This morning my heart sang at the simple beauty down by our stream. The park is full of flowering trees and shrubs but never have I seen it look it as pretty as it did on this quiet Sunday morning.
Looking towards the stone bridge – Higo iris, primulas and white foxglove.
Weeds? Not to us any more. We prefer to talk about a meadow.
Looking back from the high bridge with mown paths through the long grass.
The Higo irises are the mainstay of the flowering this month.
Finally, the Wollemi pine was an amazingly generous gift from friends whose own circumstances had changed, meaning they could not guarantee its future. It has a special place in the park in a location where we hope it can grow to maturity and become one of the feature trees into future generations.
The act of gardening in itself is not often a joy – though it can be a pleasant activity and many of us enjoy the doing as well as the looking. Sometimes, when it all comes together, the experience of just walking through and seeing the meeting of human effort with nature is truly a joy and a delight.
Tikorangi The Jury Garden 
You’ve created a paradise for yourselves.
Out of interest, re the meadow, is there a plan for after the grass has seeded, dried and died?
it will be mown once in late autumn. Whether we rake up the grass remains to be decided though I did suggest to Mark that the making of a traditional haystack would be charming. He was not entirely convinced by this idea.
Abbie, seeing your stream with iris blooming brought joy to my heart, so thank you! And best wishes for a wonderful holiday season, from the snowy north.
So pleased you enjoyed it, Pat. And I know that you too are experimenting with establishing a meadow, albeit in very different conditions to ours. I can’t imagine a snowy Christmas. We are headed to our daughters and our beautiful grandson in Australia so it will be a hot, summery one for us. All the best to you and I trust you have a lovely festive season. All those European traditions that we associate with Christmas probably make more sense in your climate.
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