The Summer Christmas Garden

We don't do snowflakes or frosted window panes for Christmas down here in New Zealand. There's hardly any point in having Christmas lights. The longest day of the year is next week, and there isn't much call for any kind of lights, inside or out. But this doesn't mean it isn't Christmassy. In spite of the up-side-downness, there are plenty of nods to the Christmas spirit in the garden.

Red baubles, hanging off every strawberry plant, merry as anything, and oh so sweet. These are the little heritage strawberries I planted to keep the weeds around the paths down. They are doing a great job, and the berries, tiny but super sweet and plentiful, are as good a Christmas bonus as any.

Tiny shiny berry lights, popping up on the raspberry canes, just one a day --counting down the twelve days to Christmas.

Ruffles and garlands draped around. The smell of Christmas at our place is the smell of sweet sweet peas.

Christmas bells and stars. The mountain paw paw flowers wouldn't look out of place hanging with the tinsel on a big old fir tree, beside a roaring fire. But I do love them just as they are, hiding demurely behind the fence, well out of the limelight.

OK, this is a bit of a stretch, but how about a Christmas wreath?! This really made me laugh. It's what happens when you leave the pea seedlings unsupervised, with no netting to climb up. They climb up themselves, so to speak.

The greenest of green mini-lights. I imagine getting up in the middle of the night, looking out into the yard, and catching the citrus trees twinkling in the dark. (And yes, I still believe in Santa.)

Every family has at least one gaudy Christmas decoration! The birds have been after ours, so I've devised a cunning way to scare them off. Old CDs and DVDs hanging on strings from the clothes line, madly glinting sunlight around the place. The effect is more disco than Christmas, but it's another way of getting some seasonal sparkle going.

So that's Christmas in our summer garden. My big hope is to get a ripe fig for breakfast on Christmas day. Mustn't forget to tell Santa that.