The sixth day of Christmas

We harvested the agria potatoes at Woodside today, from 27 potatoes planted we hauled in 260!
I am going to make potato salad with the baby ones and bake the big ones. Yum!

More things have been happening, red busy lizzies or impatiens are now under the wheki fern tree. I had another visitor to my garden, who to my dismay asked if most of my plants were weeds. I concurred that in Auckland, every plant is a weed.
He quickly changed the subject and asked where are the carnations? Over there, I said,  and pointed. Also  I have sweet williams, also known as pinks, or cloves, and they do faintly smell. So I picked one and gave it to him. I wonder if its proper to give a man flowers.

After looking at my garden and pronouncing it 'good' he asked why I didn't have any quotes from Shakespeare. Well I don't know, should a garden have quotes from Shakespeare? I suppose I could put some by Sweet William. 'The quality of mercy is not strained' he suggested, but I thought it would be more appropriate to have 'the rain it raineth every day.'
Then, after saying everything that was missing, like a fountain, I said, if he would like to dig a well or  build a viaduct from the creek he was welcome.

Nevermind. You can't win them all.

I planted my kowhai today, after removing the everlasting spinach that was just a thick stump with no leaves in hopes that it will grow into a tall tree so that tuis can come and feed off the sweet nectar and we wouldn't have to stare at our back neighbours' motorbikes parked in their driveway. Everybody needs good neighbours, but we also need good boundaries, and its much nicer to listen to birdsong in the morning than roaring motorbikes. Our neighbours are somewhat Westies. Actually they are not too bad, so much better than the one we had before who complained if a leaf so much as dropped on his side of the fence. But now thankfully that grumpy neighbour has moved to another galaxy far, far away.

The fourth day of Christmas

Yesterday I went with mum to the West Lynn Gardens and had a wander through the Butterfly House. It was packed with Monarch butterflies and was delightful. They were giving away swan plant seeds so I managed to snag a whole lot. I am going to sow them all along the border.

I took down my licorice plant from the hanging basket where it had grown in a mass and planted it near the driveway under the coprosma as it would make a good furry groundcover, it even has flowers. I think it's too much of a hassle watering hanging baskets from up high, so I may hang something else there instead.

I still plan to buy or snag some red busy lizzies and put them in pots to brighten up the foundations of the house as its a bit bare. I pulled up the vietnamese mint in  the L shaped border and scattered sunflower seeds there, not sure if they will grow big enough there as its shaded in the morning, but I think they would look good there.

For my dad's weather station I was thinking wouldn't it be nice to make a herbal parterre there in a square or diamond star shape. I could have chamomile and thyme growing there.

More plans and ideas - when bluebells and snowflake bulbs are on sale I plan to buy masses to put under the maple tree. More daffodils may be nice too but they may go in the L shaped border as they grow long and scented and would be nice by the pathway.

Our bbq went well, but, I have to say there's some things I need which would be ideal for our bbq, and that would be another bench or table, to sit at, and also, tip - if you barbecuing chicken, do not buy the nibbles!! They are too small, buy the whole wings instead and you must marinate them before you cook them, otherwise they end up being burnt to a cinder. I try telling my family the art of bbq but they don't listen, they just think they can burn any old thing. Grr.

Oh well. At least I had the baked  spuds from Woodside. Delicious.

The first day of Christmas

Seasons Greetings!

I went to a Boxing Day sale and managed to find a weather vane with a rooster on top and solar light. I have put it in Dad's weather centre, all I need is a sun dial and it may be complete. There are now coloured lights on the verandah rail. I'm a big fan of solar lights.

At Kings, it was 25% of all plants and I found another wheki tree fern, this time a bigger size and that's going in the rocky bed behind the bathroom, to complement the chatham island forget me not and hen and chicken ferns. I've underplanted with spider plants. I put an owl there and some tree stumps. Mum threatened to dig it up, but I hope she doesn't. Tree ferns don't need pruning as they just grow straight up. I just need to remember to keep it well watered, but the gardening books and the tag said it could cope in all sorts of situations. I even read after a bush fire these whekis regenerate quickly. They are very hardy, just need to be shaded and sheltered.

Well everything is set for some summer entertaining and I will be having a bbq tomorrow, so please come along if you so inclined, starts at 6pm.

Bring food and salads and plants.

Or you could just bring a fruit salad plant.

Pukeko in a ponga tree

Well it's technically a wheki tree fern but I now have a nz christmas tree that isn't a pohutakawa.
I planted this little cutie in amongst the terrarium money trees on the shady side of the house. There was a little gap that was the perfect spot for it's graceful umbrella fronds so I put plenty of compost in and now I have another real kiwi corner of the garden.

Sorry no nikau palms, do you know how huge they can get???
I was contemplating that for a while as West Auckland is their natural habitat but..they really need a shady gully and I think they would be a bit out of place on our flat section. Even though I would really like at least two so I can hang a hammock.

Also good news or maybe annunciation - my christmas lilies have bloomed. Their white trumpets are practically announcing Christmas is here. It is the longest day and the summer solstice. Christmas Eve is tomorrow. I haven't hung any stockings up yet.

T'is the season.

Next door is putting up some kind of pergola. Their home improvement is coming along and soon I don't think I'll recognise the place. Maybe my prayers have been answered? I wonder if I can seed bomb their new garden bed with sunflowers...

Another idea I had was to buy one of those push mowers and just mow a garden path and leave the rest of the lawn to grow wild and flower as a meadow. This is because I don't really like noisy lawn mowers. When dad retires and can't mow the lawn anymore I will just abandon the lawn to the elements. I wonder if I will get in trouble with the council for letting the grass grow. I better not say too much as I applied for a city parks job as a gardener and they might think twice about employing me if I express my views.  But then again, they're the ones that abandoned mowing peoples 'berms' and then charged people a horrendous tax for growing anything bearing fruit on them. Which doesn't make sense as we already have olive trees growing on all the 'berms' in our street, that the council provided!

Ok, my cognitive dissonance is going into overdrive. I can just use another by-law to fight the other one they created, by saying lawn mowing is damaging people's hearing and that noise pollution is just as real a nuisance as grass verge or sorry, 'berm' neglect.

Cool Bananas

We planted four banana palms at Woodside yesterday. Jacqui had grown them from seed and they had reached a good size to be planted out. So, in the future we shall add bananas to our harvest!

I am thinking it would be nice to have at least two palms in my garden so I can hang a hammock in between. Bananas may be nice but I'm thinking nikau as its native.

I also put in three bitter melons at Woodside where the peas were, and two busy lizzie cuttings that I don't know if they will take. They are red and christmassy looking. My sister has showed me her 'christmas tree' which is a poinsettia. I have chosen to give the honor to the olive tree that I planted earlier this year, and it now has a sheep and a duck gracing it. I will have to ask the planet Venus to be  my star of Bethlehem and to please shine brighter than all the stars in the sky directly over my tree.

Next door has lit up their deck with lights AND put in some plants and soil to make a raised bed next to the house. I see they have basket ferns and busy lizzies too. I may have to get some busy lizzies as I quite like the hot pink coloured ones, although red or orange would stand out against the house. Or I could try begonias.

I am thinking also of some kind of water feature in my garden. Perhaps just a pond with irises or lillies. I do have a birdbath and various pools of water dotted around for the chickens but it would be nice to have a fountain or bit of running water. Or a wishing well?

My friend Beth has offered me to have a selection of tree ferns or pungas growing wild at her place. So my dream of a fernery may be realised after all!

Went to the New Lynn $1 book sale. I bought three books, one of which is Readers Digest Good Ideas for Your Garden. So be warned the next few rambling garden diary entries may be full of those ideas.

Planning a BBQ

I think it's time to have another BBQ.
I sat down on my lawn and thought. Weather is right. Warm with cool breeze. Daylight saving. Flowers in bloom.

I also thought what if Dad didn't mow the lawn and just left it, save for a few pathways. Then I could have a meadow instead. It will be hard to convince him to not leave our yard looking like a cricket pitch but, why not? So what if nobody else lets their grass run wild. We can be the first. It will save gas.

Then the chickens can lay their eggs amongst the grass and the dogs wouldn't be able to find them so easily if they somehow jumped the fence.

But Dad is so ingrained in his lawn mowing habits. But at least he is composting the clippings. I just think that lawns are really only good if you have the appropriate garden surrounding them. They don't need to be huge and extend all the way around if they are not being used. And that would mean more room for plantings and wildlife and bees.

Anyway. I went for a drive around Auckland the other day over to the North Shore. Its only in places like St Mary's Bay and Freemans Bay, the rich areas that have lots of canopy of trees and hedges. Pt Chevalier is sunny and seems bare. Going over the bridge to Takapuna, are motley collections of 70's houses with a sunny aspect. Then Devonport has some old villas.

Where are the hidden gardens? When I read NZ Gardener they often feature private gardens and its usually a farmer's housewife who transforms a paddock into something wonderful. When they have the 'Heroic Garden Festival' they usually feature suburban gardens from Mt Eden and Remuera. These are the moneyed middle class folk. They also have rich volcanic soil to work with. I don't recall any gardens from Henderson making the grade.

If you go down Lincoln Road what was former vineyards is now Texas Chicken. They have put up more shopping developments where they used to make wine. Chicken seems very popular here. We have Southern fried chicken, Nandos, KFC, Oporto, Indian places serving Butter Chicken, Thai places serving Thai Green Curry Chicken, Chinese places serving Chicken Chow Mein, and Japanese places serving Teriyaki Chicken, Italians places serving Chicken Carbonara.  There's even a Filipino restaurant called Chikos.

Not sure what to think of this sudden chicken invasion along Lincoln Road. But I am thinking BBQ chicken wings for my BBQ served with potato salad.

Christmas Lights and Vita

Just down the road from me, are two houses lit up like Las Vegas. It's Margaret's daughter and her neighbours homes, and they have really gone to town.

I'm sure Santa knows our street now and where to land his sleigh. I have only got measly twinkling solar lights that I have all year round, but they have lights hanging from their spouting, all over their fence, on the lawn, in the bushes, in the trees, hanging out the window, over the driveway....

Mum is so bedazzled that she wants to go have a look. She thinks its much better than a church christmas drive-thru. I'm dismayed. She likes all this razzle dazzle even better than my own garden. Yet if I spend what amounts to a small fortune on mine, she ridicules it.

I find myself buying christmas ornaments, I have three red french hens and a sheep. I hang the sheep off the olive tree and the red hens off the peach tree. Thank you, Salvation Army.

I'm thinking, well, with my haybales I COULD make a manger scene. Just need some sheep, and a holy family in miniature. After all, Margaret's daughter has blow up Santa Claus on their lawn. I could have blow up sheep.

It rains slightly and I don't need to go water the garden. Instead I'm watching the National Trust DVD give tours their gardens, the first episode is a look at the famed Sissinghurt, and an expose of the creator, Vita Sackville-West's life. Did you know she was a lesbian and her husband was gay? No I did not. And they had three children? I don't know how that works...? But they loved each other and the garden.

And when I look at the garden I can't tell if its gay or not.

Anyway. I was thinking maybe it was an English thing. Have same-sex lovers, shock society, but leave behind a lovely garden. Or commit adultery, but still have your grand organic garden like Prince Charles. Or bump off your first wife, but still have your garden like Manderley in the novel Rebecca. It doesn't matter what sins you commit. You are redeemed in the garden.

Training a rose in the way to go

I finally figured out a way to deal with the thorny carpet rose.  Whoever heard of carpets having thorns anyhow?? No matter what I do, they will keep growing back. So  I have trained them up one of those inverted obelisks, I bought two from Mitre 10 and now the thorny scramblers are growing up and won't bother all the other plants in the bed and take over. Hooray!

I will then have a rose tube/pillar thing that will be covered in roses and so anybody stepping in my bed will not be thorned.

We have now put up the arch at Woodside and have cleared a patch to grow gourds. It was not too hard after all, we harvested the swift potatoes, and, I have some more tomatoes to take home to plant. I plan to let them grow as a vine where the sweet peas were.

It did decide to rain yesterday which was welcome.
And actually the last post I meant  'Screens and Boundaries' as the book not 'Beds and Borders' which is also another gardening book I have. They are both by a chap called Richard Bird. They have both got great ideas for gardens.

I put in another Kaka Beak, or clianthus, this time a white heron one as all the red ones were sold out. I think they are pretty shrubs even without the flowers, as the leaves are pea like and glossy similar to Kowhai but more lush. It is now in the corner as it likes sheltered from wind and a sunny spot.

That is all for now, I think I can relax a bit and even sit outside on my deck chairs underneath the umbrella and have dinner as its much cooler outside than in, and I bought two cushions for my chairs as I don't like to sit on hard chairs with my skinny butt. Well, I don't wear a bustle like women did in the olden days.

Beds and Borders

I got the idea from a gardening book called 'Beds and Borders' to make a screen of sunflowers and nasturtiums for my summer border. So I've been taking down my sweet peas which have gone to seed and using them as mulch, and been sowing seeds of said plants amongst the mulch. These nasturtiums can also climb up the fence. I bought 2kg of sunflower seeds from the pet shop so I have plenty to scatter.

I have taken down the netting and now put it around the back border as I have a mass planting of renga renga lily on the bank now, which will also be a summer display. Some melons have started sprouting and it's possible there will be a pumpkin patch. I have also sown some cherry red nasturtiums here as well.

The only annoying thing is my hayfever which I have to run inside at various intervals to blow my nose.

We are having a dry spell and it has not rained for several days. The weather has been cloudy but still holding back on the rain. It annoys me when it's like this and can't make up it's mind.

I don't have anywhere to grow my gourds so maybe next working bee if the arch is put up at woodside I may grow them there.

I have put in my request to Santa Claus so I will see what the first day of Christmas will bring....

Good morning, glory

I put four morning glories beside the arch so they can grow up the sides. I had grown them from seed in pots and really looking forward to their flowers.

Of course, mum wasn't pleased with the arch and muttered something ...but I didn't hear. She obviously has issues with me spending my own money, but it didn't even cost that much. And then she bought some more junk from the flea market, a food processor which she has nowhere to put in the kitchen, because she ALREADY has one.

Well, she can complain all she wants but as far as I know she hasn't pulled out any of my plants, unlike the chickens. I tell you it's a battleground. I planted three gypsophilias and everytime I put them in the ground, the chickens dig them up. What is it you don't like, chickens? Would you prefer to live in a desert? I can send you to Australia and then you can live in the biggest dustbowl there is.

Sigh.

In other news, I thought, maybe I could take a leaf out of the Grapevine magazine's magazine and solicit people for money. Everytime I glance at one of their magazines they always asking people for money to pay for the cost of you reading it. I mean they don't want to do anything dirty like actually SELL their magazine in the shops like a normal magazine would be sold. Instead it is distributed, like junk mail, and you can pay for the cost of distributing it to your neighbours and keep the editors employed.

As I am writing this for free and you have the privelige of reading it online, I think maybe you could just forward it onto all your interested gardening friends and then...I don't know, I could become gardening guru of the blogosphere/worldwide web/internet/cyberspace/email list, and then one day it may be published in a book of some kind and make someone, i.e. me, very rich indeed.

I am the vine, you are the branches

The tomatoes have grown unruly so I am cutting off any branches that aren't bearing fruit, to allow the fruitful ones to grow, and the leaves hanging down. I then staked them upright.

I have put up the garden arch. After all that, it wasn't too difficult. It now stands at the entrance of our front garden and I have put two pots at either side, which will have gourds or pumpkins or melons. Some sort of curcubit anyway.

I have repotted the capsicums. At church someone was giving away gladioli, so I took them, they are red ones. The note said 'not genetically engineered' so, bonus, I got pure bred red ones! I put them down the back.

I also took out the big weed that was growing, which I thought at first might turn out to be a hollyhock or some tall flower, turns out, it's just a weed. Some sort of dandelion or yellow flowered looking thing. I was just thinking why are the majority of weeds yellow? You have dandelions, nipplewort, hensbane, groundsel, gorse, hawkbit, catsears, creeping buttercup...all yellow flowered.

And then there's other yellow, non-weed flowers like daffodils, calendula, nasturtiums, kowhai, daisies, evening primrose and sunflowers. I could ask a gardening expert, but not sure what they will answer. I might try the gardening experts at Mitre 10. They might know.

On Saturday, yesterday, we had another working bee at Woodside and I planted two swan plants, an egg plant, and sunflowers. Everyone else was distributing tomatoes all over the show. And we didn't put up the arch. I'm not sure why...when I looked at it I thought, we need a man to do this as it's got screws and looks too big. I was saying to Karyn, where are all the men? Why are all the ladies doing the work? Are we scaring the men away? After all, they make good diggers and mowers.

I thought of putting an ad in the Western Leader saying in big bold capital letters. MEN WANTED. FOR THE GARDEN. WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YA?

It is a possibility they are hiding naked and ashamed in the bushes.
Well too bad. Next time I am just going to put it up all by myself.

Around the garden arch

I saw a garden arch for sale only $15 at Kmart.
I am going to buy one. If mum doesn't like it, too bad. You can't please everyone. I am going to have it over the entrance and attempt to grow gourds off it.
Also Kings are having a special 5 bags of compost for $20.

Then I'll grab some bromeliads from my brother's house, and fill up the water barrels and we are away. Hydrangea is starting to bloom, I have a blue and a pink one.

Dad cut down one of the dying lemon trees so I can't use it to hang my bird feeder off anymore (I found those plastic and metal birdfeeders to be pretty useless anyway). nor my christmas socks.

I put in some scarlet runner beans round the obelisk, and my sunflowers and melons have now sprouted. I have been picking more sweet peas, and my canna lily is blooming red. I have also removed the metrosideros Tahiti to a discreet spot for it to recover and replaced it with a cistus Rock rose. Which looks pretty happy and lush there - it thrives in infertile soil.

My friend Ellen is now working at New Lynn Mitre 10 doing her dream badly paid gardening job. She compensates for the bad pay by sitting 8 hours in front of a computer in her other job which pays twice as much. She says everyone looks to her as the gardening expert now and she told some clueless customers that they don't need to fertilise their plants EVERY week. Also, when a plant is dying, maybe you forgot to water it. I don't know, some people just assume a plant can grow without water. Of course, she confides in me, which I'm now confiding in you dear reader, she doesn't know EVERYTHING but I'm sure she can tell you a lot more than what she knew a year ago.

That tree of knowledge of good and evil did come in handy after all. In fact, I think it pretty much looked like a fake christmas tree that you see people put up this time of the year. THEY don't need watering. Just don't eat the fruit because it's fake.

New Ideas

Mum pruned the camellia bush and the coprosmas. They were getting too big and in the way. I didn't plant them though, so she can't blame me. So our driveway and side of the house is looking a bit shorn.

I'm thinking of putting lots of bromeliads there as they seem to do well. I can get a whole lot free from my brothers. Also the thing about bromeliads is they won't grow so high you have to keep pruning them.

I moved the convovulus mauritania to the back garden as it doesn't seem to be growing much in the rock garden. It's about the third time I've moved it so far. They say it's good for dry areas but..just doesn't seem to grow or trail like it should, or at least not in the pictures where it's meant to be this award winning plant.

I'm taking a leaf out of Lynda Hallinan's book and decide I ought to make a list of my top crops and my flop crops. Or rather, my best and worst plants.

Top/Best

Dusty Miller
doing really well in the flower bed
Motherwort
Has just spread and become a good sized bush big enough for the chickens to hide under
Violets/pansies
cheerfully gracing the edges
Sweet Alyssum
Keeps appearing and thriving
Curly Carex
these little tufts of grass just look cute
Helichrysum/Licorice plant
Thrives in the hanging basket
Abutilon
I love these chinese lanterns swinging in the breeze

Flop/Worst

Spinach
Initially did well but kept wilting, after it was cut it didn't do well growing back. Meh.
Metrosideros 'Tahiti'
Didn't grow much at all, and then dried up.
Flower carpet Rose
Grew back. ack. Thorns.
Mexican Orange Blossom
Where are the blossoms??
Passionfruit
Not much passion..
Vincas
Some websites said they were indestructible, and good ground cover, but chickens demolished them too
Creeping Fig
Thought this would be a lovely plant to climb up the side of the house..it shrivelled and died.

Birds, Bees and Barbecue

We had a lovely spring celebration. I'm still eating all those sausages.
Magic Maize the magician was fantastic. Good show, as was Bunny the storytelling librarian.
Karyn made Rhubarb iced tea, and we had a bring and swap seedling table, digging for treasure, and the neighbourhood turned out for some impressive gardening tips and tricks.

Tip - no need to water potatoes until they flower now, then water.
Tip - carpet is good mulch.
Tip - moneymaker tomatoes are best.
Tip- invite your local MPs to your garden parties

So its been 5 years at Woodside..I wasn't there when it started but it has come a long way from being a bare 25m plot. The fennel is flourishing and the comfrey is flowering along with borage, calendula, nasturtium and other herbs. And...peas are now a success where they had no shows before. Trick - sow them as seedlings not direct, or they will get eaten by slugs and birds.

In other news my garden is coming along and the sweet peas are setting seed now. I see fresh spring growth everywhere, the apple tree, the hydrangeas, the tea leaf tree, the jacaranda, the frangipani. I had evening primrose blooming. Love carnation and love chrysanthemums. Whangarei hibiscus. The abutilons are nodding in agreement. Statice has blooms. And red clover is poking through.

I love it.

We have duck visitors, a mummy duck and a daddy duck. Mary has taken to laying her eggs underneath the motherwort plant. Martha prefers the money tree as her secret hiding place. My lined hanging baskets with plastic bags trick appears to be working. And there's a new venus fly trap on the window sill. In Snowy's bed, I have snuck in three baby's breath gypsophilias.

Next door have copied us and put in solar lights by their new wooden deck that change colour. Sparky sits as sentinel, like a sphinx guarding the entrance. He is the same colour as the deck.

Christmas is just around the corner..this weekend has been the beginning of Santa parades. One of my neighbours has put up their christmas decorations and lights already. It doesn't matter, our feijoas are already in bloom with their pohutakawa like blossoms. So we don't need fake pine trees and tinsel. I think this year I'm just going to hang up socks on my tree. I mean they COULD go on the washing line, but to celebrate Silly Season, they look better on a tree.

Advertising

I don't usually place adverts on my blog but I just want to tell you that you are welcome to come along to this. See you there!

I may have a party later on in my own garden when the weather fines up for BBQ.

Busy Bee

Boy its starting to get hot!
Working Bee today, I managed to replant my choko in the corner and hopefully it will spread and give us lots of chokos. Nicole put more lettuces in and I'm going to sow more pumpkins. I took my gourd seeds over but the arch is still not up..and they need support.
The iceplant I planted as a cutting has become a mass of pink flower. I don't have much luck with it here but I'm going to try again by taking more cuttings.

I was watching Kew Gardens BBC series the other night and they have a wintergarden too that is like the Auckland Domains, and they too have a giant stinky arum. Over 150 gardeners work there and they put on Go Wild festivals and other such events, there are arborists, herbalists, designers, carpenters, greenhouse managers, nurserymen and women, horticulturalists like Alan Titchmarsh is an alumni (and presents the show).

Maybe I could wangle a working holiday job at the Kew? What could I be, head flowergirl or something?

I once tried applying as an apprentice for Auckland Council working at the Domain but heard nothing (as per usual). I expect they wanted someone who can drive a truck at least, and be out in all weathers. So much for being a working girl. Handmaidens unite, we would at least would like some corn to eat while we are busy treading it out. What do you think we live on, air?

I don't know. I sometimes think its ironic that women are the ones who do all the work, but we are the ones that don't see a cent (or corncob). And then people who don't come to volunteer at all in the garden, steal our leeks and garlic and trample on our corn. The cheek!

So we were busy putting back all the plants someone had pulled out in a fit of rage just for the hell of it. Note to garden marauder...next time, please pull out the WEEDS instead of the crops.

Nipplewort?!

Yes there is such a plant and I found the yellow weedy flowery thing wasn't Evening Primrose at all but a weed called Nipplewort that has taken over my garden. I pulled them all out today.
It is called Nipplewort because the flower buds look like nipples!

I don't think its good for anything, and it does exude a milky sap and is a bit hairy. How did they get there? I don't remember seeing them before, and I'm sure I didn't deliberately sow a whole lot of weeds. I am going to blame Kings Seeds for this one. It must have been one of those random seeds in one of those wildflower mixes. Remember when they said their echium wasn't a weed? Wrongo.

Anyway, I'm not going to listen to these so called expert gardeners anymore. What do they know, they are only seed merchants. One time, we went on a field trip to King Seeds in Katikati. I was expecting to see all different kinds of plants growing from the seeds there to trial them, but it was just a big warehouse with buckets of seeds ready to be put into packets that they got from somewhere else. I was disappointed.

Apparently they used to be in Avondale but moved to Katikati for some reason, when they were in Avondale they would grow the plants from seed so you could see what you were getting. They had herbs and flowers.

I have planted out some parsley and spring onions in the mangers and moved the sweet alyssum and some sweet peas to the flowerbeds.  I have also potted up the rest of the capsicums as Joanne gave me some buckets.

Working bee tomorrow..Jacqui is calling another meeting as we need to get this spring celebration underway! 'Tis the season....

Jobs keep growing

1. replant the mangers with parsley, herbs, and other dry tolerant plants.
2. capsicums in buckets
3. water woodside potatoes
4. fence the back border
5. think of something to add height to the sunny rock garden
6. rip out the vietnamese mint as taking over, relocate to the back
7. or relocate ginger lily rhizomes to the back border
8. plant jasmine
9. take more photos, hibiscus bloomed pinky-red
10. mark out sundial, there must be a good cheap working one somewhere...
11. keep eye on sunflower seedlings

I was reading a book about Luther Burbank yesterday called 'Gardens of Invention' and how he bred plants and improved varieties of potatoes, crossed a plum with an apricot (called a plumcot), grew fruit trees that fruited faster by grafting, and tried to patent his creations. Scientists tried to lionise him but all he was trying to make a living out of his passion, it wasn't really something nobody can do, it's just he had the patience to experiment.

This was all in sunny california, Santa Rosa where it all happened, that's why California is famous for its citrus, grapes, and every other new fangled variety of plant. Because it doesn't snow there. I don't know that we have a Luther Burbank type figure who became as famous as Thomas Edison or Henry Ford in America as inventors. But there is one guy that keeps cropping up in gardening circles with plants he breeds especially carnations and sweet peas and that is Keith Hammett.

I have got sweet peas all along the fence and they are all bicolor old-fashioned ones except for one or two of the spencer variety. I must say it's pretty and we have masses of them. I am hoping that they will self sow freely and picking them every two days to bring in the house. I don't know that I can improve on nature by cross pollinating the different kinds but apparently everyone's tried to grow a yellow sweet pea and failed, just like the elusive blue rose. So maybe some things aren't to be tampered with. Sweet peas are to my mind always pink or purple or both, not yellow and roses will always be red, or pink, yellow and white but never blue. A blue rose would be sad, like an imitation hydrangea and a  yellow sweet pea would be like a trying to steal a march on a kowhai.

I want to be 'Royal'

So goes the song. Prince Charles and Camilla are visiting New Zealand. I heard they were down in Dunedin and were in Nelson, wonder if they coming up to Auckland?

If so, will he come to Henderson? I need to ask him something. Would he mind visiting our community garden, which, by the way, is organic? I'm sure he would know a thing or two about companion plants. But..I am chagrinned because I missed out on a sundial AGAIN. It was on trade-me, the reserve was $50. I was going to bid but then completely forgot. I ended up spending that amount or thereabouts anyway on plants for our church as we got four neglected hanging baskets. So I put in strawberries, petunias and we had marigolds. (Thanks Joanne for your help!)

I really like Prince Charles' sundial garden such a clever idea. Even though he didn't need to buy the sundial himself he got given it. Apparently he is always been given gifts so much so that one part of his garden is dedicated to a wall of all the things people have given him, like sculptures and such.

I thought, huh funny thing to have a sundial in an English garden. You'd think he'd be given a rain gauge instead. Which, by the way, we have already as our garden doubles as Henderson's weather centre. But I'm really not sure Dad has all the proper meteorological equipment, for example, there is no weathervane, nor sun dial, nor stonehenge. He's just got a rain gauge and temperature box, which records the maximum, the minimum, and the humidity at 9 o'clock each day.

Well, if any of his valets and butlers and footmen or Camilla's ladies in waiting are reading this, maybe they could do a secret detour after a day of shaking hands and smiling and come round my way. Because I'm sorry I missed Prince Harry last time he visited.

Spring celebration

I've got a lot to do today.
We are having a spring celebration down at Woodside on Saturday 28 November from 10-2 and I need to prepare some seedlings for guests to take away and plant.

I've got sunflower, beans, pumpkins and gourds to sow. Each pot will have a special label to remind gardeners to come garden with others down at the garden.

We are also planning a sausage sizzle, a treasure hunt/dig, an entertainer, iced herbal teas, music, and prizes.
I have to find some bee headbands for us to wear.

Also later we plan to have tai chi dance down at the gardens for a few weeks.

In my own garden everything's in bloom! I saw my first  red poppy spring up, and there's snow in summer flowering, sweet pea, chrysanthemum, calendula, masses of phacelia, the bees are having a ball.

I also decided to put some ginger lily down the back next to the loquat as there's heaps growing now at the front and I think it prefers shade. I need to get some mulch or pebbles so the chickens don't keep digging there..or some more wire.

It's a gorgeous day today but the only thing I really hate is this hay fever again. Privet is gone, but that doesn't stop the pollen from the grass. Ach.

Growing Season

It's now November and it's all on.

Yesterday had a working bee at Woodside in which we planted out tomatoes, sweetcorn, and pumpkins. Later I will plant sunflowers and more pumpkins, and gourds.

We are having a meeting this week about our 5th year anniversary for Woodside in which we are going to have a fun day, sausage sizzle, competitions with prizes, treasure hunt etc. Also, I'm keen to go camping again. Karen said she went with her son last summer, just pitched a tent near the garden and I'm thinking hooray I want to do that two, so, that will be my summer holiday away from home.

I harvested my carrots and got a whole bucket full. Some were fat, some were thin, but I quite like baby carrots anyway so I'm happy. Now I've got two tubs of soil free that I'm not sure what to do with yet. I sowed morning glory in pots and near the fence so it can clamber over the trellis.

While Dad was mowing the lawns I noticed a suspiciously weedy looking plant had sprouted all over my garden beds I'd never seen before. It had yellow, tiny flowers. I pulled several out and then racked my brains and looked in my gardening books and realised they were evening primroses! I didn't pull them all out but they were highly suspect in that they seemed to have come up overnight. Just shot up, at first I hoped they were hollyhocks or delphiniums. No such joy. The flowers are yellow and aren't that great to look at, but then I've never smelled them in the evening so, jury is still out on the primroses.

I also rescued some spider plant clumps I'd dumped previously out the back of the house and arranged them in a basket where the potatoes are meant to be growing. One basket has sprouted but the other has been slow to leaf up. I'm thinking maybe obtain some more wicker baskets as I quite like the look of them. I also scattered some mustard seed and fennel that I found in the kitchen cupboard and hope they might sprout as some more green crop to cover the bare soil.

We harvested some of the spinach and had it for dinner last night, and I've picked another vase of sweet peas that are scenting the house. That's all for now.

Berm madness

I've received the weekly Get Growing Newsletter, it comes every Friday to my inbox.
I'm as shocked as other gardeners are on the latest Auckland Council tax grab, and this time its if you want to put a garden on your grass verge (they call it 'berm') outside your property which you have to mow anyway, it's gonna cost you $150, and you aren't allowed to put fruit or veges or have anything over the height limit.

Um. I can understand the height limit but come on, paying the council to plant on the land that WE look after?? Ridiculous. And so, what, the puha and dandelions that some people eat, we aren't allowed to have? Would they rather just have weeds there instead?

Madness.

I used to work in Council and I tell you, ever since it amalgamated they have now put in some crazy by-laws and turned a blind eye to things that need doing elsewhere.
So much for 'eco-city'.

Maybe they are doing this (I don't know who THEY are, probably some bureaucratic panel that don't even live here, or maybe they are foreigners who think they own Auckland because they brought up all the houses like Monopoly) to make the ratepayers mad, so that we will protest and guerilla seedbomb the place and then run ivy and gorse rampant everywhere so NOBODY need mow their front lawns.

Which is fine cos I hate mowing lawns anyway, hearing it just gives me a headache. My undergardener and trimmer and hole-digger (Dad) does this.

I was planning on maybe just scattering some pumpkin seeds over the front berm in protest as the shops seem to think it's now 'cool' to celebrate Halloween. Then these poor, starving monsters can harvest pumpkins and other curcubits instead of knocking on doors begging complete strangers for sugary lollies. I always confuse these little monsters with genuine Jehovah's Witnesses. They both dress in black and scare me.

Big thumbs down, Auckland City Council and Auckland Transport, which has a sign like an anarchy symbol, which, I'm pretty sure is deliberate. It's a huge conspiracy to make Auckland into a 'world class' city, taken over and inhabited by zombies from afar.

Raincheck

It's started to rain.
Which is just as well as I have been slacking off a bit on my watering regime lately.

I finally figured out what I suspected all along, those coconut lined hanging basket liners are for show only. They don't retain water, as each time I tried to water my licorice plant it just drained out the bottom. I got tired of trying to revive it each time and thought oh, hanging baskets, you meant to water them every single day as they are really thirsty. Well no, its just the stupid coconut linings don't hold water like a plastic or terracotta pot would. So I lined the liner with plastic bag from ye olde supermarket, and that did the trick. (Don't worry, its our little secret, you can't tell once the soil and moss covers it all) but you think those garden centre people or manufacturers would warn you.

Other dirty secrets of the garden trade for those show gardens that make you wonder..how did they make it happen? How can they get strawberries to bloom and fruit in June?? Well, I tell you...hydroponics.

The 'switched on gardener' knows that those selling ahem, pot plants, have got it all sussed. The drug dealers want their premium greens all year round and aren't going to let a lack of rain or sun stop them. The florists are in on the racket too. They've got the temperature controlled glasshouses and pH balanced liquid chemical fertilisers, and monitor it all by closed circuit computers. Whole swathes of Spain are literally covered with polythene to produce the perfect plastic tomatoes destined for UK consumers penchant for eating mediterranean salads in the middle of winter.

Oh, no, I hear you squirm as you read this. It's all fresh and natural and organic. But I tell you computerbots are taking our jobs away and soon we will all be growing little pockets of plants in those black pocket plant holders and feeding them drugs as therapy. Not to mention a lot of our plants are...clones.

Yes, they can't even reproduce the natural way using bees and birds. Instead they get artificially induced and pollinated using the plant equivalent of turkey basters. But everyone who farms knows that those bobby calves weren't born when their parents fell in love. Oh no, it was the farmers making the cows pregnant, they had no choice. The same thing happens in the deep dark world of horticulture, of which once your blood and bone is mixed into fertiliser (how do crematoriums make their money?) it may be something you'd rather not know....

Labour of love

It's Labour Day and traditional tomato and summer veges planting time.

As I've already planted my toms and got no other raised beds I didn't plant any summer veges, even though I've got pumpkin seeds ready to scatter. My sunflowers got decapitated and their heads are in a brown paper bag to collect all the seeds. Crocus got dumped into the back garden next to the comfrey which survived chicken predation thanks to its tenacious roots, and then I noticed the other comfrey was springing back to life in the corner poppy bed (with no poppies, sigh. I should stop calling it that). Instead I've got pink freesias, orange calendula and exotic pink looking anemones.

I then filled the empty pots with chives, dusty miller, kalanchoe, potted up my 'stairway to heaven' and mulched my hanging basket with moss and seaweed.

I've noticed more flowers coming up including red clover. Just suddenly overnight it sprang up, which was a surprise. Indigo lobelias are also flowering. And I've picked my first vase of sweet peas.
Phacelia is doing well. My border is a haze of purples. I think the next thing would be do make another bed nearby or extend it out, although I'm not sure how exactly to go about doing it. I could plant the whole side of the house up as one big border. I mean really, why bother having a narrow strip of lawn there?

It was a bit cool today with some wind and I didn't really fancy going to the shops on Labour Day as then you feel thats a bit of a cheat, those retailers working round the clock and not even giving their employees the day off. I mean the library is closed, but the shops are open. What does that mean? And then you notice offices are closed, but they aren't the ones that do labour exactly. I would characterise labour as hard work and heavy lifting, but I once had an office job where I didn't need to lift a thing, just tap at a keyboard and we were not even allowed to lift our bums off the office chairs as we were chained to the desk. Well, not chained, but if we went over our 10 minute break the boss then started glaring at you because your supervisor tattled behind your back and then there's no chance of a 2 cents pay rise.

That is why gardening is a lot more fun and after your hard work you can take a break that lasts longer than 10 measly minutes. And it's not far to walk. So happy Labour Day all you hard workers in the garden. :-) Your reward is inheriting the promised land of milk and honey.

Intrigue

Dusty Miller makes an appearance in Snowy's bed. Vinca has settled but I'm still not very happy with it, as chickens keep trying to dig out the paper daisies but at least left wormwood intact.

My $10 reward was spent on Dusty Miller, Amerias (white) and chrysanthemum.

I need to find a solution to my drying out hanging basket with licorice plant because if it goes without for any length of time it droops. Maybe some of that sphagnum moss?

Other than that I'm very pleased at how the sweet peas turned out. Tomorrow am going to pick a whole bunch for my room as there's enough in bloom for a vase. I have purple/red bicolors and also pink ones.

I need to revamp my mangers and decide to put more geraniums in them, removing the sweet alyssum for bedding. I will keep lobelias to hang over the edge, but it's hard to know what will thrive in the small amount of soil there. Strawberries need space to expand. It's kind of too high and dry for sweet peas, although a few make a valiant effort and bloom in trails. So any plant for a long slim trough I'm open to suggestions. Kalanchoes maybe, but they get the frost in winter and die.

Petunias are triumphantly in bloom and pretty in pink. It seems the plant breeders go absolutely crazy over petunias and breed them in all sorts of colours, even stripes and edged ones. I saw one called Bee Limey geddit? It was lime coloured with a pink edge and said to attract bees.
Another one goes by the name of 'happytunia'. Or even 'crazytunia'.

Another plant the breeders come up with all sorts of exotic names are carnations. I've seen fairy ones, ones called 'angel' or 'scent of heaven'. Then there's the movie star hebes. Yea, I don't know if Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn approve, but they are dead now, and I know Audrey loved gardening. Not sure if Marilyn did, but do recall reading a story in which one of her ex husbands, Arthur Miller, wrote that she would stick things in the ground and command them to grow. He thought she was mad, but she could have just been making cuttings.

As for one of my favourite movie stars, Vivien Leigh, she was a mad keen gardener that everytime she went mad and crazy, instead of going into the mental hospital she just stayed home and gardened. It was her therapy. Playing Blanche du Bois in A streetcar Named Desire did that to her, unfortunately. She and her lover/husband/actor Laurence Olivier owned an estate called Notley Abbey together which has been turned into a wedding venue now, but, it was said she gardened the place to life putting in lime walks and flowers (favourites were white ones) and then after they divorced she owned a place called Tickerage Mill which had a lake where her ashes are scattered.

Forget about acting, it was gardening that gave life and made these women beautiful.
Anyway, next on my list of books to read about gardens is this one about Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicholson, the owners of the famed Sissinghurst. It was written by one of their sons, who knows, may even still be living there now. It's about their unconventional marriage.

I am expecting some kind of rustic Downton Abbey like intrigue. Grand estates do that to people. You never know what's hiding in those bushes. I mean remember what happened to Daphne Du Maurier's Manderley. All those rhododendrons don't survive on just nothing you know. Blood and bone...and nobody gets blood and bone without sacrifice.

Thyme out

My sweet peas are outgrowing the fence! I put some by the obelisk that were growing in a pot but I think the transplantation didn't take and they are dying from shock. It was a bit late for them, they were root bound.

I managed to snag some thyme from the Pak n'Save clearance trolley for $1 so Mt Asher has some more ground cover after I moved the native one that was drying out to Snowy's bed. I stashed a few more in the rock garden. Thyme seems to do well there.

Next item on the agenda is to catch up on some more reading since I've been going to the market and picking up more retired gardening books. I've got 'Creating Beds and Borders', 'Creating Hedges and Screens' as well as 'NZ Native Plants for your Garden' and other titles with enticing pictures.

We have had some windy days still and it's not quite skirts and shorts weather, although Labour Day is not far off. It's only next week and is the traditional time to get all one's tomahtos in. Ha. I got them in early.

Also, I have $10 reward at Palmers so not sure what I will spend it on next time I go. I need to use it within three months or it will expire.

hmm.

I'm thinking of revamping the mangers on the fence and putting more geraniums in, the round leaf or scented ones, as the alyssum is drying out and even the rosemary is dessicating. Every gardener knows geraniums are de rigeur for window boxes. I heard the scented geranium was voted favourite plant by one gardening magazine. Although another vote found that tomatoes were the most popular vegetable to grow. It would be interesting to conduct a poll on what is most commonly grown in NZ gardens. From looking round the neighbourhood, it seems cabbage tree is king. Which is good or bad depending on your taste for inedible cabbages. Yea, I have nooo idea why they call them cabbage trees. One things for sure, everyone hates brussels sprouts.

Vinca drink

Hooray I managed to find some vincas on the half price table at Kings. They are Gertrude Jekyll ones and have white flowers. She was a famous gardener.

Also, another snow-in-summer, paper daisies, flowering tobacco, asters, and..scabiosas.
They all went in where I could find room.

Mum tried to cook my flowers again. I told her the spinach is down the back and in the troughs by the patio but she took the ones in the poppy bed and they are NOT spinach. You'd think she'd learn? She took one taste and again it was salt overload.

Anyway. I was busy gardening when I saw what I suspected was two JWs walk past my house. I can usually tell, they have something earnest about them and try to draw you into conversation. Also they usually wear black skirts, or some kind of corporate attire that shows they mean business. And they come in pairs, usually women. It's the mormons that are young men out of their teens.

They said hello to me as I was crouching down watering my plants. I said hello back. They were staring at me. Gardening time is it? one said.
Yes. I don't make eye contact as I'm busy watering. I then pick up my pots and head for the backyard. I know if I stay there any longer they will try to protelyse. I don't feel like a long drawn out conversation about God and what the JWs believe.

Oh no. I was rude to JWs. They were just admiring my garden and trying to be christian. I should have told them the gospel and prayed with them. I'm sorry.

Before that I noticed the chickens had crossed the road and gone to the other side. I told mum who went and got them back. I think their wings are growing and one day they will fly the coop.

Well I better get back and finish my watering job before I got rudely interrupted. Those vincas might be thirsty.

Foraging list

I hesitate to call it 'shopping' for plants because they could be given free as cuttings or gifts so  I will call it foraging.

I'm sure when Eve was in the garden they did not have shops back then but she still did the same thing, shopped around for fruit, except she made a big mistake going to one of the dodgy vendors of the forbidden tree.

I do have a list.

So I am on the lookout for more

purple irises to plant between sweet peas and catmint in my border.
vinca or periwinkle for underneath the maple tree
snow in summer ditto
ferns for ferndale
comfrey, could always use more
bluebells
naked lady lily

other sundry items

sun dial
hanging basket chair
log to sit on

That is all for now from the land of milk and honey.

More drama in Ferndale

I have been reading 'Gorgeous Garden Boosters' a book about improving your garden. In the gardening section of the library there's basically three categories of books. English gardening books endorsed by the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society). NZ gardening books, which sometimes extend to Australia. And American gardening books. I don't know why the library buys ones published in America, we don't live on a prairie. Also the American ones seems so basic and naive, like plant something in the ground and it grows kind of thing. They don't have a tradition or love of gardening like the English do.

This one comes under the first category. It is so exhaustive and comprehensive, that, I'm sure if I wasn't working full-time that you would need to employ someone full time just to realise this vision. It has everything. Trees, shrubs, hedges, kitchen gardens, beds, borders, water features, topiary, sculptures, paths, bulbs, perennials, annuals, pleaching, pollarding, pruning, espaliering, containers, irrigation, lawns...

I'm inspired to add a bit more drama to my borders by edging them with catmint. I managed to find some growing in punnets so I had plenty and removed the creeping buttercup and other sundry weeds so I can have an eventual purple border beneath the sweet peas mummy cat will enjoy.

The annoying thing about the sweet peas is that they are now starting to flower, but most of the flowers are on the neighbours side of the fence!

I am consoling myself with the thought that I am being neighbourly and also, I managed to pick up a silver lady fern for $2 from the Warehouse so that will be the start of my shady fern grove. I will name it Ferndale, after the suburb in Shortland Street.

The chickens had a field day digging up the compost I generously spread on the back border that had two lone hellebores, a canna lilly, an small agapanthus and my tomato, basil and potato pots and basket. I hope they haven't destroyed my comfrey. I think I need to plant it so thickly and give it a chance so that, as heard once you have it you can't get rid of it, so useful for compost and green manure, but, this seems to be the reverse as, both times I planted it, the chickens scoffed the lot. Otherwise I don't know what to put there. Lupins again? Red clover didn't take.

As for Snowy's bed I'm on the look out for vinca, or periwinkle, as the only thing that will grow to crowd out the flower carpet rose. But I heard its an invasive weed although less bad as ivy. But I do need a ground cover of some sort, and trying to grow anything under a maple tree is a hard task as they suck up all the moisture with their thick roots. Maybe another snow in summer?

Faith like potatoes

Went to water the potatoes at Woodside today, as I'm rostered on Monday. They are doing well. Still no arch yet, I think we ought to put it up next time and grow beans over it. There's a water tank there but I can't figure out how to get water from it as the tap seems to not have a spigot thing? So I just fetched water from the stream, with my watering can. We have two sheds, one is a container but last time I went there the combination didn't seem to work.

We have two different varieties of spuds, I forget what (I will add this in once I find out). It must be fun to be a certified potato inspector. Imagine if you let misshapen potatoes loose on everyone. It would be terrible for the chip industry, and we would have to all eat twisties instead.  I wonder what happens to those that aren't good enough to grow -  they all get mashed?

Then I snagged some roman chamomile for Snowy's Bed. It was growing in a tyre and freely volunteered offspring, so, I figured they would have more room to spread at my place. They seem to like being amongst strawberries.

Some new flowers I've observed popping up - Marigolds or calendula. Wallflowers. Statice. Hollyhocks, which I hope will grow tall. No delphiniums, larkspur or foxgloves that I can see.

Flops were - Poppies. Only one or two measly buds. Stock.
No shows - Honesty. Cosmos. Canterbury Bells. Sea Holly. Hyssop. Wildflower mix.

I think, its very disappointing to scatter seeds and there's hundreds in a packet (supposedly) and not one of them grows. Its far better value for money to grow from punnets. So I don't think I'm going to buy any more Kings Seeds. Especially after the echium incident. Also, I kinda get the impression that, a cottage garden look isn't fashionable anymore amongst garden gurus. But that's just too bad. I live in what could be a cottage as its hardly a mansion by any means. What else am I meant to do with this land, if I wanted a field, I would go to the park and play rugby or cricket, doesn't mean I have to at home.

Instead of placing my faith in wildflowers that don't make an appearance, I'm gonna put them in the potatoes at Woodside.

Breath of Heaven

The plant named Breath of Heaven has now become part of Snowy's Bed. It has white flowers and I suppose is ideal plant for cemeteries. It does have a fragrance that some may describe as heavenly, but I don't know...for me, heaven is the smell of sweet peas. They are starting to flower now. Snowy's Bed needs some serious attention now the bluebells have finished and the blue lupins dug in. Nothing much will grow in the dry shade of the maple tree and any soil and compost I put there doesn't seem to do much, as you can't dig too deep, the roots are all compacted. After removing all the flower carpet roses I attempted sowing seeds there but they didn't take. The annoying thing is the chickens keep digging things up. Cyclamen did well but now they are drying out I have put them in Mt Asher.

So what to do? Licorice plant seems ok and snow-in-summer is starting to get established so that may be a goer. I thought white anemones, but they just seem to sit in a clump and not stretch out. I need a spreading plant. Hellebores or winter roses might be fine, but it does get sunny there too. Lavender was ok in the corner but near the fence my attempts at growing lavender came to nought.

So much for Snowy's bed.
Down the back near the fence I spread out our homemade compost and put in another comfrey plant which hopefully WILL take, and sowed some pumpkin seeds a friend gave me that ought to have been sowed 10 years ago. Will they grow? Who knows??

Another peppermint was put in the L shaped poppy bed, which doesn't seem to have any poppies.
It is taken over by this mint that's neither pepper, nor spear, nor vietnamese. It seems like a strange hybrid. Mum likes to cook it with eggplants. I've seen chocolate mint, but I don't have that, I have apple mint and ordinary mint. They could be called Breath Fresheners of Heaven.

Freesias have bloomed, they are a spray of pinky-white colours. I like them with the dutch iris and definitely will plant more next year. Also, my tulips have started to bloom! One purple, and two red.
They survived the onslaught of chickens....

The truth about chickens

It was blowing quite fierce yesterday but I still managed to get some plants in, this time, basil, broccoli, and a few more swan plants. I also staked the willow obelisk as it kept blowing over.
The umbrella I folded up but will put up today as the morning looks calm and blue.

Today is gorgeous.

I'm really happy with all my plants and hope they will grow and proliferate. I still have some morning glory to go somewhere and gourd seeds, as well as random pumpkins that ought to go in a bed if we have the room. I'd still like a raised garden bed and to sow corn, beans, and squash.

Beth's plants are doing well and thankfully haven't died. I will need to pot up the small cuttings she gave me.

I have several gardening books to catch up on, one by Ruud Kleinpaaste called 'Scratching for a living', another called 'Minding your peas and cucumbers' about an English gardener who gardens an allotment,  'A Vision of Eden' by a Victorian garden collector who went all over the world trying to find Eden, one about the NZ gardener Nancy Steen who has a garden in her memory at Parnell Rose Gardens, and several others about natives and creative gardening for pleasure. This is after I've finished reading 'Why did the Chicken cross the World?' by Andrew Lawler, about the history of chickens.

While my chickens may be troublesome at least they can walk, run around and lay eggs wherever they like. I feel sorry for the Tegel ones that can't and have breasts so heavy they just can't even move, or the battery ones caged up. I blame the american efficiency and corporations for giving us tasteless chicken thats ready in six weeks that never sees the light of day. We do have a chicken factory in Henderson which they are always trying to get workers for from WINZ but its a horrid job. And there was a chicken feed place up at Massey that smelt terrible but its closed down now and they are going to build a 'convenience centre' there.

One day scientists may crack open the fact that chickens are not vegetables and taste better NOT grown in a hothouse.

I say tomahto

I had nowhere to put my tomatoes until I realised I could move the potatoes together in a straw basket, and use some terracotta pots I had around..so now I've planted them up with tomato mix, a bit of catfood (apparently, the best fertiliser) and mulching with hay on top.
The potatoes don't have leaves yet but they are sprouting and I can expect maybe a rosemary infused flavour as I put rosemary clippings in with the hay.

Then I netted the poppy bed all over to stop the chickens digging, securely this time, as, I can't be bothered chasing the chickens back to the backyard and it's mum's job to clip their wings.

Our sugar maple now has a bird feeder of wild bird seed, and I almost got some more solar lights but am reining myself in for now, very tempted to get christmas ones now they in the shops. I was looking for more snow-in-summer, and dusty miller, for Snowy's bed, but Bunnings did not have any. Snow-in-summer, do you have the botanical name? I don't what that is, replied the shop assistant. OMG. You work at a garden centre and expect your customers to know the LATIN name?? I almost replied. She looked posh, possibly British. Brits are like that, immensely annoying.

I'm sorry. But if you not native to NZ, don't expect us dumb kiwis to know what Carl Linneus named all the plants  at a run of the mill garden centre that also sells toolboxes and lumber. Next thing you know, the trade guys will be asking me what a two by four is in latin. Oh, pinus radiata?

For the record, it's 'Cerastium.' I knew that. But that's not what I call that plant, and it's not even what's on the label.

Oh, tomato, I don't know what that is. Do you have the latin name?
(No, I don't.)

????

I don't know, do some people just call them love apples? Cos I don't know what the hell tomatoes are.
Excuse me while I throw some rotten ones at the shop assistants at Bunnings.

Halcyon Days

Today the skies are blue and the flowers are in bloom. I think this may be one of those days when you can say spring has arrived and we are all going to the chapel.

The birds are singing, as I type, so Rachel Carson's dire prediction did not come true in my part of the world. They are as chirpy as ever.

My back neighbours have cleared the bamboo from their property so now light falls on the back garden where there was an impenetrable thicket before. Next door are redoing their porch/verandah and have stacks of wood piled up on their property. Dad painted the outdoor deck chair, we have two as one broke, and I bought an outdoor market umbrella from Briscoes for shade. I'm thinking of cushions for the deck chairs after Dad has completed painting the furniture.

Also, I am bidding on a sundial on trade-me. $1 reserve! I hope I win!! Then our weather station may be complete. The only thing that's missing is perhaps a rooster weather vane, but Mum bought a rooster (or a picture of one) at the flea market on Sunday. I have no idea where she will hang it as seems to be sitting on the floor for now. But Mary and Martha just ignored it as they traipsed on through the house stealing Mummy Cat's breakfast.

My special guest was my friend Ellen who cast her aesthetic eye as she educated me on the delights of eating Chinese Toon, and Chinese Pee Pah. (Loquat, for those who don't know). Also, bonus, I was the recipient of a pot of tomato seedlings she had grown herself. She asked me if she could eat a tangelo from my tree and I said you can taste the fruits of any of the trees in THIS garden. But she only took one.

I must warn you there IS a snake in my garden. It's hanging round the front fence. To avoid temptation, don't listen when it tells you that you can eat the flower carpet roses and thorns are a delicacy.

Also, we have some more new plants come to make themselves at home, this time, armerias or pinks, to replace the dandelion looking weeds, munstead lavender, a couple more swan plants and oh yes, I succumbed, the Poor Knight's Lily. I have several lilies already and this is a bit of a misnomer as its should be Rich Knight's Lily considering how much it cost, but, I could not pass it up as it is rare and may take years to bloom, but I've heard well worth it. Also, as it likes to be dry it can live in the rock garden and I won't need to water it much.

Well, I'm hearing the drone of lawnmowers which is the bane of daylight saving...so will close for now, and chase Mary and Martha back to their cage where they belong...think it's time for another wing-clip.

Wisteria Lane

The wisteria is in bloom and showing off her purple glory. I took photos.
Also, I saw an iceland poppy in bloom, white, and was going to take a photo but found the chickens had stomped all over the bed and destroyed it. Maybe it was too tall.

Yesterday, dug in the licorice plant again as was coming out of the shallow soil. I also removed a flower carpet rose as was coming up again and moved a Japanese anemone on top of its former location, dousing the flower carpet rose root with neat prickle eliminator - I've not taking any chances!

As snow-in-summer seems to be doing well I think I may obtain some more to cover the bed.
Of course, Snowy's bed has to have a snowy theme.

So I've got
Snowflakes
Snow-in-summer
White japanese anemones
White cyclamen
Snowball tree

Well, looks like today I will sow a few more peas as still got some in my packet under the obelisk, maybe check out Palmer's Planet again- there's new shopping centre opened up at North Westgate, each time I've tried to go there traffic has been terrible and roads have been blocked but it may be quieter this Monday.

Also, I have to get my garden in good shape as I have requests from visitors to come see it. And if you reading this blog and wonder who that could be, yes, I'm talking about you. :-)

Covering new ground

My bamboo obelisk I made for the peas collapsed. It was sad.
So I decided I would buy one of those nice sturdy willow ones from Kings. It is now sited in the front garden. I think they look pretty good, even when not covered with foliage. There were also wired ones, but they looked like they would rust and break. Also, I think the peas prefer willow.

On the half price table I bought two more licorice plants, and put them in Snowy's Bed. Snowy's bed looks a bit bare now the lupins have been dug in and the bluebells have finished flowering. Also, the sweet alyssum didn't take, nor the spider plants, nor the love carnation, or the impatiens and whatever else I put there the chickens insisted on digging up. And horrors..looks like the flower carpet rose is sprouting again! I have GOT to get some ground cover there quick before they take over again.
Only thing is, I'm not allowed to plant ivy. But ivy is the best groundcover! At least it doesn't have prickles!

Another plant I found, at the Warehouse, was Japanese Iris. There were 11 of them growing in a clump. Since this plant is rarely in garden centres I snapped this one up quick. I put it near the sweet peas and swan plant where it's a bit damp, as it likes moisture.

Then I planted the manuka where the old box plant was. So now my back border is complete. I don't know what happened to the anemone bulbs I scattered, not one ever came up. Maybe chickens got them all??

Also, I've been scattering seed all over so the spring rains will water them in. Its a mixture of all sorts - soapwort, bishops flower, marigolds, calendula, perovoskia, organum, daisy, scabiosa, morning glory...who knows what may come up. I'm not sure I have the correct method of sowing flower seeds as, all that seemed to come up from seed where phacelia, lupins, night scented stock, borage, sweet peas and the sweet alyssum..I don't recall many poppies or wildflowers yet. Sometimes I think it's better just to buy seedlings and not rely on the lottery method. At least you know or have an idea of what you are getting.

But I imagine after the spring rains - and tonight we have lashings of it..there ought to at least be a few. Surprise me.

Red October

Its the first of the month...daylight saving has started, Labour day is not far off, and then November will be the height of the gardening season. But I plan to get all my plants in before the sun starts scorching and it's too hot to do anything.

Mitre 10 had a gardening evening with specials on so I did buy a few seedlings, found heliotrope which is a vanilla scented perennial so was glad of that and put that in next to the peas, 'snow in summer' which I put in Snowy's bed (of course) good ground cover, underneath the snowball tree/bush and strawberries. I thought why not they would make a good ground cover and enjoy the sun up by the letterbox where I've found it hard to grow anything much. And they will spread, plus, will have fruit as well. So I bought a six-pack. It beats beer.

Then I found another swan plant as I only had one that Joanne gave me, saw a butterfly landing on it today, so I put another one in, near the sweet peas.

I am not sure where to put the extra manuka and thinking about giving it to the neighbours if they are going to plant any more trees on the border of their property.

I have been consulting my gardening books on geranium it seems there's all different kinds, I seem to have at least four. I planted out another one to Snowy's bed as they seem to like it dry. This one has a cute red ring on the leaf and I think it's called Ringo. Sounds like a Beatle.

Of course, Mum saw me planting as had to get them in before night closed in, (don't know why Mitre 10 has gardening evenings as, can't really see the plants when it gets dark) and said 'I thought I told you not to buy anymore plants' but I just said 'It's my money'. And it is.. and also, she's not my boss and can't tell me what to do anymore.

Dad also seemed to get angry and threaten letting the chickens loose in my garden but he took that back. I just can't be bothered anymore with negative people. Even if they parents. Do I tell them what to do? Do I constantly say to other people what to spend or not to spend their money on...even when Mum bought this cake tray thing she never uses that cost $40?? Or my brother spends thousands of dollars on a king sized bed he never sleeps in? Or my Dad buys vinyl records which he has been buying for years and threatens to take over the house and there are boxes in the hallway and an entire spare room is taken over with records and CDs so that you can hardly even walk?????

Give me a break!

Good echium, bad echium

Well it's a full moon or a harvest moon last night, and I heard rumours it was going to be the end of the world - but only for America.
That's alright then. I'm sure I don't know anybody that important in America.

Anyway...it was a a busy day in the garden as I had to decide what to do about the garlic the chickens kept digging up. The whole L shaped bed needed an overhaul. I placed the flower jonquil bulbs in the corners and removed the netting. Poor garlic, never stood a chance. Also it's not really sunny enough for them there.

I went to Kings and bought four bags of compost to do some heavy duty compost-mulching-layering.
So in that bed now are sugar peas, which I'd been growing as seedlings, and a bamboo obelisk I made with netting. Chickens can't scratch that up, as peas are inside. The garlic is still there but buried underneath more compost. I put lily bulbs in the far corner as chickens dug them up from Fluffy's bed. Then, put some more plants in next to what was already there - lavender, Queen Anne's lace, catmint, nicotania (flowering tobacco), pyrethrum, alyssum. They are all nice and close to each other so chickens can't get in them and dig them out.

Fluffy's bed, now devoid of lily bulbs, is now more secure with an extra post blocking the gap where the chickens might have snuck through. I put in creeping maidenhair in the corner as it will climb up the fence and is native, which will go with the kowhai and manuka. It is springy and unsual, and also, looks great covered with dew. Also it was half price at Kings.

Then the back has now an echium fastostum, which butterflies love. This is the plant Joanne so admired at Ayrlies. I put in the sunny spot. Also, I emailed Kings Seeds and told them their seed, echium plantagineum, 'Blue bedder' is a noxious, invasive and poisonous weed and why are they selling it? I told them I dumped that packet in the trash and not planting it. They got all huffy and replied it was not a problem in NZ and that my council (what council?) didn't know it was an excellent beneficial plant for insects. I wrote back and said Wikipedia does not think so. You can look on the wiki - it's poisonous to cattle and also known as Paterson's Curse. They then wrote back that's only in Australia where they graze scrub and cattle in NZ eat grass in paddocks. Friggin' Kings! I pointed out, that yes so shall I plant prickly pear then, since that's only bad in Australia. And what about gorse? Everyone thought that was great. NOT.

They have not deigned to reply. Nor offer a refund. So, I don't think I'll buy from Kings Seeds again.
What an attitude! They said that nobody had given them that feedback before, well, so hundreds of people have been sowing invasive, noxious weeds and thinking they are flowers. Good one Kings.

Other than that, I have planted three clumps of renga renga lily near the raspberry and hydrangeas border as they like dappled shade and are native and smell nice. Also they are not weeds. I suppose I COULD have planted agapanthus lily. But I was in a good environmental mood today and thought, nope. Only good plants can grow in MY garden.

When will the good apples fall

My side of the fence now has apples..in the spot left vacant by the hibiscus now is a Crimson Spire columnar apple tree. I am going to espalier it - when I figure out how. I hope a single tree is ok, that it doesn't need cross pollination. We do have peach, pear and apricot.

All that's left is plum and nectarine and then I would have a fruit salad.

Beth rang again and said her mum died, she's going down Christchurch for the funeral and would I look after her plants? So I have several indoor plants to look after including a piggy back plant and a Cleopatra begonia. I'm not the best at remembering to water indoor plants but I was plant sitting an impatiens last christmas for Operation Christmas Child, it didn't die and they received a live christmas tree back, so I'm sure I will cope this time.

I must admit this plant sitting gig is easier than cat sitting or God forbid, dog sitting. Dogs are the worst. Have to walk them everyday, they are smelly, slobbery, over excitable, whiny, and in general a lot more work than a baby. At least babies have nappies. Dogs just go anywhere, and if they meet another dog, sniff each others butts and then go crazy.

Plants are more sedate. They don't go berserk unless they are weeds and thorny carpet roses, and then they are trouble.

Dad finally put up the new wooden letterbox with the help from our next door neighbours who gave us a post as they were putting up their wooden fence. We just need a 'no junk mail' sign. Dad said he wanted 'no circulars' instead as it sounded better, but the whole reason I put 'no junk mail' sign in addition to 'no circulars' on the old letterbox is hardly anyone knows what a circular is. And it didn't stop the junk mail!

Sometimes my dad is a bit thick. He has to be forgiven though, he's male.

My land

My writing friend Beth came and gave me some more manuka, a succulent and showed me how to propagate maidenhair ferns. They are really tiny and fragile and need tweezers and a sharp knife to tease them out. I will need to pot them up as they have a habit of clumping and need to spread out.

My garden bounty hasn't really yielded enough to give away yet, although Mum harvested some spinach looking leaves for dinner which tasted extremely salty and turned to green sludge. I think she got the wrong plant. We might have been eating flowers.

I am going to have to buy more netting and thoroughly cordon off the flowerbed and garlic from the chickens. They also got through to Fluffy's garden and destroyed her Queen Anne's Lace, uprooting the lilies as they went. I fear they may get their claws into the Jacaranda, I'm worried the leaves won't turn out and it will stay looking like a dormant stick. I saw this lovely white Clematis at Kings the other day, very tempted to buy it, it's native, but the price tag was $35, like the poor knights lily...should I be paying that much for one plant? Mum gave me grief over buying the Frangipani, and that was about $60, discounted.

I moved the hibiscus which was sited on the north facing fence to the rock garden outside my bedroom window. So there's two hibiscus side by side now, they can grow a small hedge. It wasn't really doing well by the fence as was in a kind of wind tunnel and the chickens kept scratching out the bark mulch.

Now reading Alan Titchmarsh's Garden Year which is a collection of his writings in Gardener's World magazine. I like to read about the goings on in English gardens. I am also, concurrently reading Changing Lives which is about two friends who wrote each other about their gardens in NZ but now are have sold their properties and moving to new places.

It made me think would I ever leave this place...where I'm putting down roots, not that theres much roots yet but it hasn't even been a year. In the forseeable future, unless a dream job comes up or a dream Prince comes along..not likely. I need land. Earth. Soil.
Gerald O'Hara's words come to mind from Gone with the Wind. Why land is the only thing in the world worth workin' for, worth fightin' for, worth dyin' for, because it's the only thing that lasts. Oh it will come to you this love of the land. There's no getting away from it...and I'm not even Irish.

You give me fever

arrgh!
Went to the Woodside Garden this morning to plant my sugar pea seedlings. It was a beautiful sunny morning. But...it has started up again.

Mr Sneezy has come back.

My nose started itching, then I was sneezing, and eyes watering...
I have just been to the pharmacy for a remedy. This time, instead of steroids nasal spray I have something made from quail eggs chewy tablets.

Well, there were plenty of volunteers there they didn't really need me..I think they will put up the arch and plant my choko in the corner and there's going to be a roster for watering the potatoes...

Otherwise it looks like Spring is well and truly here, hooray.
I think I must be allergic to the grass pollen, as there is lots of grass down Woodside but thankfully, there's no more privet next door so, where I live so  it won't be so bad.

The other day I bumped into my Horticulture teacher Buffie and we had a good catch up. I think Buffie is amazing and knowledgable about all kinds of gardening. She's into organic gardening/permaculture and ingenious DIY.  I remember fondly my early days of learning how to garden. One of my classmates, John, was a riot. We had nothing in common but he was always cracking jokes and talking/whining.  Some of those kids had just got out of juvie and needed caretakers to make sure they didn't get into mischief. But it was hilarious how, the big strong young guys let the older, weaker women do all the hard work....I didn't chat much and I bet most of them thought I couldn't speak English anyway!

Spring is here...

Daylight saving starts tomorrow...spring is here!

Today I planted some more lily of the valley near my hydrangeas. I had planted some under the apricot tree but they seem to have disappeared? Did the chickens dig them up??

Also, in Fluffy's bed she now has a Queen Anne's lace. As befitting a Queen cat.

Lemon balm, which the chickens dug up now is in the L poppy bed.
Pineapple sage is planted near the lemon tree in the sunny spot.

My abutilons have bloomed. The red one. I have also a yellow and pink one, but no blooms yet.

It has now just rained which is good so they will be watered in.

The chickens have been a menace and tried to dig up my tulips. I got angry and mum put them back with a grill and upturned dishrack over them.
I also have put the spider plants all in the tyres and covered them with twigs also as defence against chickens.

I found a dichondra silver falls at Kings which I had wanted for my hanging baskets as they hang so beautifully, so I had three in a pot and put them in three different baskets.

I've got rhythm, I've got music, I've got daisies in green pastures...I've got my garden, who can ask for anything more?

The best things in life are free

My friend's brother who's into gardening gave me some silver lavender cuttings yesterday, which I put in the ground, one in the corner of the flowerbed and one in the rock garden by the steps. He saw me admiring the plant at his house so he potted them up for me.

Another friend gave me a whole lot of plants, a maidenhair fern, several flaming katies, spider plants, tiny succulents, flax and manuka from her house in Swanson which is near the bush.

I planted them all too and then it rained last night so they are watered in. Tomorrow will be officially spring!

Flowers are appearing, so far I see

Snowflakes
Dutch Iris (bud)
Peach blossom
Lupin
Stock
Geranium
Night scented stock
Alyssum
Calendula
Feverfew
Borage
Kalanchoe
Sweet pea (one bud)
Camellia (red)
Violets
Pansy
Sweet William
Lavender
Bluebells
Primulas (white)
Dianthus (red)
Strawberries
Rosemary

Next door's cabbage trees have come down, the fence is put up and they've got a trampoline in their front yard now. I don't have any play equipment in my garden, I am considering a sandbox maybe, if raised beds are put in for veges. I think a cool thing to have would be a labyrinth or a maize maze, That would have to go in the back though. Or a swing set and tree house and hammock. I don't have a tree large enough for that. Those shepherd huts are cool but we have no sheep. Maybe a gazebo or an arbour? I can dream...can't I?

If I ever get a job or chance to go overseas it might be fun to have a working holiday in England in the National Trust gardens. But that's not likely. I need to be invited first, no point going where you're not wanted. :-(

Spring clean

Yesterday was busy rearranging my alcove/patio garden.

Dad removed my hanging gothic troughs from the verandah fence and they are now in my patio. Two are on the ground, one with strawberries and the other with spinach and chives. The other one is nestling up high with prostrate rosemary and sweet alyssum. I've put the hanging basket which has sweet peas and pansies there too, and rehung one of the wall mangers to the side.

I've relocated the frangipani there where it's sheltered and warm. It still has no leaves but there it will get the rain. I removed the two wooden seats from the corner and now have plants there too. I've got a hook to hang up my spade and a tea light and also my blessing windchime is at the entrance.

Fluffy's garden has also had a makeover. Fluffy now has a jacaranda tree which will grow to shade the area, I've moved the passionfruit vine to a pot to the side and enclosed the area surrounding the jasmine. I mulched everything with hay. Dragon's gold kowhai is doing well, and there will be butterfly gladioli coming up, along with lillies and other bulbs I've out there (that I've forgotten). There's peas and morning glory to grow up the chicken wire.
I've also  fixed the fence so that the chickens cannot escape through any gaps.

I put in some 'love daisies' - chrysanthemums next to the chinese toon so it will have a kind of chinese theme there. I've put in some more dianthus in my rock garden in the stone trough..I found a whole lot reduced to clear at Pak N' Save. The jacaranda also was only $9, at Mitre 10. That was half price. Mitre 10 are going to have a gardening evening next month so I'm keen to go to that. They also have ladies nights where you can win prizes and they do product demos. I don't think I'll be wielding a chainsaw anytime soon, but who knows, I could try out one of those ride on mowers.

It rained last night so everything is well watered in this morning although I was watering and feeding with Yate's Thrive just to boost the flowers. It's a big task to get everything watered so I want to do as less of it as possible, which is why I'm mulching heavily and getting everything in the ground before spring/summer season. I don't use the hose anymore just a watering can. Hoses are annoying and spray everywhere and then you have to turn them on and off. The sunflowers in pots have been requiring water everyday as they droop very quickly, I can't imagine how they'll survive a day in summer in clay pots. Next time I will just grow them in raised beds vege plots which one day hopefully I will have down the back, as its futile having anything else.

That's all for now...

Say it with flowers

I planted my shuttlecock fern in Socks' bed.
Joanne gave me some of her black eyed susans and a cool succulent that I saw at Ayrlies which I put in the hanging basket. I really like the blue ones by her swimming pool and she did have some in her nursery but they weren't for sale.

I've installed the gothic trough planter on the side of the verandah and still yet to decide what will go in there. Is it too early for tomatoes? We've had several fine days now and they are already out in the garden centres, or shall I just put geraniums there? I think trailing cherry tomatoes and basil might do well in that sunny spot. Or chilies, but I don't really eat a lot of chilli.

I need to take some photos of my snowflakes before they disappear. They have come up in Snowy's bed and look really nice, and my chinese toon has sprouted pink leaves, and the peach tree has blossoms. The magnolia has now got leaves, it bloomed early.

For ants on the sunflowers I've managed to quell the infestation by cutting off the chewed leaves which had aphids on them, the ants were attracted to the honeydew, so I put some honey in an eggshell and the ants went there and drowned in the honey. I also put mint leaves around the base of the sunflowers and the ants seem to have gone.

I have a hot orange geranium that is being eaten I don't know if its aphids as well but not sure what to do about that. The round holes even look kind of cool, like a polka dot cut out plant!

I've put in some morning glory moonflower in a pot as seeds and placed that near the drainpipe, I want it to climb up there.

Otherwise garden seems to be on its way and can't wait for bbq season again.

Ayrlies

My friends Joanne and Rita came with me to visit Ayrlies today.
It is gorgeous. It is beautiful. It is lovely.

The day dawned foggy on my side of town, but as we  drove on to Whitford and  entered the gates just after midday and it was beautiful sunshine, so that I had to wear a sun hat. I had one in the car, but my friends unfortunately had not prepared sunhats for the brilliant weather.

We were the only visitors. There is a covered bridge entrance into Ayrlies  and a path which winds around Ollies pond. Ollie is Bev McConnell's head gardening man. He made all the ponds on the property. The waterfalls cascade down the slope surrounded by ferns and schleranthus, kowhais and ponga. Spring daffodils are tucked here and there. A fir tree rises up from another pond, and then we cross the gravel drive into a magical woodland area, with points of interest and stunning plants everywhere you look. A gazebo overlooks the paddocks from which Ayrlies was created, and obliged us with a scene of two woolly sheep gambolling in the pasture.

Magnolia is in bloom and there are several in gullies so that you can look down on their floaty petals. They are pink and white or star shaped. We head on toward the house where Bev has a swimming pool and rockery, with succulents behind a tennis court, and then by the house is a 'blue room' with lots of blue flowered plants and a wisteria covered pergola. Joanne was impressed by the butterfly laden Echium.

The property slopes down from the house and there are winding paths and steps following ponds and cascades which flow toward the coast, you can catch a glimpse of the sea and Rangitoto in the distance. Bev has lots of bluebells, daffodils, hellebores, primulas in clumps underneath her flowering shrubs, mostly magnolia. Red hot pokers peek out beneath shady trees as beacons. Tuis flit through the blooming kowhai. The plants are all shown to good advantage thanks to the slope from which you can gaze above and below.

Orchids do well, and there are all sorts of unusual plants I don't know the name of, like a plant that has leaves that look like they are cut with pinking shears, plants that spill out of pots and down walls. Clivia glows in the shade, ferns look spunky amidst all the exotics. Bev has an eye for colour and some borders have themes like a 'lurid' border thats all oranges and reds and yellows. Most plants are clumped together for effect. The swampy area has these formations that look other-worldy. She has a meadow with fruit trees in blossom an daffodils that have already flowered, and borrowed a view from the countryside with a ha-ha. It is all naturalistic and following the lie of the land, there's no clipped hedges or ridged straight edges anywhere.

We see two gardeners, one on the ride on mower..and we greet Bev's two jack russells and she tells us about the 'blue room' and invites us to wander down the meandering paths of which are many...up to her temple covered with climbing rose which commemorates her family - she's a widow, where we sit and take in the birds and butterflies and flowers.

Joanne buys three plants from the nursery at the side of the house, an echium, iresine and campanula and I purchase a 'shuttercock' fern which I plant in Sock's bed. Its also known as an orchid fern. It's a lovely day out and well worth the $15 to visit this amazing, inspiring creation. Thank you Bev!

Welcome to my world

I rearranged my hanging basket by hanging a christmas cactus from underneath the licorice plant and now my welcome basket has got more ivy geranium in it and and an aloe, as it was getting a bit sun scalded in the manger.

I then thought my fuchsias also are good hanging basket subjects, I have two of them and tried taking cuttings but to no avail, they really like it moist and damp but also seem to enjoy where they are at the moment so I won't shift them.

Pegging down the netting for my garlic was also on my must do list when chickens once again tried to scratch them out.

Also gave sequestron to my yellowing peace lilies, and scattered epsom salts over my ferns, I read its good for them. My hibiscus also needs a good dose of sequestron, but I don't know how long it takes to get the lush dark green leaves that the garden centres ones have.

I have two rue plants that my aunty gave us, they are useful insect repellents and were in pots but they are best planted out so I put them in the rock garden, as they like poor soil.

And that was my gardening for today.

Feng Shui

I have feng shui-ed my garden.
There is now a money tree growing by the back door. I put it with the birds nest fern. It was growing amongst the azalea in Sock's Bed so I liberated it and now hopefully it will do its feng shui magic.
Well, not that I believe in that sort of thing but it does look good there.

Also I noticed my two other money trees, or jade plants, one of them was turning a bit yellow and that must be because it gets the sun. I hope my peace lilies go back to glossy dark green again, like they are in the shops, because they were really taking a beating of neglect where they were holed up before. Who knows, they may even flower one day?

I also repotted a yucca that I had bought years ago in a bigger pot as it was rootbound. At first I thought it had permanently stuck in the pot and would need to chisel it out but it came out easily to my surprise. So I repotted it and gave it a water and hope it revives as it was getting faded and cobwebs were growing in it.

I am not entirely happy with my hanging basket arrangement and would really like a trailing plant that trails right down to the ground, but cannot think of anything except maybe ivy? There is christmas cactus but not sure it would sit right in a coconut fibre hanging basket. It might dry out.

My welcome basket also needs a makeover so I took the cyclamen out and put them in Sock's bed, so all that's left is ivy geranium and a cutting from the money tree. Licorice plant seems ok but I think it might be better as the welcome plant and one that trails better hanging above.

I have not filled my window box yet with container mix and did have a wander round the garden centres today but did not buy anything. There are trailing tomatoes a yellow variety...

Then there was Poor Knights Lily which I thought might be really good in my rock garden, but the price was $35. I wasn't prepared to pay that much for one plant, and it didn't even have flowers. There was also astremias which look cool and a heliotrope that was very fragrant, to go in my shady border, but again I refrained from purchasing.

Plan Bee has been scattered in the sunny corner and another packet of Kings wildflower beneficial insect blend scattered by the Chinese Toon and Snowy's bed after clearing the oats and lupin. I wonder if there is ever a day when the garden looks just PERFECT. When you can go round and there's absolutely nothing out of place and all your flowers are blooming and you can just rest and enjoy. Will that day ever come? Garden swing seats are selling at the Warehouse for $89 but the thing is you can have any colour as long as it's black. Who wants to sit in a black seat at midday under a black canopy? I think this All Blacks outdoor design trend has gone far enough.