Just Look

Beauty is truly in the eyes of the beholder, but only if the beholder is taking notice and observing the detail of what they cast their eyes across.

We can spend much of our time using the device that this is written on scrolling down or finger sliding across, being temporarily absorbed by something of 30 second interest without diving further into the detail that structures our casual view.

Our shoulders slumped forward and head tilted down at 20 degrees of phone hunch and in many cases we hold this pose for the majority of our waking time.

What are you going to do about this sitting crouch? Stay frozen forever in this decline from an upright bipedal being?

Get the bloody hell up, stretch the arms above the head and do a backwards soul arch while looking out and up. Maybe focus on a few deep breaths in and out.

Look out the window or better yet walk outside and feel the temperature cold or not, windy or not, sunny or not. Feel those sensations that nature provides us all.

Don’t just look out and up while vacantly panning across the landscape like a doom scroll. Slow the pan down and drink in the details of what our wonderful eyes can see and what our ears may hear.

Maybe I am a bit more fortunate than some as am generally at home with access to a mini botanical paradise outside the hinged back door. Get up I do, stroll maybe fifteen paces and turn the handle, pull the door open.

It is now automatic to gaze slightly up towards the delightful mountain that embraces Hobart.

Quickly the eyes shift down the ramp and out to the garden beyond.

Sharp chk chk of starlings scratching in the garden bed brings a wry frown at the thought of the Starling nest so far producing three batches of little ole Starlets this Spring. Bully bird they are.

Moving understory branches catch the corner of the eye and almost too late see a Wren so quickly flitter from branch to branch seeking out any tiny insect.

A New Holland Honeyeater just parked on the fence, looked at me and flew to a neighbours tree – so quick, just mere seconds but so much in that few seconds of yellow, black and white stripes.

I pause and the ears focus on a non-stop bzzzzzzzbzzzzzz. Where? Ah the Peony Rose about five metres away with a bumblebee in ecstasy rolling around in the midst of the big blowsy flower.

Is easy to be blissfully absorbed in the frenetic nature of this pollen dancing orgy but alas it is interrupted by the Bumblebee fly waddling (difficult to describe any other way) off to more flower richness.

The garden is in that transition state of finishing spring flower flush and fresh seasonal growth. What growth it is!

A Leatherwood bought a few months ago in the depths of winter and promptly potted up as it was quite root bound. The pale cream leaf margins being different from the standard green leaf variety.

Look at what Spring has sprung! Almost chocolate new leaf with pink margins and the new stems even darker against the pale green with white margin leaves of old. Wonderful!

The spring has sprung leaf hunt is now on and the gaze narrows to growing tips throughout. Am not disappointed with the Camellias throwing out a range of colour from soft pale pastels through to rich ambers and reds to olive green.

All these colour variations are amplified with the shiniest and smooth high gloss finish that shimmers at the merest hint of light.

Topping off the new growth flush are two more endemic Tasmanian plants – Mountain Pepper (Tasmania lanceolata -the berries are seriously peppery!) Double bonus are the plant’s rich red stems relatively uncommon in plant world.

I save the best till last – the humble Myrtle Beech (Nothofagus Cunninghamii). Spring time in the mountain foothills this rich amber blaze of colour can be seen for miles around. My baby is still young and am excited what the next few years will bring adding another colour layer to the garden.

As they say in the classics – “Do yourself a favour” stop scrolling and get out there with the eyeballs switched on to what nature provides at no cost for every day that we exist on this marvellous joy giving planet.

If you don’t stop scrolling and stay in the phone hunch you most likely will miss this.

Unless otherwise noted all photos by Chris Round.