New Ideas

I've been watching a dvd of City Gardening, about garden makeovers in Britain. Most of the people there have flat backyards attached to their house which is stuck right next to another house. Most people want a garden they can hang out in the evening after work with their mates. And have parties.

I'm feeling a inspired and now started making inroads of the stack of the Garden Design books my bible study host gave me. For my 'party garden' I considered my boring backyard would be livened up with a pink and purple corner. I am considering swapping my lemon tree with the jacaranda which will also screen the neighbours house, while the lemons will be closer to the deck and in easy picking distance. Then I will also have some pink flax in the background and pink manuka lining the edges as a screen. I will need to get rid of the swan plant as its leaning at a dangerous angle and looks a bit unsightly, and while it has butterflies, its really not shown off to best advantage. And I already have some in the front yard.

Then I will move the chinese toon also to the corner or side as it has gorgeous pink foliage. It is getting cramped in the bed it's currently in. For ground cover I may have the purply ajuga which is said to thrive in moist soil, if I manage to get rid of the creeping buttercup.  So I need to go out to buy some pink flax  I've had my eye on for some time. I can also move the yellow chinese lantern to the patio garden and put that by the fence.

Mum got her hands dirty and pulled out most of the ginger lily in the rock garden and I've replaced it with geraniums and lavender.

So I think maybe I get cracking tomorrow as the storm is over, we had hail, wind, rain, sun, so I think the soil is all freshly nitrogenated now. I have more doodia ferns by the birds nest fern, a baby agapanthus, some fennel, and a muelenbeckia to plant by the wire fence next to the kowhai.

At Woodside we were preparing the feijoa hedge. It's pretty muddy at the moment but our winter veges are growing well. This times its garlic, onions, cabbages, rocket, kale, beetroot and broccolis.

Wild Weather

A storm is brewing.
I heard thunder and we may likely to have torrential rain, wind, and whatever else Mother Nature or is it Father God can throw at us.

Cleopatra magnolia has blossomed and already the gorgeous purple tulip like flowers are starting to fruit, or rather, cone, as the wind continues to lash the petals.

Beth kindly donated more fruit salad cuttings so now I have three plants, which is just as well, because the first one got damaged by frost. I have moved it to the other side of the house under the bathroom window. I am also looking after her pet geraniums. They are in pots.

Is it pot geraniums or pet? Because they are kind of like pets. Plant pets in pots.

Well I can't do anymore gardening today...

I have been looking at my gardening books and considering what to do with my wretched border that has been invaded by creeping buttercups. Slash and burn? People say boiling hot water works, as well as vinegar and lime. It might be that I will have to put sand and rocks there and plant on top of the rocks as buttercups only go where its badly drained.  Or if I just plant a shrub or tree to shade the area, the buttercups will not grow where its too shady. They like moist soil and to be in the sun.

Here comes the rain. I will sign off for now as its miserable weather. But at least the plants will get a boost of nitrogen with the lightening.

I am going to read the rest of this months' NZ Gardener magazine which I won as a prize when I entered the draw. They also sent me a packet of poppy seeds so next April I will try again.

Continuing Education

After the War of the Roses I did some general tidy up. And now amongst the volcanic rock I have planted a spectacular birds nest fern I found at the church plant sale, along with a boston fern and two baby spider plants. Perhaps they will take this time.

In Sock's bed I have put in some more spider plants - the green kind, not the stripy ones, amongst the narrow border against the cymbidiums, so they are sheltered from frost. Before they were in the tyres down the back, but I've removed one and just let a flax grow there. Or cabbage tree - I can't tell at the moment what it will be, it's one of Beth's donations.

I am still at loss what to do with my creeping buttercup border, nothing will kill them, but at least they don't have thorns. I have tried smothering them, planting other things on top, digging them out, but they multiply like bunnies. I have two roses growing there and I am loathe to dig them up as well as they are scented ones but I didn't plant them there. I have a kowhai tree there that mercifully hasn't died, the soil is moist and in a sunny spot so I'm not sure what else I can put there, Readers Digest suggested cannas but I've already got them down the back...maybe I will continue with dietes and rain lillies and another abutilon. Or perhaps a bottle brush to attract birds and it will be a kind of hedge?

The border is too narrow to be a real herbaceous border like the English garden style which is very labour intensive. I need to find perennials as I had annuals before and they don't seem to return after the season is over, except for a few straggly sweet peas and lupins. Mum thinks it's a disgrace but she doesn't exactly help much with digging up buttercups. Or the chickens.

Also remember I am not allowed nikaus.

My other plan was to have maybe a parterre or a sundial and weather station garden or herb wheel where the temperature box, weather vane and rain gauge is but I keep having visions of a pond with stepping stones and bog plants. However I think mum might notice if I start digging out part of the lawn. She doesn't go to the plant barn to look at the plants she goes there to meet a friend for coffee and cake.

Continuing my education, I watched 200 years of English gardening history. I had inherited a garden from the 70s which is not really garden at all but the conifer and gravel nightmare. I remember the 'low maintenance' junipers all had to be ripped out as they grew to giant proportions and after that my brothers reverted to clipped box hedging style which is Kissinghurst's hallmark for themed garden rooms.  However I'm not having all my beds of one colour although I've attempted that in Snowy's white and silver bed.  The final episode of that series in which they created seven period gardens was the contemporary 2004 garden which was a big oval timber structure surrounded by trees, lights, decking, and slouchy garden furniture. Hmm maybe not.  Maybe I will forget designer intentions and just have a rule that if it grows well, and looks good, it stays.  Bonus if it's edible.

The Battle is Won

 Hurrah!
The War of the Roses has been won, and we finally defeated the flower carpet rose today.  I was tackling the one that had sprung up creeping its nasty thorns near the feijoa tree today and managed to pull it out by the roots and plant a big spider plant on top.

Then, leaving no prisoners I decide the one near the maple tree had to go. It was a big tough mama that had needed a wire cage and wouldn't budge. Previously I had tried to smother it with a bucket or old wok but it just grew again like medusa. Well I got the spade and fork out and kept digging away, then called reinforcements (Dad) and he dug around too. Then we found it had wrapped itself around a maple root and so Dad had to cut it away with a saw. I got the pruning shears and lopped off all the thorns which we going to burn...and the stump eventually got prised loose from the maple root after an intense battle that nearly had us both giving up.

Dad suggested we poison it and burn it but I thought, if we poison it, won't the maple tree get poisoned too? And how can we burn it when it's still in the ground?
But now its chopped to smithereens it will be sayanora flower carpet rose which was going all black spotty anyway. Best to burn it I suppose now it's resting in pieces, because I do not want a night of the living dead zombie rose scenario where we destroy one and a thousand more pop up in its stead. Whoever invented or bred the flower carpet rose must have been a sadist. I don't know what they were thinking, but the carpets I know do NOT have thorns in them.

Now the pit where its loosed from is now full of volcanic rocks and a succulent, and I'm thinking won't boston ferns look pretty there and have a woodland effect, or maybe...more snow in summer? Or maybe a true mat of soft fluffy lambs ears that you can actually walk on...wouldn't that be more 'carpet'?
I have tried most things but now its the realm of jonquils which have flowered although not as many as I would like, to be really wondrous you need hundreds of them.

Anyway, I did not take a photo of my triumph because I was too distracted by the gorgeous magnolia bud that has just started to bloom. I love the colour. So here is a photo of Mt Asher's jewel.

Gardening Edumacation

I finished watching Landscape Man. The rest of the episodes were of rich couples who splashed out on Chelsea flower gardens, one who lived on a clifftop seaside in Guernsey and planted grasses, the good life wannabes in Wales, and another who made a sunken garden and pond in the old tennis court in Sussex.

Is gardening a middle-class past time? I am pondering this question after watching all these BBC programs. Have money, will garden. Don't have money...your plans are sunk. In Regency times in England it was the fashion to adorn a stately home with a garden to show off your manor. Then the Victorians pioneered the crazy plant hunting expeditions which inadvertently discovered Australia in the process, thanks to Joseph Banks. He anchored in Sydney, calling it 'Botany Bay' and marvelled at all the new exciting plants that would wow everyone back in England. He wasn't so enamoured with the people already living there, I gathered, and didn't take them home to show everyone.

I learn of Edwardian cases and Disneylandesque creations such as the Chinese Garden in Biddulph Grange, made to look exactly like a willow plate. There's also an art to 'bedding out' which requires hundreds and thousands of plants. Behind the scenes, gardeners slaved away nursing these bedding plants each season for their rich and powerful employers keen to show off their garden beds to everyone else. Six gardeners would spend all day scything the lawn before lawnmowers were invented and numerous more would live in dark, dank potting houses pottering away for spring displays.

My garden isn't nearly so middle class. I have not decided what it is yet. I don't employ labourers and I really am not into snob value of the Brits who have elevated it into an art. I have not spent money on anything this winter to my surprise, although I think it is time to move my columnar spiked apple to a pot inside my patio since my fuschia turned up her toes, so may need more potting mix, and more snail pellets since my renga renga lilies are looking a bit sad (still haven't flowered) but I'm quite pleased that one of my kowhais has flowered and magnolia has her first bud.

Who knows, one day it may turn up in the pages of NZ Gardener magazine. My cousin visited from NYC and remarked that our backyard still looked the same, but then he noticed my herbs round the side of the house and asked what they were. I am thinking maybe I should make a dramatic change to the backyard instead of mincing away at the borders. Landscape Man has inspired me to consider hiring a big digger and carving out a pond, maybe with a bridge to the other side. I will then grow rain lilies and iris, and possibly invite some ducks.

My house, my castle

The next episode is about a couple who inherits a hundreds of years old castle, who want to restore the grounds and pond, and hold wedding festivities there.
The husband gets stuck in the mud with his digger, while the wife raises money by blagging. Or is that blegging? Blogging and begging. The garden centres actually have pity on their predicament and sponsor her free plants, while the construction companies offer the hire of their diggers free for a month. It must be their charm, or aristocratic patronage. Or maybe it's, if they don't do it, nobody will - the castle and grounds will just fall to ruins and become overgrown.

The drama in this one isn't lack of funds..its when a drainpipe collapses so their pond gets only half full. However it is soon remedied and in Summer everything is glorious again.

Wow, to inherit a castle and restore it so you can invite everyone over for parties. Sounds like a lifestyle to me...
I don't have such aspirations as my home and castle are only built since the 70s so its pretty low maintainence, but mum and dad did chop down one of the maples yesterday as it was growing too close to the feijoa. Given a choice of fruit or pretty leaves, we chose the fruit. And, I actually do have hammocks after all, I installed two nets under the trees now that the growth is cleared, to catch the fruit when it falls so we don't have to crawl on our hands and knees. I want to congratulate myself for my most brilliant idea.

We don't have ponds, our water features are restricted to two birdbaths and our waterfall is really only what comes off the garage roof when it rains.
Also our rolling lawn isn't dead flat so we can't have weddings or play bowls or croquet on it, BUT it has hosted some barbecues. Yesterday one of the ladies at church suggested we have a round of shared luncheons at each other's houses, during winter. I cannot offer my home because, well, mum might have a  fit if suddenly all these church people descend on Sunday she is most reluctant to hear the gospel considering it an affront to her god (herself). This would cause embarrassment and possibly retaliation on her part so it's better I just go along to other people's houses.

Yet, isn't it weird that she got married in church? Most people, now shun church and decide that its better to spend a lot of money having the wedding ceremony at a fancy vineyard estate.  Possibly so that nobody ever runs out of wine, as that's where Jesus performed his first miracle. I don't recall he ever charged for this, and I don't think he ever did it again, but I recall he was kinda embarrassed when his mother told him to do it.

The Landscape Man

I have started watching a series called 'The Landscape Man' which is like 'Grand Designs' but with gardens in England. The first episode was about a chap who loves flowers and dreams to turn his flat 4 acre section into a valleys and canyons of wildflowers, a mexican garden with pergola, and ponds with bridges crossing them. He has a tiny budget (only 10,000 pounds!) and a year to do it.

He and his wife live in a glorified shed and pour all their money into their dream garden, while earning from nursery sales and lecturing on naturalistic garden design. The work starts, they do everything themselves with diggers and planting, except for hiring a few labourers to put up the pergola which is covered in adobe for their mexican style courtyard garden.

He has dreams, which the presenter wants to bring to reality, except, his dreams are too big and he gets carried away and blows his budget, so that part of the garden can't be completed. The presenter then suggest the wife has an exhibition of her paintings to raise money for the garden, which brings in some cash. This chap has a wild look in his eye when he's describing his dream vision, its all in his head and not on paper because how can you sculpt a garden on paper?

He decides to put in some ponds but then makes them too deep and they are more like wells. After talking some sense into him the presenter manages to reign back the enthusiasm so that his dreams can become a reality. The couple work so hard that his wife ends up getting snapping a tendon in her wrist and the husband needs to carry on planting alone.

All this is rather fascinating to watch. But the end result is truly glorious.

I'm inspired. Where this garden is exactly I don't know, (somewhere in Devon) but if I were in England I would like to meet this chap. After I meet Prince Charles of course and ask him what he thinks of spending your life savings on a garden.

Busybodies

Mr Frosty has hit - my Basalm and Busy Lizzies are drooping and wilting and look like the living dead. Frangipani looks like she's having a bad hair day.  Poinsettia has shrivelled and needs to be cornered by the house.  Otherwise it's beautiful sunny weather apart from the cold.

I don't have any plans to do anymore in this cold weather when the mud starts caking on my boots except for a bit of pruning - thinning out the Feijoa trees.

Even a garden needs to rest. Besides I am heading to sunnier climes - the Cook Islands to be exact at the end of August. While everyone is muddling through winter I will actually be on the beach in my hammock sipping coconuts and strolling through lush tropical gardens.

Flying north for winter seems like a good idea to me, it's what smart Kiwis do.
Before I congratulate myself on this splendid coup I will have to keep answering the vexed question that people constantly ask me 'what do I do'?  or 'Are you working?'
Well that depends. If it's Sunday of course I am not working and I look blankly at the asker like they are an idiot and can't see that I'm not actually working that day.

If I tell them 'I work in my garden' they might ask me again what I do as according to some people, working in the garden does not count as actual work. I have had some nosy people say, well no thats just volunteer I mean something paid.
Before I consider smashing their face in with a spade...I have considered answering 'Minding my own business, the same as you'.
If I say 'studying' some people still aren't satisfied thinking studying isn't actually working when there's heaps of homework I need to do while studying. Then if I say I work at home, the busy bodies also seem to imply that housework isn't actual work either.

Even working for the Lord by doing ministry is not work for some people. I just think they want to know the exact amount of hours I do and the hourly rate and salary. But how can you quantify that and why are people so nosy? Even if I get jobs from an agent that are different each time, everyone suddenly wants to know what all these different jobs are and am I actually doing them!

So that's why I am leaving all this behind and heading off to the Cook Islands where nobody can bother me. I can't imagine the Cook Islanders asking other people what they do all the time. It would just be rude.