Oscar — The Dog-Cat!

Meet Oscar. He's a cat who thinks he's a dog!

I'm hardly ever alone in the garden as Oscar always follows me into the garden. He loves it when any of us humans go up there. He loves rolling around in the dirt, on the grass and waving his tail around my legs and chasing skinks. Unfortunately he's not been doing a very good job of keeping the birds out of the plum tree. The fruit is ripening on the tree and the birds are making a mess of it, pecking holes in all the fruit. I might have to dock his pay.

To tell the truth I think he's actually scared of going up there by himself as there are a few stray cats in the surrounding bush. He also takes the opportunity when we go up there to mark his territory, to let them know that this is HIS place and that they should stay away.

When he's in the house at night and he hears a strange noise outside, he growls like a dog. He scratches on the door to go in and out, just like a dog.

But I must admit, he climbs trees better than any dog I know.

The Garden Archway

One of the things I always wanted in my garden was an archway. There's something romantic about archways that creates a beautiful ambience in a garden. Besides, my father had an archway in our family garden years ago. I just loved it – it had grapes growing all over it and it was my favourite place in his garden. The archway brings back some happy childhood memories for me, working with my father in the garden. If there's one thing he passed on to me it was his love of gardening.

So I managed to acquire an archway a few years ago and it's been a feature in my garden for some time now. This year I decided to grow passionfruit over it.

I've attached a couple of old bed frames to it. On the one in the foreground I'm growing cucumbers.

The passionfruit flower is spectacular, unlike any other flower I know.

I'm looking forward to tasting the first fruits... that's if I can get to them before my wife and daughter do.

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October 2019

A few years ago I decided to focus more on growing flowering plants than on vegetables. That's when I decided to try growing a creeping rose over the archway. I under-estimated how big this would get and it's now completely taken over this part of the garden.

I'm not sure if I particularly like it, as it creates a lot of shade, although it does create a cottage-y atmosphere which is kinda nice and it has also created a clear division between two quite different parts of the garden which I like. On reflection, part of the appeal of an archway in the garden is creating an entranceway between different spaces.

I made the mistake of threading some of the stems through the diamond wire on the archway. I can see that's going to be a problem before too long as the stems are thickening up and threatening to pull it all out of shape.

I've yet to decide whether it will continue to be a permanent feature in the garden. I'm not sure what else I could grow on it without it blocking too much light.