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!