are a few of the pictures: 

  

At the end of the last day I did  not want to waist the paint on the palette so I brushed all the left over blue on, put in the middle thinned  black paint, tilted the paper up and down and helped a bit with the brush, smudged a bit of white on the upper part and on the lower part and finished was my boardwalk along the river estuary. Finally a loose-n-luscious picture!

Soon after that more painting. 

This time painting the outside of the big house. My daughter and I painted every day from morning till late and in a week it was completed, including making new matching covers for the outdoor furniture. It all looks just beautiful. And it was so much fun working together and getting it all done.  

2017  

My New Garden

Starting a new garden is exciting. 

But it is also hard and difficult work. Difficult, because decisions have to be made and often good ideas do not work out as hoped. Hard, because it can be quite exhausting to dig deep holes for new trees to be planted and turn the soil to put flowers into the ground and to make veggie beds. But all is so rewarding, even if not always successful.

The little house had been finished and turned out very beautiful and so comfortable. A joy to live there.

The land around looked like a building site. The ground was covered with some discarded building stuff, the grass was ruined with lots of bare patches and full of weeds.

So the first job was to tidy up around the place. And whilst doing that new ideas come to mind what to do here and what would be best there. 

                                    

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First our Wollemi Pine had to be planted.

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Next came a visit to the nursery. And there was a big problem: so many beautiful plants, very hard to decide what to get.

A trip to the nursery and to the plant market became now favourite excursions for my daughter and me.

Bought 2 birch trees, 4 eucalyptus, 3 different wattles, 5 casuarinas, a flame tree and a ginkgo tree. I also transplanted some jacarandas.

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Putting all the trees around the little house shaped the garden right from the beginning. I planted the trees in clusters, so that there will be still open spaces letting the sun in.

It all evolved, I had no fixed plan at the start. But I always thought how it all would look and feel once the trees have grown. 

All the trees but the Wollemi, the 2 Silver Birches and the Ginkgo were just tube stock. They all grew so fast except for the Ginkgo tree. 

The first eucalyptus planted near the drive was taller than me within 6 months. 

The casuarinas grew also very well. Maybe it helped that I put in some sunflowers close by, thinking lets see what grows faster. 

The ground there had lots of gravelling it, so the sunflowers did not grow to their normal height and the casuarinas could keep up with them.

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Before we moved into our new little house, I had done already some gardening in front of the old shed. 

I had to work hard clearing a bit of land and put in some small beds for flowers and veggies. 

  

The progress was enormous. Since we did not live there all the time, each time we came the plants has had grown so much. 

Lots of beautiful surprises.

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Often visitors came along and that is always interesting, 

  nicer though the friendly shy ones, 

and especially nice when they could sing,  

best of all when cuddly ones came. 

  

But that did not happen so often, they preferred to hide and rest in the trees

And there were quiet onlookers too. 

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A year after we moved in the little cottage and I had started my new garden it all looked very different.

The wollemi pine had survived, although it was a bit under stress during the unusually dry weather in the middle of the year. I put a shade cloth around 3 sides and it got watered every day till the rain came.






Only one of the gumtrees and one of the three wattle trees did die. 

The ginko tree 


















                           and the two silver birches survived well. 

The tall eucalyptus grew to over 3 meters within 12 months.

The patchy grass had turned into a beautiful lawn, thanks to a new lawn mover. 

I never thought it all would turn out so well and look so good within a year. 

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Mid 2018, 

two years after I stared my new garden a lot has changed. 

It was very sad to watch the Wollomi Pine die. 

January 2018                                                           April 2018

But the Ginko tree  and the 2 Silver Birches survived so far.

The eucalyptus and the casuarinas grew a lot.

I planted a Pacific Rainbow Eucalyptus and it grows so far very well. 

I cleared away the last bits of old left over building stuff, put a little old recycled pond in, planted 4 grevilleas and trying to revitalise the grass there, I made the back behind the house also nice.

With 2 grape wines, red and white, around the patio, some roses and bloomers all looks now perfect - almost. 

And there will be aways more to do in my garden - luckily. 

 Hopefully the long dry period will come to an end soon.