Our little piece of paradise

Here are two photos approx 6-7 months apart of our back verandah and our family of pot plants. A lot of the plants came from Melbourne back in '98 and were already very very old, I'm talking 20-30+ years in some cases! I lost a lot of beautiful plants in the move to Port Macquarie as they didn't like the coastal climate and were probably traumatised a bit like myself at the time, but they are thriving here. Thankfully, the vintage potplants all survived both moves. The conditions are pretty harsh here - extremes in temperature and frosts etc, but the shadecloth area is a bit protected also by the ornamental grape vine for 6 months of the year and it just seems to be a good spot that they like! Perfect little nest to relax and read a book or dream or drink coffee.

The rest of the yard is 'Crunchville' - very dry and not much growing. We are still trying to keep the citrus trees alive but sometimes it seems obscene to be giving them so much water when we are in such desperate need for this precious commodity in Upper Hunter. We have become used to our arid back yard, but there is hardly a blade of grass at the best of times and when it rains, the grass has just adapted to extreme temperatures and lack of rain and made its own hybrid variation of 'grass/slash weeds'. Quite odd, but certainly not uncommon around the Upper Hunter.

Luv CheleBelle & Nigers

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