The Plant Life

Many of the plants we have in Chico I’ve seen here, blooming in winter as they do there. In our yard alone, we have camellias, calla lilies, geraniums (I’ve noticed that some seem to grow very tall here!), and this daisy bush thing I have at my old house. 

I’ve seen wild iris and purple irises, and butterfly bush as well. I saw purple statice, alive in the ground, which previously I've only ever seen dried. I’ve noticed that many houses have lavender hedges. Sometimes they are long and square hedges, often times the whole length of the fence.

We have one of these plants in our yard, which I’ve seen before in flower arrangements I think, but not sure what kind of plant it is. It feels tropical.

Last Sunday, National Tree Day (and coincidentally the rainiest and coldest weather we’ve had) we went down to the dunes to help the Warrnambool Coastcare Landcare Group “reveg” the landscape. (See their website for great ideas about how they've involved the community.) I used a tool to pull out a plug of dirt and Andy popped in the prickly moses. We didn’t actually have to put a milk carton around ours because the leaders told us that the name indicated why animals were not likely to eat it. It was fun to see families out with their kids, helping to maintain the environment. We missed out on getting a picture of Captain Sustain-a-bool, in his mask and cape (and droopy underwear from the rain…), who was handing out chocolates to the volunteers. At the sign-in tent, we purchased a “Plants of the Great South West” book to help us with our identification. After our wet work, we were treated to sausages cooked by the Lions Club.

We’ve learned about many of the plants that have hard seeds and cones to protect them from the many things that might eat them in the wild. This really interesting plant is all around campus.

 

 Andy has written about his walks around campus. Having come from a really beautiful natural campus in Chico, I felt lucky to find myself in another really scenic environment. Months before we came, my colleague Bernadette sent me a picture of a koala bear that she said had greeted her at the car park that day. There is apparently at least one koala who hangs out near campus and he is named Alfred (Alfred Deakin, after whom the uni is named). Now, each time I come into campus and as I leave, I scan all of the eucalyptus trees for koalas. I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting Alfred, but I plan to! 

Here’s a beautiful aerial view of the campus. My office is on the third floor of the long building in the forefront of the buildings.