It's been a busy week and I haven't yet started my full-time job.
There's still things to do in my garden. But I can say I accomplished a few things like learning more tips from Ben Cheah at the pruning workshop. I grilled him on what fruit trees would grow on clay and he said he didn't bother - he just grew his fruit trees in the biggest planter bags he could find.
Huh.
But he did say citrus did especially well in Auckland's climate. As well as feijoas, but everyone has feijoas. We are still eating ours. What happens when you cross an orange with a pomelo? You get a strange hybrid citrus called a grapefruit. Ben said they tried to get the thick rind of the pomelo with the sweet juiciness of an orange but instead got the thin rind of an orange and the bitterness of a pomelo. It was like crossing Einstein and Marilyn Monroe but getting Einstein's looks and Monroe's brains. Instead of the other way round. So I'm not sure about planting a grapefruit..but am interested in maybe a lime and two blueberry bushes. In the biggest planter bags I can find.
Mt Asher Magnolia now has grape hyacinth at her feet. I moved three clumps and mulched with shredded notebook paper, and also added giant cyclamen that had nearly died at church. I'm hoping for a revival. So it's looking a bit literary at the moment before I head up to Palmers and see if I can buy some of that fancy manuka and seaweed mulch. It's just I don't know if Magnolia will thrive on shredded memories alone. Don't try piecing them together, writers have to process a lot before anything gets published. Most of our jumbled thoughts make good mulch.
Olga has put forth the idea that we have a remembrance chair in the garden so we can sit and remember our loved ones who have passed on. I just need a plank of wood to make one as I have two palm stumps for the base but nowhere to put it yet. Mine would be more like a seat or bench, I have considered making one for church but even the church elders thought it would be stolen just like the poppies were, so have given up the idea of putting it there. I do think its odd how the faithful are no longer buried in the churchyard and we have parking lots instead. I find cemeteries can be wonderful places to sit and reflect and have hope that one day, just like a seed put in the ground, new life will sprout again.
My Quiet Garden movement is still under wraps but I am sure one day it will happen. Just have faith!
