January 2022 – Crofton Garden

If there’s one thing you could say about Jenny, it’s that she never does things by halves. Sometimes it’s a bit half arsed but never halves.

January is never a good month at Crofton Garden. Sandford is the second driest place in Tasmania and relies on tank water so it can get totally depressing watching the garden get dry and crispy and only have a limited amount of control over it.

It’s a fine line between gorgeous Summer sunlight and a crispy tree. Summer wrecks the garden at Crofton, every year it is just a case of survival.

So within this context you could say we were desperately looking for a distraction. And distraction we found via Monty Don’s Adriatic Gardens series, which included a Japanese influenced garden, which reminded Jenny how much she loved them, which, in turn, (stay with us here) reminded her that she has always wanted a Shishi Odoshi (otherwise known as a Japanese Deer Scarer). Monty is discarded for the computer, Shishi Odoshi is purchased, and we finally come to the topic of this month: Fish. Not little fish. Big Fish. REALLY big fish.

It’s ok. Jenny knows she have can’t have Koi. She sulks about it sometimes but she understands.

As previously emphasised we really really really wanted BIG fish. If Jenny was to have the Japanese Shishi Odoshi pond extravaganza she dreamed of, she needed BIG fish.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t get any biggies anywhere so she compromised with a lot of small (and in her words “shitty”) fish. It was quite depressing for her. Her visions of a Japanese Pond full of BIG fish swimming about amongst the reeds, their flashing tails catching the sunlight – ok, this may be a bit over the top but you know what she means. The small fish did not match the dream and had to go. This means that Holly had to take them to rehome at her house because she has a good heart and nothing according to her should be discarded just because they are small. Jenny not so much.

They may not be big but they are certainly perky little things. And they look pleasant enough…?

Sidenote: The rehoming was slightly traumatic with the goldfish turning slightly cannibalisitic and eating three of the smaller guppies. Two guppies remain and Holly has been overfeeding her fish since so they don’t eat the poor traumatised survivors.

Moving on. Jenny is nothing if not persistent. She was promised at one pet store fish sized at least 10cm, which kind of sounded large at the time but in reality not so much. Undeterred, she rehomed those into the Fountain Garden Pond (we’ll get onto that saga later).

Nope. Still not BIG enough but probably will be soon if they keep growing the way they are and eating a very meat rich diet (read the epilogue below, then you’ll understand)…

Finally, she received a hot tip from an Aquarium supplier that she had been harrassing…ahem…”talking” to that some BIG fish had been spotted at an aquarium in town. Proper BIG fish. With no time to waste she raced up to town to view said fish. We all held our breath in anticipation for her arrival home. This was going to end either very good or very bad. There was no inbetween. A collective sigh of relief was heard when her mission was reported as successful. Finally. Finally, she had her BIG fish. We’re talking 20-25cm long. Four of them. The Japanese Pond dream was still alive. Now all it needs is the Shishi Odoshi but that’s next months saga…

These are our BIG FISH! And they are very big despite the poor photographic representation of them. They are very mobile and like to flick their tails and make splashes. They are weirdly hypnotic. They also provide an added sense of danger to the garden as one decided to jump out of the original container just as Jenny was wondering out loud if they could jump out. It was rescued and so far none have repeated this feat or died.

Epilogue: Something is happening down in the Fountain Garden Pond. There are now at least 8 goldfish living in the pond. We have never really realised what fish got up to, especially in packs. These guys are like the Mafia, patrolling the area looking for victims. Holly even saw them drag a frog (we think (hope) it was already dead) into their Troll Cave at the base of the Fountain, that’s their headquarters (see below). Who knows what sick rituals are going on in there. We live in terror of what traumatic sight we will see next. The fish are growing as an exponential rate. All we can say is do not dip your fingers or toes in the water. We can’t be responsible for anyone losing a limb and if you want any advice on Fish, probably best of you don’t ask us.

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