The story of gardening

I am reading a big coffee table book called The story of Gardening. The book is very heavy and I've only managed to read a few chapters. Gardening can sometimes feel like an endless battle with nature or an all consuming passion that can never be quenched. Chapter 11 was about Gardens in China, under the various dynasties. It turns out the humble administrators garden was not that he liked gardening a small patch but that he just needed somewhere to escape the daily grind of work and write poetry. One of the Empresses constructed a huge pleasure garden, called a Summer Palace, the pinnacle of which was a stone ship, on a fake sea. It was so expensive that all the funds that were meant to go into maintaining a defence force or army (or REAL ships) for the kingdom all went into the Empress's garden instead. The dynasty then fell apart from typical govt overspending on luxury holiday junkets and foreign invaders, who might have been expected to gasp at the beautiful gardens but they were not exactly that type of well-heeled tourist. 

 I have had a real think about the wealth gap in this country and I wonder if I'm in danger of falling into the chasm where all failed gardens go. Although have they really failed? Well if they've been bulldozed and ripped out for houses maybe.

 It was a bright sunny day when garden club met up again at Thera's who had survived a flood and half her garden falling into the neighbouring gully. We all had a tour and I must say I'm impressed with what she's done, despite living next to a substation and having bambook creep into her property. There were so many plants (obviously garden club trades) and her trademark ceramics and everything looked lush (maybe thanks to a lot more water!) and cared for. She also didn't really have to contend with a non-gardener whacking her plants to submission, because he was always off at car rallies. The price to pay for having a boy-racer fiance? I noticed go-kart tires as planting pots, which we also have in the community garden even though now I'm a bit dubious of growing edible things in petroleum.

 On the following Sunday checked out the Sunflower Farm in Waikmauku. Its open Fridays to Sundays to the public when the sunflowers are in bloom, and you can cut them for $3 a stem. There's also a cover charge to enter, as I'm supposing they don't want hordes decimating their crop as has what's happened to the blueberry growers. There was a sort of maze you could enter, but otherwise its masses of sunflowers and bees in one big block of land. Monoculture of course. Behind the bamboo hedge, row open row of celery was growing with sprinklers, and another field beyond lay fallow, the brown earth ready for a late summer sowing of something. Not like sunflowers just growing by the fence, these were in their thousands as far as the eye could see. As we'd had the ride in the middle of the day of course it was super sunny, and my friend/driver Shar was wilting in the heat. 

I'm a suburbanite and not used to mass farms, and get a bit antsy when driving out to the countryside and seeing fields upon fields of grassland and haybales and no trees. I keep thinking wow to have so much land is a gift, but I'm under no illusion that horticultural and agricultural production is a cut-throat business, hard work, noisy and often monotonous. Strawberry fields present the same, another friend said she'd hated picking strawberries as it was endless picking picking picking, bending down and picking, then weighing and packing, but that's only because some capitalist has decided that to sell them and make some money for a supermarket contract is better than to have them in growers hands. Consequently trays and trays of unripe strawberries for sale in said supermarkets.

 It should be more fun going to a supermarket and seeing the array of vegetables and fruit from all around the world shipped and stored and already picked for you and waiting to be plastic bagged (or finally, paper bagged) and then taken home to sit in your fruit bowl but I've become a bit desensistised to it all. You aren't allowed to taste them there, and who knows what sprays have got them to that point. After you've grown your own, it's all a bit disconcerting to see them all wrapped and barcoded and on shelves under florescent lights. Fruit picking, like fishing is just not the same when it's  done in a supermarket.

Garden Sabbath

 No rant today. Dad does take photos of my flowers (and not of me anymore, as I hate having photos taken) and Dusty, and also buses and trains. 

The gardenia has blossomed and I'm picking fresh ones everyday. I have a Judith Hindel Sarracena - a carnivorous pitcher plant that eats flies. Sometimes I catch them by my fly swat in the kitchen,  and stick them inside the pitchers. This plant resides in a glazed pot behind this computer. 

Gardenias trinity

Dad also a bit obsessed with my apples which are looking very fruitful this year. Well our street was a former apple orchard, so they should do well anyway. They are crimson spire.

At least they have been spared the chop. One Manuka was not so lucky. It's just trees can take a long time to grow, and then be cut down in a minute. I suppose that's a metaphor for life.

Today has been wet, it poured down, then  suddenly weather has changed and the sun is out. It's not really been much summer - haven't heard any cicadas yet, though I've managed to thwart a few wasps nests. 

I met a fellow gardener who came from Christchurch who had taken time out to pot up natives for the Christchurch Botanic gardens. Gardening for the Council is labour intensive for sure and pays minimum wage but it's a job that doesn't require too much brainpower apparently. I think to take away the tediousness of it gardening bosses come up with little games like who can weed the most in the fastest time so they can pay someone less. At least thats what its like gardening full time and then the rest of the time you can just have smoko for hours. 

I don't really garden that way though its different when its someone else's garden but I have put that behind me now. This year is precious time to spend with mum and time to appreciate New Gardenland because it's been what, more than 7 years and I feel I deserve a Sabbath break. My brother is back from Australia and has hinted big plans for his place (Grand Orangerie, Palace of Versailles replica) and Sis is bringing back her Pilea plant from London, and *gulp* may be coming back to stay....permanently! 

Am gardening..Do not disturb

 Dad pulled out my pumpkins that were just about to flower. I went out for a day and then came back and found they disappeared and all the plants under the tangelo tree which included catmint, tomatoes, coriander, onions and other special herbs.

I was mad because they were all growing so healthy. Now theres nothing but bare compost but at least the grass around the tree is one centimetre. I don't care about the grass, the way people hack it and scalp it and it just grows back more and I don't know why dad is so obsessed with it. I can't eat grass. 

I also hate landscapers and weedmat and not being able to garden through a pile of matted plastic. I hate that I can't garden and grow things in my own home, because of the lawn taking up everything and I hate that I can't grow anything anywhere else without people getting upset and angry with me for wanting to grow things. I hate that people want me to pull out GOOD plants and leave dead useless plants that are leggy and need cutting back. I hate that people grow roses and want me to prune them and I get poked or they leave dead roses stalks unpruned with black scaly spot on them and a tangle of thorns. Why do people plant roses. They are ugly things when not in flower. 

Otherwise I'm ok. Maybe its the shock of it and I'll just get over it but there will be no giant pumpkins this year. My wildflower plot is growing...but who knows if it will just get ripped out again by someone else. But we need flowers for the bees to pollinate the orchard.

I remember when one of the gardening bosses told my supervisor to prune all the plumbago that was just about to flower beautiful blue flowers down to knee height when he had been growing it for years and it had never flowered. My supevisor cried. It was a crime against the plumbago. 

I also recall when weeds were growing all through a bush and trying to weed underneath a bushy leggy perennial meant cutting it right back so it could grow again but leaving it left a gap and so it wasn't 'tidy' and my boss did  not speak to me for days. Because he did want it TIDY. I can't tidy without moving things around. 

Anyway its all a work in progress and nothing will be perfect but I am just a bit over it cos everything I do just seems to make things worse for everyone else like I can't even make an omelette without breaking eggs or do something without telling someone else. But this is what you do because otherwise how would you live? I sometimes wish I could just do my own garden without having to run around tidying other peoples, but then  I shouldn't have taken anything on and said I could do it when most people don't really want a garden at all. Trying to convince a non gardener that weedmat and suffocating soil and plants is NOT a good idea won't wash. 

My dad would just be happy with bare square of grass and nothing else for his weather station which records the temperature and rainfall. But why then can't that be done near a rugby field? My brother clicked his tongue and said Dad should just live in an apartment.