Hello again bloggers. Well I don't know about you, but if feels droughty to me! Overcast days with no rain or very little at most. In the dying throes of October and only 8ml so far with nothing much forecast. I certainly hope something changes before summer.

As a result, we've already had the gator out to water a few things. Our top dressed lawns are sand dunes unless we bed them down with a bit of water. I've every faith in the kikuyu coming through and covering it up quite soon but till then we wet it mainly so it can be cut with out too much dust. While our seedlings need water, the azaleas need it too.

On another front, the long dry as ensured the demise of one of our birch trees. It had 3 trunks and I assume three trees were planted together in order to take advantage of their silver trunks down the track. Unfortunately, it has been showing signs of stress for a couple of years and I assumed it would die. On falling it, I noticed that there was a significant rot in all three trunks. Fortunately there is a larger common ash in that areas a swell as a claret ash, another, much healthier birch and a young magnolia tree. I also planted a young golden ash near the now extinct tree this year in anticipation and it has shot away quite well. Its one that I hit with gutter guard and mulched so that it will handle the summer.

All the roses and iris are doing their thing and must only be a week or so away from a full spring flush. While there are a the ubiquitous aphids, they tend to not upset things on the whole, so I let the lady-birds eat them until the summer burns them away. This year, however, there was n infestation of young caterpillars on some hybrid teas in front of the Birches building. Closer inspection revealed that while they were massed on the golden diosmas under the roses, it was the roses that they ate, defoliating whole bushes. I may have lost one or two! I have been using a pyrethrum based spray to get rid of them.

Homeward, young broad bean pods are developing and the red cabbages are starting to heart up while the zucchinis, tomatoes and basil have taken off. The punt on keeping the basil alive has paid of fortunately.