Overview Of September 2007

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

The Fish Pond .....

The Fish Pond ..... several years ago I had dug out the fishpond and had used a black vinyl pool liner to hold water in it. It had been neglected in the last few months and had gone down to half level as I had bucketed out water to water some far off new trees out in the paddock. The water had gone green with algae and had become an eyesore rather than an asset to the garden.

In September this year, I siphoned the remaining water down into the lower garden. I washed and scrubbed out the liner and pond with clean water. I then filled the pond back up with clean water. The water is clean and fills the pond nearly up to the stone rim. The water gives a wonderful restful quality to the garden. Our next project is to get a local blue flowered water lily growing and flowering in a pot along with some goldfish.

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Tuesday, September 25, 2007

The Pool and the Grewia Bushes

The Pool and the Grewia Bushes ........ the Grewia bushes are planted as a clipped hedgerow around the back of the amphitheatre as an enclosing screen. I clip to the height of the pool decking fence so that it all appears approximately at the similar height.

In the big frost in late June, the Grewia bushes were badly frosted. In early September, I trimmed all badly frosted foliage and just now after the rain, the bushes have thickened up again. See the photo below.

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Environmental bas relief ....

Environmental bas relief .... This is a work of art for an outdoor setting. Months ago I had nailed it up on a outdoor section of old post and rail fence in the garden. Early in the year I was up one of the beaches on the Sunshine Coast which is north of Brisbane. I was walking along in the upper sandy section of the beach and began to find all this beautiful drift detritus:

floating segmented breadfuit nuts to 50 mm in size ..... just beautiful tapered shapes
small sections of bleached and sand-etched branches
sea shells of various sizes
White bleached and flat cuttlefish bones of various lengths
twisted seagrass strands of various lengths
white flattened stones to 20 mm in size
waterworn multicoloured pebbles to 10 mm in size
various brown - greyed leaves from flat to twisted shapes
grey volcanic pumice to 25 mm size
local grey banksia flower stalks
This was the leftover detritus that had floated in on the last very high tide. The detritus was stranded in parallel intersecting rows and left on a base of graded white sand. The sand underneath was in intersecting curves left by the ebbing tide.
I collected this detritus up in a bag with the intention of making an artwork of this small section of seaside beauty. As the artist at work, I took it home and began to work with it. It wasn't sculpture which is three dimensional but it was two dimensional ie. a bas relief. The detritus was laid out on a white canvas backing board normally used in painting. Using white wood glue which dried as a clear glue (PVC glue), I layered the detritus at an angle suggested the movement of the tide across the canvas. I was interested in of all the elements ..... the floating segmented breadfuit nuts ..... the small sections of bleached branches and shells etc. Then graded sand was sprinkled over the area to suggest the washed effect of the beach. I then nailed a frame around the canvas of old driftwood boards. This was then nailed to the section of post and rail fence.
In September this year, I took the bas relief off the fence and added and glued more small sections of bleached branches and shells with further swirls of sand. After it was all dry, I nailed back up again.

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The Italian Garden Pot

The Italian Garden Pot ..... one of several in the garden. With the spring weather, it has new green shoots and new flower blossums on the dwarf orange tree planted in it.