January 2013 in the Southern Hemisphere

[fermi de Sousa]

Hopefully Lesley has not started this Thread elsewhere!
Happy New Year everyone from the South!
Here's Isotoma [Laurentia] axillaris in the scree bed looking fresh despite the heat!

and an unlabelled clematis [maybe C. viticella] which has tiny bells to ring in the new year!

cheers
fermi

[John Kitt]

The clematis looks quite a sweetie Fermi.
I have been watching your temperatures. We are due for a 30 and 35 over the next two days with strong winds!!
Everything is already dry.  We have only recently gone on to water meters and so far it is difficult to tell how much I am spending on keeping things alive.
Hoses out tonight and hope the heat disappears soon and we get some rain!!

Cheers

John

[Lesley Cox]

No Fermi, she's all yours. I've been too busy, packing books and porcelain mostly. I have a smallish but choice collection of antique Beleek left by my mother and I can't bring myself to dispose of it. The cups and saucers especially, are almost paper thin and very difficult to pack safely. I find scrunched up newspaper is best. Then there is the large set of Waterford glasses my sister gave me as a wedding present back in 1965, over 100 glasses! She must have thought I was going to do big parties and I never have. And books - books, books and many more books. Again, I can't bring myself to throw them. I may want to read A.A. Milne again some time and certainly I'll want to read Rudyard Kipling.

We had an almighty cloudburst on NY's eve I think - seems ages ago now - and there is bad flooding on the West Coast with bridges washed out, roads closed etc and then we had another downpour yesterday from about 11am until after I went to bed 12 hours later. Quite a lot of damage to foliage and flowers, leaves shredded, flowers broken and so on but nothing that won't be OK next time around.

[Hillview croconut]

Hi Folks,

This is really a good luck call to all of us facing an horrendous day here in southeastern Australia.

Hope it all passes by without any disaster occurring!

Just trod, and I mean TROD, on a 1.5 metre tiger snake while watering the nursery - Yikes!!

Cheers, and the best of fortune, Marcus

[arillady]

Sounds like you had damn good fortune already Marcus after treading on that snake.
I do hate these stinking hot days -44C - plus wind.
MY best wishes to everyone who might be on a severe level forecast today.
I had surgery on the foot Tuesday and am on crutches for a few days and a moon boot. The palm spike was too near the artery and main nerve to leave to dissolve or be encapsulated by my body. It was infected so it would have had to be cut open next week anyway. We are due to have a few days at the beach Monday to Friday next week then the following week to Hobart so I better be back to normal by then.
The teenagers will be called on to help with pot watering later today.

[Otto Fauser]

Thanks Marcus for yourconcern re our severe weather conditions -we survived the day without any outbreaks of bushfires here in the Dandenongs . I recorded "only" 39 degrees here and it is still 36 now at 10 pm .

  just returned from a most enjoyable open air performance of Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT on the theatre lawn at Cloudehill . ,and enhanced by a hamper of fine food and a bottle of Prosecco .

[Hillview croconut]

Hi Pat & Otto,

Highest temperature EVER recorded for Hobart, 42 degrees, and evev higher at places around the state affected by bushfires. A large number of houses have been lost in the south east and thousands evacuated, many by boat. Just woke up today and its a gorgeous morning, almost as if in a blink of an eye yesterday never happened.

Otto you are lucky to have such a fine venue up there in hills. Pat, I am sorry to hear of your travails - I hope you quickly get back into stride (sorry I just couldn't help myself).

Cheers, Marcus

[John Kitt]

Everybody in Hobart is suffering from yesterday's heat.  I have just been assessing the damage to the garden and while there is superficial damage  not too many losses.  Lots of watering to do.
Unexpected loss is a considerable number of my compost worms.  Even in a shaded place they seem to have "cooked" and I am not sure that I could have prevented it .
Local lilium show next weekend and it will be interesting to see if anyone has blooms at all!! Could'nt have been weather like this when you had your successes Marcus.

John

[arillady]

Yes the weather yesterday was a real stinker and I do feel for you near Hobart who are not at all used to this sort of heat. Especially for all the people who have lost their homes and businesses - I certainly hope they can get the fires under proper control and out pretty soon.

[ArnoldT]

Pat:

Wow, a palm spike, first I've ever heard of that.  We usually just step on an old rusty nail around here.

Moon= cam walker I suppose.

Get well soon.

[arillady]

Yes I know the rusty nail too Arnold. I have heard plenty of palm injury stories lately at the hospital and clinic!
Enforced rest is a hard one for me.

[Mini bulb lover]

It's been a dramatic time here on the Southern Hemisphere section of the forum. Lesley's had some almighty rain, Pat's foot is in the wars, worms are cooking (R.I.P.), Marcus trod on a tiger snake (must have given you a hell of a fright!) and all the southern states have been suffering heat stroke! Meanwhile, Otto is enjoying Prosecco & Shakespeare (more drama) in the gardens. I hope everyone is safe and staying cool (and dry in Lesley's case - send some over here please!).


In the past when it's reached 40 degrees or over I've found that my oriental lilium buds can sometimes burn. So I had to pick the lily below (Oriental lily "Canberra") so that I could enjoy it inside without worrying.

Gloriosa rothschildiana doesn't seem to be minding the heat (actually it's loving the heat; me not so much).

And finally some Calla lilies. Zantedeschia "Black Star", "Majestic Red" and "Purple Heart". Majetic red quite often sends up "double" flowers (or should that be semi-double?) - if you look at the bud coming up to the left of the main flower in the attached photo. What I haven't had happen before is having two flower types on the one stem, as seems to be the case with this Purple heart. There's the regular flower in the centre but the outer flower is more like the flower of Arum lily Green Goddess (complete with green tip). Does anyone know what would cause this or if it's ever happened to them? Is it reverting?

[Mini bulb lover]

Double up from previous entry (had problems posting - the page would just hang at this end for 5+ minutes). Maybe Maggie could kindly delete this duplicate as I can't seem to find a way of deleting it from my end?

[Maggi Young]

It's been a dramatic time here on the Southern Hemisphere section of the forum. Lesley's had some almighty rain, Pat's foot is in the wars, worms are cooking (R.I.P.), Marcus trod on a tiger snake (must have given you a hell of a fright!) and all the southern states have been suffering heat stroke! Meanwhile, Otto is enjoying Prosecco & Shakespeare (more drama) in the gardens. I hope everyone is safe and staying cool (and dry in Lesley's case - send some over here please!).

You're telling me-  what a start to the year. horrible pictures of fire damage  in Tasmania on TV.
You'd think that was dangerous enough without Marcus playing silly devils with tiger snakes.

 I suppose that incident makes Pat glad her injury was not even more risky.
Just caught news of a 7.7 strength earthquake 'somewhere'..... good grief.....
added:   Ah, this quake is off Alaska, so the Southerners should be spared that. And it seems there will not be huge tsunami as a result of this quake  Hope that's right.
Some shaking in Juneau, though.... 205 mls away....

[Tim Ingram]

I'm itching to show a picture of a curled up Tiger Snake on the path up to Frenchman's Cap, taken back in 1981 - but sadly it's a slide! My only experience of real drama with a snake until our dog was bitten by an adder last year. Hard to imagine those temperatures and fires around Hobart, though a few summers back we did reach a record 39°C in Kent and it was pretty unbearable.