Matariki

 Matariki marks the beginning of the gardening year. In Auckland it was 'wet and whiny' according to the Prime Minister, so anyone hoping to get up at dawn to see Matariki Stars rising has a slim chance...after all, we are the Land of the Long White Cloud and often that cloud blocks out the stars, and brings rain. 

A far better indicator would be when the kowhai start blooming, as they are on my Dragons Gold specimens. Some of the are lopped and stunted thanks to Dad's pruning efforts. He doesn't like anything shading his weather station, or blocking the night sky. He's taken photos of the moon and the habour bridge lights, as if in compensation for the lack of garden decoration. 

I haven't made a fuss over Matariki as it has come in the school holidays where it's pyjama day everyday. But it has marked a turning point for a new beginning though who knows what that may be this year. 

I'm somehow supposed to apply all this matauranga (knowledge) to the garden but so far have been failing  as my marama (moon calendar) keeps turning and so far no indication of any change or growth. It's been too wet to prune the buxus, I've only done one bed, my GardenPost lily bulbs I ordered have not arrived, the rain lilies have not appeared even after all that rain, the tangelo needs pruning and feeding, and we haven't been meeting for Garden Club in the evenings. However this Saturday is going to be our day trip to the Wintergardens, and I'm also going to a Rivercare meeting Thursday evening where an ecologist is going to talk about Matariki and Matauranga. 

It was  Miss Asher's birthday (memorial magnolia tree) on July 17 and she is looking stately and in bloom. I've surrounded her with irises this time though none have bloomed yet. Others who've passed on in the past year include Beth and Jane, both women of faith and my best teachers. Beth's geraniums are still growing and I have yet to figure out what to plant for Jane. Jane had her funeral on Thursday and it seems God keeps wanting me to continue her legacy by being Bible teacher in schools. Despite me being NOT one who naturally teaches. I remember when I first taught I was so nervous I was shaking and couldn't speak in front of anyone. They say 'fear of public speaking' is the number one thing and I sure had it (avoided speech contests in school, never acted in stage dramas, never signed up for  talent quests, hated presentations, never spoke a word in class, never wanted any attention to myself, and never got up in assemblies) however that never stopped Jane for believing I had something to offer. I am quite lucky in that I now have a karaoke microphone that could amplify my voice if need be. Karaoke does give you the words to say anyway. Otherwise nobody would ever hear me. Thank you Lord for technology.

The thing with plants is they don't talk. Or maybe they are so quiet we can't hear them.  I guess that's why I like them, they have a secret language all of their own.  If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, is there a sound? The kumara does not speak of its own sweetness. 

I am thinking of a Karaka tree to plant for Jane (although where exactly, I am not sure, perhaps at Edmonton School where she taught?) as she moved from Henderson to Karaka which was a world away (and in some aspects, another town) and that will be something to remember her by. Or maybe a beautiful tree fuchsia Kotutukutu that likes being beside rivers as she used to live near the Henderson Creek.  I'm not always one for staying up and stargazing for Matariki but I'm always observing the native plants during the day.  Belinda Jane Greenslade RIP 

Puddles, Mud, Gumboots

 July school holidays are kind of like living in Lockdown again. You actually can go out, but would you want to? Gardening is not an option...unless you have a great hankering to garden in puddles, mud, and wearing gumboots. The people with wings have flown away to far off lands and are probably enjoying the weather in Fiji, Samoa, or the entire Northern Hemisphere. It's too bad I'm not a bird, I would have flown the nest by now.

I have been reading more George Orwell, this time a book called 'Books vs Cigarettes'. In one of his essays he writes that he counts up the cost of books he buys and concludes its not much more than buying cigarettes and probably a healthier habit. I've been chain-reading books for the past month like people used to chain-smoke cigarettes. Now I've heard everyone's into vaping and contributing to the plastic rubbish problem. At least cigarette butts biodegraded in the garden and were made of somewhat natural plants like tobacco and weed, but those vapes? Who knows what's in them? You may as well be inhaling weedkiller fumes.

The other essay that made an impression on me was 'Such Such were the Joys' about his boyhood as a scholarship student at a private school called St Cyprians that was prepping him for Eton, THE school for British elites (kind of like Kings College) and how snobby and bullying everyone was there and what sadists the Headmaster and Headmistress were. I can only say in my experience of working in private schools that he's not far wrong, more than 70 years later, and nothing much has really changed.

 I did work in Kings College when our gardening team planted up their river bank with natives and others maintained the sports fields and grounds. My boss had planted up the front entrance and it was typical iris and guara fluffy flowers that was his trademark..but we all knew elite schools like that would never teach horticulture and get the students actually working in the gardens or planting anything. Can't get their hands dirty! 

I have yet to find my dream job. I want to say that it will include a garden, AND a library but what manifestation that will take in the future I have no idea. Garden to Table, I think is a wonderful initiative but it needs to be in all schools with qualified Master gardeners and cooks teaching this as core curriculum.. complete with seed libraries and botanic garden field trips. I wish everyone would read a book that made me cry called 'The Power of a Plant' about a teacher in the inner concrete jungles of NYC (this is where most all 'To Sir with Love' tales are set) whose students who have little hopes or aspirations at all and are fighting all the time in class...until he discovers what he thought was a bunch of onion bulbs in a bag are actually daffodils and this magically transforms his rough and tough potential gang members into...kind and loving upright citizens who want to green up the Bronx, where you never see a garden anywhere. 

At least, that's his story and he's sticking to it. They call his team the 'Green Guerillas' and then go round seed bombing the derelict wastelands. I'm not sure if this will go down with many young Auckland students who's experiences in horticulture mostly extend to growing marijuana under lights at home. Well Stephen Ritz, you tried. 

Otherwise, I'm thinking, where is Auckland's answer to RHS Wisely Gardens? Where are all our future park ranger/gardener/playground caretakers going to learn their craft? Is gardening only ever going to be a pastime for the rich and wealthy to pay someone else to do? Must we all flounder around with expensive vegepods when we have no idea how to look after our own whenua? 

Orwell's Roses

 I'm reading Orwell's Roses. It's a book of essays about George Orwell, who aside from writing polemic, prophetic dystopias, and the brilliant Animal Farm, was also an avid gardener. When he wasn't battling totalitarianism, he was whacking weeds and nurturing rose bushes. 

I always knew that about him though, that heart was in the bucolic English countryside of meadow and dale rather than the trenches of revolutionary class war. Sadly he did die young of TB which might have been from the infections he picked up in the damp muddy battlefields. Every gardener longs to have an ideal spot where they can garden, and over and over and over it's always stated most plants don't like wet feet, they must have good drainage, and air circulation. 

Rebecca Solnit writes that she visits Orwell's former garden out of curiosity and the Albertine roses he planted are still there. It's hard to kill a rose once its found it's sweet spot though, as I found with the flower carpet roses my brothers planted in the buxus beds. The buxus may be getting blight, so I've decided I must trim it right back and give it a chance to grow again. I can't face digging the whole lot out. 

I'll have to do the whole row on a dry day so it doesn't look like a toothless smile with plants missing here and there. Tip, don't plant buxus hedges in Auckland. The humidity will not be it's friend. I'd go for corokia, or manuka or totara or pittorsporum going for a fine leaved hedge that will hold up. Or if you like wavy forms with little effort, muehlenbeckia or low hummocks of coprosma. I've seen attempts at griselenia fail big time and gardenias don't like to be hedged either, they'll be attacked with thrips. 

It's just the low buxus though that needs to go and I wonder if I will get away with leaving a  very minimal ankle high hedge just enough to define a border. 

The other thing I've done is harvest the yacon, by digging it out  as the leaves are turning. It's now 2:50 in the afternoon and the sky has turned so dark that it almost feels like it's night time. I may have never entered the military but I too engage in battle right in my own backyard defining territory and crossing borders, martialling my army of worms and sharpening my swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks, marching in my gardening boots for bread and roses, digging for victory. 

Eavesdropping

 I came home one day to find that Dad had cut down the cabbage tree, and the silver fern had been lopped. Of course mum must have put him up to it as she'd been complaining for a while. It's likely that they will both grow back in a determined effort to survive though. 

The cabbage tree had chosen to root itself next to the house and was brushing up against the eaves, with the silver fern at it's feet, which was threatening to extend over the driveway. I was hoping it would grow taller than the car and not get in the way but tree ferns and cabbage trees have a way of ignoring straight lines as they are not block shaped or minecraft creations. Have you ever played minecraft? Your eyes will go square, and there is foliage in it apparently but that is all square and blocks as well. So yes to buxus, no to anything that grows that you cannot clip to shape. 

Now some Maori might be appalled that our native plants are shunned in favour of English exports. But I can't do anything about it. As I've said before, this is suburbia and we have been sectioned. It doesn't matter, this 636 sq metre plot is all we have. 

By the law of diminishing returns though, and the exponential growth of human reproduction, and taking into account of natural attrition its likely that Auckland eventually will collapse under its own weight  because each section is going to be carved up into smaller and smaller plots if the Council has their way until we are all living in skyscrapers aka Hong Kong 2. I can just picture it now. The rivers and creeks will be paved over like Queen Street and shops all put on them. 

Apparently we can never have enough shops and cafes. Years ago, I over heard that the Council were planning to make Auckland into a 'World Class City' or the 'World's most Livable City' which naturally meant the entire world was going to come here and live which I didn't think was feasible. So now when you walk along you can see trees chopped down and  houses going up but they are not really houses, more like boxes and my most frustrating thing is to see them being built with roofs that have NO EAVES. Now with canopy cover completely gone, and no tree roots to suck up water, and all the 'rain events' we are having, guess what? 

In about 5 years time those new buildings will all have to be pulled down because the rain will be getting in the walls and they will be leaky and mouldy and damp, they don't even have any window sills or flashings, and there is no green belt or rain garden to absorb the water and the excess storm water is all going to rush like a torrent into the harbour and destroy our marine environment - and we won' be able to swim or go fishing. 

Am I being a Cassandra about this and everyone shrugging and going well she's all doom and gloom. Think of all the world class shops and tourists we can attract when we host all the World Cups. Because we are a World City now. Well I'm sorry I just don't care what the world thinks this will be the ruin of Auckland. Yes Rome wasn't built in a day but they don't have rain like we do in Auckland. 

A teacher once lent me A History of Rome because I was interested in the rise and fall of a civilisation. Well I think A History of Auckland would tell a much more dramatic tale of hubris. 

Planting Day

 It seemed a bit early to be planting the reserve as usually happens in July but this Sunday was designated Riverpark Reserve native tree planting day and David had emailed me saying my Dad must do penance for chucking weeds in the reserve. Well since Dad was at MOTAT driving trams for Live Day it was down to me to atone for the sins of my father. 

I asked Mum to come along and we got into our gumboots. I didn't expect her to do any planting since digging is a bit beyond her but she did help pick up pots. However she did a tiger mum thing which was not so much directing my planting but growled at me for not walking all the way back to find her after I had finished. I am an adult and so is she and both of us can make our own way back home but when I got back she threw a big fit and said she could have died out there and I didn't care about her.

Honestly. There were not wild tigers lurking in the reserve out to eat her. Just friendly neighbours! Maybe the reserve grass area WAS a bit muddy but Mum isn't at the walker stage of decrepitude yet. What was she expecting, me to hold her hand? 

Anyway, I couldn't answer all the accusations of being selfish...I WAS tired and hungry by the time we had finished and didn't fancy walking in the opposite direction of home, just so mum could hold my hand. This time the park rangers did not put on a bbq and sausage sizzle for us. But that's ok, we all have our own homes to go back to and it isn't too far. I caught up with a few neighbours and one boy who went to Waitakere Primary who said he was having pizza when he got home. He said they did have a garden at school. I kept remarking every time I dug a hole to plant a tree that maybe this time I would find the gold. (I had to keep him motivated!). There was a small shower at one point but otherwise the weather was fine, warm and not windy. The ground was soft so it was as perfect planting conditions as could be expected. 

We had to keep going and just when we thought we finished a section there would be more to plant. We started from 93 and planted all along the creekside until we reached the field. David had done a great job sourcing and growing all these natives for us. There were titoki, manuka, coprosma, kawakawa, flaxes, nikau, kahikatea, pohutakawa, koromiko...though I noticed tree ferns were missing. On the other side of the creek which was Massey they had ferns but I suspected as that side was South facing they would have got more shade. 

Anyway not liking leaving a job half done we persevered and did our muddy high fives at the end. Every plant planted hooray! So that's three years of planting we've done so far and there's only a bit more to go for next year. Am so happy for our Riverparkers. You guys are great. Let's keep New Zealand Beautiful. ✋😍

Hibernation

 The days are getting shorter and the nights longer, only a couple more weeks and then it will be winter solstice. Already there are plans to bring snow to Massey for children to experience what it's like to freeze - symptoms of 'climate change' perhaps? 

I never really got why it was called climate change since the climate changes all the time in Auckland. You never know from one day to the next what it will be like, sometimes there will be four seasons in one day. Be prepared for anything, wear your shorts AND your puffy jacket, it's advised. 

I haven't been doing any gardening at all and should probably even be off to Fiji now, enjoying my extended holidays. But then I wonder if I'll be doing anything different in Fiji to what I would do at home, laze around and read books. (Fiji is just one of those random places I've never been to that's all). I don't actually know anybody in Fiji, nor have they invited me over. 

Walking around the garden today, I noticed my camellia is flowering pink, the magnolia is budding, and eerlicheer has cropped up, even the gladioli are making a showing. What's going on? Is spring here early? I've still got tulips chilling in the fridge. Maybe I should put them in the ground, though I haven't thought of where yet.  David's organised another planting day for 18 June at Riverpark reserve. So that  at least will be one thing I'll be doing. 

For my birthday Kings gave me $10 to spend and I promptly spent it on gardening gloves. Otherwise, there hasn't been much gardening of late to speak of, everything's awaiting Matariki. This holding pattern is just those barren periods a gardener goes through as birds fly north for winter (if they can get that far) but being terrestrial I don't have that option. Jo from Planet FM contacted me about Garden Planet will we be back on air with fresh programs soon? 

Will I ever make it to Taranaki this year for Garden Festival? 

Watch this space. 

Bob

 If anyone from my old school is reading this and want to know what happened to Bob, well he just turned up on one of my spider plants today and seems happy to be back home. Bob is a praying mantis and appears at odd moments just to remind me he's praying for me.

I am not sure why the children called him Bob or how they could tell he was a he. When I first entered the library it had only fake plants so I had to remedy this to bring in the oxygen. So about half my indoor plants took a ride in my Funcargo and ended up going to school. By the stairwell was a box filled with fake plants that I removed them to put in the real ones, and put the fake ones by the couches in the library. At the time the couches were mostly used by the Year 1s and 2s as slides, as they were those faux black leather and chrome 80s monstrosities that looked like they were discards from the tv show Gloss. 

I am usually not averse to furniture but those couches were particularly bad, even an ugly Friends style couch would have been better. I made my complaints known to the powers that be but they just shrugged and thought I was being a little precious. I was not allowed this that and the other, and was starting to get carpet burns from all the work I was doing picking up books from the floor. How I wish I had bean bags to cushion my poor knees. 

In the end I removed all the books from the top shelves and put plants in, and started to breathe a bit easier, until one day the Primary Principal walked in and saw I had changed the library around from what it used to be and from then on it was like I had the cheese touch. 

"Did you change the library...again? Without my PERMISSION?"

I don't recall exactly what I said except I was very sorry but I had. 

She called the Big Principal in and they both looked at me with their arms crossed, tutting. I am sure they had a meeting about me behind closed doors deciding what to do with this new, disobedient librarian. 

Things went on ok for a few weeks while I carried on with my work and the children where quite excited to spot some ants, a spiders, a lizard, and various other wildlife in the library that they were not used to. But what they liked most of all was the praying mantis who lived amongst the new plants they called Bob.  They also read books, and I tried to wean them off video games and on to actual board games, like Chess. The chess club teacher came to help in the library, and he watered the plants with the staffroom teapot. 

One afternoon the Year 6 boys were playing chess as usual after they had borrowed their books. There were about four games going on and I am sure they were learning something. I don't know, I don't play chess. I'm more of a Scrabble person. The Primary Principal walked in and saw the boys playing chess. Where are these chess sets from? I didn't authorise chess in the library. 

Miss Selina got them for us.

Well Miss Selina got in big trouble for doing that. And after that everything Miss Selina did was wrong so that she couldn't even buy any books for the library. And even when there were new books she couldn't put them on the tables, or move them, or scan books in, or catalogue them, because Principals can make life very difficult if you don't do exactly what they order you to do. 

One morning Bob turned up out of the blue on a seniors device and he hitched a ride while I picked up the rowdy year 4 class. That was one day after my supposed probation period was over and they were going to decide whether to keep me or not. I'd emailed the Principal that morning because I knew that class was a handful and asked if she would come help but she replied it was not ideal and we could discuss it in the Friday meeting. She was not going to come. 

Well the Year 4 class was so excited over seeing Bob again that they forgot all about reading and borrowing books and they all wanted a turn petting and holding Bob and making an origami box for him. But while this was going on three boys who didn't like each other started picking a fight and next thing I knew it was chaos. I sent the boys straight to the Principals office and it was like she was waiting for them the whole time. 

After this incident Bob hitched a ride to the staffroom while I had morning tea and then, after that at lunch the year 4s asked where Bob was and he'd mysteriously disappeared. "Oh he's around the school somewhere' I assured them but one boy just said 'You mean you lost him!' 

I didn't find him the next day or the day after that either and on the Friday meeting the Principal cut me so I never did find out what her ideal was.