I'm going out today so not likely to do much gardening but I just want to write a bit of catch up. I did find a sign the other day. From a $2 shop, although, it was $2.50. It is stone/plaster and has the word NURTURE on it engraved and a silhouette of a tree and bird. I hung it on my fence. It was a lucky find and the only one left in the shop! All the other signs cost an arm and a leg and are on things that won't last outdoors or would fade. I also bought one that had the word TEACH on it, which I may give to my friend who is a teacher to put in her garden.
I also found some more NZ Gardener magazines and a part work called 'Ground Force' at the book exchange. It did have a sticker on the inside with a little chart reversing the seasons for Southern Hemisphere gardeners. That's handy, cos when reading UK based material you likely to sow and plant things in the wrong seasons as it's upside down!
Another thing arrived yesterday more packets of seeds from Kings. I decided to order another batch and hold off sowing them until spring..I'm very disappointed that my wildflower patch didn't seem to grow anything but weeds, there were one or two poppies but the rest I couldn't really tell. Now that I've got my potting up table sorted perhaps I better try them the ordered way and sow them in trays of mix and pots to transplant. I might try peas again to transplant out to the community garden as I had sown a whole bunch in a row only to find nothing. They must have been eaten by hungry birds or slugs and snails. However...I didn't order any peas! D'oh!
This is what I ordered
soapwort
feverfew
evening primrose
violet
catnip
asclepias
astible
bishop's flower
calendula
cleome
cornflower
hollyhock
marigold
Some of these I had ordered before like catnip and cleome but had given away to other people.
I have decided in my borders to have an edging plant like lambs ears or catmint..or sweet william, or even parsley. I'm very sad that the neighbours next door don't really do anything with their border strip, which is full of weeds that migrate over to my side of the fence. So I have to battle with creeping buttercup. It's lovely when they flower all yellow and I have to learn to live with them, cos when I pull them out more grow in their place. Another weed that keeps coming up is convolvulus, or bindweed. I think it is. Not morning glory, which I'm hoping to grow on the fence come spring.
I told one of the elder folk who had brought in some of his gardening books to the book exchange. They were terribly old and not likely to be any use to me. One was a book of weeds. I don't want to look at a book of weeds. I told him about my creeping buttercups, which, funnily enough have the name ranunculus...which is also a highly prized flower bulb. What can I do? I ask. He said, bluntly 'move'. I told him I can't afford to.
Unless I want to live in Antarctica, where I will be creeping buttercup free along with everything else. So I've decided why fight them. They can stay. I just need to grow other good plants and eventually they will learn their place. Winter roses are appealing to me right now, and bonus they are thornless. They are also known as hellebores, which is a terrible name. But they look so perky, and like cyclamen they flower in the shade. I'm thinking of putting them in with the other roses in my sweet pea patch in the gully where nothing seems to grow on account of being shaded by the creeping buttercups.
That's all for now...
