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.
