I have just put in a dozen petunias in pots and hanging baskets. I had gone to Palmers Planet again and gave the manager my CV hoping maybe just maybe when they are next hiring they consider me part-time. The older folk are lovely people and know their plants. I noticed in their indoor area, which is HUGE they had a stand of gardening books. Well, maybe they are diversifying. No wonder you can't buy any decent gardening books at Whitcoulls anymore, Palmers has 'em.
Kings does not sell gardening books, that I know of. Sometimes you ask them questions about plants and they just look at you blankly. Maybe it's the young 'uns. I suspect its cos they are so busy working full time at the garden centre that, they have no time to actually do any real gardening themselves. Or if they do, they just call it 'landscaping'.
Aside from moving rocks and dirts and bunging in flax, I don't think landscaping is very creative. In the real world, or rather, on earth, soil is not all sweeping rolling fields. Especially the north island. Auckland was built on volcanoes. It's old ash. You couldn't artificially landscape a hill or a volcano. It just wouldn't work. So I don't know what they are trying to do with all those diggers and cultivators. I think most New Zealand gardens starting out are rugby fields surrounded by a few lemon trees.
Well it started to rain and the dark clouds look ominous. I also put in rain lilies in my boggy patch to squelch in the wet soil. Next thing to do is pull out some weeds and replace those weeds with forget-me-nots.
Those black plastic punnets are starting to annoy me. My petunias wouldn't drop out easily as they had rooted through and stuck to the plastic. I chucked them upside down, I squeezed...maybe I should have soaked them first. I hope I haven't damaged them. Its like a pregnant mother with a baby that won't come out. Anyway my pet petunias are pink. Pretty, pink and pregnant. They are going to cascade over the hanging baskets edge and make me smile. For christmas my friend took me to the garden centre and bought me potted colour. I had never bought or grown potted colour or annuals before so it was exciting for me. It was like going to a pick n'mix lolly shop. I used to think gardening was all hard work and you just HAD to grow it all yourself from seed or you couldn't call yourself a real gardener. Or it just had to be there already.
But no, turns out everyone just buys their flowers already grown from the shop. And buys new ones each year. Annuals Selina. Annuals.
Somehow mum thinks this is cheating and that if I keep buying more the place will turn into a nursery. It was only before when I hadn't prepared the soil that I had no idea where to put those plants. So you'd have what was the plant equivalent of nightmare of the living dead, all my neglected plants I'd been given drying up in pots along the terrace. Maybe I'll tell you what I learned from this horticulture course I did in my next post.
