no epiphany – 
just flowering gums
     and radiata pine

I saw the first flowering gum trees coming into bloom two days before Christmas, so I guess you could consider flowering gums one of the kinds of Christmas tree here in Naarm / Melbourne.

Some flowering gums have vivid orange flowers, others deep red flowers like a second coming of the scarlet bottlebrush (the bottlebrushes finished flowering a month or so ago).

The flowering gums looked wonderful for the week between Christmas and New Year but now we’ve had some days of very heavy summer rain, crushing the flowers so now they are no longer at their best . . .

. . . and now? Now we’ve reached Twelfth Night (the 6th of January), also known at Epiphany, when the Three Magi are said to have visited the baby Jesus. Christmas decorations are taken down. The dried out radiata pines, that many families use as Christmas trees, are left out on the footpaths and nature-strips to be taken away as “green waste”.

Speaking of summer rain, rain that comes in hot weather seems to have very different qualities to rain that falls at cooler times of year. I know that “spring rain” is used as a kigo (seasonal key word) in Japanese haiku, but here in Naarm / Melbourne it seems to be summer rain and summer thunderstorms that are most distinctive.