In the Zone

I suppose you could say I was 'in the zone' for gardening as yesterday I continued rearranging plants and now have removed all the ginger lilies except for a few in the corner in the rock bed so they are not crowding the other plants. They have now been moved to more suitable spots in the garden, a large clump by Sock's clivia and more in the flaming canna bed. I pulled up sheets of plastic 'mulch' from underneath and thought it was horrible stuff and never did a good job of suppressing weeds anyway, plus another disadvantage of black or plastic mulch you can only lay it down on an empty bed and then plant things through it, by cutting slits in plastic, it won't work if you already have a garden. I've tried thick cardboard mulch but the creeping buttercup now just grows right through it.  Where there is plastic mulch the beds are as dry as a bone and the soil, compacted and unable to breathe beneath it.  Where there is no mulch creeping violet (but white) has taken over, which looks quite lovely and no longer think of as a weed. It works sort of  like ivy although non climbing and when all knitted together makes a good ground cover.

I have learned to live with a few buttercups which, if my shrubs continue to grow to shade the area they will eventually die out, hopefully. En masse in flower they look quite pretty but I suppose it would never do for a garden magazine!

So..now Ceanothus 'blue sapphire' has room to spread its joy, I have liberated the echeverias from their pot and put them in more prominent places in the bed, as sort of have a glaucous blue theme in my garden, slash sub tropical. Not sure how this works but the trio of gardenia, ginger lily, frangipani are going to work together and may become a quartet if hibiscus wants to shoot up as well.

The blue/purple trio is lavender, ceanothus and echium. Then I have pinks scattered around, like sweet william, lambs ears, and thyme.

Beth's geraniums are now gracing the terrace/porch and I now have a sun lounger thanks to Trade-me it was only $5! My deck chair is coming soon too for the deck. I moved the circular cafe table and red chairs to one part of the deck and the picnic table is now under the shade of the tangelo tree. So now with that sorted I think I'm  nearly ready for the bbq season and parties. Bring on summer!

Gardening month

Looks like its gardening month for me as this is my tenth post and it's only halfway through November. Loretta invited me over for a tour of her garden where her geranium cuttings are doing well, and she has filled her front path with pansies, larkspur, petunia and marigolds.  By the side of the house she has made a vege garden and there is an island perennial bed.

Not to be outdone, I decided I better get cracking on my weed bed (now 1/3 weeded) near the drive. I had been contemplating last night of moving my hydrangea that is beside the garage to the side of the house where it can be seen, but also shaded from the sun to be next to the red camellia. Well now camellia has a friend, and she also has more companion plants I have moved and they include  two Nandina heavenly dwarf bamboo 'Firepower', one red edged hebe, a nasturtium, two red impatiens, one red spider flower grevillea, a crassula, and a diosma breath of heaven. It's a bit of a red theme.

On the other side of the house, I have taken the frangipani out of her pot and planted next to the gardenia. So she is directly under my bedroom window, and any fragrant flowers I will be able to reach down and pick from my window. The two star jasmines I have planted to climb up the alcove on the northern side.

I have also tided up ferndale and moved the birds nest fern to centre stage, created a corner next to the steps for bromeliad, succulents and gastria.

I am now tired and think I'm ready for a long soak in the bath and an early night. I cut a rosebud for mum, she's still getting over the loss of Mary. Now that we are one less chook, Martha is getting extra attention. She has been hanging out under the rosemary, go figure. Rosemary for remembrance. Poor Mary.

Its raining, hallelujah!

Its not raining men, though, so sorry for all those who read this and  think the man drought has ended. Although having said that, a few men have decided to join us at Woodside so its not all on the ladies. Thank you Giles, Pierre and (sometimes) Mike.

I bought two more  star jasmines as was thinking of having them for a ground cover but then thought maybe they can go by my alcove as they really are sunlovers for a flower screen and my grapevine hasn't taken off yet. I can't seem to find a good climber or ground cover for the rest of the back rock garden that would cover the area and mum doesn't like ivy. Perhaps snow-in-summer? The native pratia took but the other pratia didn't, maybe I will just have more lithospermum. Becauses snow in summer has silver foliage and it might look out of place. I would love virginia creeper to clothe the wall but I can't seem to find it anywhere, and same for climbing hydrangea.

I also considered rugosa rose as I pulled out a sickly rose on the weekend by the chain link fence, being a bush, it wouldn't scramble along and as you know I'm not keen on the thorns. But Kings didn't seem to have any old-fashioned ones althought there was one called Blackberry Nip that came as a climber with a wonderful fragrance although that will set me back $40 and not sure if I'm prepared to pay that much for one plant that may or may not live.

More musical plants - pink manuka Wiri Kerry is now where the gardenia used to be in the corner, and the gardenia is now next to the dragons gold kowhai. Maidenhair fern in a pot that died down is now with fruit salad plant, and I have cut down the twiggy azaleas in Socks (and now Mary's) bed.

Here are my top plants for this year and my flop plants

Top
Muelhenbeckia Complexa 
This native vine has taken off and become a lovely screen for the back of Fluffy's butterfly garden
Star Jasmine
Has also put in lots of growth, now with flowers!
'Pink Perfection' Cabbage Tree
This one is a stunner, I hope it continues to be pink and grow tall, thanks Loretta for choosing this one
Canna Lily
Gorgeous red has multiplied and the leaves are great too, thanks Nicole's mum!
Fruit Salad Plant
Love the leaves, thanks Beth for this cutting

Flop
Pratia 'Country Park'
I suppose my garden isn't really a country park so it didn't want to grow for me.
Iresine 'Beefsteak'
Loretta gave me cuttings, they grew for a bit but then died. I should have grown them in pots, maybe the chickens got them, shame as they a glorious hot pink colour
Passionfruit 'Black Beauty' 
I had about four but they never did well, even when coddled
Boston fern
I tried planting these out but they don't do well out of their pots
Everlasting Daisy 'Paper Cascade'
Succumbed to mites and didn't last long!

Also yesterday I won a copy of NZ Gardeners latest Organic Gardening publication! Apparently one of my tips is in there so I received a complimentary copy. I forget what tip it was as I gave them many so when I've read it all will find out!

How does Mary's garden grow?

Socks is now sharing his bed with Mary. This morning I planted the pink cabbage tree where Mary is buried. I have also divided the pink chinese lantern and moved it there along with a hen and chickens fern.

Martha is coping on her own but looking a bit lost now her sister is gone. Mum went to work today although yesterday she was pretty sad. It's too soon for another hen and Martha won't like any replacement. I have to go check on her soon, she lays soft eggs and refuses to eat any laying pellets. Martha, being slimmer and perhaps faster, managed to escape the dog's jaws but Mary, being plump and not so fast, could not get away. I have seen her trying to jump the fence, Martha can but Mary just couldn't jump high enough.  Mum also rigged the gate with an extra wire so it can't swing free. Dad is going to be more careful with closing the gate, as it was left open and the dog saw the opportunity.

Now I am feeling rather bewildered and lost. I didn't mean to make my garden a cemetery but there are memorials for Fluffy, Socks, Snowy, Mary, not to mention cats past, Sparky next door who loved rosemary, Meo the original cat, Pepper the crazy cat, Book, Camilla, Henry and Georgina the previous chickens..and Mt Asher is for Iraena.

Went to the Parnell Rose Garden festival yesterday and smelled the roses. Nancy Steens' Garden was looking lovely. It was blooming with cottage favourites, roses, leading into a white garden circle with a fountain in the centre. I am going to bone up on flowers and flower arranging for the church in December. I was also asked to help a church lady tidy up her garden, Myra who gave me the daisy cuttings.

I have several plants I want to search for at Kings and not sure if they have any but I am after
Climbing Hydrangea
Virginia Creeper
Rugosa rose
Chamomile for a carpet

My renga renga lillies are in bloom and the back border is coming away with new growth. I haven't decided on a date for my summer BBQ Garden party yet, but I did see a check table cloth and matching umbrella at the craft show that is just what I'm after for my picnic table.

RIP Mary

Sad news,  the Midian neighbours dog has killed poor Mary. It got in the gate as their's had swung open and Dad left ours open. We didn't hear anything as Mum was making fish balls with the mincer and Dad was playing his radio loud. Martha escaped but Mum found feathers all over the yard and Mary in the dog's mouth, she died soon after.

We have buried her in Sock's bed, and I may plant the pink cabbage tree there in memory of her.
Mum is heartbroken.

She was a good hen and gave us many eggs. *sob* if you reading this please say a prayer for Mum she's devastated.

Finding Neem

 I don't know if this works, but I will give it a go anyway. I have just sprinkled Neem Tree powder all underneath the tangelo tree along with vermicast to combat whitefly. Neem tree oil is also available to spray, along with granules, but I thought my best bet would be a powder sprinkled from the trunk to the drip line, so it can be absorbed through the roots. It does have a strong but not unpleasant smell, that will hopefully repel these insects which seem to have taken a great liking to my tree.  The neem tree has all these pest repelling wonderful properties that is just as good as Yates spray just like the soapnut tree washes my laundry and I don't have to use Persil automatic.

I have also learned that commercial citrus tree fertiliser is not good, maybe you can have too much of a good thing. The tree will grow, but maybe too well and thus be susceptible to attack, like how good looking, attractive people always seem to attract trouble in their lives. Well its true, look at all those Hollywood actor types. They always getting high on drugs cos they can't handle the fame.  But it's all surface, inside, they are weak. Commercial fertilisers are like plant steroids. They give terrific yields but at what cost? Apparently you can gain the world and lose your soul.

I hope the same  thing won't happen to my meyer lemon tree. I bought this lemon tree on whim from Pak n'Save before I seriously started gardening. Unlike my yucca which I regretted buying the meyer lemon is proving to be a good investment.  Nothing will kill it, and it has been moved several times. It's even flowering now and may set fruit this year. Meyer lemon is residing in Fluffy's butterfly patch surrounded by manuka,  muhlenbeckia, chinese lantern, kowhai and jasmine. So I have a yellow and white theme going on here. I have mulched them with pea straw and feijoa prunings. Mary and Martha even lay a clutch of eggs in the corner which weren't discovered for a few days, how my parents missed the eggs I don't know,  but they found out and are now back to laying in the cage.

Meyer lemon is replacing the sad old lemon tree next to the tangelo that was on it's last branches. We had several other lemon trees in pots that never did well, they all succumbed to borer or scale or some other sap sucking insect. Ruud Kleinpaaste the bugman would know. Lemon trees are New Zealand's iconic backyard tree, every home has one. It has to be Meyer because they are the most frost hardy.

Lemons can be used for all sorts of household recipes, as both dessert, drink, and cleaner. How is that for versatile? Much as landscape designers seem to love yuccas and other architectural plants that are really, quite useless, I am in praise of the lemon tree. Because when life gives you lemons, you can always make lemonade.

Iranasea

I forgot to mention the author of the book I mentioned - Terry Hershey. The title is 'Soul Gardening'.
I have just put in some new plants for our church hanging baskets - they now have cascading lobelia in blue, petunia in white and nasturtiums. I've planted up the little playhouse windowsill with pansies and more nasturtium, and the garden bed now has a rosemary.

My groundcover bed now has oregano as well. Its slowly being carpeted. I had a visitor to my garden today, and was given a tip to get rid of whitefly thats buzzing around my tangelo, use neem oil. I'm not keen on spraying so am using neem powder instead to get to the roots, and heard worm castings will also help build up the tree's immunity.

This weekend all things are happening in the gardening world, there's the Parnell Rose Festival which is on every November, rain or shine, and NZ Gardener editor Lynda Hallinan is opening up her garden to the public this weekend. I'm not sure if I can make it since its all the way east in Hunua.  Foggydale Farm she calls it. I don't really have a cutesy name for my garden but I call this land of mine Iranasea. Its been called that ever since I remember. I'm not sure where the name came from but it stuck.
It's kind of like 'Gondawanaland' that mysterious landmass which happened to break up when the land got divided in the days of Peleg (look in the Bible for that bit of history) after Noah's Ark. Or was it before? I'm not sure.

Iranasea is divided up into several states, there's Pussycatland, Jemima Land, Glenpurple, Washington (the laundry) and Anywhere Land. There's also Kitchen Land and Columbus (a vassal land). The enemy territory down the back is known as Midian.  Next door to us is Newaland.  We also have a Hen and Chickens Island and an Easter Island.  There used to be a Pinecone Land but that got swept away. Recently there was a volcanic eruption and Mt Asher appeared out of nowhere.

Tolkien and CS Lewis may have their Narnias and their Hobbitons/Middle Earth, but Iranasea was first on the map in my book. I can tell you all about the history of Iranasea, but that's another story and another post....