A gardener's strategies for surviving another Australian summer

I spent several hours in the garden this morning, amazed at how much has survived our second relentless hot and dry summer in Cow Flat.

Dominating one of the embankments is a thriving golden diosma, that most pedestrian of little plants, useful if you want to fill a space or create a hedge. This one was given to me as a gift when I moved in, and given my personal plant prejudices, I tucked it between a collection of more interesting things, all of which have now died. I did not particularly nurture that plant, and each time I spotted it growing wildly, I wondered why. I guessed it just liked being here. This year I bought a couple more. There is wisdom in here, somewhere.

Everything is under a blanket of heavy mulch, but acclimatized plants push through with great determination. When the hot weather set in I decided to dig up a few plants - notably the passionfruit pictured above-  that were struggling and put them in my Mercy Garden close to the house, where I could water them with whatever we saved from the shower and washing machine.

In praise of the humble but hardy Agapanthus

Everything in the garden is crisp. It has been the hottest summer of the hottest year on record. Yet the humble Agapanthus is blooming in long avenues throughout my garden, and I  so very grateful for its hardiness. 

We gave away thousands of these plants after the Bob Cat dug up a hundred years' growth through the old orchards, but we judiciously replanted the long rows along the driveway and towards the back paddocks.

Everything else I impulsively planted before going into hospital in October, is dead. Even things that have survived here for decades are shedding their branches. There is a massive cedar in one corner which is probably as old as this house (1879) and it is throwing away branches in disgust, determined to survive.