Monday 22 August 2016

New Additions

More planting frenzy...some new plants on the block (NPOTB) are..


Native fuchsia in a pot
Paper Daisy in a hanging basket
Yarrow
More Parsley
Welsh bunching onions
Spring Onions
Chives

I think that will do for now as running out of planting spots for everything. I did go up to Palmers Planet the other day but bought nothing, all the plants looked a bit sad and it seemed like it isn't really worth going all that way anymore, when Kings has a better selection (and can be cheaper). I notice that, when heading to Kings, more people go there for lunch than actually browse the plants. It seems to be the 'in' place to go, but I don't lunch there unless I'm with someone. I'd rather spend my money on plants. I once invited a friend up to Palmers at their Botanica cafe and ordered kale chips, which were nice, but pricy. But she was so bored as I went round the garden centre exclaiming over all the plants, that I decided maybe she wasn't such a good friend to go with.

Some people are plants people and some just don't know the difference between a plant and a weed. Or the weed is something they don't know the use for. But I have learned to not mention my gardening to people who aren't plants people as they just don't understand. I think they have visions of me weeding their plots for them when they can't be bothered.

I have also noticed people who aren't book people also don't have a clue. Books, aren't they boring! All they can think of is getting rid of them so they can chat on their phones. They will never understand the difference between a good book and a bad one.  Or a mouldy one that could give you asthma and a fresh clean one. I have tried educating them on where you can find good books but some people are set in their ways and just not interested.  I used to hear people boast 'I have not actually read a book in years' and they are proud of the fact that their literary appreciation only extends to advertising laden magazines.

Sigh.

Sunday 21 August 2016

The Quiet Queen

I have just done a dvd tour of the Queen's garden at Buckingham Palace. Some interesting facts - she holds five garden parties every year, rain or shine. Her gardeners spray her rose bushes with garlic for pesticide as she doesn't like to use chemical sprays. The Queen has honeybees in hives on an island in a lake in her garden, and they flock to the herbaceous border and produce honey which she gives as gifts. She also provides nesting boxes for birds over winter, canada geese, owls and flamingoes are some of the wildfowl found in her garden. Queen Charlotte kept a menagerie when she lived there. One King tried to plant mulberries so he could start a silk industry, but the mulberries were the wrong kind. So they eat the fruit instead, which is made into jelly and served at palace suppers. But you know what the secret ingredient is to the bountiful royal produce? Horse manure.
Prince William was also the first royal to host a game of footy on his Granny's lawn.  He warned others not to break any windows.

I am thinking if I don't have a chance to visit her son's garden at Highgrove perhaps I might be invited to a garden party? It takes five months to plan for these parties and not a blade of grass is out of place - the Queen does her walkabouts and inspects everything. I recently saw Poi E the movie, how the Patea Maori Club were invited to perform at the Royal Command Performance in London. They couldn't afford to go and even the NZ Govt wouldn't sponsor them (despite reaching number one on the pop charts for four weeks and appearing on 'Blue Peter'.) So Dalvanius Prime mortgaged his house.

I could mortgage my house? Oh wait, I don't have a house.
Nevermind. Maybe I will just watch the garden on tv. It has time-lapse photography so I can imagine what it looks like through autumn, winter, spring and summer.

I have just found out there's something called the Quiet Garden Movement. Its a charity based in the UK for people to open their gardens so people can have quiet prayer time and go and be close to God. The garden can be on a private property or a hospital or a church or retreat. I think its a lovely idea.
Joanne and I planted up the garden bed outside church which now has Diosma 'breath of heaven' and poppies along with Joyful Bliss lavender. I am thinking if they become available, Grape hyacinth muscari 'Heavenly Blue' would be also good for that bed.  Then all we need is a seat so people can sit and enjoy the colour and  fragrance.

My back border is now planted up with rain lilies, parsley, and carex 'frosted curls'. I am in a frenzy of planting before I go away on holiday to Raro where I intend to relax in a hammock and sip coconuts with hibiscus and gardenia in my hair.

Tuesday 16 August 2016

Spring prep

Yesterday I did a planting blitz and put in a Kakabeak (clianthus) in the rock garden along with a Ceanothus blue sapphire, to have natives beside the house. Lambs ears and snow in summer complete the ground covering.

There are now a few clumps of red hot pokers in my flaming bush bonfire bed.

Also I moved the Chinese Toon pink flamingo to the backyard by the rose border. It has no leaves yet but when it does it is spectacular, and it needs more room as was getting squashed by the arch.

I bought a bag of mulch which I will spread by the lemon tree, which isn now accompanied by a yellow Chinese Lantern. (Abutilon)

I noticed the white ornamental kale was completely eaten by bugs but they didn't touch the purple ones.  Salvia has remained unscathed but it seems the chickens like to eat the lobelias? I scattered a packet of snow peas seeds by the fence along with a packet of salvia blue bedder in case..well you never know. My scattergun approach might work.

I moved the birds nest fern further back to where its more shady as it was getting a bit sun scalded and it now has a pink hellebore as a ground companion. The doodias I moved to the front as they don't mind a bit of sun.

All this rearranging seems a bit like tetris to me or a giant jigsaw puzzle, which plant goes where? But once they are all in the right spots the picture becomes clearer. Also, like a jigsaw puzzle there are still some gaps that need to be filled, but slowly and surely its coming along. Perhaps I can start a new trend for 'Jigsaw puzzle' gardening like the person who invented 'Square Foot Gardening' and write books on it.

Mum found a gardening book for me  called  'Trees and Shrubs for Flowers' by  Glyn Church that had wonderful photographs by Pat Greenfield.  She said she picked it up from the side of the road, along with some cookbooks. I never would have thought Mum showed much interest in what I was doing but then she mentioned she liked strawflowers because they dry well. Well I am going to have to find them but I haven't seen them in the shops and my attempts at trying to grow them from seed have come to nothing.

Well I better go out there and mulch before the sun gets too hot and evaporates all the dew.

Monday 15 August 2016

Ajugas in

Bought three ajugas at $8 each. Ok they were a dollar cheaper at Kings Plant Barn at St Lukes as I was on my way from Mt Eden so I thought I would drop in and see what they had that was different from the Henderson branch.

I also picked up three 'Heaven's Breath' Sunset Gold to plant in our church garden bed. It had one lone Lavender Joy amidst a ring of echeverias and was looking rather sad after the gazanias had died down (or killed by frost) and our pansies did not last long.  If they do their thing then we can have permanent heavenly breath wafting to the entrance of the church as they are hardy shrubs which some people say are unkillable. They also say that about Nandina firepower, also a good church burning bush.

That leaves what to do with the hanging baskets as the marigolds, pansies and strawberries look past their best. I have considered those dangling succulents which won't need much water. If I can find enough to fill three baskets. Although petunias are always good value but its a bit early for them.

I was very tempted to buy another fuschia as my two fuschias had given up the ghost. I saw a native fuschia that I could plant if I move the rhubarb somewhere else. There were also white magic hellebores but I don't know..I kind of like the pinky spotted ones. It is a pity they were so expensive even at 15% off and I had run out of money.

After my shopping trip I planted the ajugas and hopefully they will spread and stop the tide of creepy buttercups from invading.
I finished watching 4 hours of City Gardener and wondered why Brits don't have washing lines in their backyards. How do they dry their clothes? I thought I could have a designer garden too but what about the washing line, and where would I put my herbs and veges?  Also what about the chickens?
And now I have lighting and garden furnishings to think about because we can't have parties at night without some sort of lighting, and where are the men going to put their beers?

Dad has now taken to mopping up the freshly painted deck everytime after I go out as there are muddy footprints all over it. We are supposed to take off our gumboots and walk on it with socks.
Theres one thing I haven't seen yet on those tv garden shows...a mud garden. Does anything grow in mud? I have considered putting stepping stones catwalks and planks across the lawn so it looks like something out of krypton factor.  There will be a sign saying 'Keep off the mud, I mean lawn'.
The problem is with those tv gardens they make it look real easy that you can have a brand new garden in just a week. But they never factor in things like --disapproving parents, rainy days, mondays, unyielding clay soil and washing lines.


Saturday 13 August 2016

Dig me up, Buttercup

I am glad to report that I dug up or forked up a recycle bin load of buttercups yesterday and now my border is buttercup free (for now).
Tip is to use a large fork that way you won't be leaving roots in the soil to grow again and fork the whole lot out, even if the soil is clumping to the roots.  And because all the buttercups have come out, the gravel stones I placed on top has been forked in so will assist with drainage in that area, and I can then mulch again compost on top.

I may have been too early, but I took the opportunity to scatter the rest of my seeds including poppy into this freshly forked bed. The seeds were old ones of cabbage, caulis, broccoli and leek. Of course, a horticulturalist would raise them in punnets and trays and prick out each one carefully and put them  in rows. But as these seeds weren't fresh I don't know if they will geminate, so I scattered the whole lot over the border. Its very disheartening to take all the trouble to sow seed that won't grow as they have expired.

Today looks like a good day which is fine after the few frosty days we've had the past week. I have been meaning to get ajugas but they are very expensive at the garden centre (both Kings and Mitre 10) at $9 a pot for just one. The ones I had planted scrounged from the back door it seems the chickens immediately ripped to pieces, so, that puts paid to that idea.
I ended up buying a sack of pea straw mulch to mulch the corner bed, I'm sure the Dutch Iris would appreciate the cover although the chickens like to scratch around there as well.

I am reading my native plants guide and decide I would like creeping fuschia in one of my beds as a groundcover. I am into natives because they really do much better than exotics in my garden. However I would still like Hellebores for under the maple (when I can find a colour and variety I like) along with ferns as I love the flowers and, they are easier to handle than flower carpet roses.

A trip up to Palmers Gardenworld may be in order as they have a lot more variety there so I plan to get growing this week and prepare for spring.



Saturday 6 August 2016

Burning Bush

 Work continues on my garden border and this time round I've put in tulips in my flaming bed along with the Nandina heavenly dwarf bamboo that is supposed to be red like a burning bush but has decided to change its mind and be green instead. Two of them have moved from the corner along and in their place I have buried 100 dutch iris. For the purple look. Except maybe I might have overdone it because I was reading in one of my garden design books that too much purple has a leaden effect.
And I haven't even put in the ajugas yet. But I managed to find a wonderful pink manuka called 'Kerry' already half in bloom and that will shelter the Jacaranda sapling from the frost hopefully.

I bought in three salvias in violet and blue to put near the roses, although they were the rejects Mitre 10 didn't want on the sale pallet, but, if I cut them back they will grow again (hopefully) and its the spring rains that will keep them moist. I know you are supposed to buy healthy plants not the sad looking ones on the sale pallet but...the ones that were full price weren't violet or blue they were red, and I don't fancy red ones.

I have been reading Exodus and I'm intrigued that God spoke to Moses out of a burning bush. Was it by any chance a Nandina 'firepower'? Because I have seen them in Mitre 10 and they are flaming red that you think someone had dyed them on purpose or dipped them in lipstick. They are certainly eyecatching and possibly thats what God wanted. Moses must have been bored looking at all the grass tending sheep all day when he noticed this peculiar bush that looked like it was burning but wasn't. I mean out of all the plants God could have spoken out of he chose that bush. He didn't, after all, speak out of a thorny flower carpet rose and I suspect Moses wouldn't have listened if He had.

Which reminds me, I have to get round to burning those flower carpet roses one day, they are all cut up but I'm not going to risk dumping them if they could possibly grow again. Louise from church dropped by today and noticed my very englishy box hedge front garden which I said used to have these noxious flower carpet roses but I have now replaced them with ferns. She said, yes, she used to have them too and the children always complained about them when they were playing cricket on the lawn because if they hit a six and the ball went into the rose bushes they all got thorned trying to field the ball.

Note to landscape designers -- do NOT put roses anywhere near a lawn. I think roses should be restricted to south of the Bombay Hills because anytime anyone tries to grow them north especially in Auckland they end up with black spotty messes and bleeding hands.

Tuesday 2 August 2016

A day outside

Well I got cracking on the backyard and mulched the border with stones, so bye-bye creeping buttercup (for now). I limed it and blood and boned it, and sanded it, so hopefully they won't like it so much and keep at bay.
I put growing frame hoops around the roses. I also have made a criss-cross trellis pattern against the fence with old sticks, so the sweet peas can climb through. I  swapped the lemon tree for the jacaranda  so now they are in better spots. I pulled lambs ears out and put them by the roses so we will have a soft border safer from prickles, as well as manuka for bees (wasn't able to get pink...yet) and moved the shrubby kowhai next to the tyres. I've got fennel in the tyres, as well as passionfruit that I moved along from a clump. Also parsely, convulvulus marinara, a hebe, and whatever else I could stick in - lobelia. I made a shopping trip to Kings and found some purple kale ornamentals so they went in and really give it a purple look, as well as purple sage, and I will have purple iris poking through at some stage. I moved the brown carex to the gaps made by the tires and mulched the edges with stone as well. Also I have put mixed primula down by the wet edges. Phew!

I don't know if I will get the pink flax or manuka yet as now it seems there would be nowhere to put them in this border but maybe I can have a pink corner elsewhere..if I can get that iresine to grow again.

Also just between you and me I have nominated Woodside Community Garden for NZ Gardener of the Year competition. You can nominate groups...we could win $300 Gardena pack, and $250 of products from various garden companies. So we could have lots of seeds, gumboots, tools, gloves, plants, fertiliser, fancy indoor plants....or if its the REALLY big prize, a Trulux glasshouse worth $2999 and a Gardena gardening pack worth $2000!

I have not thought what we could do with a glasshouse but maybe we could start our own seedlings nursery on site instead of at home? Or grow eggplants, chillis and tomatoes early? Or have lettuces in winter?? Also, we could have bragging rights to our neighbours!