G'day bloggers. Well the rain seems to be hold up for now. April recorded 24.5ml compared to 53ml last year and May achieved 48.5ml compared to 75ml last year. Lets hope winter comes through for us. So between the grass and the leaves and various other jobs, our hands are full.

Mick has been kept busy with the grass as it continues to grow as if its Spring! No sign of slowing down or going dormant just yet while the weather remains fine.

I decided to rip out the old hydrangeas along the Dr's clinic and replace them with camellias. While the hydys were impressive, they had lost some condition as the drought bit and they required a lot of time and effort just to water and keep them alive. Once the camellias are established, they should require little to no watering and yet provide an evergreen wall of deep green foliage that produces the most amazing flowers each year. They are rarely affected by pests either which is a real bonus. I was fortunate enough to be able to pick out 10 different varieties as the stock had just landed off the truck.

Other activities of the planting kind involved shifting a mulberry from the F.H.C.C. to the Birches (as it wasn't doing well) and replaced it with a camellia Dr Clifford Parks, an enormous dinner plate sized double red flower which should do better near the oaks over there while hopefully the mulberry will take off in its new exposed position. I also planted some Berberis at the rear of McKellar house, near the maintenance offices. This is an area I have been hoping to develop as I find spare bits of time here and there. To date, the garden bed has been rotary hoed and pine bark put in and just last week I managed to set the bluestone pitches into place and grout up between them. All I need to do now is lay a concrete lawn edge along the stones, plant out the lawn and the garden bed and put a small tree in the lawn. Can't wait!

At home, I've been eating delicious carrots and parsnips and planting broad beans, brussel sprouts and red cabbage - yum! (Although admitting you like brussel spouts could land you in some sort of an institution...)