Jeanette said she liked to get stories from 'down under' at this time of the
year -  so here's what is going on in our garden.

It's rose time, yellow, white and pink bush roses are out and dark purple
peony roses  too - the lilacs and snowball trees are finished and have
beneath them a carpet of petals..

The  loquat, lemon and grapefruit are laden and I am just eating the last of
the avocados.  In Napier almost everyone has citrus trees and there are so
many lemons the local Lions organisation has a collection to send them down
the South Island where it is too cold for them to grow.

Trees grow like weeds in New Zealand.   Some years ago I planted a Silver
Dollar Gum by the letter box.   It was the silliest move of my life because
it was directly beneath some high tension wires.   That tree grew so fast it
was up to the wires in no time.  And so began a few years of endless pruning
because of complaints from   the Power Board.   The tree grew so big that it
hid the house!   It was beautiful and you could hear it rustling in the
wind..   For me the most interesting thing about it was its population of
Emperor Gum Moths.

The caterpillars of the moth are magnificent - as long and thick as your
little finger..   The body is green/blue with bristly nodes of red and blue.
These fellows  are quite hard to see in spite of their size.   Their brown
cocoon is interesting too, with an oval shape and is as hard as stone.   I
always wondered how the moth managed to get out and found that it
regurgitated some liquid to soften the case and then used sharp hooks on the
base of each forewing to batter its way out.  If conditions aren't right the
moth won't emerge and it has been known of one being in its cocoon for ten
years.

The tree finally grew so big that we had to cut it down but I was sad to
lose the caterpillars.

More musings later.

Bev