Kumara time

 Season's Greetings! (summer for me). 

It's all on in the garden. Clearing out the apple mint to make way for...kumara! Even if we don't get tubers, we can eat the leaves. I found the red variety at Kings, who were having a Boxing Day sale. So I got a bundle of slips - about two dozen, and have made three compost mounds for them to grow from. They are part of the convolvulus family and related to morning glories, which can be a weedy vine in some areas. 

I'm hoping they will take off in my garden and keep down the other weeds. I'm also trying butternut pumpkin, and beans. Jacqui has given me some basil, which I've put in pots. I've been a bit slow to start growing veges, but I think we are in for a long warm summer. 

Other Boxing Day gifts were Ehlo hanging baskets (the white, trendy looking ones to hang spider plants from), four sacks of compost (I have used three already), Autumn Joy sedum in a pot, and Pacific mix statice. The statice has been very good this year so I'm planting more. Mum likes them as they make great dried flowers, and they are easy care. 

The spider plants got a new home and moved to under the loquat, which will need a summer trim to stop the fruits getting too high and out of reach. 

Currently I'm harvesting gardenia flowers and chamomile, and have a load of apple mint leaves. It's nice to be home, as every day can be a garden day. I don't need to go to far..I have Mitre 10 and Kings Plant Barn just up the road from me. Shirley's given me apricots from her tree, and I think ours will be ready in a month's time.

I feel sorry for those people who always go away from home for the holidays. Leaving their gardens and pets behind to languish. My thing is always to stay home in the holidays and try and go away in work time! Though it's not likely as I still haven't been invited on any school trips. Maybe next year? 

RIP Karen Leonie Ginn

 My cousin has passed away (suddenly) aged 56. We laid her to rest on Wednesday in the rich volcanic soil of Mangere Cemetery, near my grandma, grandad and Aunty Lily, her mother. 

Karen was a sweet gentle soul and a cat lover, like so many of us in the family are. I remember her kindness and generosity, to us the younger cousins, though we did not see much of her as we got older. I believe she had a quiet simple life with her circle of friends and flatmates at the rest home, where she spent the last six years of her life, as friends and flatmates testified she was a valuable member of the home, caring, kind, and with a great sense of humour. She loved country and western music, especially the songs of Dolly Parton. My favourite picture is of her as a young girl with flowers in her hair in one of our family wedding photos. 

God gave me a scripture passage from Ruth 1: 16-17

And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: 17Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

Rest in Peace Karen, the Lord has called you home. 

School's out, the garden is in...

 Hooray school is out!

I feel like I'm reliving my perpetual childhood all over again. Makes a change from the retirement villages... but then I never seem to be around people my own age in any given environment. Those born in the year 1980 - where are you?? Class of '97? 

I've left my spider plants, hoya and mother in laws tongue for six weeks and they should be ok by the time I get back. They are pretty indestructible plants. I learned one of the previous librarians had ferns that she would take home to water over the holidays, but then she just lived right next door to the school. 

I caught up with the Woodside gardeners with a bbq in the garden, and now we are doing working bees on a Wednesday evening, when its much cooler. We harvested half a potato plot of summer delight potatoes so I have filled my coffers. Jacqui has also given me some basil seedlings which I have now transplanted anywhere there is room. Shirley gave me rooted geranium cuttings so I've also plonked them in wherever I can fit them, even though I've got many geraniums (or pelargoniums) already from Beth. I'm not sure what's going on with the tiny(or wee)  house saga of hers, although I could not live in one and I'm somewhat smaller than she is -  a tall person with a tiny house reminds me of the old woman who lived in a shoe. 

Mum surprisingly has got into some gardening and now has bitter melon in pots, and some strange chinese herbs that apparently costs thousands of dollars a kilo, and she's even watering the beans at Leyton's house. Next door's gardenia predicatably did not survive. I think they mowed straight over it. Maybe someone gave it to them and they thought if they planted it right in the middle of their lawn strip and gave it a bucket of water and left it, it would somehow grow. But..their taro is going great with big leaves and the weeds periodically cleared from time to time. So - taro trumps gardenia? 

Our own gardenia has had it's first blooms and had cheered up considerably with application of Epsom salts. Chamomile has started to flower, and the daisies are having their first flush, the lavenders are on their second. Amazingly, our apricot tree is having its first fruits. 

There's so much going on at the moment and I have flowers in every colour of the rainbow. When the agapanthus blooms, you know it's an Auckland summer. 

There's a few things on my bucket list for next year.

• Visit/stay at the Eastwood Hill Aboreteum near Gisborne
• Visit 'the paddocks' garden up at Warkworth
• Visit the Taranaki Rhodoendron Festival - did not get the opportunity this year, again!
• Do the Waiheke Islands Garden Safari

That's all for now. I need to have Christmas shopping done by Friday. Food is  easy, its keeping children entertained thats harder, because there's only so much chit chat you can do before everyone is tuning out and watching the boring Christmas movies of OTHER people celebrating Christmas on tv. 

Rambling on

Our Garden club organised our own member garden ramble so I got to visit 3 gardens yesterday and they were amazing. The ladies had showered their gardens with love and care over the years and it showed. I hadn't put mine up for a visit but could possibly do so next year? 

 Dorothy's garden was in the Peninsula on a corner section. She had some big trees on her property but had still managed to grow a semi-woodland underneath, with geraniums and bromeliads and fairy like toadstools. She had giant staghorn ferns on two of her trees, one was a albizzia, another a silky oak, and a magnolia with giant creamy flowers. Being a flower lover she also had roses, hydrangeas, fuchsias, alstromerias, cosmos, and primulas. The primulas in hanging basket chandeliers which she got the idea from one of our garden tours. She had a sunny vege patch, several fruit trees, swings, plants in pots, and a carpet rose over her welcome arch - a nice sturdy wooden one. 

 Next garden was Pat's in Te Atatu South. Pat was the winner of the sweet pea flower show and she had many growing up the walls, trellises and wig wams. She had an amazing floral and butterfly filled border between her and the neighbour's property, with every annual flower you could think of - lobelias, dahlias, tweedia, gerberas, phlox, pelargoniums, alyssum, daisies. She had gazanias at the front by the berm, and flowers by the house, down the side, and extra flowers by her vege patch.She had roses climbing the walls Many had been given to her as gifts which she lovingly tended and coaxed into flower. Some flowers were even growing in the cracks in the driveway. One tomato self seeded by her drainpipe so she left it there and gave it compost and it's going great. It was immaculately maintained and a joy to see and smell! 

 Linda's garden was a short drive away on the main road down a long drive lined with mini aggies, where we stopped and chatted for morning tea. Garden club conversation tends to be about plants, flowers, recipes and weddings and home renovations. Linda had hanging baskets of fuchsias, orcids and streptocarpus, pots of succulents, a weeping cherry tree and a mysterious 'secret garden' trail under one of her large oaks. By the sunny wall she had rambling roses, more sweetpeas, lychnis, catmint, hydrangeas, abutilons, and other flowery delights I can't pronounce (opthigian? Ornhithagalum? O-something!) 

 I didn't get time to visit Bev's terraced garden again or Thera's Glendene DIY renovation, or Sid and Janes wilderness in Swanson, as I had to rush off to work my afternoon shift at the bookshop, but there's always next time. Today is not much of a garden day being wet and cool. But I have very much enjoyed the sunny spring weather while it lasted. 

Linda said that what she wanted most for Christmas was a sack of compost but Santa never seems to grants her that request - I think what I'll be receiving this year are bars of soap, although I'd rather have a real tree (in a pot,) and no presents than a fake tree and lots of presents. So one tree please, thanks Santa. A lime tree or tree tomato, or maybe another mini apple tree.

Tauranga Covid-Buster tour

 The  Te Atatu Floral Circle escaped Auckland for the weekend on the Covid-Buster tour to Tauranga.

We saw many gardens over a the weekend from downsized ones to upsized ones, old established ones to new and trendy. The weather shone on us and was perfect.

The first three were in Pyes Pa and had staked out their new subdivision claims by going a bit crazy at the garden centre. Annuals galore, hanging baskets, and veges down the back were the order of the day. There's a lot you can do on former kiwifruit orchard on handkerchief size plots. Who needs a lawn when one can carve out  a koru water feature?

I liked the groundcover pansies, and fuschsias seemed to be the favoured foundation plant. 

In town, we visited Robbins Park Rose Gardens, which were all in bloom. But the real gem was the tropical house next door, complete with orchids in a glass case. Spectacular. 

In Papamoa, we visited a Jacobean tapestry and quilt lady. I bought some dutch iris bulbs. They had downsized to the surburbs but had bought all their favourite plants with them. Another riot of colourful flowers awaited us.

Then we upsized to a country style formal garden (big enough for a buxus edged phoenix palm driveway roundabout) that had the biggest lemon and lime roses you ever saw, the leaves super fed with fert that they were flogging to us in little baggies.  Yet another riotous bed of colour was in full bloom.

The last day we cruised on up the old Te Puna Quarry that had been transformed into a rambly garden - this one had an amazing heritage rose border with romantic favourites including stachys, sweet williams, lilies, iris and lobelias. Thanks to all the active Rose Society volunteer workers, it was heavenly to walk through.

Our final stop was the Mayward  Homestead Country Garden, which could easily qualify for the 5 star rating of National Gardens of Significance. This one had flowing waters and mystery dells, swamp cypress, azaleas, rhododendrons, wisterias, lily of the valleys, hostas and solomon's seal. The house was a romantic's dreamy backdrop, an ideal wedding venue. It all backed on to native bush and the owner was a dedicated and knowledgable gardener. We were gobsmacked that she did all this on her own.

I am sorry photos can't really do it justice, but you had to be there. 

Tauranga tropical house

Picture perfect - who needs a wedding give me a garden for life

Roses and more roses in bloom

One of many garden beds full of flowers

Bug hotel

Orchids under glass

When I got back to Auckland I was feeling a bit crowded after Tauranga's spacious suburbs and giant trees that would never be cut down for a parking lot or infill housing. They really have super giant trees there.

So I thought my solution was to convince people if they really want to live in Auckland they've got to start living in the trees instead of cutting them all down.  Thanks Tauranga for an amazing tour and the Floral Circle ladies had a great time as always! 

Garden blooming

 Time is flying by. 

Karyn got hitched...here's the evidence. It was a beautiful church ceremony that was simple yet sweet. Pierre waited patiently for half an hour past the appointed time. Some men don't. They are like - ten minutes late - missed your chance!

Is it better to be late than never? Perhaps. I know you can definitely marry too early. We showered her with flowers and she threw the bouquet. Don't worry, I did not catch it, I've got plenty of flowers in my own garden. 

This spring season has actually never been so spectacular for flowers in my garden.

I've got irises, roses, sweet peas, statice, ajugas, watsonias, lavender, daisies, pelargoniums, ivy geraniums, scabiosa, forget-me-not, salvia, nasturtiums, oxalis, abutilon, jasmine, plumbago, apple blossom, impatiens, daphne, camellia....

The Floral Circle are having the trip to Tauranga next week and this time Cenny and Marie are coming with me. When I get back I need to get into planting maybe some dwarf beans or capsicums. But I am sure I will find inspiration on my trip - as I have not been able to get out and about so much yet. Sometimes isolation and quarantine can make you quite insular and too sheltered.  Although I think doing your own thing can be very satisfying, something in me wants to reach out more and grow more and do more but where when why and how, I am not sure yet. 

Who knows what's around the corner? 

Karyn's big day

 Karyn and Pierre are getting married today. Covid-19 or not, today is the day! I have been picking flowers to take to the wedding so we can throw it as confetti. I'm not privy to the bridal party and possibly too old to be a flower-girl, but I can't let all those pelargoniums go to waste. She's marrying in church and there will be refreshments afterward.

It's Labour Weekend and I've just had a message from the govt to stay safe. Other than  the wedding, I'm not planning on going anywhere, recovering from school by having peace and quiet time is my thing. I've been reading a book called 'Frensham' a New Zealand country garden, down in Canterbury. The owner, Margaret has produced a book about a year in her garden. I wonder how it is gardening in the South Island, when it's at it's best only for 2-3 months of the year from September to November. They get beautiful autumn foliage, but then it's snow and ice in winter and the garden looks bare. They can't grow tropical plants or succulents. No bananas, feijoas, taro, or pohutuakawas! 

The only thing about reading 'high class' gardening books I find is a bit of garden envy. I can't just plant a row of trees in my 600 metre square section of New Gardenland. No drifts of daffodils or hornbeam hedges. I can't divide the garden into 'rooms' because there's no room for rooms! I have to scale it down to the cracks in the driveway - parsley is growing out of those. 

Speaking of books, sister has sent me a book called 'Kew's Global Kitchen Cookbook' 101 recipes using edible plants from around the world. Mum was of course immediately derisive. "You can't cook, you never do any cooking". She is constantly saying I 'always' or 'never' do anything. Sometimes in the same sentence. 

I have strong suspicion that Kew Garden really wants world domination over all the plants around the globe. It's like some botanical maniacs were obssessively collecting every single specimen, classifying and labelling it, to become the institution that it is, and then trying to stop everyone else from growing their own plants in case they get a bigger collection. I mean what have they done to the cycads in Madagascar, now one botanical collector has it, displayed in their million pound heated glass cabinet house,  everyone else wants one, so that in Madagascar there are hardly any left that people haven't dug up to show off in their Grand Designs home.

Personally I find it's pompousness a bit hypocritical, thinking its should be the world's authority on the entire planet's plant life, saying 9 billion people need to be fed and it's the one to do it, because, supposedly, it's got the monopoly on 'global food markets'. Still acting like the imperial tyrant that it is, naming and shaming plants and trying to grow and breed them to fit in with their economy - it's indirectly responsible for all the plastic covered strawberry fields and tomato hot houses in Almeria Spain. Just because some Brits need a tomato in their Jamie Oliver inspired mediterraenean style salad, out of season because tomatoes won't grow there. Or more strawberries with their Pimms. 

I won't let it spoil things though, the sun is shining and it's a good day to be marrying (for Karyn) and a good day to be free (for me). 

The Secret of Waitakere Gardens

 This season has been an exceptional one for flowers, my cuttings - lavenders, pelargoniums, geraniums have taken off. The oxalis is actually prettily flowering. Ajugas are pushing up their purple bugles. I've got a blue lily like flower that is stunning that I can't identify...photo to come, possibly a native weed, but gorgeous. Pink watsonia has bloomed. Mustard is flowering like mini sunflowers. The nasturtium brings oranges and yellows into the mix with lily pad like leaves. 

Loquats are ripening. The apricot may fruit this year. And my citrus I've repotted have now recovered from their scale outbreak. Was it all the lockdown gardening that made the difference? 

Last week I took a stroll down memory lane and went to visit Raewyn in the Waitakere Gardens. I notice many new developments since I gardened there two years ago, some trees had been removed, and others planted, the roses now have a few companion plants (phacelia?) and there's a row of espalier pears and apples where the climbing roses used to be. There is a lot more colour (and I must admit, a lot more garish than any garden has a right to be) but that's what the oldies wanted. They weren't keen on restful/funereal white flowers and green foliage. 

Dozens of azaleas in pots lay in wait to be planted in the new garden where I recall was a sloping lawn. The spider plants I sneaked in have multiplied. But the iresine I killed didn't come back. That's what got the chop from me. "Oh no I'm not a gardener" says Raewyn who cuts the flowers for koha donations. I don't know what, in her mind, a gardener is. Someone who sows and plants? Does maintaining or pruning not count as gardening? Or picking flowers? Giles said the same thing. 'I don't do any gardening at the community garden' he claims. Then what does he do, just look pretty? "I  just maintain it'. Maybe the very act of planting and sowing makes one a gardener after all.

Perhaps I was being way too radical being a gardener, planting plants where they weren't allowed. People get miffed to see something growing that they hadn't authorised. I guess that's what gets cannabis growers up in arms, wanting it to be legal. But if you make things legal, doesn't it take all the forbidden fun out of it all? Maybe they want to fight for respectablity too, well they could now join the gardening club, and don't have to hide their growing credentials. No more secrets, no more mysteries. 

I watched the Secret Garden movie in the school holidays. Bad idea, because my well loved children's classic book was totally massacred in this movie. There was a dog in it! Mary didn't do any actual gardening whatsoever!  And  Misselwhaite Manor burned down! Talk about a spoiler, THAT wasn't in the book. The garden wasn't even really kept secret. 

I found myself missing the regular Wednesday morning garden group at Waitakere. The oldies, invigorated by fresh air, sunshine, and digging would find themselves less prone to temper tantrums like Colin, and treating people like servants like spoiled, disagreeable Mary. They would miraculously ditch their walkers and habit of wandering aimlessly round indoors in circles, and rib each other while poking fun at how old fashioned they were because they believed in the magic of growing things. 

Now how horrible would it have been if they didn't do any gardening, and just romped around with stray dogs and then let Waitakere Gardens fall into disrepair and potential fire hazard like in the movie. 

 

Do's and Don'ts of gardening

 

Have I gardened long enough to pass on some eternal wisdom in my 7 years or so of gardening? These are some of the gems I've learned. 

Don't ever buy garden ornaments - they look good for the first year, then quickly rust and decay. Unless you are a fan of the scrapyard look, resist the temptation. 'Rustic' can give you bouts of tetanus.

Don't tell people who are not gardeners you like gardening. They will just burden you with job offers and hint or bribe you to do their garden for them. And by 'doing their garden' they actually mean weed and dig plants out so there's nothing there.

Don't enter garden shows. If you more want stress and drama in your life, by all means do so, but the rest of us want to enjoy our gardens without the pressure.

Don't take cuttings without asking owners first. I have heard this terrible garden faux pas of people visiting other gardens and thinking it's a free for all. Coveting what isn't yours is not cool. If an apple falls on your head, then sure, but the tree isn't going to break it's branch for you.

Don't garden for money. It ruins the experience, and turns it into farming.

Do plant what you like. You are going to live with it, so, you must like it. Thankfully, I like most plants.

Do plant in the right place. Every plant has a certain place they like --that's why they have roots, not legs. 

Do pick flowers regularly. They will produce more and that way you don't have to 'deadhead'.

Do compost and mulch.

Don't dig too deep, unless you want to unearth some skeletons. Build up the soil instead.

Don't use chemicals. If you are into spraying you are better off being a graffiti artist. 

Do plant and sow after the new moon.

Do cultivate  and weed, prune and harvest on the waning moon.

Do plant as many different kinds of plants as you can. For biodiversity. 

Do join a garden club. One word...RAFFLES. 

Grow your own...

I love purple flowers - something about them.  So lovely this time of year. 

Karyn and Pierre are getting married on October 24th. It's official! Another friend June is getting married in November. It also looks like our Te Atatu Floral and Garden Circle trip to Tauranga is going ahead. 

Am so looking forward because I haven't been out of my little bubble in ages. If things go well we might even be visiting each others gardens in the Floral Circle. 

On the gardening front I haven't had to do much aside from pick flowers! This time I'm going to have a go drying them and pressing them in wax paper. Flowers are so fleeting that you need to be observant when they do arrive. Surprisingly mum did notice there were more flowers than usual that even my Aunties remarked on them when they came over. She grudgingly said 'oh its just Selina's planting them really there are too many'  (I won't translate what she actually says in Chinese but you can be sure it's a backhanded compliment. ) My garden has been attracting the cats next door and my cousin who comes when she want to pick fennel or rosemary or lavender. 

I'm hoping that people will get the message to try and do their own garden if they want to see the fruits (and flowers) of their labour rather than at present assume that all gardeners are dying to work on other peoples gardens for cash. It is really not fun if you spend all your time weeding and looking after a garden and you don't even get to pick the produce. Which is amazingly still what people think to do the world over, like all the people who are practically forced to grow coffee in Indonesia and then don't have enough land or time to grow food to feed themselves...the coffee just gets exported to some richer country so they can have it as a luxury good. 

Oh but we can't grow coffee in England or Holland or New Zealand it's too cold. Well tough.You can drink dandelion tea instead. I am ready to give up chocolate or rice if it can't be grown here so I can have my lamb and potatoes and crayfish and pipis. And chokos and feijoas. And possibly now its warmer..bananas. I'm sure nobody else in the world really wants our exports which is fine with me. Don't we have people living in poverty here that don't have enough to eat, so why feed those that already do? 

 

Evidence of Spring

Of course if you don't believe me...here is evidence

Gladioli

Monarch butterfly on echium

The echium in glorious bloom

Even the aeoniums are putting on a show

Spring is here!!

 I think so anyway..echium is coming into bloom, the glads are out, as are the freesias, the geraniums, and the lavenders. What a lift to my spirit to see the garden coming to life and colour again. Not that it's ever dormant but now there is a definite buzz in the air from the bees! Plus I keep seeing butterflies. 

Sad news though, Rose our school gardener has retired, so I am not sure what we are going to do without her. Mr O is our caretaker but he doesn't have the green thumbs that Rose has. I can't just leave the library to go gardening could I? Unless I create a seed library or something?

My neighbour Shirley has some fruit trees that need pruning but I think she might be a bit too late on them as my peach tree has just started blossoming. I also saw small pink rose bloom on my Cecile Brunner climber - isn't it early for roses? So Ben our tree cropper guru said he'd come round and have a look.  Wow Shirley has heaps of backyard space for a potential garden but I must not be coveting even though I now have a fig tree, two lemon trees and two grape cuttings in pots and nowhere to plant them! And how did she get passionfruit to thrive when I've tried several times and come up with nothing? Shirley doesn't have green thumbs at all she claims all she does is mow the lawn and clip the hedge a bit. 

I have a few jobs to do, and no I didn't get round to ordering seeds online during lockdown. I figured I would wait till we reopened although there hasn't been  a mad rush to the shops just yet. I still need to get used to wearing a mask. As well as glasses, earmuffs, hat, gloves, boiler suit, gumboots...maybe we should all just walk around in beekeeper's gear as the next thing in fashion.

One thing I have learned though, is neem oil isn't just good for plants. It's good for immobilising nits in your hair. I've been having a double dose of it. If it's not an outbreak of one thing, it's another. It's just a miracle we've survived so far. I know how the Kauri trees must feel. The latest campaign is to Save School Libraries. 

When faced with sudden extinction at least Spring is not silent like Rachel Carson had predicted. It's actually quite noisy where I am, now the tuis have found my kowhai, and I suspect are the ones who've been eating my magnolias, though I am not 100% sure, unless I install a secret camera somewhere in the tree to catch the culprits. You know, everyone just wants to live. 

To bed

 Huh a week into lockdown and today is a rain day to spend in bed. Mum split and potted up all the zygocactus, I've split and potted up all the aloes, repotted spider plants, shifted granny bonnets, and done general tidy ups. Our floral meeting was again postponed. Otherwise I would have picked hellebores, daffodils, pineapple sage, orchids, african violets and abutilons for the 'best bloom' or flower interest table. I also had my first dutch iris bloom of the season too. It's gloriously purple. And also freesia, which is  flaming bright orange. 

Still not much luck with my  passionfruit, which is now in a pot after looking decidedly spindly, sickly and yellow. What does it take passionfruit??? Blood and bone? (Which I cannot source, as we are in lockdown). 

And what's eating my magnolia flowers? Or who? I didn't know they were so tasty, as they've been chomped by something...birds I suspect as I can't find any tell tale bugs on them. After looking online I found they are edible, so I furtively tasted a petal. It tastes like ginger. They are delicious! I didn't know I had to eat the before the birds did. 

My next thing to do is maybe buy some seeds online as I don't have many for spring. So I ought to make a list...even though I'm not the best at seed raising. I remember I didn't have much success with Kings Seed. On my (very small) wishlist is...

love lies bleeding (amaranth)

gourd

I'm going to attempt to grow choko...somewhere. Surely I can't fail at it but you would be surprised at the number of so called easy-to-grow failures on my clay soil. Maybe thats what we get for chopping down all the Kauri trees long ago. If they aren't allowed to grow here, then nothing will. A curse on our land! What is Auckland?  Once lush Kauri forest but now a waste land of leaky homes, NO homes, barren clay soil, polluted streams, oil slick roads and silted up sewage engulfed harbour? 

Tane Mahuta isn't very happy with us. 

Locked down again

 Well it was too good to last.

Auckland has gone back up to level 3 alert as the nasty coronavirus rears its ugly head. Or body. Or whatever viruses have. Coronas. 

But this means yesterday, I was able to get into the garden again..hooray, so I have claimed more territory for New Gardenland, extending the cabbage patch area beyond the azalea to the next concrete fence post, which was just enough to use the last batch of compost. The compost didn't look very composty, it looked kind of dusty really, or fluffy, because it mostly consisted of lawn clippings and vege scraps. I cut down the green manure crop of mustard, and also for good measure added some dried yarrow and lambs ears, made a fennel woven fence to cordon it off, and manuka and feijoa tree prunings. This was all placed on top of turned over turf that was a lot easier to dig thanks to the weather being rather benignly cloudy, not wet mud and not baked hard by the sun as of yet. 

I didn't have any gypsum or blood and bone or horse manure or seaweed, that's still to come. But I have made a start. It should all break down a bit and be sort of workable by spring, and I'm planning on an initial crop of potatoes, provided I can find some that are sprouting. In the meantime I have shifted one diosma that was being crowded out by the sweet wormwood. a pineapple sage division, and a lavender cutting. I've also snuck in some pelargonium cuttings. If these don't take I will just clear it for potatoes.

The potting mix bag got ripped open for the aloes, which are now in the last remaining pots I could find, and some are planted by the driveway, I'm thinking they do a bit better on the cooler and less sunny side of the house, as they seem to be badly scorched by direct sun, which is a bit strange seeing as all the books say they love full sun. They also don't enjoy frost either or being exposed and would rather be sheltered by other plants. 

After this sudden burst of activity my nails are now extremely in need of a manicure, and my mind is on further parts of the garden that need attention, like the languishing raised bed trough, the hanging wall mangers, and the very back corner that has grown wild with applemint. I pulled out one remaining rose that had sent out a very long and spindly barbed shoot, without regret, seeing as it had hardly flowered at all and was still taking up space in one of the buxus beds. The buxus could do with a clip but I am still not sure at this stage what shape I should clip them into. If it were up to me I wouldn't have buxus hedging in the first place, I would have corokia or manuka, or possibly rosemary. Having a buxus hedging means you can't grow much beside it as the buxus are taking in all the nutrients. One day it might possibly get blight as that's whats happened to all the buxus in England, and so they don't have all those miles of hedging anymore that is the English hallmark. 

Buxus and roses. Yes well that's the vestiges of my brothers' attempts at gardening that was all the rage in the 90s. Our house is possibly the only one in the entire street that had a buxus hedge with roses, before that it was conifers and flax on a bed of scoria. I shouldn't mock it though there are worse gardens. The house further down has a berm full of agapanthus and no lawn at all but pebble rock, a magnolia and a tree aloe. It's the height of minimalism. The owners have left the agapanthus to go to seed and don't even weed between them. I think they just don't like mowing, but surely they could make the effort to clip off the dried agapanthus heads. At least they aren't yuccas. 

 

Potting around

Mum said we needed potting mix and the new Bunnings was open up at Massey, so I resolved to go check it out. I wasn't that keen because last time I went to a Bunnings for potting mix on advice of a friend they had sold out. I also recall the last time I shopped for plants there (at New Lynn) the staff were less than helpful.  Well I couldn't even get in the doors since the carpark was full. 

I carried on down the road. I guess we can get potting mix at Palmer's. Or Mitre 10. Even though I have a Mitre 10 just up the road on Lincoln.  When we got to Palmers it was like a ghost town as it had completely shut up shop. Huh. So I got the potting mix from Mitre 10 instead, which was doing  a roaring trade, and it had plenty of parking, now that Palmers no longer was open. 

So what happened to Palmers? It was a brand new store (opened 2014) although I questioned what a huge store was doing in the middle of nowhere the same with all the other Westgate shops with not a soul for miles around. It had a nice cafe if pricy and half of the shop was devoted to knick knacks like bbqs,  spa pools, designer scarves and kitchen utensils just like every gardener needs to complete their luxury lifestyle. Ha who are they kidding. Real gardeners don't have money, that's why we garden. 

If I know anything about retail it's this - a lot of retail business owners have more money than sense. The investment they put in to their stores hoping to recoup it in sales far outweighs the plain facts of economics like does anyone actually have that much spare money to spend every week to keep them afloat? The people who shop retail simply cannot afford to buy in wholesale the quantities that make the business owners able to purchase those goods in the first place. Certainly one was overwhelmed with choice when entering Palmers Planet. But gardeners want plants and not fancy knick knacks and certainly don't have the space in their ever decreasing urban plots for a spa pool. 

So I made the drive back home, with my Mitre 10 potting mix. Perhaps coronavirus had indeed hit businesses hard and I wondered what had happened to all the plants. If I had owned Palmers I would have desperately planted all my stock if I had known business was closing or given it to community gardens if I was unable to return everything to the nurseries or the other stores. On your approach to the former Palmers you pass by acres of weed infested empty land, when it was operating out in desolate Northwestgate I had hoped it would have somehow transformed the place into some horticultural paradise by proxy but alas the only thing that is there now is an empty concrete barn painted with bright yellow flowers, as a monument to what was, for a brief moment in time, a green oasis in the concrete carpark jungle of bulldozed development. 

Garden time

The garden had been a tad neglected lately so I resolved to have some garden time and check up on the plants. They were all quite happy to be growing except for a couple of things that I will need to rectify.

I had pruned the feijoa bushes last month thinning out one that had grown bushy, and now there is a little platform of feijoa prunings I've used to create a base for orchids to grow in the tree. Like a little house for them. I hope it works as the orchids were in pots and not really liking it if they got too wet because water tended to collect in the pots.

The citrus was also given a spray of neem oil because I noticed it had scale and the leaves were getting eaten. Hopefully this will stop the critters in their tracks. I don't think I can plant them anywhere until they've served out their quarantine.

The other thing I need to do is split some aloe vera as it was getting pot bound and frost bitten, it seems to actually like being indoors so I may have to find some room for them, even though all available surfaces in the entire house seem taken.

Looking toward spring I'm thinking of extending a corner by the wisteria and covering the entrance to the backyard with some low growing perennials, perhaps lavenders and lambs ears, or maybe snow-in-summer and that will be a further no-mow area for Dad.

The buxus hedges need a bit of shaping but I'm not sure whether to continue clipping them into flat box shapes or maybe rounding them off. I just find them a bit awkwardly boxy...I know you are a box plant but do you have to be so rectangular? Would it look weird if they were cones, or spirals or pyramids? Or perhaps pear shaped?

Oxalis seems to have taken over Sock's bed and I'm not that keen on weeding it all out - the bulbils if you disturb them will multipy even more. So I decide maybe they can just be a pretty groundcover like the violets are. Eventually the taller plants will shade them out right?

So there's a few things to do and think on. New Gardenland I haven't been neglecting you. You are lucky that I live in you, and you kind of belong to me because I'm not sure I would ever do this again for another garden for someone else.

The rest of the year

I'm lying low.
I nearly caught the end of the cold and flu season at school but somehow I made it through - the flu shot worked after all! But since it's too cold to go out much I have just been resting at home, not even doing much gardening.

I have come to dislike people making demands on my time saying we must do this and do that and go out. It's winter people, do we HAVE to meet up every week just for the sake of it. Do we even HAVE to work? Would the world come to an end if we just took a break? The plants do.

I have heard of gardeners who try to make a jump on spring and get all their seedlings ready and started and growing only to be killed by a snap frost. Or a storm blows that newly planted hedge down. Or hail devastates an entire freshly planted crop.

This means more reading time for me.
The gardening section of my library has been growing. My last book I read was 'The orchid thief' by Susan Orlean. Apparently made into a movie starring Meryl Streep and Nicolas Cage, I was drawn into an underworld of plant crime (or rather a swamp in Florida) with orchid obsessives. I am happy to state I am not addicted to any plant that I would go to great lengths to obtain, and break the law for, but sadly, not many in New Zealand can say that about cannabis. The mail came yesterday asking a referendum for two things - ending one's life, and legalising cannabis.

Decisions decisions. Can't they be combined into one law that says if you want to end your life by taking cannabis, you can be deported to Australia?

How does your garden grow?

Since I posted last its become quite clear that we haven't been remiss in not doing things yesterday only because someone else hadn't been doing THEIR job way back in March meant we couldn't do ours. The job of course, is testing everyone entering the country for virus in quarantine.

I know with plants what you do before imported plants arrive is they must be sent to quarantine first before being let loose into the country. Everything must be screened from seeds to cuttings to full size trees. One little codling moth egg and wham...the entire apple industry could collapse. As it nearly did back in 1888.

My research horrified me to the extent that we'd blithely let all pest and diseases come in and wreck havoc. For sure New Zealand was a bit too green and needed more flowers, but did we really need gorse? Did we grow too much kiwifruit so for our greed was the PSA virus sent to humble us?
Are the Australians getting their own back with possums and fruit fly? Has feijoa overstayed its welcome and now must fight rust, while Kauri are dying back because we've introduced too much roads into the forest and our muddy footprints?

I don't know the answer to these questions really. But I'm not going to let Aotearoa, so long, and protected and cloudy, become like Australia...deserted, dry, and dangerous. Or heaven forbid, the USA. Not sure I could handle that, although we must thank the Americans for Macrocarpa.

But down to my own garden, and in my own community...Woodside braved Neighbours Day after so much postponement so I actually DID bring a neighbour. Shirley admits she's not much of a gardener but maybe I could convert her yet. She's from Birmingham where they have snow and brick lanes so she's not really used to all the greenery. She can't stand it when neighbours leave fruit trees go to waste and don't pick all their fruit. I tell her the ones at the Woodside get picked clean sometimes even before we can get to them.

Jacqui showed off two tamarillos that she'd cared for at home and transplanted at Woodside. They are doing really well. I've never seen them that tall (tree tomatoes to you) and hoping for a good crop this year. I've still got lemons in pots at home and not sure when to plant them in the ground just yet. I will need to Neem them before too long but otherwise my garden is ticking along.

Floral Circle met again and talk is our trip may be to Tauranga this year. I've never stayed there or seen much of the gardens so am expecting it to be quite an eye opener, seeing as its the retirement magnet city..I picture all the owners being like those I met on the cruise ship living the good life where money is no object to spend on their garden. Quarantine ought to be no hardship for them, just another excuse to stay home and enjoy the garden. We had a quiz night where I got 14/20 and won a pansy, which I've duly planted by the house behind the statice. 

I would like it done yesterday

I am just about to head off to work again at my new job at PaperPlus bookshop. Sorry no free garden labour is available at present.

My manuka mulch is doing very well and Martha has stayed off my veges!

Magnolia is blooming so Dad papped them and here they are.

What would I like done yesterday...? Well nothing as I did my gardening several months ago during lockdown but now am back at work because I hadn't by circumstances been able to DO anything now the bosses seems to be blaming me for all the things that they wanted done yesterday. Which we could not do anyway because nobody was open. But that's bosses for you. I don't know whether you can get ahead by as people say 'sucking up' to them and it's not a nice image anyway but I haven't really thought that I should be nice to my bosses at all which is probably why I am still earning minimum wage. Maybe the ones that 'get ahead' use bribes? I don't know.

All I know is if I bring flowers and chocolates to work rumours will start going round, so I thought maybe just leave off the charm and do my work helping the customers I will be able to go home in one piece with my dignity and pay packet. So magnolia flowers you are staying on the tree for now.

Birthday Queen

Coming out of lockdown hasn't been easy as there is less time for gardening. We had much needed rain last week, most of the autumn leaves have fallen, and Cleopatra Magnolia is now showing of her deep purply-pink buds.

The manuka offcuts actually came in handy as mulch for my vege bed - the leaves are scratchy which means Martha has not had the opportunity to dig up my garden. So far my cabbages are safe.
Dad has also been careful not to mow down my lupins and poppies on the berm. I think he doesn't want to risk upsetting me again...

Otherwise all is quiet on the Western Front.

On Queen's birthday as a treat went with mum to Kings Plant Barn, to have morning tea at their cafe and look around. Kelly Tarltons did not want to have us and so I thought where else in Auckland can we go on this public holiday that is not a crowded mall? My thoughts were toward the Wintergarden but on the way passed by Remuera Kings Plant Barn and so went and communed with the plants I hadn't seen in ages. I noted mum seemed keen on a persimmon tree, but none were to be found.
Palmers Garden Centre is just a few blocks down as well but I've always been partial to Kings  as they don't try and sell you $9999 hot tubs as well. On my list is potting mix to repot our plants as a task to do.

After a birthday curry chicken pot pie and hot chocolates (contact registered and hand sanitised) and breathing in the oxygenised atmosphere  I drove through the Auckland Domain only to find every car park near the Wintergarden was taken.

Oh well perhaps another time. I had always thought it would be a lovely venue for a wedding, but the upcoming nuptials this year of Karyn and Pierre are going to be at their church in town. She hasn't seemed to ask for any maids or flowergirls yet and I have no official invitation...otherwise, I haven't had much to do florally as my Floral Club has not been meeting for several months. It seems I am on the committee now, which means, I get a say in organising the next big trip.

We are thinking Tauranga or maybe Waiheke Island Garden Safari. So that is something else to look forward to, travel wise. I am not really missing the outside of NZ world at all. My garden survived, nobody died, and I am still sane.

JoAnne did ask me what she should do to kill a caterpillar,  that was eating her bird of paradise plant but I just said use your thumbs or let the birds eat them if you don't want a beautiful butterfly. I thought to myself maybe she hadn't read the last part of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and what a strange question to ask me. I'm sure that it could spare a few leaves and it wasn't eating cabbages which we want to eat ourselves so why not leave it? But then I'm not the kind of gardener who goes after the caterpillars when Martha can do a much better job than I can of eating them.

Out of the woods

Aloe flower

I got Dad to snap this one too, like red hot poker except, less poky...the succulent leaves however do have spikes, so this ones under Dad's bedroom window.

Dad has been culling my trees. Manuka got the chop as it was 'spoiling my view'...of the sky. So now I have a pile of walking sticks, and firewood/bbq kindling.

I was naturally rather upset.

I don't deal that well with violence against trees. Weeds, ok, I can pull them out no problem. But trees which have been growing that I have personally planted? Not so much.

On the bright side, (now we have more sun on the deck) Cenny has gifted me two lemon trees in pots for my birthday. I have left them in the pots so far as digging a hole for them in clay is like digging a grave for them to drown in. I recruited mum to come down with me to Woodside to get some seaweed mulch for them.  While there I sneakily snuck in some rose cuttings by the fence from my birthday rose bunch sister Glennis gave me. It's not so bad having a birthday during lockdown, I decide. I got to stay at home and have peace and quiet.

I am drying these rosebuds to make potpourri. The big cake was carrot cake and the others blueberries, lemon, raspberries, viola and chocolate.

At virus level 2 I have not rushed to the garden centre as of yet since it is going into the barren period (in fact, shopping is sometimes more of an ordeal than before) and it is getting cooler...we just need to pray for more rain as our dams are now only 40%. There are hose restrictions but seeing as I never watered the garden with a hose anyway it won't matter. But installing a rainwater harvester on the garage roof is a good idea, but like all good ideas they don't always happen at the time of having the good idea. If I had my good ideas happen straight away I would now be sitting pretty and not wondering why the garage spouting is leaking and rusted still.

They say the best time to plant a tree is ten years ago...and the second best time is to plant them now.
Mum surprised me by saying she wanted the fig tree that Dad nearly killed planted in the ground to grow big (and lots of figs) but now there is no room left to plant them in the garden, unless Dad moves into the Sky Tower to have his unimpeded view of the universe.

Blogging it with flowers

Dad took some pics of the flowers in the garden yesterday --it seems red and purple is the current theme. The leaves on the deciduous trees are starting to turn...it's going to be a glorious autumn.

Begonia

Tomato...not a flower Dad.

Bromeliad

Mexican Sage

Streptocarpus

Tillandsia

We'll always have...silverbeet

The days are flying by but I'm counting on going back to school on Tuesday for one whole hour. It's so I can take things home to continue to work from home. That is, books to read.

New Gardenland is flourishing. It really likes the extra attention paid to it. There are no dead leaves or weeds to be seen. All the plants are now happy in their places. Yesterday, I sat on the deck chair and it ripped (with me in it). Thankfully mum wasn't around to laugh but later said 'I told you so'. I am never buying anything from Trade Me again.

Mum and I went down to Woodside as Nicole had harvested some kumara for us. I trimmed the pink yarrow and added the seedheads to my garden.  I also took a few seeds that are over 4 years old, to sow. I hope they don't mind, mostly flowers. Today was Anzac Day so I sowed some poppies in the berm. My begonia is flowering as is my abutilon. Flaming red flowers. I have not forgotten.

We even have an extra day off on Monday to remember, but I get sad thinking about the horror of it all, and how none of those soldiers could come back home to be buried. So futile. If everyone stayed home and prayed, we possibly wouldn't have had such a huge death toll. And on top of that, the influenza epidemic that killed even more people than died in the battle.

I have been reading about garlic being the miracle cure of influenza. It has been proven in the past, but I wonder if it's as effective with the mutant strains we are now getting. Otherwise the vaccine is still a year away.

Easter has given us no eggs, but plenty of feijoas. I pick them up everyday and put them in egg cartons which are just the right size for them.  My neighbours have offered me lemons, and even more feijoas, which I have had to refuse. As for veges my peas have now come up, and we still have kale, and we will always, always have silverbeet.

Resurrection Day

Good news, my peas are sprouting...

People don't really give peas a chance, but peas are so important to our health and wellbeing. They can be snow or they can be sweet, they can be wasabi or mushy, or minted or buttered but wherever they go those little legumes are welcome in homes, gardens and dinner tables everywhere.

I love peas. They fix nitrogen, make a great mulch and can even be eaten raw in their pods. What is not to love?

Another vege that I love but I just can't seem to grow is eggplant. (Too cold at my place). However its the perfect food for Easter when you cannot obtain fresh eggs or chocolate, but a good eggplant gives you that satisfying vegan/vegetarian dish vibe.

For your passover seder along with your roast lamb and unleavened bread you also need some bitter herbs and there are plenty to choose from in the garden. My go to is parsley, the Italian flat leaf kind.

Surviving the ten plagues (or is it seven?) won't be easy, but I have some tips. I am not an expert, but who is at these times? Along with cinchona bark where we get quinine, sweet wormwood and oregano, other anti-viral plants include hyssop, for cleansing, eucalyptus, tea tree, sage, magnolia bark, and ginseng.

I have heard loads of rubbish given online such as bleach kills the virus, but it will kill you too if you ingest it, so I think common sense tells us to keep away from such toxic substances. Roundup kills weeds but it also kills other plants so...I don't put too much stock in what people are saying, such as drink lots of alcohol and it will kill the virus. Yea and if you don't die from it, the alcohol will kill you anyway.

Is there no balm in Gilead? Well I have plenty of lemon balm.
So let the healing of the land begin. Our planet needs gardens and gardeners, never more so than now. Get to it.

Every high thing must come down

I have been really busy looking after New Gardenland.

Mum finally got her wish and the rusty leaning arch came down. We toppled it and piled the hardenbergia clippings by the Cleopatra Magnolia Tree to make a refuge for Martha.
Mum wasn't finished, she decided to blitz the wisteria too and we stripped it of all its leaves, and cut the dead branches off. I thinned and pruned the nearby azalea and now it seems more air can circulate and more sun round the other plants.
Dad asked me to prune the manuka so I have thinned and pruned that as well. The manuka has seeds and where I've laid the branches new manukas may come up.

JoAnne dropped by with some Dutch iris bulbs which she said would come up in October. I put them in the corner under the manuka tree. The grapevine got pruned, and I have set up all the egg trays with seed raising mix. I have made a start on growing some mushrooms - at least, I hope I'm following the instructions correctly (still no real clue on how to do it?!).

I haven't really been counting, but apparently it's day 10 of lockdown.
I have found the cure for the virus, it's not privet but if anyone has sweet wormwood or artemesia annua also known as mugwort or qing hao in Chinese medicine, you can use that to combat it. Just don't drink too much as it's very bitter.  Do not use ordinary wormwood the kind used to make absinthe. It has to be SWEET Wormwood.  You could also use quinine, but the chinchona tree doesn't grow here. The bark is used for that. Synthetic quinines have been created, but increasingly modern strains of virus and malaria have become resistant to them.

Of course, everyone is washing their hands like mad and being a bit paranoid lately, but I would rather be at home than at school right now (school holidays have been brought forward..hooray!). And I've always been a bit suspicious of kissing and handshakes anyway.

Next door I notice are growing some taro and I'm hoping they will eventually become keen gardeners too. All they need are some more veges to grow along the fence and we could swap produce. Feijoas are just coming in to season.

I have estimated I need three more fruit trees to bring my total to twelve.
1. Feijoa
2. Olive
3. Tangelo
4. Loquat
5. Peach (on it's last legs)
6. Apricot
7. Fig
8. Grape
9. Apple

the rest on the (birthday present) wishlist are...
9. lemon
10. lime
11. Sweet Mandarin
12. Plum

Extras would be - Pear, Valencia orange, Passionfruit, Banana.  If all these are planted then I will have fruit all year round! So much to do..maybe this lockdown will last a bit longer hopefully for everyone to get their gardens established for spring. Wouldn't that be wonderful??

Crazy times

Preparing for lockdown...

The Massey Garden Ramble has been cancelled but that wasn't before I had distributed the flyers. At least people that have them now know where the gardens are - Woodside Road, Jadewynn and Triangle Park.

I said to Mummy Cat she had better get to work now the humans are staying at home. Before the shops close except for essential services tomorrow, I stocked up a bit on things like seed raising mix, potting mix, seeds, cleaning products, more flower bulbs, books and food for the week. I have decongestant essential oil (eucalyptus, peppermint, camphor)  and oregano oil for immunity. And hyssop plants, because that was all that was left in the herb section. All the veges seedlings had sold out.

Garden Planet is still going to air as scheduled but the next four weeks will be broadcasting repeats, but I have picked up relevant shows  to air so keep tuning in if you missed them the first time.

With mum and dad both home I expect they may be driving each other nuts, but I am thankful I have my garden. Or our garden. Mum might have to stop deriding my kale and attempts at growing food. She learned that dandelions are good for her liver and Dad is mowing less lawn. So I am hoping some good will come of it while we ride out the worst of it. Martha will be fine as it's not bird flu this time.

 Am going to take a hot bath and go to bed early. I looked at my posts from last year and it was around this time that everyone was catching some virus (or is it just the same one that keeps coming back every year?)  But as I am still here to tell the tale I think I will be ok.

Stay home and garden everyone, and if you are locked up, you are in safest place. Hebrews 13:3

Lightbulb moment

I had made it my mission to plant bulbs today, as the moon calendar indicates it's the right time.
So I've picked up Grape Muscari and two kinds of Dutch Iris.
I usually don't go shopping on Sunday, but I've had to after working on Saturday that I can't face doing a round of more shops after working in one for four hours. This has kind of thrown my schedule for a bit, but then, everything changes anyway thanks to Coronavirus. People are probably going to be predicting everyone's going to have the Mark of the Beast some time soon. (If someone asks me I'm just gonna say no thanks).

All I know is, when spring time comes around I need to have planted my spring bulbs in March!
My beds are now all mulched in seaweed, and I've taken cuttings of daisies and pelargonium in hope that something, anything will grow in Mary's bed.

I came home rather exhausted and I'd only just walked up the road. I have also been asked to be on a committee. A flower committee. They say they need someone younger but I'm wondering what I can contribute. In general people don't really like flowers I've found. Fruits and veges get the star treatment in the gardening world but flowers tend to be ignored. I had once suggested lets grow more flowers in the community garden but that kinda went down like a lead balloon. The last time I went there everything was weeded until an inch of it's life and I felt if I had planted some bulbs there it wouldn't go down well.

So I am just sticking to my own patch for now. I think it's safer. I read in the paper that people were voting for the best garden at MetLife care and you could win $5000 from Mitre 10. When I worked at MetLife care retirement villages the ladies were constantly having fights over who could pick the flowers.  Some of them HATED the flowers like euryops which were 'too yellow' and jasmine was called 'that smelly plant'. I haven't been back there to see what it's like now but I can imagine that that giant hydrangea is still there and the lady who lives next to it, if she's still alive, is still complaining about it.

I personally believe flowers can contribute to a better world, if they can inspire kids living in the Bronx concrete jungle possibly they could do the same thing here, but in my experience kids in NZ get more excited over slime than flowers. We possibly have too many flowers, and half of them are gorse.

Mum has given me a mushroom kit that someone at work has given away so I'm going to attempt to grow some mushrooms. The kit comes with 3 pages of dense instructions but the bags are not labelled so I can't tell what is spawn and what is compost mix and what bag is meant to go with what. If I were creating a mushroom kit I would just have 1 page of instructions, with 3 steps, and pictures, and everything clearly labelled. So I might just have to email the mushroom kit creator and admit my complete cluelessness and say um can you explain how to grow mushrooms again? In less than 100 words? Cos you have given me a thesis here and I'm mentally challenged. Thank you.

Trade and exchange

Well my garden didn't stay bare for long as Rose the school gardener offered me some purple irises which I have now planted in the place where the cabbage and ponga have been cleared. I will be adding more lambs ears and statice if I can source it, and mint. I moved the monstera slightly and tidied up the spider plants who were threatening to over run the place. The carex have been trimmed back to pom poms and their cuttings were used as mulch.

Rose said she has space for a grapevine at her home as the school already have some. So we arranged a swap . I have cut down the gaura and have made cuttings of it so plonked them in the corner bed. Lucky the rain came, and it has now been wet overnight, hooray!

This is just a quick report as  I have some research to do on the history of gardening in New Zealand. This is a bit more ambitious than the history of my own garden which is now in it's sixth year so I have to pick my moments. I didn't realise that the Maori and European land wars affected so much of the land we see today but as I am neutral I won't take either side. It got me thinking that maybe God has a purpose and thought New Zealand/Aotearoa just needed more colour apart from green so He got people to live here and to bring all their plants too.

We ought to send more cabbage trees and pongas to other lands in exchange for potatoes and eggplants? I can lay claim to one plant success story from Chinese lands planted here, the humble kiwifruit aka Chinese Gooseberry, which made some kiwis very rich. It is a pity the PSA virus put a stop to much of that now, and what with this Coronavirus going round maybe we've had too much of a good thing. However I am sure the cure is waiting to be discovered, possibly made from all the privet we have, after all, some people have actually found a use for gorse. Makes a great mulch.

Goodbye Cabbage Tree and Ponga

The big dry meant some of my plants succumbed, so Mum got the spade and saw out and toppled the ponga, and the cabbage tree which was threatening to sway into the spouting of the house. I also saw she had her eye on my arch...

Nothing like a bit of death and destruction to satisfy her inner compulsion to lay waste my garden. While she was doing this she berated me on my plant choices. Those spider plants are ugly! Why did you plant that cabbage tree there? That plant pricks people!

Nothing I said would appease her so I just stayed out of her way.

Now there is a bare patch to be planted so everything has to be knee high to a grasshopper, so it seems it's going to be succulents, libertia, statice, and lambs ears. I thought of sneaking in a dwarf gardenia perhaps.

All is not lost however as Mum has been helping me gathering seaweed from the community garden. We've done two bucket load trips so far and my garden is now mulched and waiting for the rain for all the good minerals to soak into the soil.

I have one Albany grape vine to plant somewhere, just wondering if it will be allowed at the community garden, but I have to make it past bureaucracy and the silent majority first. If I risk planting it myself, I will then get irate texts questioning why there is a new plant in the garden. I can't just claim garden fairies planted it there, as they don't like to be questioned on their gardening decisions, otherwise they will stop helping.

My new job means I won't be able to make it to the garden on Saturdays. But who says Saturdays are sacred for spending time in the garden? I will just garden on Sundays instead.

I am rather sad that my pongas did not survive, I really wanted my garden to be iconic and kiwi-ish and what could be more so than ponga ferns and cabbage trees? Mum didn't believe me when I said the cabbage tree blew over from next door and started growing there. I pointed out some swan plants growing in the cracks and said they blew over too I did not plant them. I'm thinking she's starting to be a bit xenophobic about plants and I'm not sure I like the way she's insisting they all have official passports before they are allowed to take root here. But, that is the way it is with some people. I said if they don't grow here, weeds will just grow in their place so you better think hard of other plants that you want growing here instead.

Parched

Talking with a seasoned gardener like Terri has me thinking I don't know if I can do what she does when I get to be her age. She's crazily gardening in this heat while I am kicking back and not even daring to put in any new plants in till at least April.

Somehow she's ordered plants by mail order and they had arrived and they all needed to be planted or die in their pots. I'm sure she knows the all the tricks though, soak the roots, plant under cloud cover and mulch, but the desire to have everything looking good and green while the sun is drying plants to a crisp seems to me counter intuitive. I suspect it's Terri's green fingers that make the difference.

While I welcome the sun and this lovely non-humid heat it means the plants are now ripening and drying out, ready to  chop and drop to use as mulch to build up beds for winter and to prepare the ground for spring. The dried out plant matter will return carbon to the soil and provide enough bulk and air so that water can be retained in the cracks appearing in our clay ground.

Watering seems to be a dry sum game, if theres no water, well sorry plants, your roots had better be well established to cope by now. I did drop into Kings to buy some seaweed booster to water in the soil as a tonic though as sometimes I forget as well as water, plants need food and they love eating seaweed. Surprisingly it cost only $3 since I had earned lots of points on my Kings card.
Karyn had sent the council workers in to our community garden to provide us with seagrass they had gathered off the shores of Saint Heliers. I was given some tips on taro (divide and conquer, they like it damp) and when I shared news about our garden calamity, it was suggested that one of our rival community gardeners may have sabotaged our garden. After all, we are having an open day in March for eco fest where we join with the other Massey community gardeners for a garden ramble. Could it be...they don't want our garden to out-green theirs?? I don't know but then I don't want to think gardeners would do such criminal underhand things. Mike seemed to think they acted rather suspiciously when we all won the bronze at the NZ Flower and Garden Show like they wanted to claim all the glory for the win for the joint prize. Hmm

Shall I put it past them?

Anyhow, enough blather, after considering a long list of plants that cope really well in the sun and heat I decided our plant of the week is going to be Gazania. Good old gazania, stalwart tried and true. Never needs extra water and if you want to see a particularly gorgeous specimen of it, go down Alderman Drive past the Falls hotel on way to Henderson on the corner near the crossing it just covers the berm with a riot of yellow flowers year after year. Great groundcover and cheerfully brightening up roadsides wherever it is planted.

Garden Nanny

Mum would be happy as all last month I haven't done any planting. Aside from watering the garden,  and gathering flowers to dry, I have hardly done anything at all.

There are no new plants added and everything just looks the same only growing where it ought to be. Except the lemon tree. I think it's on last legs. I don't know if it will survive. Sorry lemon. Mum wanted you to be planted there but it seems like a dead spot where nothing grows. I suspect it may have something to do with Mary's grave.

However, my echinacea has survived and may even flower soon. Hooray.
It's back to school time so I am taking my hanging spider plants back to the library. Also the peace lily but I don't know about the parlour palm yet. It was looking a bit worse for wear so I cut it back and has grown some new fronds, but I'm not sure it will handle the onslaught of children yet.
Hoya seemed happy growing on the tallest shelf. I hadn't watered it in about 4 weeks.

I have started a new job at PaperPlus to earn some extra income since support staff are not paid during the school holidays (and also cos I love books) so I have had to give up the community garden this year. As this will be on Saturday mornings. Yes yes I know everyone wants me to live at their place and do all their hard work for them and garden and do all their sewing, cooking and pick them up and bake cookies and basically just BE THEIR MAID  cos they don't have the time but sorry. No.

I'm not moving anywhere, and I'm not gardening anyone else's place when my own plants cry out for attention.  The money is going to go toward Garden Planet anyway so it will be win-win for everyone who lives on the planet who listens to the show so they can be empowered to do their own gardening. Right?

One thing I did do was drop into Myra's new place at the retirement village where Louise is growing heirloom tomatoes for her. Both seemed happy with that arrangement but personally I am not sure I can handle oldies again. I don't know if she's forgiven me for her disappearing flower bulbs of which I have no idea where they would be. So I was a little wary, I guess its like parents who have children and when they turn 5 they just send them off to school  and don't have to be parents anymore from 9 till 3 and us poor teachers and librarians are then lumped with the task of needing to look after them for 6 hours every day...when they are most active. 

I am very tempted to say if you are going to have a garden (or children) you need to make sure you are going to look after them or just do what you are able to do and not rope in anyone else. Cos once you've done that you've handed it over and they are not really yours anymore. Because what happens is you will fall in love with the garden or the children you are looking after and you will never want to let them go.

There was an old lady who...

Imagine having an entire island to plant as a garden.

I got my bucket list ticked yesterday as I got to go with Mum and Rita to Tiritiri Matangi Island to see the birds. We saw rifleman, robins, kokakao, tui, giant wetas, fantails, hihi, bellbirds, saddlebacks, blue penguins and more. They were all living in a forest garden planted by volunteers which covered the entire island. A total of 283, 000 trees were planted between 1984-1994, regenerating 60% of the islands forest.
Predators such as rats and cats and stoats and dogs and rabbits were not allowed on the island, so the birds flourished. The birds were flying around (quite low, some weren't very good fliers) and congregating around the water troughs. It's been a hot summer and the ponds had all but dried up. I resolved to keep refilling my own birdbaths so the birds visiting my garden would have some respite from the heat.

We noted lots of native plants like pohutakawa, whiteywood, silver fern ponga, cabbage trees, nikau, flax, kawakawa, karaka and puriri trees. The initial plantings, said the guide were a little too close together and in rows, as nobody had ever replanted an island before and they weren't sure if they would survive.  Then the guide pointed out the wonders of the scrambling muehlenbeckia. Perfect hiding places for ground-dwelling birds and lizards.
"Mum, that's the plant you wanted me to get rid of!'" I said.
I just hope mum came away from the island with a greater appreciation of plants. When we got home I said, I know what's missing from the island - fruit trees! Mum concurred. The guide had said they needed to build feeding stations for the birds in winter because there weren't any nectar available. They filled these stations with sugar water thanks to the Chelsea Sugar factory, but it was like having McDonalds for birds.

I reckoned if they planted more flowering and fruiting trees the birds wouldn't have to fight so much over these fast food stations. They don't have to be native, the tuis would go for cherries (especially Taiwanese cherries) loquats, feijoas, figs,  plums and nectarines..and aside from that where are all the manuka trees? For the bees. But I didn't want to sound unappreciative of all  the volunteers hard work, and the Department of Conservations' pest management practices. But maybe they were a bit too cautious because aside from all the endangered birds they were intent on saving they also needed insects for the birds to eat as well. So now they are introducing more native insects onto the island, to complete the ecosystem.

It reminded me how I knew an old lady that swallowed a fly, and the whole story behind why she would swallow a fly, I don't know why, but then she had to swallow a spider, and a bird, then a rat, then a cat...

The rats had a hard time but I was thinking if the rats did survive being stowed away in a visitor's backpack, wouldn't they be eaten by moreporks? And if there are too many possums and rabbits and deer in the bush can't WE just eat them? We could bring Georgie Pie back for good permanently if they would make a good possum/rabbit/deer meat pie. And if we went back to eating these special edition Georgie Pies nobody would dare use 1080 poison anymore.

I don't know if Rita heard my grand idea. I'm always telling her some pie-in-the-sky idea that would save the planet, and she is a very encouraging friend who never knocks my ideas, which nobody seems to do anything about, but I figured she might have a direct line to someone important, if not God, who will then orchestrate things so that my grand ideas will be implemented and the earth will keep spinning on it's axis.

We don't really need to kill kikuyu with roundup, for example, because Takahe love eating it and  our native skinks like to live in it. And all those weedy flowering plants? Perfect habitat for bees. Slug problem? We just need more ducks. Duck problem? Mum can eat the ducks. Its her favourite dish. By the way - Happy Chinese New Year.  It's  the year of the Rat. Besides if there get to be too many humans on this planet, well, all we need is more tigers and lions and bears to eat the humans.