Summer daze

Its been scorching. We've been harvesting peaches all week and mum has now bottled most all of them. We had about a dozen preserving jars full. I will have to dig out my peach cobbler recipe, but for now we are just eating them fresh off the tree or with yoghurt for desserts.

Tomatoes and capsicums are also ripe for the picking. My new neighbour, I call him Mr Painta as he's a house painter, is growing giant pumpkins in his backyard, and has given me one of his smaller rejects. I'm not growing pumpkins myself, I ripped out a vine last week as it threatened to take over and I would have to keep watering it, thirsty thug it is, and, I'm not sure I like pumpkin THAT much. But, if it was a courgette, I'm sorry. It didn't have a chance.

However. Next year we definitely need to grow courgettes and capsciums at the community garden because I am missing those. We've got tomatoes, sweetcorn, and pumpkins again, as well as gourd, and coming up, choko. Eggplant is also a contender. They all do better over there as the soil is much richer with all the compost. Veges bake dry in my clay soil garden, as I still haven't put in raised beds (waiting on my handyman).

On the ornamental side, I have been putting in blue gemstones as mulch for my succulent pot plants and water crystals. Mum caught me putting paua shells in there which she insisted were HERS so she picked them all out. But thanks to the clearance sale table at the Warehouse, I got my pretty mulch back. I also snagged bargain oreganum and majoram herbs to replace my wilting spinach and parsley in my alcove garden.

My fernery is doing well and I have put my basket of spider plants there for an overall jungly effect. I am quite pleased with it so far.
Now all I need to do is await handyman Te Radar's arrival but it seems he's delayed. If he delays too long there will be no peaches left. I decide to give him till next week. If he doesn't show up he will have to shout me a ginger beer that I heard he's expert at making.

Must write..blog...

Surprise!
Mr Te Radar replied to my email! And yes he would like some peaches! Apparently his 'dwarfchard' peach tree succumbed to the rain. So he may pop over for some of mine.

Well. That's exciting. I wonder if TV cameras follow him everywhere he goes. I hope not, because I don't really fancy being on TV. Although, you might have seen me hanging round Ferndale, aka Shortland Street, but blink and you'd miss me. I played an anethaethisit. aneesthtisits. arrgh. A medical professional. I thought that might impress mum, as she watches Shortie every week night but, she didn't even see me!

And..well the pot plants on that show are fake, and there is actually no real Ferndale. But I have to say Chris Warner is a very nice doctor.

Now I have an idea for a Shortland Street episode, that could possibly involve my garden. The Clinic runs out of drugs and so hires a naturopath and herbalist to save money. Everyone will now receive massages, acupuncture, nutrition advice and herbal tonics.  They decide, no more emergency patients or accident prone people, they are going to send them all to ACC to deal with instead. Shortland Street then becomes a real Fernery, to live up to it's Ferndale name. After a relaxing time in the fernery, stressed out patients come out as good as new. The IV changes its name to the Ivy, and instead of alcohol serves nutribullet smoothies and spirulina. Shortland Street becomes so popular that no longer will Rachel McKenna have headaches with the DHB and can actually retire.
Grace Kwan's family open up a chinese tea house next door. And Lionel returns!

Lionel has his own cooking show as he won Masterchef for the best muffins. It is called, 'Lionel's Cafe' and becomes so popular that it outrivals the reality show they made of Shortland Street A&E.
Chris Warner leaves for browner pastures, forsaking his first love for Australian shores. He becomes the ships doctor on a Princess Cruise, and Neighbours invite him to star on their soap. He returns to New Zealand every two weeks but never again will he be star surgeon on Shortland Street. (We find out he does this to visit his many love children in Australia).

I really don't know why I write this, it nothing to do with gardens. I must have been distracted.
...well must go tend to my oreganum Kent beauty and put in those $1 violas I got from Pak'n'Save. If nobody had bought them they would have been thrown out, so I am rescuing plants by buying them. Mum does not see it that way. I think she feels threatened perhaps? If the plants take over, it could spell the end of the NZ dream of the boring flat lawn/paddock 1/4 acre section as we know it? Then she'll never be able to subdivide the land and build towering apartment blocks like they do in Hong Kong, and bury people standing up. Which I think they secretly plan to do to Auckland one day. Well they can't. Not over my dead body.

Millions of Peaches, for free

This afternoon I sat under the shade of the peach tree in my camp chair reading 'Off the Radar' by Te Radar, a local tv personality - he lives in Henderson! He wrote about his 10 months living in a paddock, raising chickens, killing pigs, and making mud ovens, among other things. I'm nearly finished and was surprised he wasn't writing about his patch, this must have been the first tv series he did. Te Radar's Patch was about living sustainably on a 1/4 acre section. I was quite impressed with his 'Dwarfchard' idea.

Also, bonsai lawns. Very clever. I think office workers would like them to lie on their lunch breaks.
It crossed my mind maybe I could contact him and ask him to come round and give me some tips on my patch. After all, he's a tv expert. However, my attempts to contact Xanthe White proved fruitless. Famous people never answer their emails. I didn't even get a reply. However I think I may have more chance with Te Radar as he's a Westie and...he knows the best things in life are free. I think Xanthe must have high fees or something, being a garden designer to the stars.

Prince Charles is otherwise engaged. Although I did see that Charlotte, George and Catherine now have hebes named after them. In Mitre 10. Royal Hebes they are.

Nevermind, this year I've decided to apply to study again, this time a Certificate in Landscape Design. It's a free course, meaning no tuition fees. I just have to pay admin costs. So its not really free, but its cheaper than the Unitec Garden Design course that costs $3000. I will be learning by distance if I get accepted. I hope so, because, why call Xanthe White if I can do it myself? Sorry.

Now if there's Certificates in Witty Jokes that were offered for free I might study that but I can only do one thing at a time. So I may need to call Te Radar after all, offer him some free peaches from my tree, and get him to build me one of those mud ovens.

Hot, hot, hot

I am seriously thinking of putting in a water feature or rill somewhere to flow into my garden.
Mitre 10 Water Gardening Book might help me. I was thinking how most traditional gardens in the world are modelled on the one of Eden, paradise. The Bible describes this garden as having four rivers on each side, trees of every kind bearing fruit, and animals. There are no thistles and thorns, and the ground does not need to be tilled.  Everything is just perfect. Very Good.

I have continued work on my fernery, and it now has a birdbath in the centre of paving stones, bamboo, more spider plants I've spread by their suckers/babies, another red busy lizzie I moved from somewhere else, and the calla lily to be beside the tree fern as it's shadier. Also it now has pools of water, and a water pot, and more maidenhair ferns. (Thanks to Beth's prolific maidenhair ferns). There is also another pansy by the steps.

Yesterday I was given amerias or pinks and now I have put three on the edges and three more by the snowball tree along with that festuca blue grass, as they can tolerate drought, it is pretty dry there. My morning glory is nearing the top of the arch now and blooms blue. I have a purple one on the other obelisk.

I'm now off to my brothers to snag some bromeliads for the dry shade, and also some rich volcanic soil as it's free..
So I may drop into Kings Plant Barn on the way back at St Lukes. Just to have a look. I hadn't bought any new plants this week, all of them were gifts. I don't know if my garden would qualify for the heroic garden festival but maybe in a few years time? I think If I were to raise funds for a charity it would be Hospice because we all go back to the garden when we die, at least, I will, I want to be buried in a cemetery that had trees and flowers growing in it.

The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield

We had the marquees, the vintage art deco clothing, the pearls, the flapper dresses, the fringing, and the cloches and turbans, the white gloves, the Mary Jane shoes. The men wore straw boaters and suspenders, they polished their vintage cars and there was a band playing the Charleston. Shall we dance?

The roses were in bloom, and the weather was fine. No life or death situation occurred to disrupt the festivities of our day on this occasion as it did in Mansfield's short story, it was all simply lovely and decorous, and extremely civilised.

I think I shall live in the 1920s as an upper-class flapper girl for I have the frame for it and the haircut. And I love garden parties. I think every party ought to be held in a garden, forget discos, nightclubs and bars in warehouses and raves in parking lots. This is my style..

There are simply so many styles of garden to choose from at the Hamilton Gardens, we went and walked around nearly all of them. One that looked stunning, especially for this time of year was the flower carpet garden in the Indian section. It was like an Indian Summer which had us sporting parasols and ducking for shade in the heat of the day, and bedazzled by the bright colours of heliotrope, marigold and salvias, all in full bloom. If you had bought instant potted colour and massed them all together that would be the effect you have of a grand persian rug glowing before you. Amazing. It surpassed even the herbaceous border in the English flower garden that looked past it's best with clumps here and there.

The other garden that was looking its best in the heat of the day was the tropical garden which was colourful and inspired, and only lacked a hammock strung between two palms to really call it a tropical paradise.

My friends voted the Italian Renaissance Garden as the cream of the crop though, and started spontaneously gesticulating in Italian once we reached the portico, wondering where our vino and pizza was. (It was back on the other side of the lake, where all the food stalls were). We didn't know the number though for the pizza delivery guy.

I would say all in all an enjoyable day and thank you Hamilton for inviting us to your Garden Party. Something to escape Auckland for! All the best for your planned Katherine Mansfield Garden, I don't know what you'll have in it, but I suggest maybe a dollshouse/treehouse for little Kezias, a giant aloe, forget-me-nots, and you simply must hold garden parties regularly every year.

Some changes

Musical plants again...

For some time I had been keen on those calla lilies that had been on sale at the Warehouse that come in pinky reddish hues. Not the white ones that sprout like weeds but the smaller ones and so I managed to find one on special to plant in my boggy border behind the rain lilies next to the compost bin.

Another plant that was only $2 bargain was the Blue Lithospermum 'Grace Ward' groundcover that has amazing starry blue flowers. I planted this one in the rock garden.

I shifted the licorice plant to a new home in the box border and swapped it for a heliotrope which is yearning for some sun, while licorice seems to do better in the shade. Also it is complementing my lambs ears and dusty millers.

I am trialling ficus primula up one side of the house, the previous one didn't take as I forgot to water it and properly plant it. I heard it can be rampant, but it looks so pretty climbing up walls and our house has a large expanse of brick that I couldn't resist.

It was a hot day and temperatures rose to nearly 30 degrees. But I think the hottest part of summer is nearly over. It was my day for watering the community garden, I arrived to find the gourd vines flourishing and scrambling up the arch. The sunflowers had grown tall, not budding yet but they are reaching giant status (taller than me). Only two have outgrown me in my own backyard the rest seem content to stay dwarfs, but I'm seriously thinking maybe they aren't such an attractive plant up close as they attract all kinds of bugs, moths and ants. Same with the pumpkins, plus their leaves become unsightly and shrivel when they die, and are like sandpaper to touch. The only redeeming thing about them is their yellow petalled gigantic flowers but I wonder if they are worth it in the end as they are thirsty thugs and spread all over the garden.

Maybe pumpkin and sunflowers are just another of those yellow flowered weeds we overlook?

More worthy of praise are daffodils which I see are now on sale as bulbs at garden centres for winter blooms. But I'm hanging out for bluebells and snowflakes as they are more dainty and when massed they will be a treat, like eye candy. However there were none available only droopy hyacinth and floppy freesias. And anemones that don't make a showing. Tulips are also a disappointment, they are perfect for one day and then fall apart the next. Even gladioli performed better than that bunch, but it seems prone to rust.

So I'm not sold on those bulbs, but if I want any for winter its probably best to buy and plant them now. Here we go, round two, year two of the garden, if at first you don't succeed, then plant something else that will.

They survived!

My plants are still alive!
I came home and they all looked ok, the morning glory is climbing up the arch, and I even had to do some weeding as nightshade had decided to sprout in the rock bed.

I have yellow tomatoes and they are juicy, I caught Mary trying to peck at them yesterday.

I visited the Dunedin Chinese Garden which was amazing, they had transported an entire scholars garden all the way from Shanghai, it's been there since 2011. There were rocks and covered walkways, moon gates, a zig zag bridge, a tea house, and a goldfish pond complete with ducks and lotus. They had weeping willow, maples, creeping fig, hostas, liriope, peonies, and bamboo. If you go it costs $6 for a beneficiary/senior and is a lovely garden to walk around and compose poems in, or maybe practise some calligraphy (chinese style of course).

The next garden on my itinerary is the Hamilton Gardens, they are having a festival this week I heard, and there will be a garden party held in honor of Katharine Mansfield, so we are to dress up in Art Deco finery. That means pearls, flapper dresses, umbrellas and perhaps a hint of scandal. I expect to see a giant aloe somewhere. I don't know why they aren't having it in Wellington, but then, I heard also that Ms Mansfield wasn't too keen on Windy Wellington where she grew up in a straight laced middle-class family in Thornton. She would have rather been in the South of France, on the Riviera where she spent her final days. I suppose the Waikato River is close enough.

Another festival to outrival Hamilton is Auckland's Heroic Gardens Festival, and Ayrlies Garden is hosting a fete day. Having been there last year I will say if you are in Auckland definitely check it out, it is even listed on the 1001 Gardens You Must Visit Before You Die book.

The Heroic Gardens festival was originally held to raise money for Herne Bay Hospice, particularly families of LGBT who had loved ones dying of AIDS. But now it is just raising money for everyone, and you don't have to be gay or dying of AIDS to participate. Or living in fancy Herne Bay. Most of the gardens listed are in Mt Eden which has become the Mecca suburb of the gardening world in Auckland (you would think Ellerslie, because of the Flower Show?) because of it's rich volcanic soil. I am thinking of going to visit at least two or three gardens listed on the program.

So there you go, it's all about survival, whether you are a shunned Kiwi expat writer, a chinese scholar who would have been shunned in Dunedin for being too 'yellow' or maybe you caught HIV and thus had to face a horrible lifetime sentence. While dying you can leave behind a wonderful garden that is full of life as those leaves are for our healing...