Gardening on the (North) shore

 I paid a visit to Adrienne's garden on Monday where she is living in Northcote near the primary school,  she has the basement bottom of a unit and the landlord has let her have the sloping backyard, to which she has made a wildflower garden at the base of the driveway, a vege and herb patch in pots on the sunny northern side, and a grapevine and choko vine framing the boundaries. 

Since she is 80 years old and living on her own I find this impressive that she is still gardening and so enthusiastic about plants. She has plans for the corner of the yard that slopes down toward the fence to have a banana grove, and while wild buttercups has clothed every other part at least she does not have to bother with a noisy lawnmower at the back (it would probably roll down the hill). 

Then we visited Northcote Library which I had never been to before, which has a little community led garden in a sunny alcove facing north, with a few rasied beds, citrus, a compost bin and worm farm, to which she sometimes gives workshops and talks. She also wanted to show me Smith's bush, which is a little reserve right in the middle of Northcote, of kahikatea and a stream beside a boardwalk through native 'virgin' forest.

She then gifted me a whole lot of Organic NZ magazines. I think she is a bit of an evangelist for gardening as she had suffered a lot of mental illness in the past and had found it grounding or therapeutic to garden organically. I don't think it is too dissimilar to how many people get into gardening although some has said 'gardening is the gateway drug' - don't think that means to growing pot though!

There is actually a book called 'Grow your own drugs' though I thought many people had cottoned on to that but never took it seriously. Of course I myself dabbled in herbs, and I really do believe plants have super healing powers if not magic, so maybe I'm just as nutty. 

I am now reading Seven Flowers That Changed the World.

I better get on to it because Karyn and I are recording two episodes on the topic of world changing plants. I will have a long list. 

Happy Matariki!

 Well the eyes of God are shining on my garden over Matariki as now we are into a new gardening year, I have cleared away the old and am going to start with the new in my little vege patch, that has been harvested of it's cabbages, kumara, and yacon. I manured it with sheep pellets and forked in the two batches of compost I had made, which mostly ended up being dried up clumps of applemint and grass clippings, to further break down till the beginning of spring.

I have just moved about six strawberry plants to this bed, hoping that maybe they will do better with more sun and soil and mulch, and am thinking of what else to plant further back from the path near the leafless wisteria. I had been up to Kings yesterday, they were having a 20% off sale so I bought some snowpea seeds and a pink babiana. I am not sure where to plant the babiana yet. I really liked the babianas in flower at the Auckland Botanic Gardens last time I was there, and thought they were great groundcover, so I hope they multiply and decorate my garden. Janette has promised me some more from her garden. Dorothy offered some mini irises on the trading table so I've got those as well. 

Mum and I visited the Wintergardens on Friday, they are earthquake strengthening the glasshouses so one was closed but the tropical house was still open. It was nice and warm and lovely to see the orchids in bloom there and the cattails. Outside near the ponds and fountains they had ornamental kale and cyclamen in pots. 

Adrienne from Soil and Health wants me to come visit her garden up in Northcote, and there's also a library community garden she wants me to see as well. Was going to go today but we decided to postpone it and wait for better weather as its rather cloudy and cold. 

The other garden trip I am planning on going on is the Floral Club trip to Rotorua, which is in November. I don't know if I'll get to Taranaki this year yet, but that has always been on the (expensive) bucket list for who has the time and the $$? Another trip that's been offered is one to Marlborough that Penny and Ian of Hikoi tours are organising, though that too is kinda out of my price range. But if anyone would like to sponsor me?? Nobody? Ok. We can't always do what we want.

Now it's School Holidays so I have some reading to catch up on, no I hadn't got round to 'Ponds and Waterfalls' or 'Espaliering' as both seem unlikely in my garden, but my eye is on my birdbath that mum filled with sand for Martha, but she isn't using it so I think it would make a perfect miniature fairy garden. Now I have borrowed this book about it, and it looks really cute.  

I mean I'm not sure I really believe in fairies, but if they are miniature angels then sure why not. 

I decided I will leave another facebook gardening group as I got tired of people constantly posting 'How do I get rid of this plant' and posting pictures of it then everyone coming up with ways of killing it dead. But not before making a stand and saying for killing a plant you will have bad plant karma and could be sentenced to live in plant jail for the rest of your life in a barren apartment building.  You know, it was probably a  Baby Boomer as it sounds  exactly like something a Boomer would do.  Sorry Boomers, you not going to get away with your casual destruction of the environment just because you bought it with your money.