Starry Starry Night

 It's Matariki weekend and we got our first frost this morning. -1.4 degrees celcius and -4.2 on the grass!

The skies have been clear that has been great for stargazing. Matariki is just one of the 9 stars in the cluster whanau. I thought there were 7, but it seems two more have been added when I wasn't looking. 

Because stars aren't always easy to spot amongst all the other stars I just tend to look for the moon instead. I should be keeping track, my moon calendar helps me, though at the moment I have not been doing much in the garden, just weeding here and there.

Woodside is offering grapefruit, and I'm harvesting the last of the tangelos from the old tree. My dwarf Seminole is laden, but they seem quite pale. I hope they'll be ok though the tag did say NOT to let it fruit in the first year. 

It's Mum's birthday today, she would have been 78. We went and had yum cha at the Lucky Fortune. Sometimes I wonder if I'm experiencing a Freaky Friday - swapping bodies with my mum and now I know what it's like to be her, older and (hopefully) wiser. 

Cleopatra magnolia has just budded and will bloom in a few days, the petals are already showing their glorious cerise pink. Dutch Iris is still blooming, and we have jonquils and bergenias. 

Sad news is our neighbour Lorraine has passed away on Monday morning. She was 87. Instead of flowers, we will give requested snacks to the hospital ward she was in. Lorraine was an original resident of Riverpark along with husband Dave, and their two daughters. She was baking us feijoa muffins all throughout the season and has always been our very good across the road neighbour. 

And so we've been remembering many who've passed on during Matariki. It looks like the heavens are much brighter because of them. 

Haere ra.

 

Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows

 I don't know about the lollipops but we've had sunshine and rainbows in the garden. The dutch iris has flowered early and there have been a few jonquils pop up. It's now coming into winter as the autumn leaves keep falling. Dad picks them up and puts them into the rubbish bin. 

I've put in an order of 103 packets of seeds for Garden Club. It will be fun sorting them out, as fun as it can be when they all look the same as they are from King Seed and Kings don't put photos or pictures of what's inside on their seed packets.

I'm dividing up the peace lily that MOTAT gave us, well Dad when Mum was ill, as its outgrown its pot, so far, I can get at least six more to pot out of one clump. I have discovered compressed seed and potting mix - it comes in blocks or cubes and all you need to do is add water, and voila you have 9 litres of potting mix from 1kg block that you don't have to strain your back for when taking it to the car. This could be a game changer for my gardening practice!

Otherwise there's not much to report. Made another batch of comfrey fertiliser. Still feeding worms. Hung netting over the leggy echium in hopes the sweet peas will climb all over it. Visited the New Lynn library, and discovered they had a seed library there. Was offered several packs of seed for free, so now I have them to sow as well. 

JoAnne gave me a blueberry bush for my birthday. I have planted in a pot and wonder if I should buy a companion for it for pollination purposes. 

I've put my name down and am now on the Hospice flower roster, so I need to get creative. I know how to do a posy bowl arrangement, but that is about the extent of it. So we shall see, I have a block of floral foam, secateurs and a wild imagination. What can I do that will pass muster? 

Getting Older

 I am getting older today.

My garden is getting younger though as I've now got seeds, and am doing a seed fundraiser for Garden Club. We are hoping to get to 100 packets and then the profits can go to running our club, that has been going for over 65 years. This year will be the 66th!

So since last update I have been busy making umpteenth feijoa crumbles. Dad has been diligently picking up the fallen feijoas so the lawn is clear to mow. He picks up EVERY single one, no matter how small. I have given them away to friends, neighbours, family and even garden club members who often already have feijoas. 

I cleared the last lot last night but who knows today may yield some more. 

In other news comfrey tea barrel has been emptied and restarted again. I've had to add some citronella incense to it to repel any bugs, and might add neem oil to the mix. Also geranium leaves. Because it can get smelly. 

Tangelo tree has fruits, even though half has been cut down because of borer, luckily I have a dwarf tangelo on flying dragon rootstock in a large garden tub waiting in the wings. 

I've rearranged the pots a little and had to tidy up everything in anticipation of the Cylclone Vaianu that just missed us and devastated the Hawkes Bay instead. It's always a joy to rearrange things though as I like everything to be pleasing to the eye as much as I can, and to make the garden easier to work in, but it all takes time and will never ever be finished, as plants change with every season. 

This reminds me I am getting older today and mum wants me to be happy. I still have sad days but being in my garden makes me happy and after so long neglecting it I have rediscovered my garden mojo, so I cherish the time I'm able to spend recovering from two years of caretaking. Plants are so much easier than humans as they are constantly rejuvenating. 

So if anyone asks me what I'm doing with my life I say I am not drifting, I'm grounded and doing my garden. Eventually it will bear fruit and have so much abundance that I can't keep it all to myself and offer it to you. 

Happy Feijoa!

 New Gardenland is teeming with feijoas. Our favourite time of year. They make everyone smile, and are the fruit that keeps on giving and giving and giving...

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. 😎

Spring Forth

 Time goes by. I had a very dark seasonal depression but now spring is here. I only want to think on things lovely (love keeps no record of wrongs) and so spring flowers come forth again like they do every year even with the unseasonal weather. Yet it keeps creeping in regardless. 

And so holding forth on climate change...I am really just not used to drastic change and fear I won't be able to adapt. I loved gardening but I felt like I'd neglected everything. I don't understand what's happened maybe I miss the chickens and Mummy Cat although Dusty enjoys the garden...something inside me has not adjusted, whether it's the moon cycles or being all out of sync. Living without a car has also been a bit of a shock. I guess it's the lack of mobility, that I should have appreciated having two legs and not be rooted like plants are. However I have craved stability all my life and thought I had it in the garden. 

Now the neighbours down the back have moved out and the trees (and privet) have been cleared, while my other neighbours are now growing in vege pods.

We had a planting day on our side of the reserve though I was quite dismayed at all the weeds sprung up and unable to do much about them. To say we were unaffected by the floods I don't know we may not have had our house flooded but all of Auckland is has now become very damp. New housing is going up everywhere. All I know is without air  or movement in the soil or wetlands to capture excess moisture everything is kind of in flux. Aren't gardens all about change anyway?

So what made me the expert. I am not the expert. I've just had a very bad year of not feeling garden vibes and really want to get back into the swing of things, though change all around me is inevitable. I had just learned that leaky homes are because of not just untreated timber but because the pines that were harvested for timber back then were too young saplings and their wood was too soft. So I wondered if there was some kind of Gardening/Harvesting Standards Code as well that everyone is ignoring.  With all the pine forest and mills closing due to high electricity prices I can't help but wonder about the impact of all the tree felling has had on the land. Yes let the light in, and yes NZ needs to export its logs somewhere and for sure trees and cars and roads don't mix well but I thought with all this mud and clay the new homes would surely be built out of earth instead of timber and not leak so much. But then what do I really know about houses or land. Why do I pontificate as if I could be in charge of the planet?  Now I feel like I haven't been because I've just been out of touch with the garden.  I have been rambling on about *my* Eden but need to get back in touch or grafted in somewhere. 

I want to live again not feel out of sorts though everyone seems to be starting over. And so it is. Plants are a lot more resilient than given credit for and I do wish my green thumbs would return...why am I not feeling it, all I know all of creation is groaning for redemption. So I am writing this to remind myself not to give up!  For God made everything beautiful in it's time and spring is a reminder that the lilies of the field do not toil or spin, yet He has clothed us far richer than Solomon. 

Garden time

 Tangelos are ripening.

Climate change seems to be here...I had a break from the garden for a while and now things have caught up. Dad had arranged some tree chopping behind the house and I felt discouraged from posting again - I am not used to change. He cut the bottlebrush I planted without warning. We've had feijoa (small again) otherwise..Cyclone Gabrielle's was Auckland's watershed a year on. While we were not flooded last year, thankfully, the house is still standing..I just don't know the knock on effects of that much rain meaning for the rest of Auckland - we have a lot of wooden houses (and more density since the Unitary plan) and now less trees to soak up the water... and while most of the soil out west is clay, which may be good to build houses on (or rock) that means its much less space for gardens especially trying to garden veges productively. 

Though it has ever been thus. I think of my rusty arch which did not last a season, and all the wooden fences and decks  that were unpainted and had started to rot again, and the roofs plus all the blocked drains. Perhaps Auckland should revert back to swamp and silt because our poor harbour has absorbed the dregs.

This time of year the autumn leaves are falling. Garden Club had orchid repotting demos and I scored an alstromeria and a curly leaved succulent. I found my moon calendar again after it had been left as had other things on my mind ... with daylight savings I seem to have had a bout of SAD seasonal affective disorder. Being the daughter of a weatherman and named after the moon I can't seem to escape its influence. 

Change is never easy. I have spring onions and spinach in buckets as most of the gardening I can muster at the moment which should tide us over for winter. I don't want to make Dad angry again by gardening. Or being a 'messy'.  Things grow... 

On positive side, Dusty has made herself at home and catches the mice. Not sure why we have more mice now - never had any when we had chickens. I miss them.

I need an elixir of some sort, and for the garden to grow again --- 

Mokoroa

 I have had a lovely couple of days rest with Mum and sis at Mokoroa Valley retreat thanks to a TimeOut stay. Mokoroa means 'long lizard' which seemed apt, like we were staying in the midst of a tanwiha's lair. I don't know how I feel about, while it feels benign I am aware the land has been through a lot of upheaval being former volcano from the beginning and all the past history up to present day home to wealthy lifestyle blockers. 

There is bush all around the holiday home which was very luxe. The owner has a hobby deer farm where he grows deer velvet from their antlers for export to China. There's a very clever irrigation system powered by a water wheel on one of the streams. Sprinklers for the wide expanse of lawn go off in the morning keeping it green. 

We went for walks and did some exploring, although unfortunately the major bush tracks are still closed thanks to Rahui for Kauri Dieback and Cyclone Gabrielle slip damage. I was in a contemplative mood though thinking on the many things that had been lost when Auckland Council amalgamated to the Supercity. Waitakere as an entity is no more and felt the loss of territory swallowed up by powers that be. The dichotomy between Auckland and Tamaki Makaurau is never more stark when thinking about place names and their meanings and the things we do on this land.

At Bethells Beach/Te Henga we walked along the ironsands where jellyfish end up. The rock at the entrance of O'Neill's beach is named Waitakere meaning 'deep waters' and is the start of the stream that eventually becomes Waitakere and lends the name to the area. There is a township which lent its name to Henderson library and civic centre and other schools. The local iwi, Te Kawerau A Maki still have links to the land but many had to move further inland because the construction of dams meant estuaries and food gathering sites became silted up and the land was no longer fertile or able to support them. 

Every year Auckland becomes more congested and our Waitakere Range rain catchment area now seems unable to cope with the strain. There are a lot of slips and road repair to be done. It's hard to live so far away in the back country where everything you need for living now has to be imported in and everything of value exported out.  It's hard to know where we are headed when all governance decisions are now mostly made from Wellington concerning this isthmus. 

People say it's all down to education, though I don't know how much sinks in, sometimes I think the land is crying out for healing and redemption with wetland areas demarcated for conservation. I like to think we all can all do our bit to care, but humans being human we are greedy and seem to crowd out everyone in our path, destroying the very things that help us to live. I don't like to think too deep thoughts all the time, but as I thought how peaceful and secluded the valley was I was glad to be home in my own garden with fruit trees and vegetables and never minded that there were other people around me, doing our best to live our lives out of the clutches of the taniwha...

Year of the Lizard

 February rolls around...we are having a glorious warm summer and the rain has stayed off, so our plants haven't been drowned.

Dad's been marking progress on my apple trees.  We've been eating tomatoes and apricots. And mum's been harvesting grapes. 

Dusty's still chasing lizards and grasses. I have now a push mower and pruning saw in my arsenal of tools. The rain lilies have come and gone, and the wisteria has it's sneaky tendrils cut back. 

The back of our house the cabbage trees been lopped, and the trees behind the fence so now there's a vista into the creek and the house on the other side can now see straight into ours (as we can see theirs).

I'm not use to that much change and can only say well that cabbage tree will grow back. But I mourn a little whenever there's treeicide. 

At Woodside I've grown a little wildflower patch with alyssum, snapdragons and phacelia. We've had a lazy summer so there's not much to harvest, because we sowed so sparingly last year. I think everyones feeling the crunch, since Cyclone Gabrielle last year had such an impact on everything, that planting had been delayed and everyone's crops were out of sync. I'm just thankful I still have a garden because things could be much worse. 

The little seedbomb has flourished into nigella and alyssum by the garage, along with helichrysum or strawflowers. 

I'm contemplating a move toward more indoor plants this year. My brother hasn't made any further plans for his Versaille orangerie yet but would be interested to see what he does with his patch of lawn that he claims is a 'waste of space'. It all has to go with his massive chandelier in the dining room. 

Our home isn't so fancy and dad wants to keep the lawn shade free for his daily weather temperature reading. My brother said he could live in a state house where they have no trees at all. But I don't think they have grass either. Most of the state houses are on gravel, ashphalt or maybe on broken up concrete and glass, where the temperature is off the charts. I don't know how people can live without any greenery, but I do see artificial grass sometimes that gets so hot it burns your feet, and while you don't have to mow it, apparently its just as much maintenance as a real grass lawn because you have to vacuum it. 

People don't seem to mind about artificial grass and plastic pot plants, but I do. Sis gave away her pilea plant to her friends to keep as she's now back in the country. So I may have to gift her a new one so she can continue to exercise her green thumbs. 

The story of gardening

I am reading a big coffee table book called The story of Gardening. The book is very heavy and I've only managed to read a few chapters. Gardening can sometimes feel like an endless battle with nature or an all consuming passion that can never be quenched. Chapter 11 was about Gardens in China, under the various dynasties. It turns out the humble administrators garden was not that he liked gardening a small patch but that he just needed somewhere to escape the daily grind of work and write poetry. One of the Empresses constructed a huge pleasure garden, called a Summer Palace, the pinnacle of which was a stone ship, on a fake sea. It was so expensive that all the funds that were meant to go into maintaining a defence force or army (or REAL ships) for the kingdom all went into the Empress's garden instead. The dynasty then fell apart from typical govt overspending on luxury holiday junkets and foreign invaders, who might have been expected to gasp at the beautiful gardens but they were not exactly that type of well-heeled tourist. 

 I have had a real think about the wealth gap in this country and I wonder if I'm in danger of falling into the chasm where all failed gardens go. Although have they really failed? Well if they've been bulldozed and ripped out for houses maybe.

 It was a bright sunny day when garden club met up again at Thera's who had survived a flood and half her garden falling into the neighbouring gully. We all had a tour and I must say I'm impressed with what she's done, despite living next to a substation and having bambook creep into her property. There were so many plants (obviously garden club trades) and her trademark ceramics and everything looked lush (maybe thanks to a lot more water!) and cared for. She also didn't really have to contend with a non-gardener whacking her plants to submission, because he was always off at car rallies. The price to pay for having a boy-racer fiance? I noticed go-kart tires as planting pots, which we also have in the community garden even though now I'm a bit dubious of growing edible things in petroleum.

 On the following Sunday checked out the Sunflower Farm in Waikmauku. Its open Fridays to Sundays to the public when the sunflowers are in bloom, and you can cut them for $3 a stem. There's also a cover charge to enter, as I'm supposing they don't want hordes decimating their crop as has what's happened to the blueberry growers. There was a sort of maze you could enter, but otherwise its masses of sunflowers and bees in one big block of land. Monoculture of course. Behind the bamboo hedge, row open row of celery was growing with sprinklers, and another field beyond lay fallow, the brown earth ready for a late summer sowing of something. Not like sunflowers just growing by the fence, these were in their thousands as far as the eye could see. As we'd had the ride in the middle of the day of course it was super sunny, and my friend/driver Shar was wilting in the heat. 

I'm a suburbanite and not used to mass farms, and get a bit antsy when driving out to the countryside and seeing fields upon fields of grassland and haybales and no trees. I keep thinking wow to have so much land is a gift, but I'm under no illusion that horticultural and agricultural production is a cut-throat business, hard work, noisy and often monotonous. Strawberry fields present the same, another friend said she'd hated picking strawberries as it was endless picking picking picking, bending down and picking, then weighing and packing, but that's only because some capitalist has decided that to sell them and make some money for a supermarket contract is better than to have them in growers hands. Consequently trays and trays of unripe strawberries for sale in said supermarkets.

 It should be more fun going to a supermarket and seeing the array of vegetables and fruit from all around the world shipped and stored and already picked for you and waiting to be plastic bagged (or finally, paper bagged) and then taken home to sit in your fruit bowl but I've become a bit desensistised to it all. You aren't allowed to taste them there, and who knows what sprays have got them to that point. After you've grown your own, it's all a bit disconcerting to see them all wrapped and barcoded and on shelves under florescent lights. Fruit picking, like fishing is just not the same when it's  done in a supermarket.

Garden Sabbath

 No rant today. Dad does take photos of my flowers (and not of me anymore, as I hate having photos taken) and Dusty, and also buses and trains. 

The gardenia has blossomed and I'm picking fresh ones everyday. I have a Judith Hindel Sarracena - a carnivorous pitcher plant that eats flies. Sometimes I catch them by my fly swat in the kitchen,  and stick them inside the pitchers. This plant resides in a glazed pot behind this computer. 

Gardenias trinity

Dad also a bit obsessed with my apples which are looking very fruitful this year. Well our street was a former apple orchard, so they should do well anyway. They are crimson spire.

At least they have been spared the chop. One Manuka was not so lucky. It's just trees can take a long time to grow, and then be cut down in a minute. I suppose that's a metaphor for life.

Today has been wet, it poured down, then  suddenly weather has changed and the sun is out. It's not really been much summer - haven't heard any cicadas yet, though I've managed to thwart a few wasps nests. 

I met a fellow gardener who came from Christchurch who had taken time out to pot up natives for the Christchurch Botanic gardens. Gardening for the Council is labour intensive for sure and pays minimum wage but it's a job that doesn't require too much brainpower apparently. I think to take away the tediousness of it gardening bosses come up with little games like who can weed the most in the fastest time so they can pay someone less. At least thats what its like gardening full time and then the rest of the time you can just have smoko for hours. 

I don't really garden that way though its different when its someone else's garden but I have put that behind me now. This year is precious time to spend with mum and time to appreciate New Gardenland because it's been what, more than 7 years and I feel I deserve a Sabbath break. My brother is back from Australia and has hinted big plans for his place (Grand Orangerie, Palace of Versailles replica) and Sis is bringing back her Pilea plant from London, and *gulp* may be coming back to stay....permanently! 

Am gardening..Do not disturb

 Dad pulled out my pumpkins that were just about to flower. I went out for a day and then came back and found they disappeared and all the plants under the tangelo tree which included catmint, tomatoes, coriander, onions and other special herbs.

I was mad because they were all growing so healthy. Now theres nothing but bare compost but at least the grass around the tree is one centimetre. I don't care about the grass, the way people hack it and scalp it and it just grows back more and I don't know why dad is so obsessed with it. I can't eat grass. 

I also hate landscapers and weedmat and not being able to garden through a pile of matted plastic. I hate that I can't garden and grow things in my own home, because of the lawn taking up everything and I hate that I can't grow anything anywhere else without people getting upset and angry with me for wanting to grow things. I hate that people want me to pull out GOOD plants and leave dead useless plants that are leggy and need cutting back. I hate that people grow roses and want me to prune them and I get poked or they leave dead roses stalks unpruned with black scaly spot on them and a tangle of thorns. Why do people plant roses. They are ugly things when not in flower. 

Otherwise I'm ok. Maybe its the shock of it and I'll just get over it but there will be no giant pumpkins this year. My wildflower plot is growing...but who knows if it will just get ripped out again by someone else. But we need flowers for the bees to pollinate the orchard.

I remember when one of the gardening bosses told my supervisor to prune all the plumbago that was just about to flower beautiful blue flowers down to knee height when he had been growing it for years and it had never flowered. My supevisor cried. It was a crime against the plumbago. 

I also recall when weeds were growing all through a bush and trying to weed underneath a bushy leggy perennial meant cutting it right back so it could grow again but leaving it left a gap and so it wasn't 'tidy' and my boss did  not speak to me for days. Because he did want it TIDY. I can't tidy without moving things around. 

Anyway its all a work in progress and nothing will be perfect but I am just a bit over it cos everything I do just seems to make things worse for everyone else like I can't even make an omelette without breaking eggs or do something without telling someone else. But this is what you do because otherwise how would you live? I sometimes wish I could just do my own garden without having to run around tidying other peoples, but then  I shouldn't have taken anything on and said I could do it when most people don't really want a garden at all. Trying to convince a non gardener that weedmat and suffocating soil and plants is NOT a good idea won't wash. 

My dad would just be happy with bare square of grass and nothing else for his weather station which records the temperature and rainfall. But why then can't that be done near a rugby field? My brother clicked his tongue and said Dad should just live in an apartment. 

Happy New Gardenland Year 2024

 It's a Leap Year, so we have extra days in Feb this year. The rain fell and the sun rose...another day in paradise aka Riverpark, or a little rectangular section of it. 

Dusty, the new resident cat, has given the birdlife a run for its money, and scared the living daylights out of numerous lizards/skinks. She originally came with a bell but, she shrugged those (both of them) including her engraved name tag with my phone number on it. Dusty, you supposed to catch rodents! Instead she follows me round when I trail grasses and flowers. I'm training her for the cat circus. I figure once she gets good enough she can go on Shortland Street as the clinic cat. 

I am considering also auditioning, as palliative care nurse (sorry there's nothing more we can do for you) or florist since my handwriting isn't bad enough to be a doctor and my latin only extends to plant names. Having a herbalist on Shortland Street would not do, they only use synthetic chemical drugs and 3M products. Well actually they use placebos and the blood is just watered down strawberry jam. In an ideal world there would be an acupuncturist at the clinic sticking pins into people. When you have acupuncture, all the secrets and traumas come out, it's almost as good as having a confessional/lie detector test. 

Sorry. I am rambling again. Plants! Yes they are now decorated in solar lights. Thank you Warehouse sale. My tomatoes are bearing fruit and pumpkins are flowering. I put in dusty miller which should be able to cope with the summer sun. Lobelia and helichrysum for edging.  Kings Plants Barn are bombarding me with emails nearly everyday saying I must come in and spend lots of money and take home all their plants. I think its nice they think their customers have endless streams of money to spend all on plants. 

Workloads increasing

 As the sun shines we make more and more hay. 

It's the way of the seasons, everyone frustrated they can't garden when its wet, but then with more daylight hours you can't garden enough. Weeds grow, get pulled out then grow again. 

Gardeners get stressed too, worrying that they can't do enough. But its not like I don't have my own garden to tend, which, if I was doing everyone else's, means my own is neglected. I don't feel ownership or kaitaiki of the whenua if I'm constantly being harangued about it or not allowed to do this or that. I thought about this as I stepped into the community garden and given the not so subtle message that I wasn't around enough. Well try looking after someone who may be terminally ill and caring for anyone outside your family just takes second place, I'm sorry and there are not two of me. Oh to be born a twin.

This is why I don't judge other peoples gardens. They do the best they can with the time they have. If it's not in their own backyard, there's the cost of time and fuel to get to the garden, tools, and other resources. Don't make a rod for your back is what I say as I pulled out the remaining broccoli and sprinkled what were meant to be wildflowers in the empty plot. A bit late. The wildflowers came with a dense A4 page of instructions that only rivaled the mushroom kit in complexity. 

I thought you just scattered the wildflowers wildly around and flowers grew up wild. Why did they need lime and coddling and raking and scattering medium and 4-6 weeks of moisture AND roundup spray before hand?? That wasn't really the definition of wild. They should rename them something like farmflowers or certified bee pollination centres. 

I'd been given a seed bomb and chucked it in my garden curious to find out when it would go off. The best seed bombs are tomatoes and citrus, particularly lemons. Why does gardening have to feel like hard work and drudgery, when instead it could be a seed throwing party? I would love to throw tomatoes and citrus around or squash grapes with my barefeet. Potato harvesting can be a treasure hunt, and weeding can also be a hide and seek game. With a machete. 

But no within the norms of straight lines and machinery, crop circles are just aberrations. I feel this is what machines do, take all the fun out of it, until its just a mindless job requiring headphones and steel rulers and weed mat pins. Inputs and outputs. Thanks to primary industry and fake christmas trees. We have all these wilding pines, and we import fake christmas trees from China, who must wonder what crazy people buy this junk. Its ok I was once a crazy person too but after given too many paper (and chocolate) roses I just wanted the real thing. 

Growing up

 Like my lilies?

They've suddenly burst into flower and lend the corner of the deck an exuberant touch and it's not Mother's Day either. 

I found putting my foot down worked and good news is, I may actually have some REAL garden work over the next few months (apart from my own garden that is) which may keep widows happy. I have dealt with both kinds of widow, the genuine widows who need help with their gardens, and the other kind I sometimes want to run a mile from  - black widows who are never happy with anything you do. 

Thankfully I've come across more genuine widows than black widows and Lord knows fewer and fewer have daughters that will help them if they haven't all run away and/or married off themselves. I've learned to accept this in life and never bothered by criticism because its almost universal that mothers dislike their daughters and don't get along with them. The Queen after all, could never get away from HER mother. Her palace(s) was so huge that she wanted to be close to her because living in a 250 room house it seems a bit strange to just move to another apartment just so you can be alone, it's not as if she needed the extra space. 

My counselor looked at me with pity in her eyes. Is there anything you struggle with? I go, oh no not really. Mum's always complained about me and to me and in front of everyone else as well its nothing new and nothing I can do anything about. 

I think she was secretly wondering if I was going to move out (where to?) and throw in the towel as well as cart mum off to a rest home/retirement village. I'd worked in those before and knew they were good for some people and hell for everyone else. It was always eerie in those places (palaces?) though because I would be the youngest person there. And it was sort of like Downton Abbey. Except the people you were servants to were just the elderly. 

No I said, I have my own room (library) and my garden and I don't really need anything else. But a massage would be nice. 

Spray and walk away/get cancer

 Gardening for other people isn't the joy its cracked out to be - especially if the people you are gardening for aren't actually gardeners - they hate gardens and would never do it themselves, so what they are really asking is you do all the dirty work for them and NOT have a garden at all.

I've often come across this attitude that for some people, gardening involves spraying herbicides to kill all plant life that's in the way. So I've decided to say no to anyone who asks me to do that. I am quite happy to hand weed so that you can enjoy your garden of the plants you DO have, but to ask me to expose myself to harmful chemicals and kill whatever is growing on your property just because you are unable to get down on your hands and knees or that it will take too much time to do, is like asking me to go to war with napalm.

I conscentiously object. 

And I'm sorry I am not sacrificing my life so your 'garden' can look 'tidy'. 

I am quite happy to do pruning, or a bit of weeding, hedge clipping, mulching, watering or even shock horror...propagating which involves actual growing of plants. But please don't ask me or even think about getting me hooked up with a backpack sprayer with a lethal chemical.

I have known too many people who've died of exposure and inevitable cancer to toxic chemicals (and it can happen very quickly) to want to do something so stupid. 

So there have said that as a public declaration. 

I don't have a 'gro safe' (they can't even spell) certification nor would I consider getting one. I would not ever sell Roundup to anyone. I have enough problems being exposed to petrol fumes everytime I get behind the wheel of a car on the Auckland motorway (headaches, brain fog) and not exercising my legs so that they atrophy from underuse. So whether its lung or lymphoma cancer I'm a bit risk averse and want to keep my life thank you very much.

Christmas Cactus

Too early for Christmas?

But it's Christmas Cactus season, already!!

I had my first Christmas Card, sent by a corporate yesterday and already have my olive tree decorated with new Christmas ormaments. I bought Christmas lights for the Garden Club raffle, and have packed of shoeboxes to somewhere on the planet full of toothbrushes and pens and notepads. Apparently everyone wants toothbrushes for Christmas for some strange reason, though I've tried to include a few tiny squishmallows (that you can't eat). Though banned from decorating the house I can at least do the garden...and so I will sure to have Christmas lilies and Christmas potatoes and Christmas strawberries this year.

But its only November, I hear you say. Yes well, best to get in early before the exhaustion sets in from seasonal confusion overload. I am still recovering from both Covid round 2 (thanks mum) and hayfever. 

Otherwise I have been tres busy doing garden since daylight saving means we get more hours in the day to do the garden - that's what its there for right? I must have been gardening in my sleep as I get up, garden, nap, garden, then eat, then garden and garden some more. I have put in my tomatoes (more) and potted up the capsicums, emptied and refilled the water tank, and Dusty has been catching lizards. Why I don't know as lizard soup isn't that appetising, but maybe she wants me to catch some fish if using lizards for bait?

That is if we are even allowed to go fishing anymore thanks to increasing pollution. I swear I thought it was going to be the end of the world when I realised I can't even go fishing in the creek anymore and die of giardia/bacteria/virus from drinking the water. 

So much for 'eco-city', what was that again? 

Thoughts of death and dying have been hovering around recently as the sun has climbed higher in the sky, making white people anxious that they cannot survive the climate change to tropical paradise while the dark people never complained about the ice age..they just adapted. But its not that, it's when school caretakers take to spraying roundup on their school fields and children run around barefoot and get poisoned that I'm sometimes feel like saying something but you know what...baby boomers never listen to a Gen Yer what do I know? 

Oh and we also have a change in government to the 3 wise men or the 3 bullies take your pick depending on your perspective, so its likely I won't have a job anytime soon thanks to ....the monkeys on the computers. However, I can still garden while I can and if it were not such an expensive hobby I can do it on the smell of oily rags as everything run by the govt is. After all I need food on the table without having to buy it from Pak N' Save. The Stick Man really needs more food, as I contemplate  working at Pak N'Save may be my next job. They have all this empty space that needs gardening in front of the carpark...

 

 

Urban Floral Farmlet

 The Garden Club members embarked on a local visit to the Urban Floral Farmlet in Te Atatu Peninsula where grower Marisa had turned her backyard into a floral enterprise. It was part of our 'garden trip' for club members now we were no longer travelling vast distances en masse to exotic locations (outside of Aucks) and haunting  RSAs. 

Marisa had spoken at one of our club nights on the joys of working from home, meaning quitting your corporate job to invest in your own backyard, and all the things she learned along the way. Being a complete novice, she learned plenty and was passionate about each and every seedling. 

We encountered beds of cottage flowers grown to make stunning bouquets, of particular note were statice and billy buttons. Then we were treated to a tulip goody bag, and dahlia tubers on sale. It was sort of like exit through the gift shop. 

Afterwards everyone mosied on down to Woodside. I was not going to give any long talk explaining all the trials and tribulations and consequences of NOT working at the community garden since I'd hardly any time at all down there and the ladies could see for themselves but Jacqui took the reigns and spoke about slug control and other such things to the rapt audience while I caught up with Karyn and her new dog that I'd never met. Cute. I wonder if Dusty could come along to the garden too. 

I was asked one question though 'Can you plant anything you like or do you have to check in with others first'? I wanted to give an honest answer because this was never my private garden but even at home its seems like I have to ask permission to even breathe so I wasn't sure what to say. Don't get caught? Within reason? You have to fill out a form...

The ladies were hungry after that and we repaired to Mitre 10 cafe for much needed sustenance and possibly shop at the Garden Centre. 

I reflected that I couldn't possibly turn my own backyard into an urban floral farmlet and make a profit selling flowers when its enough just to even attempt to have a garden on hard clay. But good on Marisa for making a go of it. 

My dahlia is called 'Rocco' and its pompom purple, so I will be putting that in along with two kinds of potatoes (Agria and Jersey Benne) in a few days. The rain has come, I'd emptied the barrel with seaweed fertiliser and now it's full up again. 

I've a list of things to buy now the growing season is here and things to do. Please don't ask me to do any extra things round November/December. It's gardening time. My job is cut out for me in my own garden that its likely that I can't do anyone else's jobs outside of home for a while yet. Post Covid, people always talk about working from home, but they never talk about working from the garden which is where the real labour of love is. 

Labour

 I missed my calling to be a botanist. They don't really have that specialty in New Zealand, where horticulture is relegated to the Primary Industries and gardeners are seen as The Help, paid to mow your lawns and keep the rugby fields looking green. Was thinking on this yesterday as on Labour Weekend, which is the traditional time of year to plant tomatoes, Bev, Cenny and I snuck off to have a look at the Auckland Botanic Gardens.

It was a lovely mid spring stroll, with many flowers out. Falun Dafa had taken over and set up booths everywhere extolling the virtues of traditional Chinese arts and crafts, which had been supressed in Communist/Athiest China. There were colourful displays of lotus lanterns and spring festivities, lion dances, and flowy garments. I forgot that I wasn't Chinese enough and seemingly blended in. I learned about Chinese traditional herbal medicine, that surely was another calling I missed too. I can't really explain how I ended up born in Auckland, it just happened. I like to blame my parents for that. 

Unlike Hamilton Gardens, Auckland Botanic Gardens doesn't have themed gardens, so there is actually no Chinese garden as such. I saw the makings of a Japanese garden near the magnolias, where some Japanese people were doing impromptu Karaoke, but so far, no bamboo, rice paddies and interesting rocks that make up a Chinese Garden. Despite having the largest Chinese population in NZ. Instead Auckland has a Children's garden, a South African garden, a Rose Garden and an English cottage garden. There's an Endangered Native species Garden (Maori garden? Mara?) and a herb garden and a perennial garden. 

In bloom and stood out were clivias under the shade of camellias and redwoods, and banksia yellow roses on the trellises. There was also a geranium looking pink flower pom pom looking plant that I quizzed Bev on - she reckons its a verbena bonasoreriss or something, but I reckon it's a geranium (the leaves) or lynchis (the flowers) . It had no tag or label though everything else had which was annoying. The one plant you want! 

There were eels in the pond, and we didn't really get round everything, as its park like grounds are extensive and you really need a sun hat and maybe a buggy if you want to see everything. There is a library and a cafe, but its enough to look at all the plants and not be tempted to take cuttings. 

I got back home to put my tomatoes in (Grosse Lise and Oxheart) and in general get ready for the growing season. Next Saturday the garden club are descending on the community garden at Woodside and I haven't even been to do any gardening! Arrgh. They will soon see there's a lot to do. Wonder if this a sneaky way to get recruits in. Probably not as it takes a lot of effort and labour to have a productive vege-kitchen garden especially if you don't live on site. 

Yes it would be my dream job to work in the Botanic gardens (I claim the herb garden) but since I live out West, there is not a chance I can get there in time thanks to Auckland traffic which takes at least 40 minutes to 2 hours on a good day. And you have to do gardening EVERY day. Not just five minutes on the weekend or on Labour Day!