Tulips from Amsterdam
As well as gladiolis from...? bluebells from England. Orchids from the jungle...Jane and I went to the Orchid Show last week. Spectacular. It was free. I did not buy any orchid plants though..I think will leave the growing to the obsessives.
Also took mum along to see the Eden Garden tulip festival. I think we pay a bit much to go in to see one bed of tulips though on the only bit of flat sunny ground they have there. Rotorua had them in beds by the information centre free to view. Eden Garden is nice though if you love camellias, though I'm not their biggest fan. I'm more of a ferny bush type lover. Yes it was an old rubbish tip out of an old quarry, and sometimes I think the poor camellias are not really shown to their full advantage, but what do I know. If they had orchids and spider plants amongst the camellias? Bluebells or even onion weeds, to brighten the shade up a bit? Chinese lanterns? Azaleas, rhodos and gardenia acid lovers?
West Lynn Gardens is one of their offshoots and they have a butterfly house. But they don't charge nearly so much to go in. However the Mt Eden/Epsom garden loving crowd love Eden Garden so I don't think they mind paying the cover charge since they can just walk there and don't have to pay parking costs.
So far this month I've planted some gladioli at Epsom, Vincents alpine strawberries, and mum sowed strawflowers. In my own garden I've put in statice and strawflowers. I scattered snow pea seeds that seemed like it was 20 years old, that the twins had left over.
The lavender has started blooming, and things are looking up. At school I got the children to enter the Kings Plant Barn colouring contest, who knows they may win the $50 prize pack. Fingers crossed, though I think most saw $50 and thought they would win actual cash. I tried to tell them it might mean $50 worth of PLANTS lest they think they can just buy some toys with that money.
