Plantation

This morning I checked on my passionfruit vine that I had planted only a week ago and it was dug up by the roots. Sigh.
Chickens again?
I have to resign myself to the fact that chickens are sabotage my attempts to grow fruit. They also thought that it would be fun to dig up my freshly planted taro plants that haven't even been in the ground for three hours.

I may have to double fence the area again or drape netting over the whole border. Or use my water gun, I don't know why they don't like me I have never been mean to them and feed them corn cobs and bread and they still don't like me.

Has mum trained them to root out any plants she doesn't like? But she doesn't even know I planted taros. I pulled out the swan plant, but then I was the one who planted it so that was my prerogative. As far as I know the chickens have not planted anything of their own...

Anyway aside from minor annoyances my garden is going great and I'm enjoying all the spring flowers and new growth.

I have been on a short visit to Katikati where they grow avocadoes and all the seeds from Kings are packed there. I helped on a new orchard that had fifty trees, mulching and weeding.  In a few years time the yield from all these trees is going to be huge! They still need protection from frost though so its not you can just plant an avocado tree anywhere and it will grow. But Katikati has fine soil, perfect loamy texture and is the ideal place to grow fruit.

While there are orchards out in West Auckland still they are dying out and the soil here was never that conducive to abundant yields, being mostly clay. You can still work the land but its much harder, even at Woodside we need to bring soil in.  My home is on a former apple orchard subdivision, and when it was developed they took all the good topsoil away, so we were left with like a few inches.  When developers do that because they want homes on a level site they ruin the soil structure by digging it all up and scaring all the worms and beneficial fungi away, plus spraying with roundup, and God knows what other herbicides.

Maybe with all the Chinese buying land now even orchards we may start to see paddy fields with rice and the reason they are flooded is because then the weeds are kept down and nobody needs to spray rice as rice survives wet land. I am sure the rich Chinese investors actually don't really want more hotels, apartment blocks and eyesores, they come here because NZ is so beautiful and plentiful  and want to get away from living in a ghetto. Thats my theory anyway, I really don't say we can blame one group of people for the way housing and land prices are these days. Well at least not a whole nation. I would say its the greedy people from all nations that are ruining it for the rest of us. If someone offered me a billion dollars for my bit of land and it was the only home I had to live on and I loved it no way would I say yea sure. Thanks for your ridiculously expensive offer but its my homeland and I'm not selling.

Castles in the air

I made a trip down to Dunedin last month and visited the famed Larnach Castle, New Zealand's only castle. The castle had been restored to its former glory but it was not the castle interiors I was impressed by - every old home has antique furniture and the wealthy are no exception...it's just more lavish than ordinary people's I suppose and bigger and more of it.

What impressed me was the garden surrounding it. The Barker family bought the castle when it was in ruins and over 40 years later the garden is now flourishing and befits such a grand estate. It does not have a moat like I expected a castle to have but a circular lawn forecourt, a fountain, an allee or avenue of laburnum leading down to a reflective pond, iconic cabbage trees flanking the stairs, cypress, montgomery pine shelterbelts and hedges, a seaside coastal embankment complete with gazebo and pathways, a serpentine perennial garden, a rainforest walk with pongas and natives, and secret alice in wonderland motifs.  What is not to love?

From the turret you can see out to the Otago Peninsula on a clear day or be above the clouds and mist on all other days of the year. (Dunedin seems to brood in perpetual scottish gloom). I can imagine many scottish plays being enacted here with a Lady Larnach perhaps wandering the halls at night crying 'out damned spot' with her scrubbing brush.

Well, only about five family members died untimely in this tragedy so you might expect a few unhappy ghosts wandering about. It even has a banqueting hall with three roaring fireplaces but thankfully no three weird sisters predicting Dunedin woods on the march.

I have a leaflet here entitled 'the plants at Larnach Castle' and it lists each one like they are jewels in the crown. Well they are. They are the real stars of the show and give the castle life.
I am dreaming one day I may have a castle of my own. I may look after it for 40 years or more, surviving betrayal, intrigue and nervous breakdowns but it will be there long after I'm gone...

Spring is here!

My garden is coming to life!
I noticed some of the sweet peas are now budding.

Since I've been away the rains have drenched the soil and we've had a few thunderstorms to blow the cobwebs away and add nitrogen blast, and everything is now coming away. There are Dutch iris with purple and white blooms, peach blossom, hellebores, daffodils, snowflakes, lavender, nasturtiums, ajuga, bluebells, wisteria and numerous other blooms making an appearance.

The fruit trees are leafing out with new growth as well as the jacaranda and jasmine. All over the country, there are spring garden festivals of tulips and daffs, orchids, azaelas and rhodos, you name it, the flower will probably have its own festival. Although I haven't really seen an agapanthus festival yet. But I'm sure other lillies might have them.

My next project is to find two stepping stones as they have both become puddle stones and they are no good if we want to hang our washing and have dry feet.
I also probably am going to plant more carex to edge the bed where there's a dip and its become a bog. I tried primulas but they never lasted long.

Yates sent me tomato seeds for National Garden Week (Had no idea we had one) which were the 'mortgage lifter' variety. Well thankfully I don't have a mortgage anymore so I gave them to the neighbours in hopes this might spur them to continue on with their vege garden, which I see contains weeds and potatoes at the moment.

I still am pondering the merits of having a raised vege bed in the backyard but I notice the trend is now for something called hugelkultur which is a more organic way of cultivating veges. This comprises of lots of rotten logs mounded up with earth instead of edged rectangular beds that are very pricy and basically just large containers. The logs inside the mounds release fungi and beneficial organisms into the soil and the mounds allow sunlight to fall onto the veges for maximum growth.

Also drainage is much better among these raised mounds and there is less digging involved. So I am going to look into that a bit more before I start the earthworks.

With a little help from my friends...

Since our working bee was rained out on Saturday it was moved to Sunday. Jacqui came with me to the recycling depot to find a letterbox for Woodside to leave messages and mail in, that we had seen in another community garden in Melbourne. We thought it was a great idea so that's going to happen in our garden. Jacqui also spotted an easel which would be perfect as a stand alone sign to put notices on at the garden entrance.

I managed to grab some ponga logs for 50 cents each and a picnic table for $40. Miraculously, it fit in my funcargo and we managed to get it out again. Thank you Jacqui. It is now in the backyard.
The ponga logs are in my fernery and planted with spider plants. I'm not sure if this works but I am trying planting them in pockets, and also as uprights to lean my fruit salad plant against.

I planted the grevillea which is a juniper hybrid. It won't stay in its pot after all trailing off the bird bath as its actually a ground cover, so I planted it in the ground. I put kalanchoes in a pot on the bird bath stand instead. My kakabeak is being munched and I think that, despite the gorgeous red flowers that look like lobster claws its not a reliable plant for me and I am going to have to forgo this native in favour of grevillea which also has gorgeous red spider looking flowers but does not get munched to a stick. So what if it's Australian? Who knows kakabeak may actually do better in Australia perhaps the munching bugs and caterpillars don't live there!

My ceanothus has buds and so does my cistus rock rose. In a few weeks I may see many more blossoms. Pink flamingo Chinese Toon is also showing small signs of leafing out. My snowpeas are sprouting as are my sweet peas which have put in lots of climbing growth.

I have mulched the fernery with seaweed and moss magic mulch. Pink cyclamen in pots have also been added for a bit of colour, they were in the sale pallet at Mitre 10 and I couldn't resist them. They came with ceramic pots so I can move them indoors if I want and they would still look good.

Pink cabbage tree is still in its pot and I haven't really decided where it shall grow permanently yet. I have not seen them grow to the huge heights normal cabbage trees grow so am a bit unsure where to put it.

Big Sis came back from London bearing gifts so now I have yet another pair of gardening gloves, garden repair moisturiser for my hands and the BBC Gardener's World magazine. Which, strangely, has advertisements for adult nappies. I don't know if that means British gardeners are a incontinent lot or if it just means its hard to stay dry in England but I'm rather embarrassed for them. In NZ Gardener magazine all the advertisements are garden related that I can see and subtly enticing you to buy gumboots, garden mix, gloves and hoses. Except for the one on the back page of this month's mag which is for a Danske Mobler stressless chair.  Hammock yes, but a blonde model kicking off her high heels reclining in this green coloured recliner,  which looks right in the middle of a shopping mall...how is that related to gardening??

must plant plants...

to be planted

mint
comfrey
grevillea in a bigger pot
pink cabbage tree, where?

to be obtained

ponga logs
letterboxes for woodside
mini picnic table
arches

to be decided

vege plot for woodside, which seeds?
hanging baskets for church
heavenly bamboo or heavenly blue lithospermum?
rosemary and herbs in pots for kitchen garden
nasturtiums and strawberries
plaque for garden seat

to be read pile

'The Good Life' by Sarah O'Neill
'Common Lives' by Virginia Pawsey and Janice Marriot

to visit

Mincher Garden Albany, Coatsvile

to win

skip full of $1000 worth of Mitre 10 stuff
NZ gardener of the year competition
Yates vege garden competition
Waiheke Garden Safari
lotto...???

Nearly Spring

The weeks are flying by but it's really not the official growing season until Labour Day, everyone reckons. That's the day everyone labours to put their tomatoes in. They have begun appearing in the garden centres, but it's still too cold for them to be planted out. I read that tomatoes are actually perennial vines so once they have fruited, just chop them down, don't pull them out and they will resprout in spring.
Unfortunately I never really have good luck with tomatoes in my backyard and they go all scraggly when I neglect them. They are better off at Woodside where they get the star treatment. Apparently one secret is dairy milk powder. Although I've heard cat food does the trick...

So what's been happening chez moi?
I bought two willow trellises for my choko vines to grow on as well as passionfruit. I don't hold much hope out for the passionfruits as they just didn't really seem to thrive where I've put them, but I've cut them back hard and who knows, maybe they will decide to grow again. Choko however is one of the most vigorous vines you can get and thrive on neglect, so maybe it will be less effort.

Fluffy's bed is now mulched with prunings and it seems the lemon tree will thrive there. Manuka is flowering. Kakabeak is flowering too, with showy red flowers albeit small. I don't know how long it will last though as I need to pay attention to it and water but not too much as snails and leaf miners will chomp it to a stick. I've read that Kakabeak likes really windy conditions as that blows the pests away. So Wellingtonians, take note.

My fruit salad plants I've rerarranged beside the house which I hope maybe they will clamber up the wall. My climbing fig seems to want to scramble on the ground and resists the brick wall which it is meant to decorate.

Flowers making an appearance include snowflakes, daffodils, bluebells, and forget-me-not.  I've put in more aloe and really fingers crossed my chinese toon will herald spring with dramatic pink foliage. The peach tree is budding and won't really blossom until next few weeks I suppose but I've seen some come up early in other gardens.

I'm planning another garden trip this time to lovely, romantic Mincher up near Coatesville, Albany in late October. It's time to be inspired.

Paradise found!

I am back from Paradise World aka Rarotonga, Cook Islands.

My plants survived, well most of them.
Chickens dug up one parsley, one sage and one carex, but I just put them back.

I must tell you about the coconut palms as they are called over there the 'tree of life'. Unfortunately they do not grow well here in Auckland, but in the Cook Islands, they are like manna from God. The record for the fastest coconut tree climb is 7 seconds. (For a medium sized tree). A new coconut from which fresh juice can be drunk is called 'nu'. Then older ones you can have milk or make cream. The husks can be burned to repel mozzies. The leaves are used to make all sorts of things from hats to baskets to fans, watches, (on island time), the coconut shell  bras... a coconut tree can reach fruiting in five years. To open one, you need a sharp stick or tap it with a knife it can crack open.

Of course you may know this already but really they are nutty about coconuts there.
The place I was staying unfortunately had no hammocks which I must make a suggestion that they put some in although I did see some elsewhere.

Other plants of interest were hibiscus which gives you fresh flower every day to wear, gardenia (also known as tiare, or cape jasmine) for fresh leis, purple ivy as an interesting ground cover, and frangipani. There are cordylines but they are not like our cabbage trees being slimmer and different colours. But Coconut is King.

I wish I could have stayed longer to check out their botanic garden but there was a very lush garden at the Rarotongan spa entrance with a beautiful water feature with purple water lilies, fruit salad plants, bromeliads, ferns and coconut palms that I recall impressed me.
My stay was at the Edgewater where we had a garden room, which overlooked the gardens which you can see in these photos....