The garden enjoying cyclone Alfred

[happypalms]

Cyclone Alfred is certainly giving us a good soaking, with the rain gauge full overnight that’s 200mm plus, 150mm the day before and it looks like another 250mm until the next reading. I love it a complete soaking and flooded in so the world has to leave me alone for a while, exactly the way I like it. No power only gas  for cooking and 12 volt for power. With no damage overnight having protection from the south east winds and the garden saving the house. A few trees down but that’s to be expected. I guess that’s one way to water the garden. Major flooding is expected in all the northern rivers catchment area, not sure how the Gold Coast and Brisbane is fairing up they had the full brunt of the wind but it’s down south that’s getting the rain. The wind last night was like a freight train non stop. I had already removed 3 big dangerous trees so I was not too worried. Now all I just have to do is sit back and relax and enjoy the rain. 

[Harry’s Palms]

Wow , that’s a lot of rain over a couple of days . It sounds like preparations and luck worked in your favor on this one. Rain is great for the garden in moderation but that much can be destructive , especially when it comes with that much wind. A couple of years ago we had a south east wind with very heavy rain. The only thing that came down was a Caryota Mitis that was part of a medium sized clump next to the house . When I went out to check on things after the storm I found it laying on my pathway , about 8’ long . No other plants were damaged , I couldn’t figure out how it got ripped out of the ground and neatly placed in the middle of my pathway (ready for disposal) with out touching anything around it ! Lots of little understory palms there. I hope power is restored soon for your area. Harry

[happypalms]

On 3/9/2025 at 1:22 AM, Harry’s Palms said:

Wow , that’s a lot of rain over a couple of days . It sounds like preparations and luck worked in your favor on this one. Rain is great for the garden in moderation but that much can be destructive , especially when it comes with that much wind. A couple of years ago we had a south east wind with very heavy rain. The only thing that came down was a Caryota Mitis that was part of a medium sized clump next to the house . When I went out to check on things after the storm I found it laying on my pathway , about 8’ long . No other plants were damaged , I couldn’t figure out how it got ripped out of the ground and neatly placed in the middle of my pathway (ready for disposal) with out touching anything around it ! Lots of little understory palms there. I hope power is restored soon for your area. Harry

It is a lot of rain, people kept on asking me am I prepared for the cyclone, my response was I have to do the preparations pretty well much every couple of months pushing the bush away and cleaning gutters and water tank strainers, removing trees that are leaning over, all a day in the life in the bush. You can sit around and do nothing living in the bush with no preparations and when the weather gets bad or fires then you’ll be in trouble. But with a little work each week or two you’re prepared without doing any panic attacks when it goes bad. That’s life in the bush you adapt to it and grow with it and take the good with the bad, iam sure the ticks the leech’s mosquitos snakes spiders and anything else that bites are just daily entertainment. It’s amazing when a tree falls over in the bush sometimes it’s a complete mess other times you wonder how nothing gets damaged. I always have the  chainsaw ready for that tree over the driveway, it can work in your favour just tell the boss you won’t be in today I got a tree down across the driveway, and go fishing instead. 
Richard