Te Henga Garden Ramble

 Last Saturday Louise and I went on the Te Henga Garden Ramble, which was raising money for West Auckland Hospice. We saw five of the eight beautiful gardens who all had the fortune of being sited in the wonderful ridges overlooking the West Coast out to Bethell's Beach. 

This is where the cabbage trees come into their own!

Of all the gardens, my special favourite was the Butterfly Garden on Bethells Road, surrounding an old farm cottage/villa where the flowers were left to bloom and make food for the honey bees on a north facing, sheltered slope. It looked like a magical fairy land in the midst of an enchanted native forest. The gardener kindly let me have a tuber of yellow astromeria - they had plants and books for sale as well. 

Another garden named Kokako Grove had a chook house called 'Cluckingham Palace' and had set their own house on the ridge overlooking the wetland and hills. I was impressed with their groundcover which I have been trying to source - anyone got Silver Carpet dymondia margaretae? And their native  clematis, which had lovely furry seedheads. They had a fenced off vege garden, many of the vege gardens out at Bethell had to be walled/enclosed to keep out the chickens and pukekos, or dogs and possums, and netted. Because Bethells is out near the West Coast near the bush, it is not on town water supply and cellphone coverage can be patchy because of the hills. And since there is only one road, out if it's blocked or the weather is bad it can be quite remote. It's not like the shops are within walking distance! Many of the properties were up steep, windy long driveways too, and the prevailing wind and rain can be ferocious. Try mowing the grass on a steep slope with a ride on! 

However for those who can afford it, they wouldn't live anywhere else. It is their little patch of paradise. One retired  expat American built his dream earth brick home nestled on top of the ridge, it really felt like he was King of the Castle. For a valley dweller like me, with no views of anything but the neighbours and whatever I grow in my own garden, its another world, and a taste of the high life! 

He had built two summer cabins overlooking the valley for his friends and family to come stay. He even had a rocking chair bench to take in the views and seemed very chuff to show off his bounty to everyone. His dogs were very happy to run around his garden - he was an ex-Texan rancher, so I can imagine that living in a green land like Aotearoa was quite a sea change. 

All in all we had a wonderful day out and I now have my coveted tall yellow astromerias. Perhaps next year we can go visit the other gardens we missed. 

Garden re-visits

 The previous Saturday our garden club visited Chris Ballantyne's garden. It was a revisit for me (see blog entry for May 2019  We're just dropping in your garden Chris... !)  Things have changed a little - there are now two greenhouses for tropical plants in the backyard and the entire vege patch is now caged because of the pukekos. Chris showed us his bubbler - his comfrey tea/compost brew that hooks up to his roof stormwater AND his neighbours. He also mows his next door neighbours lawn in return for some land to grow his native plants. Luckily his neighbour doesn't mind and is also his brother-in-law! Everyone was very impressed and interested in all the plants and they were happy they did not have to trek too far to see a garden as he lives on Te Atatu Peninsula. 

This Saturday we had another garden visit to Puriri Lane.  It's a bit further out  in Drury and is a beautiful English woodland style perennial garden - now in full bloom. All the trees are underplanted with an amazing variety of perennials that the owners initially had to source from England as they couldn't buy them here. Now they have so many they operate a mail order/online nursery for keen gardeners and you are able to visit on certain days but you need to book as it's a private garden. There's ponds, a cure little shepherds hut shed, a gardenware boutique, plants for sale, borders full of flowers of every kind in drifts. It's been here for 40 years but only in the last 7 has it been planted up to what it is today, initially nothing but trees with grass underneath. I suspect that's how most country gardens start out as bare paddocks. We paid $10 entrance free but recouped this buy buying some plants - I bought a lady's mantle and a hair's tail ornamental grass. Karen went a bit all out and bought herself a designer bee and butterfly bath and several plants she had her eye on. I was going to buy a moon calendar - one of those round turn the wheel ones but it was $12 and I figured I could just easily make one myself...

Then on the way back we dropped into Roger's Garden Centre. Where I saw the famed Roger, still at the till, giving garden advice to all customers, while his cat was guarding the money. I didn't buy anything but Jeanette queued up for some plants while Bev whizzed us around giving a guided tour among the narrow paths absolutely crammed with plants at a bargain price. Perhaps next time when we have more time Bev will take me AND I'll come with a list to fill a pink wheelbarrow with plants. On one side is an amazing gully where Roger dumps all his unwanted plants and it has now grown wild with orange morning glory all over and it looks pretty spectacular (or a nightmare depending on which way you look at it) like the plants have taken over the zombies and won. Everyone looked pretty happy with their bargains on their way out, except Jeannette accidentally bumped her nose on the carboot as she was putting the plants in the back so was a bit sore on the way home. 

Karen was very happy to drive us as she'd discovered the garden in the first place online when she went to buy tulips. I must say Karen is a bit of a connoisseur gardener and likes to source her plants from far away places and thinks nothing of driving to get there. She's also been to the Taranaki Garden Festival twice and is booked to go to the Cambridge Garden Festival as well. I'm just happy if I get to tag along! 

One of my must-dos this spring is a visit to Barbara's garden which is just down the road from Bev's garden. Barbara says its best in spring to visit so hopefully next Monday she's home and I can pop in, like when mum and I visited Pat's garden. 

One of Chris' feijoa trees - perfectly pruned.

Puriri Lane had many flowers I'd never seen before - this pale blue one behind the euphorbia intrigued me. Does anyone know it's name??

Petal Power

 Results are in--!

            Jan's Floral Fireworks

Linda's Floral Circle

Carmen Miranda? Or Miss Blush?

The Little Mermaid...

My Mandala Magic

Lavender Butterflies

Floral teapot

Geisha Girl

Koru Klub

Singing budgie

Karen's Hairy Caterpillar

Winged Wonders

Cenny's Purple Reign

Flower Foraging Fiesta

 Or Frenzy?

Tomorrow we are having a Flower Foraging Fiesta at the Garden Club. We will make pictures and mandalas out of the flowers and leaves. What art will our flower gardeners come up with??

Karen and I made  some already. I'd like to show you when I get my pics though - seemed like my old ipad doesn't want to play ball. However, I have pics of flowers currently blooming. I just say dad look at my flowers and he hurries outside to take a photo of it. 

tiger lillies

Silene

pelargonium

    
Wouldn't you know it mum came down with covid and so dad and I have been testing everyday. So far so negative. Today I spent much of my time in the garden doing a tidy up and weeding the applemint. I need to do a big pick tomorrow - hopefully weather stays fine. 

Garden springing to life

 It's just past the equinox and every day more and more flowers are starting to appear...first the jonquils, daffodils, magnolias, freesias, hellebores, kowhai, gladioli, then the dutch iris, lavenders, echium, babiana, pelargonium, pansies, camellia, more polyanthus, azalea, geranium, peach and apricot blossom, rosemary, forget-me-nots, gazania, grape muscari, bluebells, nasturtium, oxalis (?!), marguerite daisy...

School has also started on their spring garden journey, with the juniors growing Little Gardens (courtesy of New World) and the teachers buying up those expensive Vegepods with their teacher's discount. I heard that they are going to clean up the school kitchen garden that had become overgrown with woolly nightshade. I've been giving away plenty of seeds to keen child gardeners, and they are quite interested in watering the library indoor plants. I had one boy ask if they were real - he thought they were plastic?!

I do miss Rose the gardener but she'll be pleased to know that the children are getting stuck in and it was all their idea - they are doing it for their inquiry topic, which has morphed into looking after 'Our place, Our people'

Perhaps we'll have a Garden to Table program yet? Maybe they can grow their own pizza toppings? They have been having carrots nearly every single day for school lunch. I expect their eyesight will be super and who ever said the carrot and stick approach does not work has not ever worked in my school.

On Monday there will be a public holiday as a memorial to our late Queen Elizabeth II. Her Majesty apparently was fond of gardens and wildlife and that is where her son Charles got his green fingers from, wandering around the palace parks and gardens as a little boy. Well now Charles is King we may expect a much greater focus on greening our planet before it's too late. So I can't say it's a terrible thing to have a garden lover ruling the nations - not the extravagant show gardens of Versailles but on a much more wildlife friendly scale. And the Royal Garden parties may actually become more about the gardens themselves than people dressed up in their finery and strolling about manicured lawns.

If King Charles III does visit New Zealand again he might want to spend some more time getting close to nature in our forests and organic gardens, and planting trees,  I'm sure it will be more his preference than promenading around towns and cities in his latest outfits in a motor cade opening yet another air conditioned building. 

However I can only speculate what the next few decades will bring. We don't really need his head on our money since everyone now uses EFTPOS and internet banking anyway. If we do become a republic, which who knows, could happen, we might miss someone who seems to truly care about the environment and the air we breathe. On Friday many people went on strike to protest the lack of action - and no it isn't all about 'climate change' as some politically correct term is now calling it. It's about calling the environmental offenders/polluters to account - and it is Big Business and their profits that is the main driving force behind it. 

I could say much more but with local elections coming up I'm concerned that our dear Eco City was only a mirage and it will instead become an unbreathable concrete jungle like every other congested  city on this planet. 

Get your $50 worth of plants

 Tulips from Amsterdam

As well as gladiolis from...? bluebells from England. Orchids from the jungle...Jane and I went to the Orchid Show last week. Spectacular. It was free. I did not buy any orchid plants though..I think will leave the growing to the obsessives. 

Also took mum along to see the Eden Garden tulip festival. I think we pay a bit much to go in to see one bed of tulips though on the only bit of flat sunny ground they have there. Rotorua had them in beds by the information centre free to view. Eden Garden is nice though if you love camellias, though I'm not their biggest fan. I'm more of a ferny bush type lover. Yes it was an old rubbish tip out of an old quarry, and sometimes I think the poor camellias are not really shown to their full advantage, but what do I know.  If they had orchids and spider plants amongst the camellias? Bluebells or even onion weeds, to brighten the shade up a bit? Chinese lanterns? Azaleas, rhodos and gardenia acid lovers? 

West Lynn Gardens is one of their offshoots and they have a butterfly house. But they don't charge nearly so much to go in. However the Mt Eden/Epsom garden loving crowd love Eden Garden so I don't think they mind paying the cover charge since they can just walk there and don't have to pay parking costs. 

So far this month I've planted some gladioli at Epsom, Vincents alpine strawberries, and mum sowed strawflowers. In my own garden I've put in statice and strawflowers. I scattered snow pea seeds that seemed like it was 20 years old, that the twins had left over. 

The lavender has started blooming, and things are looking up. At school I got the children to enter the Kings Plant Barn colouring contest, who knows they may win the $50 prize pack. Fingers crossed, though I think most saw $50 and thought they would win actual cash. I tried to tell them it might mean $50 worth of PLANTS lest they think they can just buy some toys with that money. 

Tulip Time

 Hoorah

Light bulb moments are when the tulips come out!

Although I thought I planted 10 and only 9 came up. Hmm. Snapped with my phone...they are growing through the yarrow. Also mum's eerlicheers have come up so picked them for the vase to scent the living room, and it's not far off for the freesias.

To report on our garden trip - this time we went on a trek to BeachHaven to an artist couple's beachside home with a view. As with a lot of homes on the North Shore, the view comes at a steep gradient, the south facing garden faces the harbour and has numerous paths down to the water.  We felt like Jolly Rogers and had a bout of ukelele sing along as well. They were very hospitable and had the best cream and jam scones. On their travels they had looked after grand home which had a formal garden complete with parterre, fountain, espalier and topiaries. Very posh! But back on Kiwi soil they were a lot more laid back growing everything that can survive on a steep south facing slope. 

At our garden club meeting we all became armchair travelers as President Brigit regaled us with tales and pictures from her Scandinavian summer journey, the grandiose sights of Versailles, and the somewhat smaller palace of William the Orange. She also stood on the ancient ruins of Pompeii, which could be our fate one day if those supposedly dormant volcanoes decide to erupt...

Over at Epsom mum is having a tidy up of the twin's garden that hasn't really been touched in how many years?! So she and I together have  pulled out tonnes of ladder fern, a few dead trees, overgrown daphne, crowded clivias and dietes. Enough room for alpine strawberries? I now have visions of hellebores, more bulbs under the trees, gladioli in the sun and maybe louisiana irises by the driveway, if Vincent doesn't' plant all his citrus first. Well he can't as he's swanned off to Australia again, this time to Melbourne.  Mum said she planted the yacon, but I think she planted them in the shade, when she should have planted them in the vege patch. Oh well at least my extra mondo grass now has a home. Vincents tulips are only just behind mine and I'm sure they'll be blooming by next week next to his new matching bay tree that has been clipped into a standard ball.

Cousin Winnie's tulips were the first to show though but now she's moved house, she's got a whole lot of taro and wood ear ---which the aunties were super excited about. Her bunnies have an entire flat to themselves though...and they certainly have a big backyard to jump around in. We'll see if Winnie starts growing a green thumb now she's a landlady/home owner.