To celebrate the sun making a rare appearance in London today here are some pics from Martin Kennedy of the excellent All India Radio from Melbourne. It’s mad, it’s the wettest winter over here and over there, it’s the hottest summer on record, talk about yin and yang. Cheers for the words and great pictures Martin!

It’s been a long and dry Australian summer and one of the hottest on record, testing even the hardiest of plants. Hardest hit was the lime tree which dropped all of its spring flowers and buds and much of its leaves. The mandarin and lemon trees however fared a lot better keeping most of their fruit. The Japanese maple was also affected, losing all of its leaves after the first heatwave in January but strangely has completely grown back again despite subsequent heatwaves.

The curry leaf bush is doing the best in heat with a lot of new growth. The native grasses are of course thriving no matter what the climate throws at them and the vegetables namely cherry tomatoes and silverbeet seem to be coping OK.

The boston ivy is trying to grow over anything it can get its suckers on, no heat stress there! The lavender hedge is looking a bit woody, but given it is in the hottest and driest part of the garden its doing very well.

Excellent stuff Martin, do give us an autumn update, thanks. Cheers to Dr Strangedub for alerting us to  Martin’s tunes and letting us know about his love of gardening too!