Tag: native plants

Heat, Chienne and Road Trips

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs
Chienne and her Thundershirt
Chienne and her Thundershirt

After discussions with herself  and the fact that the temperature is going to be  extreme , I telephoned Adelaide and cancelled my booking. I will not be going to Adelaide after all. Probably just as well. The high to extreme temperatures will cover about two thirds of the continent according to the Bureau  of Meteorology  – should clear South Australia by late Friday but  with a second front pushing in and lasting until at least the New Year. Already there are reports of fires in the Adelaide Hills and the fire Services are on alert. Sadly, two 9 (NINE) year olds have been picked up by police for lighting fires. Police are patrolling the back country roads looking for anything suspicious. Temperature (Official) is expected to reach 43c with the chance of a thunderstorm in the late evening. This means it will really be about 45c+ since the Official Temperature is taken from a protected area and does not really reflect what’s beaming down on your little head as you walk outside – somewhere between 109f and 113f. However, thunderstorms – with or without rain – are not uncommon after a bout of high temperatures.

I have an industrial grade Thermometer under the pergola and when I checked in at 3:50 it was nudging 47c. On the news this evening the Official Temperature was 44.5, which is only 2.5 degrees of a difference. I will probably  dress Chienne in her Thundershirt again tonight as we are advised that there will a severe weather warning for tonight – High Wind  Thurderstorm and  Lightening strikes, but probably no rain – which is what I suggested a paragraph or so ago.  I spoke to Alan and he seems resigned to not being able to spend Christmas with us. However, I will make time to go down to Adelaide sometime after Christmas and  visit with him for a while. Perhaps we could get a wheelchair and I could take him out for a coffee somewhere – that should be ok.

edwardian01Friday 20th (am)  and the forecast high winds and thunderstorm never eventuated. Of course, sometimes the forecasts are out by 24 hours and instead of a Thursday night, it could all happen tonight. Still that’s ok – Chienne looks good in her Thundershirt and she was a bit agitated last night but that could have been due to the change in  pressure after the wind change. While I wont be in Adelaide now until after Christmas I hope (weather permitting) to take a run through to the Arid Lands and bring

This little fellow was abandoned and is now in the care of SA Dog Rescue.
This little fellow was abandoned and is now in the care of SA Dog Rescue.

back some plants. Oddly enough, I have bought Native Plants here and within  months they die, whereas the plants I bought  almost a year ago in the ALBG are still with us. I have three rose bushes out front and to be honest they have never flourished, never flowered and are half dead. I am going to replace them with natives.  I might remember to take my camera with me and take some photographs along the road.

Thunderstorms, dogs and sleep!!

by edgar62, posted in House, Garden and Dogs

I think a lot of the problems we have here is that we lack imagination. Let me qualify that! When we leave Europe and come to the  far flung fringes of the Southern Hemisphere, we tend to bring our ideas of gardening with us. So, we plant the flowers we are used to, we plant good old European Lawns – in essence we seem to make every attempt to recreate the kind of garden we left behind – the kind that our parents lovingly tended and we, their children,  spent our youth in. So we plant our garden ,  watch things die and come to the conclusion that the problem is not enough water, so we water the plants and lawns with copious amounts of water  morning and afternoon. However, with the drought of recent years and water restrictions  the cost of continuing with this has become prohibitive. I have gotten rid of  lawns and replaced it with weed matting and treated coloured pine bark (red)  I have tried roses without much success and out of the dozens that I bought three are hanging on for dear life. I have planted  other pants and watch them burn up and die in the sun – despite watering mulching and soil treatment that didn’t work. So, native plants it is. I have started with two Sturt’s Desert Roses and two Sturt’s Desert Peas.  I have also planted four  silver leaf Eremophila – two out front and two  at the back. I will wait to see how these all survive before I do anything else. A neat European style garden and 40c heat just don’t go together.Not up in this little corner of the Commonwealth. And it’s only taken me 20 years to figure that out!

Chienna on her Futon.
Chienna on her Futon

Oh what a joy! We had a major thunderstorm last night. It started about 1:30 am and I was up and trying to comfort a dog who believed that the sky was falling. The vet had given me medication (ACP  10 mil.) to calm her down so I gave one  tablet to her. I also brought both dogs into my room so that herself would not be wakened. The little man curled up on my bed and went back to sleep. Chienna kept pacing up and down and stressing out. I really feel sorry for her and the combination of noise and pressure  really gets to her. The way she stresses out and the constant panting, I am surprised she doesn’t have a heart attack. But she doesn’t want to be comforted or reassured because when we try to hold her  she breaks free and continues her pacing and panting until the noise and the pressure stops- which it did around 4am but by then she had started to clam down.  She settled down at the foot of my bed and we all went to sleep until my alarm went off at 6:30. I gave them their sticks, let them out and went back to bed for an hour.