Bob

 If anyone from my old school is reading this and want to know what happened to Bob, well he just turned up on one of my spider plants today and seems happy to be back home. Bob is a praying mantis and appears at odd moments just to remind me he's praying for me.

I am not sure why the children called him Bob or how they could tell he was a he. When I first entered the library it had only fake plants so I had to remedy this to bring in the oxygen. So about half my indoor plants took a ride in my Funcargo and ended up going to school. By the stairwell was a box filled with fake plants that I removed them to put in the real ones, and put the fake ones by the couches in the library. At the time the couches were mostly used by the Year 1s and 2s as slides, as they were those faux black leather and chrome 80s monstrosities that looked like they were discards from the tv show Gloss. 

I am usually not averse to furniture but those couches were particularly bad, even an ugly Friends style couch would have been better. I made my complaints known to the powers that be but they just shrugged and thought I was being a little precious. I was not allowed this that and the other, and was starting to get carpet burns from all the work I was doing picking up books from the floor. How I wish I had bean bags to cushion my poor knees. 

In the end I removed all the books from the top shelves and put plants in, and started to breathe a bit easier, until one day the Primary Principal walked in and saw I had changed the library around from what it used to be and from then on it was like I had the cheese touch. 

"Did you change the library...again? Without my PERMISSION?"

I don't recall exactly what I said except I was very sorry but I had. 

She called the Big Principal in and they both looked at me with their arms crossed, tutting. I am sure they had a meeting about me behind closed doors deciding what to do with this new, disobedient librarian. 

Things went on ok for a few weeks while I carried on with my work and the children where quite excited to spot some ants, a spiders, a lizard, and various other wildlife in the library that they were not used to. But what they liked most of all was the praying mantis who lived amongst the new plants they called Bob.  They also read books, and I tried to wean them off video games and on to actual board games, like Chess. The chess club teacher came to help in the library, and he watered the plants with the staffroom teapot. 

One afternoon the Year 6 boys were playing chess as usual after they had borrowed their books. There were about four games going on and I am sure they were learning something. I don't know, I don't play chess. I'm more of a Scrabble person. The Primary Principal walked in and saw the boys playing chess. Where are these chess sets from? I didn't authorise chess in the library. 

Miss Selina got them for us.

Well Miss Selina got in big trouble for doing that. And after that everything Miss Selina did was wrong so that she couldn't even buy any books for the library. And even when there were new books she couldn't put them on the tables, or move them, or scan books in, or catalogue them, because Principals can make life very difficult if you don't do exactly what they order you to do. 

One morning Bob turned up out of the blue on a seniors device and he hitched a ride while I picked up the rowdy year 4 class. That was one day after my supposed probation period was over and they were going to decide whether to keep me or not. I'd emailed the Principal that morning because I knew that class was a handful and asked if she would come help but she replied it was not ideal and we could discuss it in the Friday meeting. She was not going to come. 

Well the Year 4 class was so excited over seeing Bob again that they forgot all about reading and borrowing books and they all wanted a turn petting and holding Bob and making an origami box for him. But while this was going on three boys who didn't like each other started picking a fight and next thing I knew it was chaos. I sent the boys straight to the Principals office and it was like she was waiting for them the whole time. 

After this incident Bob hitched a ride to the staffroom while I had morning tea and then, after that at lunch the year 4s asked where Bob was and he'd mysteriously disappeared. "Oh he's around the school somewhere' I assured them but one boy just said 'You mean you lost him!' 

I didn't find him the next day or the day after that either and on the Friday meeting the Principal cut me so I never did find out what her ideal was. 

Chainsaw safety awareness week

 I don't have a chainsaw...or an axe, but in my experience I have been on the chopping block a few times. 

I feel for plants, particularly trees who are suddenly axed/cut down by humans. Tall poppy syndrome is something that most of us have experienced and it's usually the highly intelligent, clever ones that get cut for growing toward the light - something we naturally do. 

I have a few tips for this. As any gardener knows, it's all about location, location, location. Where you plant matters. If you are going to be growing plants that like the sun in the shade, they are going to stretch their stems any way they know how, to get to the light. Why not do that plant a favour, and place them where they are happy, in the full sun? 

Likewise our shade lovers, will shrivel and yellow in the direct sun and prefer to be covered, so shelter them like a mother hen. Tough bendy plants like manukas can handle a bit of wind so give them the space and room to grow and they will reward you with brilliant shapes.

Sometimes a plant will set seed and no matter what obstacle is in their path, once they've found their turangawaewae, they are going to grow. Your job, as a gardener, is to facilitate this potential and make sure that your plants are growing where they are happiest, won't be fighting each other, and are in harmony with the other plants. Sometimes it CAN be like herding cats at school. There may be times when you have to send a plant to the Principal's office to sort out. Or the sickbay. 

But what you don't want to do is destroy a plant just because it blocks your view. Judicious pruning, grafting or taking cuttings can solve a lot of problems, and weed removal is ongoing, until you learn some new uses for weeds. After all a weed is just a plant in the wrong place.

Perennials need dividing before they become congested like traffic in Auckland. Get your animals to help you, too. They'll eat the plants you may not find so palatable. And you can always eat the snails if you have too many. Otherwise recruit in the ducks. Mum would love a duck, especially a peking duck.

Mum is terrified of trees that grow close to the house and anything she cannot control. I now understand why the Japanese bonsai everything. I once said to her if she doesn't like trees she can just move to Australia where they don't have many, and live in the desert or Coober Pedy. 

You aren't supposed to say such things to your own mother, but then, there seems to be no limits on what a mother can say to her daughter. That's why I am glad mum doesn't have access to a chainsaw. 

I hugged my trees when they were threatened with treeicide, even the cabbage tree that mum tried to topple just grew back in defiance. I would like to take a moment to remember all the trees that were axed and hold a little memorial service for them, as we don't know what we've got until it's gone. 

Mother's Day

 My home was turned into a florist shop over the Mothers Day/Birthday weekend. And karaoke night club...Nina gave me flowers, Loretta, an anti-stress colouring book with felts, Rita, lavender potpourri, and numerous other special and much treasured gifts - even a wacky desk dude from Cushla's girls. 

I am not sure what to do about the desk dude...but I have to do something about the $10 Kings Plant Barn voucher that needs to spent in a fortnight from my birthday. So I am writing it down here so I remember...Although I cannot think what more could I buy from Kings when every nook and cranny seems to be filled up now. Maybe I will treat someone else? 

Garden Club night was all about Makutu Link which is a new reserve out in Bethell's wetland that has a boardwalk and native plant restoration and predator free status for the endangered bitterns and ducks that make their home there. It was on one of the garden rambles that Louise and I missed out on so am hoping that one fine day we'll get to explore the area a bit more. 

Otherwise garden wise I'm not doing much more than sow peas and wait for spring. Flowers were few and far between, the only pickings for club night from my garden were from mexican sage. However thanks to my Mothers Day bounty of cut flowers that had been hothoused (Nobody can grow tulips in Auckland at this time of year) I managed to make a placing in the floral arrangement that was themed 'keep Mum' --basically flowers in a teapot. 

But no I'm not about to become a full-time florist anytime soon. I'm always getting advice from old ladies saying why don't I do (their) gardening again and I'm like are you nuts at this time of year I am not getting all muddy so you can keep your garden tidy while I do all the work and you take all the credit for paying me. 

I just say that in my head, not out loud. 

Who knows, I may be back on Garden Planet, I hear Karyns taking time out at school (Massey Primary) to look after their garden, which are raised beds underneath the shadiest pohutakawa trees, as if raised beds needed to be in the shade. Obviously nobody sought to consult an actual gardener about the site of their school garden. It was the same at Ranui, their gardens were also in the shade, underneath woolly nightshade...or in expensive vege pods that were too high for the juniors to reach. At Sunderland there were two folorn empty beds growing weeds just outside of the library and I'm like get Garden to Table in already! Then the kids would have something to do that didn't involve video gaming or playing tiggy/hide n' seek/chasey in the library. 

But I forgot...school is meant to be boring. 

Born free

 As free as the wind blows...as free as the grass grows...

The wind and rain/feng shui around my place has been a bit chaotic of late, but I'm happy to report that no longer will I be inhabiting a damp, moldy office under the stairs as part of a leaky building that is disguised as a school...when I do my assessments of sites, permaculture tells me it's in a good zone or not. 

I'm out of it now, but maybe the next person will have an easier ride of it than I did. Maybe I was just there to set it all up so someone else could take the credit. Nevermind. They can have all the plants is all. 

The birds nest ferns, the cymbidiums, the spider plants, the begonias, donkey tails, the hoya , zygocactus, mother in law tongue, prayer plant and Bob the praying mantis. I took home the streptocarpus and the african violet. 

I felt a bit dispirited, how could I let someone micromanage me like that? I went outside, of which was once former Japanese garden and climbed up on the playground and cried. The ground had been astroturfed and turned into an urban jungle, and the students sat their exams quietly plotting to take over the world when they got out and grew up. 

The school was next to the pharmaceutical company, and not far from my former landscaping company, and overlooked the creek where Maurice Gee wrote his gruesome Loomis stories. So much for Eco-city. It had been turned into an exam factory/diploma mill. I wasn't even sure that examinations were a good thing for young hopefuls.  Why couldn't they just have a fun quiz night instead? Instead, it just made me feel like a failure and a drop out. I had done the wrong thing again, disobeyed  a teacher, and gone my own way. 

The ground was shaky beneath my feet. I went home and sat for a while. I ended up back at Mitre 10, buying raffle items. One staff member said she might come to Garden Club night. So I made at least one friend there. Wasn't that what school was for, making friends? Apparently not. 

Once again, I was the brainy one nobody liked cos she was so brainy. I took my MLIS home again and waited for inspiration to strike, like the axe at the root of a tree. 

Not forgotten

 The bulbs were put in before the rains came, all except for the tulips which are still chilling in the fridge. This year I have eerlicheer, mixed daffodils, freesias, dutch iris and grape muscari. 

I heard sad news that my writing and gardening friend Beth has passed away, she was concerned about her plants but they are still thriving and all her friends from all over had been looking after them. I still have one manuka that dad didn't cut down, a fern, the busy lizzie/balsam, a monstera, and several geraniums, plus succulents and 'flaming katies' Beth had passed on to me. She loved her plants and wanted them all to go to good homes, and was very generous sometimes to a fault. I was forever fielding plant requests for her. I have several peace lilies now that flowered for the first time after I divided them that all came from Beths plants she had nurtured in her little log-box house. I remember Mummy Cat especially liked meeting Beth although she was not a crazy cat lady, she did have a special thing for plants. She was always young at heart and seemed to me she was one of those 'keenagers' the kind of lady who though my parents age,  never quite grew up and retained her child-like sense of wonder. But then when do we ever grow up? I'm still going to school! 

 I will treasure her witness and friendship for the time I got to spend with her, and of course the plants. She was like a bird always flying here and there but depositing seeds everywhere she went. 

 May she rest in peace till we meet again in Heaven, where I'm sure she has her own conservatory surrounded by plants.