The Year of the January Green

 

Something so extraordinary happened (I should think it's finishes now, with the onset of real summer heat) that it's worth stirring from my recent torpor and blogging about it...

This ... Never ... Happens. I'm not exaggerating. In fact, I've been ransacking my memory for any other year in which the South Australian landscape was green as County Cork in January, ten days after the summer solstice ... and I can't remember any other time. There was a year (1971 or 72, I can't quite recall) when it drizzled until shortly before Christmas, but by New Year the hills were baked brown and the catchments were half empty, as usual. This year? Well --

 

This never happens. Except, apparently, in an El Nino year with some weird dipole values and a heck of a lot of monsoonal activity in the north and east. Put it all together, and you get a cool, sometimes misty, and rather wet summer for us, which translates directly into ... green. And I have to say, I like it. A lot. The climate could settle into this pattern and stay right there, if it were up to me...

These images were all captured after New Year, and as far apart as Victor Harbor and the Flinders Ranges, by way of Clare Valley, the McLaren Vale region, Mt Lofty Botanic Gardens, Nangawooka, and Brodie Road wetlands, which are in our own backyard. I'll say it again: Green!!!

A Christmas Gift from Mother Nature

 

The Monarch (Wanderer) butterflies seem to thrive on the Milkweed bush in the back garden here at home. The bush is about six years old now -- I keep it very well pruned -- and we counted upwards of 25 caterpillars before they started to chrysalis. Around 80% of the chrysalises seem to have hatched, and so far we haven't found any of the new-hatched Wanderers dead in the vicinity, so they really do seem to thrive here. This was a genuinely beaut Christmas gift from Mother Nature, and we were lucky enough to get good pictures in a patch of sunshine between the omnipresent rain...

It's raining again, in January, and the hills are green. Still green? Green again? Very weird. By this time of the year, the state of South Australia ought to be burned brown and desiccated, but this year everything remains soooo green -- 

The downside to which is, I'm not going to be able to save the roses. There's rust and black spot on every single bush, and some are a disaster zone. I'm pretty disappointed with this, because I had them looking marvellous before all the rain came back. Well ... back to square one and start again! Time to cut them back to sticks and spray everything in sight.

The forecast for these coming days also includes rain, so I'll just wait and see if January gets warmer before I start with the chemicals. Argh.