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I rang my plant doctor - a friend who has a nurseryman background and who also gave me my Bonsai for my 50th the year before last.

It’s not looking well and I don’t know what’s wrong with it.  It’s not been burnt from the sun as the leaves aren’t turning brown from the top down, but are turning brown from the bottom up. It is being watered regularly but not sitting in water all day long.

It gets the morning sun but not the hot afternoon sun.  It is sheltered from most of the wind.

Anyway, guess I’ll wait and see what the ‘doc’ has to say - he did tell me over the phone he’d come and pick it up and nurse it for me for about a month, and repot it as he felt it was probaby due for that.  I hope he can nurse it back to health and tell me what I’ve been doing wrong.

Such a pleasure to go to sleep at night hearing the rain falling heavily on the roof above.

I woke up this morning and found our pond very full - the rain fall has helped, but so has the drainpipe we have running from our overflowing guttering around the roof as well.  The water is now right up to the line of rocks and much more rain will mean I’ll have to turn the tap we have on the pipe so the water doesn’t start overflowing the pond or going back up the pipe feeding the pond.

Maybe we really should consider putting in a rain tank.

I couldn’t resist photographing these when I saw them a couple of weeks ago in the garden - after some rare rain overnight. But I was too scared to pick them and use them in the kitchen - I don’t know the difference between ’safe’ mushrooms and unsafe ones. However, they looked so perfect I just had to photograph them and share them with you. They were in the remainder of our vege garden down the back.

This one was just peaking through the autumn litter.

I don’t understand why in Victoria we were told we could only water in the mornings from 6am to 8am?  I have 2 days a week alloted to me - one week day and one weekend.  To me it would make sense to water in the evenings - particularly in the summer. That way the gardens would stay damp for the majority of the night, whereas during the day and under the hot summer sun, the garden dries out really quickly. Where is the sense in this?

Perhaps someone might be able to tell me the reasoning for this but it seems to me that the majority of people would be getting ready for work in the mornings, or want to lie in bed a little longer on the weekends whereas in the evening, the majority would be home organising their evening meal or doing something else and they could water their gardens then.

What do you think?