Wednesday 18 August 2021

Thrown into lockdown again

 Spring is nearly here...the echiums are budding, the lavender is coming out, the magnolia, freesia and other bulbs are all showing their colours. Gladioli is unfurling her pink flag...

We are in lockdown for at least 7 days whilst dealing with the return of covid-delta variant. The garden is coming back to life with calendula, alstromeria and nasturtium re-sprouting (and Martha making fresh diggings). Unfortunately lockdown came just as I was ready to go to our Floral Club meeting that evening but decided to stay home instead as I am sure most everyone else did who got the message. A shame because that was when a speaker from Mitre 10 was going to chat with us, and there would have been orchids for sale, plus I am sure Janette had some babianas for me. 

That also meant no new garden books to preview..and there are some good ones like these 

Petal Power by Julia Atkinson Dunn

The Forager's Treasury by Johanna Knox

The Abundant Garden by Niva Kay and Yotam Kay

I should have said I'll take them home anyway and read them...but I guess I will just have to stick with the library books I had already borrowed which include a book on vertical gardens called 'Growing up the Wall' and one on Botanical Beauty.

Otherwise, I have a few jobs to do including neeming my lemon tree that still has scale, it did fruit but I neglected to harvest the three lemons that it had and they succumbed. And also pruning and neeming the tangelo tree.

I also may finish tidying up the buxus hedge though I haven't yet decided whether or not to clip a cat into it. 








Sunday 8 August 2021

The hedge fund

 I have tried to find time to clip the hedge between rains. So far I have not done anything adventurous but given the buxus hedges a bit of a trim. Like my hair they have grown long and rather wispy and unruly. I know my hair personally suits a bowl cut, but I find I need to rebel every so often and wear it loose and long. Perhaps it's my inner hippy that's trying to break free.

The trimmings I have kind of brushed to one side as mulch. As the wind and rains continue the empty bed by the wisteria is seeing signs of life  - the dock is growing back, as are the nasturtiums and calendula.  I have pruned the wisteria back to two limbs to give the grapevine room to spread. Mum was threatening to cut the entire wisteria out but I said it would only grow back. So I compromised and now we have a little 3 metre wide  wisteria bush instead of one six metres wide. The rest of the bed I have spread out more chamomile. 

My hyacinth experiment at school didn't work out as great as I hoped. I had only two bulbs that flowered and one has grown big leaves but no flower and the rest are no shows. I reckon they need that special vase where they just sit above the water and not on the pebbles.  

The school staffroom got a makeover with new furnishings and now even has...plants! In matching pots. I know indoor pots can be very expensive so I wonder where all the funding came from. I am considering getting some snazzy pots possibly from Kmart and putting my homegrown plants in them. I don't know who is looking after the plants in the staff room but I know my spider plants are still alive and thriving, I have even been asked for the babies. 

Sad news Jacqui's cat Timmy was run over last week. She and Mike were pretty devastated. They still have his sister, Tui, but it's so hard to lose a pet.

 I haven't been down to the Woodside garden much the last time I went got an earful from the others  I decided I really had enough of being nagged and didn't go back. If everytime you try and do something it gets thrown in your face and they get all nasty about it then I'm not even going to bother. I'm sorry but that's the way it is with me. Gardening is my outdoor solace and place of peace but if people are going to take that away from me and make it all about how hard they work and make it a punishment then sorry. I didn't sign up for that. 

I see a lot of cats round the garden, though Mummy Cat hasn't let any of them come inside or get close they kind of see me and then run into the hedges. I have planted some ajuga underneath the apple trees and removed some of the applemint so it can flourish. Also I have finally removed two flower carpet roses that were still left where my brothers had planted them by the maple. I couldn't dig out the entire roots but I dug as much as I could and where the remaining root was I figured if I coated it with superglue, it wouldn't grow back. Will it work? I don't know but two succulents are now where they were, and I had to remove an old lavender although I could take plenty of cuttings from it. 

My next plan is to check out Janette's garden and get some more spring plants from her for the flower garden, babianas, alstromerias etc. And then head over to Rogers Garden Centre in the next school holidays in Mangere. I also have a bird bath I want to fill with water plants. So all that and pots requires some $$ so I am saving all my Paperplus money for that. 

Loretta has said she'd like to join the floral club so I next meeting I am going to take her along. I am trying to get her back into gardening. I noticed that my snow peas have sprouted so hopefully I will have a crop this spring. That's all for now.