Well I haven't achieved much in the garden for the last two weekends, on account of the fact that I have had to go to Melbourne on business, which is a bit of a shame as I had just got my 'sort it out for spring' head on and had been making some real progress on getting the garden in shape.

Oh well, it will give me something to do when I get back!

There are some plus sides to having to go down under ...

I went for a scroll around the botanical gardens in Melbourne, if you are ever in Melbourne the take a look. The first thing I came across was a beautiful display of daisies ... which is a little strange in the middle of our winter.

I didn't bring my camera with me (rather dim!), so only had my phone camera to take some photos as I wandered around (you can find them here) .

Everything is backwards ... the section of the garden containing the Hellebore was rather dull and uninteresting ... because down here they flowered six months ago!

The same was true of Camellia garden, it would appear they are popular in Australia and one small section of the garden was set over to them ... but again not a bloom in sight, six months too late.

And with what was in bright and colourful mood, it was equally backwards, with both the Hibiscus and the Coneflowers in fully bloom.

Elsewhere it was variously colourful and exotic. I do not know what these big red flowers are, but there were plenty of them.

All in all a pleasant way to spend a morning, and walking for about three hours ... keeps you fit too