Roger's Garden Centre

 I finally made the trip to Rogers, thanks to Bev, who knew the way and was happy to take me. So Thursday morning we set off and entered the plant lovers paradise that was Rogers personal domain and business. It was a clear day, no rain, and I had a list of plants I was hoping to buy. We wandered around for a bit and then snagged a pink wheelbarrow to put our purchases in. There is barely enough room to walk for the wheelbarrows so its easier to look first and then carry your plants to a wheelbarrow which won't block anyone else. This is why everyone recommends to NEVER go in the weekend. 

This is not your average garden centre. Its more of a wholesaler, or maybe the plant lovers equivalent of Cost-Co. There are no fancy signs or changing displays or deals - what you see is what you get. But you will get it at least half the price that you'd pay for at a regular garden centre. It's absolutely crammed with plants.

Roger was at the till with a helper calling out the prices so he could enter them in. No barcodes at this garden centre. Thankfully he DID have an eftpos machine. 

Unfortunately, I am not allowed any shrubs or trees and Rogers has more of those than the annuals and perennials I am after, though he still had plenty of what was there. 

I managed to purchase -

3 penstemons

3 blue pratias

lavender 'sidonie'

punnet of mixed polyanthus

variegated oregano

blue salvia

Roger told me that lavender 'sidonie' was Australian and smells more like sage. It stinks he said, bluntly. I took a sniffle, the label said 'highly fragrant' but he was right it didn't smell lavendery but more herby. However I didn't take it back because I was more attracted to its unusual feathery leaves than its scent. That was the only advice he gave me - his cat wasn't there this time guarding the money.

Then he had a long chat with Bev who was next in line. Bev had once managed a garden centre that got taken over by Bunnings. So they talked shop and old colleagues. Bev said Roger once worked at the Wholesale Tree Company before he set up his own business, and he kept his overheads low because he ran it all without any extra full time staff (though he had someone call out the prices) and sold just plants, while other garden centres had teams at the checkout, giftware, cafes, compost and garden tools.

Bev said when she had took over for Bunnings they had stripped out the old garden centre from Hardware House that had a beautiful aviary and fountains and big palm trees display and it had to be run as just a hardware store that sold widgets. I said what a shame and she said they didn't care about plants and she was the only staff member who knew anything about them. 

Bev said she was quite a bad gardener in that she was totally obsessed with plants and wanted them all. But they also out grow their allotted space and she needs to edit them quite a bit. I said that she was like a parent who complained about their children having to look after them and then complain they grew too big and had to leave home. Maybe you can love plants TOO much? 

I pondered this but decided that plant love was really part of the human condition for without plants providing us with oxygen maybe we would all die. I never understood the whole 'carbon credit' thing. Since when was carbon emissions in the air now touted as bad? People can't stop breathing or respiring. Why aren't people measuring the amount of oxygen being produced by plants photosynthesising the carbon dioxide and transpiring? Shouldn't there be oxygen credits instead of carbon credits? 

I'll just leave that for the scientists to figure out as its beyond me. 

Mitre 10 Makeover

 If I were to makeover the Lincoln Road Mitre 10 Garden Centre....

Because it is basically a flat square with walls all around, it would be easy to design something that plays on this perfect, square shaped symmetry.  No more plants in boring long supermarket style rows. I would open out the space to make it more customer friendly, so that when you walk around it's like being IN a garden. 

As you walk into the Garden Centre, I would have an arch covered with climbing plants, and in the nook near the entrance a water feature display with ferns and hanging baskets and orchids in the cool shade. Then off to the side a little library (an actual little library of gardening books knocked together out of wood off cuts from the ingenious Mitre 10 handyman carpenters) and painted in Mitre 10 colours. Then as you walk on further all around the walls of Mitre 10 are trellis with climbers growing up the walls, and in each nook there's a different display of plants, with low hedging all around to contain them. 

There is paving laid down so you can see the different paths you can make using different materials. And around the edges of the paths, edging plants and annuals. Then there's a hillock made of ground cover plants. In the centre of the space is a green playground where children can play and climb trees in the middle. And on the sunny side of Mitre 10 is a large square foot kitchen garden of raised beds near the Columbus Cafe, which has lots of herbs around and coffee plants.

Then there's the she sheds and Men caves display. The She Sheds are filled with pink tools and the Mens caves have blue tools, and this is also where the gifts section is. 

There is a butterfly garden display and beehives and worm farms section with all the plants needed for that. And around Mitre 10 there would be a hedge plant clipped with the words Mitre 10 in it, like I've seen in motorways around Toronto, where, instead of billboards, businesses clip their names into hedges. 

There is also a clearance corner of plants that are desperately needing a new home, and they have signs stuck in their pots like 'take me home' and 'love me, I'm cheap'. 

There is also seats in this garden centre so shoppers can rest their weary legs for a bit apart from the cafe and read some DIY gardening books or maybe talk with the staff who are busy ferrying plants from place to place and looking after them. In the indoor section are the house plants on display. 

There is a contest to grow the biggest orange pumpkin at Mitre 10 because it's the biggest, most orange store in town. Along with orange, tangelo and mandarin trees of course. Every day as the giant pumpkins grow measurements are taken along with the giant beans stalks and sunflowers that can reach to the rafters of the largest mega garden centre in all of New Zealand. Try and beat that, Bunnings. 

Good on ya, Mitre 10

 I don't normally endorse big businesses but this one just might be the saviour (of not just me, but gardens all across New Zealand). I am blessed to live in walking distance of a Kings Plant Barn, a Mitre 10, and a Warehouse (or a short drive). They all have plants. There's also a Morrisons Florist, and well, the entire stretch of Lincoln Road used to be vineyards and orchards. 

There's a Bible college, two retirement villages, a wananga, two intermediate schools, several churches, a pub and hotel, a hospital, cafes, yum cha restaurants, pizza outlets, dentist, beauty parlours, tattooists, a Bird Barn (that's always been there) gas stations, McDonalds, three supermarkets, a pet store, a sports stadium, actually almost everything I need is right up the road. 

The only thing I'm really hanging out for is an independent bookshop, though the Warehouse has a book department. Although its not really the same, getting your books off a pallet in the Warehouse. Though I'm not fussed about shopping from a forklift in Pak n' Save. I just wish they'd continue to offer their old cardboard boxes like they USED to. And their stray shopping trolleys are a menace. 

Anyhow. I am such an old timer I remember when Palmers had a garden centre at the end of Lincoln Road where the EuroDell is. Mitre 10 was only a small hardware store in Henderson Square, selling hammers and duct tape. It expanded a bit when it moved further up Sel Peacock Drive (where there aren't any peacocks) and then when Universal Homes shifted, a huge orange giant MEGA Mitre 10 was built right next to the biggest supermarket in New Zealand. We Westies are a hungry bunch. We're also mostly DIYers. 

Now everyone in West Auckland knows, when you buy a new house (if you can afford one) the landscaping is not done for you. It's mostly bare ground and all the top soil has been scraped away to be sold somewhere else. I know. Why do they do that? 

So if you want to have a garden - it's on you. If you don't have one, you could possibly use any flat land to build a car park and charge people to park there. It's not unknown for that to happen in Auckland. But there are a few homeowners who want to put food on the table and don't really want to have to shop at Pak n Save more than they have to. Renters too, at least want a little outdoor space so they can get out of the house for a bit for some fresh air. 

Mitre 10 to the rescue. They have plants plants plants galore. In fact their Garden Centre section is threatening to overtake their indoor section. And now with the trend of houseplants, (instead of HVACS) to use as air conditioners, it's actually happening. At first it was just fake plants, but people really wanted the real thing. No longer just a decor item, the houseplant is the next essential ingredient for a healthy, happy home. 

I am happy to report that Mitre 10 has practically everything you need, even a gift section and cafe, she sheds and mens sheds, baskets, pots, power tools, hand tools, fountains, compost, wheelbarrows, arches, benches, raised beds, that it's really giving Kings and the Warehouse a run for their money. The quality is good and the prices are fair. And they don't look down on you like Bunnings does! See previous blog posts about run ins with Bunnings staff. 

Return to Sender

 My letterbox scouting trip did not go very well. I thought I would be able to just buy a new letterbox from Mitre 10 and install it  and all would be well. Now the shops are open we are able to go and view the products instead of blindly ordering them online and hoping for the best.

I took mum along because she has strong opinions on what a good letterbox looks like. I just wanted one that would not rust, corrode, or rot. Seeing as Auckland is known for rainy weather, I thought a weatherproof one would surely be the best. Because we don't have a wall to mount a box on, or room to inset some bricks, the only option seemed to me the plastic ones. 

Mum thought the plastic ones, of which there are two types, were super ugly. There is a rural type one that has a little flag you can open up, very long and open only at the front, and the more urban type one that you can lift the lid on a hinge, basically, looks a bit like a mini rubbish(or worm) bin with a slot. 

They were $115. I was in despair because we surely needed a new letterbox but with nothing much to choose from how was Santa going to leave us any Christmas presents? Let alone Christmas cards. We also looked in Bunnings. They had fancier letterboxes, but same story. 

Unless...I write to NZ Post, tell them about my dilemma, and ask them if they would mind sparing a not used letter box for us. Or...hitch a sack to a post. Or empty my worm bin, and use THAT for our letterbox. You'll just need to lift the lid to put the letters in. 

Anyhow I can't think too much as my brain will hurt and I'll start sneezing again at the prospect of going all over town shopping for a new letterbox. Perhaps there will be one at the dump, that some  owners have ditched because it looks too old fashioned for their brand new property renovation/development  that I could rescue? 

While pondering this Dad would like to share the photo he took of our bottlebrush, now in bloom. It's a Little John one so won't grow to shade his thermometer. I actually heard him surmising, after I had cut back the fennel a bit more, that maybe he COULD move the thermometer a few centimetres further into the lawn.

 

Potting around

Mum said we needed potting mix and the new Bunnings was open up at Massey, so I resolved to go check it out. I wasn't that keen because last time I went to a Bunnings for potting mix on advice of a friend they had sold out. I also recall the last time I shopped for plants there (at New Lynn) the staff were less than helpful.  Well I couldn't even get in the doors since the carpark was full. 

I carried on down the road. I guess we can get potting mix at Palmer's. Or Mitre 10. Even though I have a Mitre 10 just up the road on Lincoln.  When we got to Palmers it was like a ghost town as it had completely shut up shop. Huh. So I got the potting mix from Mitre 10 instead, which was doing  a roaring trade, and it had plenty of parking, now that Palmers no longer was open. 

So what happened to Palmers? It was a brand new store (opened 2014) although I questioned what a huge store was doing in the middle of nowhere the same with all the other Westgate shops with not a soul for miles around. It had a nice cafe if pricy and half of the shop was devoted to knick knacks like bbqs,  spa pools, designer scarves and kitchen utensils just like every gardener needs to complete their luxury lifestyle. Ha who are they kidding. Real gardeners don't have money, that's why we garden. 

If I know anything about retail it's this - a lot of retail business owners have more money than sense. The investment they put in to their stores hoping to recoup it in sales far outweighs the plain facts of economics like does anyone actually have that much spare money to spend every week to keep them afloat? The people who shop retail simply cannot afford to buy in wholesale the quantities that make the business owners able to purchase those goods in the first place. Certainly one was overwhelmed with choice when entering Palmers Planet. But gardeners want plants and not fancy knick knacks and certainly don't have the space in their ever decreasing urban plots for a spa pool. 

So I made the drive back home, with my Mitre 10 potting mix. Perhaps coronavirus had indeed hit businesses hard and I wondered what had happened to all the plants. If I had owned Palmers I would have desperately planted all my stock if I had known business was closing or given it to community gardens if I was unable to return everything to the nurseries or the other stores. On your approach to the former Palmers you pass by acres of weed infested empty land, when it was operating out in desolate Northwestgate I had hoped it would have somehow transformed the place into some horticultural paradise by proxy but alas the only thing that is there now is an empty concrete barn painted with bright yellow flowers, as a monument to what was, for a brief moment in time, a green oasis in the concrete carpark jungle of bulldozed development. 

Sisters are doing it for themselves

Well I've finally done it. I've got the base, mattress, and blankets, now ready for final cover and cushions - the plants!
My wisteria by the fence is losing its leaves. I've planted purple liriope along the fence line that I dug out from Sock's and Mary's bed, as well as mondo grass by the path, and around the azalea. Under the azaela I've placed a thick mulch of pine needles, scrounged from the reserve.

I've prepared the bed two ways, first dug over and turned the turves down, another patch I've not dug over and just placed newspaper and my homemade compost on top. I anticipate I may have to do some weeding in future because not all the kikuyu will die, but at least the soil is loosened enough it will be easier to weed. Plus I didn't want to lose all that lovely soil and spread weed seeds. The mondo grass did have some oxalis poking through but I've mostly removed those, so will keep an eye on it. I also added my new secret ingredient - biochar. Here's hoping it works! And of course later when things are growing I will add more CPP.

Now for the fun part, what to plant in the middle. Here are some contenders.

Ajuga - bugleweed, a purple groundcover I've now got a few of that I can divided and replant, perfect time for it is now. That will go around the azaela.

Strawberries - could make a good groundcover, but not confident Martha will scratch them out or eat them all.

Red cabbages or ornamental, purple cabbages.

Daikon radish - a clay breaker? Or would that be better broadcast to where I dug the mondo grass out?

Catmint - I'm really hoping to give it a good chance here, and the purple flowers will compliment the wisteria. It's a good edge/border plant.

Chives - perhaps a row of chives all along the mondo so it's within easy picking distance?

Purple salvia - I have two growing in tyres I could easily transplant

So many choices! But my next project to do is get some early potatoes in for summer. I have a bed prepared and need to just drop the potatoes in. It's basically a pile of clippings, prunings and fallen cabbage tree leaves. I'm going to give the gardenia a haircut as well to shape it up after its finished flowering, as it's getting leggy.

Lots of stuff to do! And only a week or so before Mum and Dad get back! We had our first frosty morning two days ago but all the plants seem to have survived that one. My arch near collapsed on that windy day and I was a bit furious with Trade Tested who sold me the product and they were absolutely no help at all. Um why don't you sell replacement screws or anchors with your product. Do you guarantee it? All they did was tell me to go to Mitre 10 or Bunnings. Well I already did and bought four rebars to pound into the ground. Try doing that single handed, well I had to as there was nobody around to help me.
Anyway the wind died down and its seems to be holding for now, but Dad did a hideous job of staking it with bright red ties. It looks frightful, and he's absolutely ruined the buxus around it. But what can you do, all of them are mere males. One learns never to ask a man to help as all they just give bad advice and don't lend a hand, or they just stick sellotape over the wound. You end up pulling out their bad fix-it job and starting all over.

Aiya. So here I am, forget about DIY.  It's DIM Doing it myself.   Or rather SADIFT. Sisters are doing it for themselves!

Dizzy Lizzies and sizzling sausages

One of the ladies at the retirement village calls 'Busy Lizzies' 'Dizzy Lizzies' which I find quite amusing. I don't know if she thinks that is what they are called or whether she invented a new name for them. Names for plants are easily mixed up. For example my workmate always confuses lobelia with libertia, and ajuga with gaura. I remember being told off by one of the Bunnings sales assistants that I didn't know the latin name for Snow-in-Summer. Oh you mean Cerastium?

Even my boss said after giving me a long list of tasks to do that I could mess around with pots after you planted the ageratums. What ageratums, we don't have those. I thought we were planting alyssum! (He doesn't like to be corrected).

Some people are exceptionally well versed in latin names, especially the Oratia Native Plant Nursery man. He knew the latin name of each and every native plant and it like were were was talking another language. Or an encyclopaedia.  Every time I would say a common name, he would counter with the latin. Spleenwort. Asplenium obfastatum. Kowhai. Sophora tetraperta. Kauri. Agathis Australis. Nikau. Rhopalstylis Sapida. Cabbage Tree. Cordyline. Flax. Phormium.
  I was walking by all his plants when I saw a groundcover. Its that violet? He said yes, that's a native violet. But it's white, not violet. He said yes well they still call it a violet even though it's not violet.

I am considering having latin names for everything. So instead of a calling a spade a spade I will call it a pala nutrum. We are not going to have a sausage sizzle we are going to have a farciminis sizzle.
And nobody is going to be confused how anyone says tomato or tomahto because I will call it a solanum lycopersecum. Anyone who asks for tomato sauce will immediately be corrected. Oh you mean solanum lycopersicum sauce?

If this catches on Daffodil day will be renamed Narcissus Day. Instead of poppies for Anzac day we will be wearing papaver.
We won't call weeds just weeds anymore we need to be specific and call them by their real names like taraxacum officinale and cannabis sativa.

By the way if anyone is reading this today the Woodside Gardeners are  having a farciminis sizzle on at the Lincoln Road Mitre 10. If you are hungry will be selling them for $2. You get bonus extra sauce if you can give me the latin name. We will start at 10 and catch the lunch shoppers crowd. Don't be impatien or will start calling you a 'dizzy lizzy'.

Living locally in the Auckland Bioregion

Was the name of the final permaculture workshop we had yesterday.

I am exhausted and my brain is about to explode. I have all these ideas for my patch. I am reading about Transition Towns and eco-sourcing and permaculture design books and garden style books and wondering just what will happen when we run out of oil. Perhaps we will have electric cars powered by water and Auckland will still be a rat race with millions of rats running round it trying to find their cheese twisties up 20 storey skyscrapers.

My small and slow solution might be if you going to build these really tall buildings at least grow some vines over them. Mulenbeckia likes a blank wall of concrete.

So my vision for the future is this..

We will have bicycles and electric bikes as well as pedal cars just like the Flintstones did. The speed limit will be lowered to 30kph if you want to go any faster you need to take the train or move to Hamilton. Imports, of both people and stuff will be banned for a year. We need to see if we can be self sufficient for a year or so, I'm sure Auckland can survive without any more new second hand Japanese cars or gourmet cat food from Australia.

In that year everyone will start their own backyard, front yard or side yard balcony garden. Every household will have two raised beds planters, a compost heap, a lemon tree and worms. Every household  will also be given a chicken and a lamb, to graze their patch, because lawnmowers will be banned (it will be really hard to get petrol).

Our parks will become owned by the people that live within walking distance so every neighbour will have the opportunity to become stewards of their park and can make it their own garden. Instead of traffic lights we will install garden roundabouts with flowers.

Our Auckland sewerage system, now that its discovered that the overflow from rain water pushes sewage directly into our harbour causing our beaches to become polluted and the fish to die, will be fixed so that, rainwater from roof run off goes into the garden not the wastewater. So everyone will need to install diverter taps from their roof to a tank or watering can, or create a pond where they can stock with fish which will feed their hydroponic lettuce growing system.

All restaurants in the Auckland area will have designated kitchen gardens and suppliers will need to be local. Supplies of grain will not be a problem as we will convert all the disused muddy rugby fields to growing rice and wheat if they don't like to live on potatoes. (I don't mind..I would eat potatoes everyday if I could).  Unfortunately that means some people will have to give up playing rugby but surely thats a small sacrifice, rugby players will need to start training for 'Round the Spaghetti Junction' bicycle race instead.

Since berms are not going to be mown we can now make these into flower gardens to bring beneficial insects, bees and other pollinators into our neighbourhoods and to pollinate our fruit trees. Each neighbourhood will have a special harvesting road side stall with an honesty box so on the way home from work or school everyone can have a snack or food for dinner.

The Warehouse, Mitre 10, Bunnings, Countdown and all retailing shopping malls, since there will no longer be imports for a year will be empty and people that couldn't afford a house in Auckland can live in them, they can become refugee camps for the homeless until the other towns in NZ decide they would like some JAFAs after all and invite them to set up in their town.

Every church will have its own garden with flowers too so that I don't need to go to the Warehouse and buy flowers. Actually I won't need money at all because rates will not be charged for a whole year. With food I grow in the garden and a roof over my head I and everyone in Auckland will be content, and on weekends we can all go fishing and catch fish and dig for pippis and cockles in our unpolluted harbour.

How this all will come about I don't know but anything is possible!

Feedback

When I think of feedback I just have this picture of vomit. You feed and then it comes back to you. Or possibly regurgitation. Anyway it's not exactly a pretty picture, but it can be positive or negative.
Perhaps if I ask the right question, for example, do you like my garden? As opposed to, what do you think of my garden? The first question will force people to think yes, they have to say YES whereas if I ask the latter people will studiously ignore me. Then they might later point out it's full of weeds, is missing Shakespeare quotes or some other thing I hadn't really noticed.

I am struggling with the fourth principle a bit in permaculture as it's this.

Principle 4. Apply Self Regulation and Accept Feedback.
The sins of the fathers are visited on the children unto the seventh generation

This all sounds a bit Old Testamenty to me. Or is it, if you throw something holy to the dogs they will rend and bite you, the same as casting pearls before swine? (Negative) but on the other hand, If you teach a man to fish as opposed to giving him one he can fish for more than one day? (Positive)?

All I know is I recently put some plastic pots out, advertised it all on Neighbourly website, the first lot went, hooray, but then the second lot I put out was just sitting there for days and nobody took them, even when about three different neighbours said they'd come and take them. Finally I got tired of seeing those pots sitting outside my gate saying FREE POTS Please Help Yourselves, and nobody helping any, that I took them back.

Is this negative feedback and teaching me to self-regulate, and not buy so many plants? Or maybe it means I am meant to use them for something, like making cuttings for our food forest/orchard.

*brain neurotransmitters swirling*

In other self-regulatory news I have put in more lawn chamomile near the woolly thymes in the driveway bed, as well as adding some snow in summer. Or cerastium, as Bunnings sales assistant girl informs me. I have to know the Latin name you see, otherwise she won't serve me.

Ok ok I'm really bad at accepting feedback. I would prefer it if my plants talked back to me instead of non-gardening people butting their unwanted opinions on me, or maybe...they can write blogs of their own? However, the technology is here, it's all self-regulatory, and you can now post comments on Facebook to your hearts content, and below, and you won't be blocked and I won't unfriend you.

It's like I have read all these brilliant books on Book Chooks and all people want to talk about is what they saw on tv. I even had one so-called friend say 'I'm sorry your program is on at the same time as the tv and the tv program is more important'. Well thanks a lot for that piece of feedback, it's not as if I can change the time just to suit you. And, by the way, I don't think the tv cares to be your friend, but, don't you think that's a little hurtful to tell me some electronic box show you can record is more important than my brilliant show? Come on, TV has advertising we all know it's there to make money yet have I put any product placement in MY show? Do I make any profit from it?  Noo. Am I constantly asking you to buy stuff?  Like Facebook does??  Nooo.

Oh just accept it Selina. Sigh. Maybe all those sins my fathers did are rebounding on me. Lord have mercy.

I say tomahto

I had nowhere to put my tomatoes until I realised I could move the potatoes together in a straw basket, and use some terracotta pots I had around..so now I've planted them up with tomato mix, a bit of catfood (apparently, the best fertiliser) and mulching with hay on top.
The potatoes don't have leaves yet but they are sprouting and I can expect maybe a rosemary infused flavour as I put rosemary clippings in with the hay.

Then I netted the poppy bed all over to stop the chickens digging, securely this time, as, I can't be bothered chasing the chickens back to the backyard and it's mum's job to clip their wings.

Our sugar maple now has a bird feeder of wild bird seed, and I almost got some more solar lights but am reining myself in for now, very tempted to get christmas ones now they in the shops. I was looking for more snow-in-summer, and dusty miller, for Snowy's bed, but Bunnings did not have any. Snow-in-summer, do you have the botanical name? I don't what that is, replied the shop assistant. OMG. You work at a garden centre and expect your customers to know the LATIN name?? I almost replied. She looked posh, possibly British. Brits are like that, immensely annoying.

I'm sorry. But if you not native to NZ, don't expect us dumb kiwis to know what Carl Linneus named all the plants  at a run of the mill garden centre that also sells toolboxes and lumber. Next thing you know, the trade guys will be asking me what a two by four is in latin. Oh, pinus radiata?

For the record, it's 'Cerastium.' I knew that. But that's not what I call that plant, and it's not even what's on the label.

Oh, tomato, I don't know what that is. Do you have the latin name?
(No, I don't.)

????

I don't know, do some people just call them love apples? Cos I don't know what the hell tomatoes are.
Excuse me while I throw some rotten ones at the shop assistants at Bunnings.