Earlier in the year Laurie and I were walking in the Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne when we saw this Black Swan with three cygnets feeding on one of the weed covered lakes. Laurie took the photo, which he subsequently described as his 'ikebana photo' because of the framing of the image by the horizontal branch.
In late December, a cold front with particularly strong winds and gusts exceeding 100 kilometres per hour came through Melbourne. Unfortunately, one of the large oaks was shattered in the storm. This particular tree was over 130 years old. I have been told that these northern hemisphere trees grow much faster in Victoria's relatively warmer climate and that such trees age more quickly.
The White Oak, Quercus alba, is native to eastern and central North America and was the only example in the Melbourne Botanic Gardens.
The Gardens must have a good monitoring system because a protective fence had been erected around it some weeks before the tree was shattered. I think potential splitting of large branches from the main trunk had been observed.
This photo is a sad scene of destruction and 130 years is a long time to wait for recovery, if such a thing is possible.
On a lighter note, back at Torquay so far this summer season w have been spared damaging winds. We have had only two isolated days with desiccating winds and the temperature in the mid 40s Celsius.
Surprisingly, these naturalised Sweet Scabious, Scabiosa atropurpurea, seem to be very tolerant of our hot dry weather.
Though they do prefer moisture being retained in the soil from our extensive mulching.
I love the natural variety of colours in this particular species. There is one small plant in the garden which has white flowers. Because these plants used to grow wild in the nature-strips of Torquay when I was in primary school here, I thought they were a native species, not introduced, as they have been, from the Mediterranean region.
Also flowering at this time of year is the indigenous Bursaria spinosa. There are several of these small trees in the garden and the mass of their small white flowers make a good ikebana subject.
Here are the two plants from different hemispheres making an informal summer ikebana in a quirky ceramic vessel that I bought in Mashiko in Tochigi Prefecture.
Greetings from Christopher
12th January 2020
So sad to see such a large old tree fallen. It reminds me of a major ice storm we had in Rochester NY in 1991. Many large mature trees were fallen and ones that lost too much of their canopies had to be removed. It was a devastating thing to see.
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