It is spring in Melbourne and I am not there. I had a taste for it before I left for India. The japonica was flowering and there was a sprinkling of blossom on the plum trees and wild prunus. I wonder if the lilac has bloomed and finished. It is now nearly the end of September. Did the poppies bloom? And the wild azalea? Have the forget-me-nots and the borage covered the garden? Have the roses at Ivanhoe survived the lack of care? What about the persimmon? Are the hollyhocks good this year? And the grevillea, correa and salvia that I planted only last Autumn? It may be too late to plant the tomato seedlings from Lyn. Maybe I will be back home in time to see the quince bloom. I am making up for my lost spring by creating small gardens in the balconies of my place in Dharamshala and my sister's house in Delhi.
Author Biography
Supriya Singh is a writer and sociologist. She grew up in India, lived in Malaysia and for the last 34 years has lived in Australia. Some of her books are Marriage Money: The Social Shaping of Money and Banking (Allen & Unwin, 1997) and The Girls Ate Last (Angsana Publications, 2013). Ann Cunningham's nature printing, drawing and painting is an act of meditation. She invites the viewer to enjoy and look more closely at nature. Her 2017 set of 40 direct prints of ferns from the Royal Melbourne Botanic Gardens Fern Gully is now in the Herbarium Library.
