Saturday 30 December 2017

Ferns and Grass

Went to the Oratia Native Plant Nursery yesterday and bought two ferns - an asplenium obfastusm and a blechnum.  Which if you know your ferns are very cool ferns to have but to most people they are just ferns. I was actually looking for Shining Spleenwort but they didn't have any in stock. The fronds are shiny and it does well in dry shade, while the blechnum has an orangey tinge and is ok with sun.

Mum came with me and tried to stop me buying these ferns claiming we had enough plants already. Well she gave me a christmas pay packet and then tried to stop me spending it. So I said I will just plant them at church or the Waitakere Gardens. This changed her mind quick.

Why more ferns? Because ferns like to have other fronds I mean friends not just all the same. See my garden is becoming very biodiverse not just bog standard landscaper paint by numbers.

Mum was given a Michelia by my brothers but she said it was too big. It is rather huge size and they have nowhere to plant it. People if you going to buy plants please plant them somewhere not leave them in their pots to become root bound, dry out and then die. I have the same issue at work where lots of plants are left over yet, because of time limits of the job I cannot plant them all and so they are left in their trays to die. It is because people think lawns are more important. But truth be told I do not care too much about lawns because I don't really see oldies romping barefoot in the grass. There is even fake lawn for them to play bowls and petanque on and if really pushed maybe they could join a golf course. But I don't want to be mowing lawns when I could be gardening. Next thing they might be asking us to wash windows.

Maybe I will just say for health and safety reasons I am going deaf from noisy lawnmowing and can I please have a quieter job tending plants. Perhaps in the new year. I'm still annoyed with whoever mowed over the hydrangeas at church so I might just make a display with stalks of paspalum grass because we have no flowers.