The Plant King

 I've been trying to catch up the garden - harvesting, pruning, tidying, rearranging, decorating, sweeping...

It's raining at the moment and I've been busy the past couple of weeks preparing the comfrey tea, cutting down the mugwort after the grapes had been harvested, harvesting some of the olives, clearing the corner of pots.

The corner jungle mess is now a new orderly corner of mother-in-laws tongue or snake plant in rows, and gastria in the gaps, and now a hypostes plant or spotty plant to you - I found this at Rogers for $12 which had four different variegations in one pot. 

Roger advised me to give this one a good drink when I got home. He said a cyclone was coming, but it has thankfully missed Henderson.

Twins have harvested dozens of se gwa, or chinese okra to you. They are sort of like ribbed cucumbers, with spongy dry texture inside that soaks up the water. They are good in stir fries, with wood ear and prawns and onions. The vines have taken over their plot of volcanic soil at Epsom. 

Justin and Katherina gave Sis a potted antherium for Christmas. It was near dying when I went over last night so gave it some emergency buckets of water bath. It has now revived and will live to see another day. 

I went to the Lantern Festival, and got a bit inspired so now there are lanterns in my garden. I have two hot air balloons, some twinkly coloured solar lights and lots of citronella tea light candles. It is the Year of the Horse, so maybe I should think about getting some horse manure. Will have to take a trip to the Massey Pony Club. Actually we should all be thinking about getting horses now the price of fuel has sky rocketed. Thank you New World Order. I so wanted it to go up just after I had bought a new petrol driven car....

I have bought a new dwarf Tangelo Seminole. And a dwarf satsuma mandarin tree has been ordered. Kings had a sale on, cheaper than Rogers could you believe?? I have put some more Dutch Iris in. Miss Saigon and another Blue variety I can't remember the name of at the moment. But I do know there is one called Lion King which I gave to my Lion King mad friend. 

Otherwise things carry on as usual in my Kingdom of Plants. Or should it be Queendom. Now that I am Queen Bee of 41 Riverpark? 

Fresh Start

 After a year or two of dormancy, and sad goodbyes - Uncle Danny, Mum, Toyota Funcargo..Book Fridge, I'm slowly reawakening the garden. 

The hedges need trimming, but otherwise the lawn is still being mowed and am keeping up with maintanence. I harvested 3 trayfuls of grapes, which had a bumper crop this year.

Update - Leyton trimmed the hedge with the power trimmer, so all the hedges are now razor sharp and rectangular/boxy. 

I have a new car! That can fit loads of plants and sacks of compost!

Dusty now has catnip, which she duly squashed, and some catmint. 

Lobelias are brightening up my pots, and I've put in more spring onions, courtesy of Taiping. 

New books include 'We can do Hard Things', 'Cats with Jobs' 'The New Zealand Road Code' and a pile of circulating library books. I made thai buttercup soup. 

Watermelons are on sale by the road. 

Garden Club is gearing up for another year. 

I drove to the Honey Centre in Warkworth, and wanted to bring some bees back, but ended up with ginger honey and lavender beeswax. Glennis got crowned 'Queen Bee'.  Fresh fruit berry icecreams are on sale in Swanson. 

Makutu Link had an open day where I saw eels being fed raw eggs. My friend Nicole is now a jobbing gardener. I'm not accepting outside work currently...have too much housework to do. 

Pat from Garden club turned 93. 

All in all things are looking brighter for 2026. 😎