Summer swoon

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Wisteria, rose, rhododendron, maple, orange, rose, hibiscus, cherry, magnolia, daisy, azalia — none were at all happy when we got back from the beach yesterday after the record heatwave in Melbourne of four consecutive days over 41 degrees celsius. Fruit is blackened, leaf canopies are singed, thousands of blades and fronds are crisped like curry leaves sizzled in oil. Like many Melburnians I spent a few hours before dusk in the front garden, cold beer in one hand and hose in the other, surveying the damage and chatting to my neighbour over the fence. We clicked our tongues at the ferociousness of the heatwave while we coaxed our favourite exotics out of their high summer swoon. Facing down their alienation, their hot-under-the-arbor anger, we had no convincing answer to their question — why do you have us cling to this garden, this continent?