Month: June 2025

Flowers for veggie gardens

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Two of my favourite flowers for vegetable gardens are Calendula (Calendula arvensis) and Comfrey (Symphytum caucasicum) I have linked to Wikipedia because with both of these lovely plants there are dozens of varieties but these two are the most reliable and their seeds are readily available in Australia the UK and Canada. Calendula finished flower heads readily germinate so once planted saving the seeds is a must otherwise it can become a very pretty weed.
Both plants also have a long flowering season and there is nothing as joyful as a small vase full of these flowers in a window or on the dining table, in water they can easily last three or four days. Once done both varieties spread in the compost speed up the natural decay to form a rich compost for the next season.
All of garden life is a circle, gardens only fail when the circle is broken…
Canon 7 SLR kit lens Kodak Portra 160

Are Dahlia’s ever failures?

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These days I probably spend an average of two hours a day in the garden and there is always more to do than time permits. My first gardening activities took place in a school garden in the English Lake District. Mr Sharples the teacher impressed on the whole class of twelve or so children that while this was a vegetable garden every garden had to have a few beds and a variety of flowers growing in every month of the year. Some species of flowers had varieties that lasted for several months in the year one of these was the Dahlia of which there must be thousands varieties. To this day Dahlias are still one of my favourite flowers and if there are none present in the garden it feels like there is missing. As there is going to be a frost tonight so this maybe one of the last for 2025.
Canon 7 SLR and a kit lens with a +2 close up lens. Kodak Portra 160.

I decided to sit on the Alexander Suspension Bridge for a pee!

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This is the same little possum as I photographed for the last post, but tonight she decided to use one of the towers as a viewing platform and toilet. Being arboreal possums climb and take advantage of the rails and wires that are strung across the south Esk River to form the Alexander suspension bridge. With absolutely no fear of height this little possum is has climbed up the 10 metre newly painted highly slick finish of the bridge just to have a pee! Fortunately I saw the long lasting stream dripping down which caused me to look up and see this little female in action before I passed under the tower!
Olympus OM5 75mm ƒ1.8 @ 2.8 1/40 ISO 6400 Illumination from headlight.

I’m shy, but this is my tree!

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Possums have character or at least that is my experience. Each one I come across on my evening walk is different to the last, some run away, some sniff my shoes, some sit on their hind legs and just stare. Each and every one is totally unpredictable. I would like to think this is a form of cognizance certainly most other creatures in the Cataract Gorge just turn tail and run away as fast as they can but not Brushtail Possums some but not all are happy stay still, ponder and stare. At one point I thought it was just a question of the animal freezing stop still because of my headlight. So I turned it off and approached one in particular, they all have their own patch or area of territory and sure enough in the fading dusk light there she was sat on a rock just staring at me and only moved once I had passed. This particular possum pictured above is often seen at approximately the same time in the same tree most evenings of the week. They are creatures of habit and in many ways its a pleasant thing, fixing a degree of order and familiarity to an evening walk…