I garden in Southern Tasmania which is a island south of the Australian mainland. We have what is described as a temperate marine climate which equates in extremes to USDA 8 /9 . We have an average rainfall of about 26 inches per annum which is fairly evenly spread throughout the year. Our climate is effectively a Mediterranean one, as the summer rain is rarely prolonged enough to get into the ground. Temperature rarely goes below -2 °C in winter or above 38 °C in summer - we get on average about 10 days of 30C+ in summer and 10-15 frosts in winter most of them being fairly mild.
Our garden is in a rural area on three and a half acres including a dam, and is just over 12 months old. Here is a photo of our fledgling garden taken in August 2002. A few months after starting the garden we started loosing plants to our native Wallabies (a smaller version of the Kangaroo) and had to build a fence around the garden .
The combination of a relatively low rainfall and relatively mild climate allows me to grow a wide range of geophytes. Over the 20 years or so I have been growing I have accumulated a large collection. I am especially interested in Crocus, Erythronium, Fritillaria, Galanthus, Iris, Narcissus. Arum, Biarum, and Arisaema fascinate me, but the growth area in my collection is currently South African Amaryllidaceae and Hyacinthaceae. I am also developing a fascination with our Australian Amaryllidaceae.
I work as a solo general practitioner (family physician) in a small country town called Snug . I am married to Vicki , with a total of 6 children, 4 of whom are still living with us. The youngest children are twins born in July 2002. When family, work and garden allow it , I enjoy swimming with an aussie masters club.
Here are the men of the family at Xmas 2002. Twin James was 5 months and Alexander almost 3 years old. In the background is Dickinsonia antarctica, the Tasmanian tree fern.
All my photos were taken with Vicki's Pentax MZ-30 scanned to CD by our local Kodak dealer which is why many of my images have a black bar at the top or side.