I have just been accused of stealing a mother-in-laws tongue, by my mother. Now I don't know why I would do that seeing as they are the most ugly plants ever but mum has got into her head that since its not there anymore I must have moved it or done something with it.
It is no good pleading innocent as she's already made up her mind I am guilty.
My mind is going into overdrive thinking of all the things I can say back to my mother about HER tongue but then again maybe its not a good idea. Perhaps if by magic the mother-in-law tongue does come back, her tongue would stop lashing out at me all the time because the plant will be there by proxy, absorbing all the noxious gases from the computer. (Mum claims these plants are good for computers). Well I don't know, my macbook has never really suggested it needed a plant. But it had been acting up on me lately, crashing my emails and thus I am not able to upload any photos of Mincher.
I don't have plants in my office/study although I do have fake gerberas in a vase. I also have enough sweet peas to fill a vase now and they are decorating the dining table. There's a maidenhair fern in the bathroom, and several of Beth's indoor pot plants I am looking after - a bird's nest fern, a plant called 'mother of millions', maidenhair, and kalanchoes. In my bedroom I have a rose and some daisies. Probably not the most inspiring floral arrangement but then I have to practise some more for the church flower blitz in December. I cannot compete with the flowers Else buys from Drury or Pukekohe but surely the church members might like some potted cyclamen?
Aunty Ellen gave us some of her orchids which I have gathered into the hanging basket, removing the paper daisies which are now being attacked by mites. Another casualty is also catmint and sage chickens again dug it up, (unless it was the naughty neighbourhood cat) but I suspect chickens. I have managed to find two good red sturdy plastic chairs for our outdoor table as the two wooden ones are collapsing, AND my outdoor umbrella broke, one of the spokes just plain snapped, so I've decided not to buy another one and just move the table under the tangelo tree for shade instead. I am looking for red checked table cloths that are wipe clean if anyone has them, and they are going to be anchored by mosaic solar lights to create a sort of french garden cafe atmosphere en plein air.
Yesterday in our working bee I mulched the eggplants with lavender and borage, so hopefully the snails won't get to them anymore. Things are growing at hectic pace and the garden centres are chock full of summer veges to put in. I managed to find a blue granny's bonnet or aquilegia that I so admired at Mincher to be part of my flower garden, and nearly got locked in at Kings Plant Barn when I lost my key. Thankfully someone had handed it in but for a moment I thought I would have to walk all the way home to get the spare one to unlock my car, or spend the night at the garden centre waiting for the AA to come. I suppose there are worse things than being stranded at Kings Plant Barn. They will have to make up a little corner for me there and name it 'Selina's bed' or something.
Sunday, 30 October 2016
Friday, 28 October 2016
Lovely Mincher
I am typing up this post before I get out to the working bee today at 9am. I want to apologise what I said about the SDAs as it was a bit harsh. If you are an SDA reading this you are welcome to come to our community garden on a Sunday and help out as well. On a Saturday you can just come along and enjoy the garden while the rest of us are working in it but we will leave some jobs for you to do on Sunday. How is that?
Anyway....
My report on lovely Mincher!
Mincher is a Garden of National Significance. Like Ayrlies, it was originally farmland. Whilst Ayrlies was paddocks and rolling hills with a coastal climate, Mincher was orchards and strawberry fields on flat land on beautiful rich soil bordering on a stream. The owners, husband and wife team Angela and Bruce Spooner, transformed this into an English style country garden, complete with Georgian House, Cottage, hedging, herbaceous border, potager, cottage garden, kitchen garden, and even its own riding trail (no horses...yet) There's plenty of interest with the stream bordering the property where there's a native bush walk, leading toward a small lake with ducks, a croquet lawn surrounded by a circular totara hedge, pergolas covered with vines, espaliered fruit trees, plum trees in the remaining orchard, an avenue of pin oaks...even a bog garden with primulas and flag iris beneath a low bridge over a ditch.
For those that delight in all things English, you will find yourself at home in this immaculately presented garden that recalls a grand estate. Not quite as dramatic as Larnach Castle with its ghosts and brooding mists, I would say the atmosphere in this garden is quite different, when Margaret and I visited the day turned out brilliant. The gardeners gave us a tour of the property and in which they help the owners achieve their dreams - the herbaceous border is a lot of work! The lawns are criss cross patterned and I can imagine a sort of Jane Austen style Pemberley rom com being enacted here.
We exclaimed over all sorts of unusual plants we'd never seen before and I have taken a few (if can get them upload) photos of ones that caught my eye. There are even helpful brass name tags identifying the unusual plants in many areas of the garden. On the day we visited a later tour group of garden club members descended on the garden so it must be very popular one to see. As its only 25 minutes from where we are its worth visiting for a day out. Mincher is named after a breed of spaniel dog that the owners adore. Thank you Angela and Bruce for opening your garden for everyone to enjoy, its gorgeous!
Anyway....
My report on lovely Mincher!
Mincher is a Garden of National Significance. Like Ayrlies, it was originally farmland. Whilst Ayrlies was paddocks and rolling hills with a coastal climate, Mincher was orchards and strawberry fields on flat land on beautiful rich soil bordering on a stream. The owners, husband and wife team Angela and Bruce Spooner, transformed this into an English style country garden, complete with Georgian House, Cottage, hedging, herbaceous border, potager, cottage garden, kitchen garden, and even its own riding trail (no horses...yet) There's plenty of interest with the stream bordering the property where there's a native bush walk, leading toward a small lake with ducks, a croquet lawn surrounded by a circular totara hedge, pergolas covered with vines, espaliered fruit trees, plum trees in the remaining orchard, an avenue of pin oaks...even a bog garden with primulas and flag iris beneath a low bridge over a ditch.
For those that delight in all things English, you will find yourself at home in this immaculately presented garden that recalls a grand estate. Not quite as dramatic as Larnach Castle with its ghosts and brooding mists, I would say the atmosphere in this garden is quite different, when Margaret and I visited the day turned out brilliant. The gardeners gave us a tour of the property and in which they help the owners achieve their dreams - the herbaceous border is a lot of work! The lawns are criss cross patterned and I can imagine a sort of Jane Austen style Pemberley rom com being enacted here.
We exclaimed over all sorts of unusual plants we'd never seen before and I have taken a few (if can get them upload) photos of ones that caught my eye. There are even helpful brass name tags identifying the unusual plants in many areas of the garden. On the day we visited a later tour group of garden club members descended on the garden so it must be very popular one to see. As its only 25 minutes from where we are its worth visiting for a day out. Mincher is named after a breed of spaniel dog that the owners adore. Thank you Angela and Bruce for opening your garden for everyone to enjoy, its gorgeous!
Tuesday, 25 October 2016
Say it with flowers
I have just landed a job doing flowers for the church. I am rostered on for December, so am thinking what flowers will be available then, and if not flowers, maybe I can do fern baskets? Or maybe a water feature?
Looking around in my garden, the first sweet peas have blossomed, the geraniums are in bloom, as is the ceanothus and lavender. Everything is coming up lovely and my front rockery is a riot of rainbow colours. It will win no awards in the home and garden magazine, its so garish and not tasteful at all. It looks kinda like a primary school childrens garden with primary bright colours.
pink- sweet william
red - grevillea or spider flower
orange - geraniums, calendula
yellow - gazania
green- leaves, ferns, aloe
blue- ceanothus
indigo - dutch iris
violet - violets and pansies, lavender
along with grey green lambs ears
and white alyssum
The fun bits are the bird bath or rather duck bath, hippos and tuatara. There's even a cat sometimes sunning herself by the wall. So I suppose I do have a mini zoo. Except in this zoo you can feed the animals, in fact are encouraged to, as when they are hungry they have an annoying habit of coming inside and disturbing the humans.
Ssh don't tell Jacqui but I have secretly sown wildflowers in the community garden. When they come up it will be a pleasant surprise. Also it will help pollinate the capsicums and eggplant I am dead set of having a harvest this year. Choko was vetoed this time along with gourd. Too rampant and nobody eats them, claims Jacqui. Well, all the more for me.
Sweetcorn was also voted down because last time we had Seventh Day Adventists steal our corn and other veges. Well we suspect. They claimed innocence but we have evidence that it was them, and said if they want produce come help us on our working bee days. No we can't, they said, we are not allowed to work on Saturdays.
Maybe they were imitating Jesus when he plucked the corn in the field on the Sabbath but the thing is they plucked it when it wasn't even ripe.
I don't know, I never really got on with SDAs as they like to point out things like did you know you aren't supposed to eat bacon? But they still buy sausages at our sausage sizzle anyway, so I really don't know whats up with them. Plus..in promoting their Sanitarium breakfast cereals they asked librarians to lie to the camera and say they loved weetbix etc but to me it tastes like cardboard no matter how much sugar is dumped on it. Apparently they hire out the church on Saturday to have their services, which is fine, but we couldn't even clean up or do a regular working bee on a Saturday since they were using the church. Then all the lights blew and on Sunday the congregation entered a darkened church because the SDAs didn't want to work to change the lightbulbs.
I have now decided to go to a different church which SDAs don't rent out and do flowers there. If they did they'd probably steal the flowers.
Looking around in my garden, the first sweet peas have blossomed, the geraniums are in bloom, as is the ceanothus and lavender. Everything is coming up lovely and my front rockery is a riot of rainbow colours. It will win no awards in the home and garden magazine, its so garish and not tasteful at all. It looks kinda like a primary school childrens garden with primary bright colours.
pink- sweet william
red - grevillea or spider flower
orange - geraniums, calendula
yellow - gazania
green- leaves, ferns, aloe
blue- ceanothus
indigo - dutch iris
violet - violets and pansies, lavender
along with grey green lambs ears
and white alyssum
The fun bits are the bird bath or rather duck bath, hippos and tuatara. There's even a cat sometimes sunning herself by the wall. So I suppose I do have a mini zoo. Except in this zoo you can feed the animals, in fact are encouraged to, as when they are hungry they have an annoying habit of coming inside and disturbing the humans.
Ssh don't tell Jacqui but I have secretly sown wildflowers in the community garden. When they come up it will be a pleasant surprise. Also it will help pollinate the capsicums and eggplant I am dead set of having a harvest this year. Choko was vetoed this time along with gourd. Too rampant and nobody eats them, claims Jacqui. Well, all the more for me.
Sweetcorn was also voted down because last time we had Seventh Day Adventists steal our corn and other veges. Well we suspect. They claimed innocence but we have evidence that it was them, and said if they want produce come help us on our working bee days. No we can't, they said, we are not allowed to work on Saturdays.
Maybe they were imitating Jesus when he plucked the corn in the field on the Sabbath but the thing is they plucked it when it wasn't even ripe.
I don't know, I never really got on with SDAs as they like to point out things like did you know you aren't supposed to eat bacon? But they still buy sausages at our sausage sizzle anyway, so I really don't know whats up with them. Plus..in promoting their Sanitarium breakfast cereals they asked librarians to lie to the camera and say they loved weetbix etc but to me it tastes like cardboard no matter how much sugar is dumped on it. Apparently they hire out the church on Saturday to have their services, which is fine, but we couldn't even clean up or do a regular working bee on a Saturday since they were using the church. Then all the lights blew and on Sunday the congregation entered a darkened church because the SDAs didn't want to work to change the lightbulbs.
I have now decided to go to a different church which SDAs don't rent out and do flowers there. If they did they'd probably steal the flowers.
Wednesday, 19 October 2016
Plantation
This morning I checked on my passionfruit vine that I had planted only a week ago and it was dug up by the roots. Sigh.
Chickens again?
I have to resign myself to the fact that chickens are sabotage my attempts to grow fruit. They also thought that it would be fun to dig up my freshly planted taro plants that haven't even been in the ground for three hours.
I may have to double fence the area again or drape netting over the whole border. Or use my water gun, I don't know why they don't like me I have never been mean to them and feed them corn cobs and bread and they still don't like me.
Has mum trained them to root out any plants she doesn't like? But she doesn't even know I planted taros. I pulled out the swan plant, but then I was the one who planted it so that was my prerogative. As far as I know the chickens have not planted anything of their own...
Anyway aside from minor annoyances my garden is going great and I'm enjoying all the spring flowers and new growth.
I have been on a short visit to Katikati where they grow avocadoes and all the seeds from Kings are packed there. I helped on a new orchard that had fifty trees, mulching and weeding. In a few years time the yield from all these trees is going to be huge! They still need protection from frost though so its not you can just plant an avocado tree anywhere and it will grow. But Katikati has fine soil, perfect loamy texture and is the ideal place to grow fruit.
While there are orchards out in West Auckland still they are dying out and the soil here was never that conducive to abundant yields, being mostly clay. You can still work the land but its much harder, even at Woodside we need to bring soil in. My home is on a former apple orchard subdivision, and when it was developed they took all the good topsoil away, so we were left with like a few inches. When developers do that because they want homes on a level site they ruin the soil structure by digging it all up and scaring all the worms and beneficial fungi away, plus spraying with roundup, and God knows what other herbicides.
Maybe with all the Chinese buying land now even orchards we may start to see paddy fields with rice and the reason they are flooded is because then the weeds are kept down and nobody needs to spray rice as rice survives wet land. I am sure the rich Chinese investors actually don't really want more hotels, apartment blocks and eyesores, they come here because NZ is so beautiful and plentiful and want to get away from living in a ghetto. Thats my theory anyway, I really don't say we can blame one group of people for the way housing and land prices are these days. Well at least not a whole nation. I would say its the greedy people from all nations that are ruining it for the rest of us. If someone offered me a billion dollars for my bit of land and it was the only home I had to live on and I loved it no way would I say yea sure. Thanks for your ridiculously expensive offer but its my homeland and I'm not selling.
Chickens again?
I have to resign myself to the fact that chickens are sabotage my attempts to grow fruit. They also thought that it would be fun to dig up my freshly planted taro plants that haven't even been in the ground for three hours.
I may have to double fence the area again or drape netting over the whole border. Or use my water gun, I don't know why they don't like me I have never been mean to them and feed them corn cobs and bread and they still don't like me.
Has mum trained them to root out any plants she doesn't like? But she doesn't even know I planted taros. I pulled out the swan plant, but then I was the one who planted it so that was my prerogative. As far as I know the chickens have not planted anything of their own...
Anyway aside from minor annoyances my garden is going great and I'm enjoying all the spring flowers and new growth.
I have been on a short visit to Katikati where they grow avocadoes and all the seeds from Kings are packed there. I helped on a new orchard that had fifty trees, mulching and weeding. In a few years time the yield from all these trees is going to be huge! They still need protection from frost though so its not you can just plant an avocado tree anywhere and it will grow. But Katikati has fine soil, perfect loamy texture and is the ideal place to grow fruit.
While there are orchards out in West Auckland still they are dying out and the soil here was never that conducive to abundant yields, being mostly clay. You can still work the land but its much harder, even at Woodside we need to bring soil in. My home is on a former apple orchard subdivision, and when it was developed they took all the good topsoil away, so we were left with like a few inches. When developers do that because they want homes on a level site they ruin the soil structure by digging it all up and scaring all the worms and beneficial fungi away, plus spraying with roundup, and God knows what other herbicides.
Maybe with all the Chinese buying land now even orchards we may start to see paddy fields with rice and the reason they are flooded is because then the weeds are kept down and nobody needs to spray rice as rice survives wet land. I am sure the rich Chinese investors actually don't really want more hotels, apartment blocks and eyesores, they come here because NZ is so beautiful and plentiful and want to get away from living in a ghetto. Thats my theory anyway, I really don't say we can blame one group of people for the way housing and land prices are these days. Well at least not a whole nation. I would say its the greedy people from all nations that are ruining it for the rest of us. If someone offered me a billion dollars for my bit of land and it was the only home I had to live on and I loved it no way would I say yea sure. Thanks for your ridiculously expensive offer but its my homeland and I'm not selling.
Wednesday, 12 October 2016
Castles in the air
I made a trip down to Dunedin last month and visited the famed Larnach Castle, New Zealand's only castle. The castle had been restored to its former glory but it was not the castle interiors I was impressed by - every old home has antique furniture and the wealthy are no exception...it's just more lavish than ordinary people's I suppose and bigger and more of it.
What impressed me was the garden surrounding it. The Barker family bought the castle when it was in ruins and over 40 years later the garden is now flourishing and befits such a grand estate. It does not have a moat like I expected a castle to have but a circular lawn forecourt, a fountain, an allee or avenue of laburnum leading down to a reflective pond, iconic cabbage trees flanking the stairs, cypress, montgomery pine shelterbelts and hedges, a seaside coastal embankment complete with gazebo and pathways, a serpentine perennial garden, a rainforest walk with pongas and natives, and secret alice in wonderland motifs. What is not to love?
From the turret you can see out to the Otago Peninsula on a clear day or be above the clouds and mist on all other days of the year. (Dunedin seems to brood in perpetual scottish gloom). I can imagine many scottish plays being enacted here with a Lady Larnach perhaps wandering the halls at night crying 'out damned spot' with her scrubbing brush.
Well, only about five family members died untimely in this tragedy so you might expect a few unhappy ghosts wandering about. It even has a banqueting hall with three roaring fireplaces but thankfully no three weird sisters predicting Dunedin woods on the march.
I have a leaflet here entitled 'the plants at Larnach Castle' and it lists each one like they are jewels in the crown. Well they are. They are the real stars of the show and give the castle life.
I am dreaming one day I may have a castle of my own. I may look after it for 40 years or more, surviving betrayal, intrigue and nervous breakdowns but it will be there long after I'm gone...
What impressed me was the garden surrounding it. The Barker family bought the castle when it was in ruins and over 40 years later the garden is now flourishing and befits such a grand estate. It does not have a moat like I expected a castle to have but a circular lawn forecourt, a fountain, an allee or avenue of laburnum leading down to a reflective pond, iconic cabbage trees flanking the stairs, cypress, montgomery pine shelterbelts and hedges, a seaside coastal embankment complete with gazebo and pathways, a serpentine perennial garden, a rainforest walk with pongas and natives, and secret alice in wonderland motifs. What is not to love?
From the turret you can see out to the Otago Peninsula on a clear day or be above the clouds and mist on all other days of the year. (Dunedin seems to brood in perpetual scottish gloom). I can imagine many scottish plays being enacted here with a Lady Larnach perhaps wandering the halls at night crying 'out damned spot' with her scrubbing brush.
Well, only about five family members died untimely in this tragedy so you might expect a few unhappy ghosts wandering about. It even has a banqueting hall with three roaring fireplaces but thankfully no three weird sisters predicting Dunedin woods on the march.
I have a leaflet here entitled 'the plants at Larnach Castle' and it lists each one like they are jewels in the crown. Well they are. They are the real stars of the show and give the castle life.
I am dreaming one day I may have a castle of my own. I may look after it for 40 years or more, surviving betrayal, intrigue and nervous breakdowns but it will be there long after I'm gone...
Sunday, 9 October 2016
Spring is here!
My garden is coming to life!
I noticed some of the sweet peas are now budding.
Since I've been away the rains have drenched the soil and we've had a few thunderstorms to blow the cobwebs away and add nitrogen blast, and everything is now coming away. There are Dutch iris with purple and white blooms, peach blossom, hellebores, daffodils, snowflakes, lavender, nasturtiums, ajuga, bluebells, wisteria and numerous other blooms making an appearance.
The fruit trees are leafing out with new growth as well as the jacaranda and jasmine. All over the country, there are spring garden festivals of tulips and daffs, orchids, azaelas and rhodos, you name it, the flower will probably have its own festival. Although I haven't really seen an agapanthus festival yet. But I'm sure other lillies might have them.
My next project is to find two stepping stones as they have both become puddle stones and they are no good if we want to hang our washing and have dry feet.
I also probably am going to plant more carex to edge the bed where there's a dip and its become a bog. I tried primulas but they never lasted long.
Yates sent me tomato seeds for National Garden Week (Had no idea we had one) which were the 'mortgage lifter' variety. Well thankfully I don't have a mortgage anymore so I gave them to the neighbours in hopes this might spur them to continue on with their vege garden, which I see contains weeds and potatoes at the moment.
I still am pondering the merits of having a raised vege bed in the backyard but I notice the trend is now for something called hugelkultur which is a more organic way of cultivating veges. This comprises of lots of rotten logs mounded up with earth instead of edged rectangular beds that are very pricy and basically just large containers. The logs inside the mounds release fungi and beneficial organisms into the soil and the mounds allow sunlight to fall onto the veges for maximum growth.
Also drainage is much better among these raised mounds and there is less digging involved. So I am going to look into that a bit more before I start the earthworks.
I noticed some of the sweet peas are now budding.
Since I've been away the rains have drenched the soil and we've had a few thunderstorms to blow the cobwebs away and add nitrogen blast, and everything is now coming away. There are Dutch iris with purple and white blooms, peach blossom, hellebores, daffodils, snowflakes, lavender, nasturtiums, ajuga, bluebells, wisteria and numerous other blooms making an appearance.
The fruit trees are leafing out with new growth as well as the jacaranda and jasmine. All over the country, there are spring garden festivals of tulips and daffs, orchids, azaelas and rhodos, you name it, the flower will probably have its own festival. Although I haven't really seen an agapanthus festival yet. But I'm sure other lillies might have them.
My next project is to find two stepping stones as they have both become puddle stones and they are no good if we want to hang our washing and have dry feet.
I also probably am going to plant more carex to edge the bed where there's a dip and its become a bog. I tried primulas but they never lasted long.
Yates sent me tomato seeds for National Garden Week (Had no idea we had one) which were the 'mortgage lifter' variety. Well thankfully I don't have a mortgage anymore so I gave them to the neighbours in hopes this might spur them to continue on with their vege garden, which I see contains weeds and potatoes at the moment.
I still am pondering the merits of having a raised vege bed in the backyard but I notice the trend is now for something called hugelkultur which is a more organic way of cultivating veges. This comprises of lots of rotten logs mounded up with earth instead of edged rectangular beds that are very pricy and basically just large containers. The logs inside the mounds release fungi and beneficial organisms into the soil and the mounds allow sunlight to fall onto the veges for maximum growth.
Also drainage is much better among these raised mounds and there is less digging involved. So I am going to look into that a bit more before I start the earthworks.
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