Holiday Reading

A Garden Cartoon

The Day after Christmas - a cartoon

Christmas Cats

Happy Christmas!

Plants for bees - Pineapple Sage

I've been making a lot of manuka seedlings and cuttings and trees lately, for the beebiz. But when the manuka is not flowering, the bees need food still. So I think that pineapple sage and rosemary might fill the gap. Pineapple sage in particular seems to flower for months on end, from about autumn till spring, so perfect to fill the gap. And it is super easy to propagate from cuttings. And grows like crazy.

Here are some cuttings that I made in autumn, that I have just potted up into bigger pots, as the space for them to be planted is not ready yet.

And here is one of the same batch of cuttings, that I have planted along side my retaining wall a few months ago. So, by putting it in the ground, it is about 5 times as big as the ones that remained in pots. And will keep growing to be about 1 to 1 1/2 metres high I expect.

You can cut these back quite vigorously when they start to get in the way, they seem quite indestructible. The original plant that all these have come from was given to me by a work friend probably 25 years ago. And it has been dug up, moved around, bulldozed, neglected. As long as I just keep a bit of the roots, off it goes again. And, as if all that is not enough, its a herb, of the sage family, with a pineapply flavour (obviously!). Although I haven't actually found a good use for a pineapply herb. But should you require that, this is your plant. It does smell lovely to brush against.

I've got a beehive!

Here is the new hive. Not mine as such, but mine to look after. Its only a small one, as it was a split from another, and the queen might not be too robust, so will need some TLC and checking for a while. When it gets going, there is a box to add to the top, that has frames for honey. In this box there are some honey frames, and mainly brood frames, which means the baby bee factory. 

We've faced the hive to the east, and positioned it so it gets the morning sun, to wake the bees up and get them out and about early. And then it is in afternoon dappled shade, so they won't get too hot. Or that is the theory.

I've got a huge pohutukawa flowering at the moment, and the bees all seem to love it, so that is a good sign. I also spotted a lot of native bees on the flowers too.

Garden Envy

Every year, when I go to the Auckland Botanic Gardens, I have a wander round their vegetable garden. And am overcome with garden lust, "I want a garden like that!". Well not this year, I came home and checked out my fecund vege garden and sighed a satisfied sigh, SUCH a relief to have my own garden now, and not altogether such a hard thing to achieve either.

I would like to thank my willing helpers who all helped me to get there though :-))) Couldn't have done it without you guys (and you know who you are...)

A busy bee

A busy bee bottom, foraging in the snapdragons

NZ Christmas tree

The New Zealand Christmas tree is a pohutukawa. I have one right out my 2nd story window, threatening to touch the windows one of these years. It flowers reliably right on Christmas. Its just starting now, and by Christmas day will be in maximum bloom, never fails.

AUT Capping Parade

Here is the Health Sciences from AUT summer graduation capping parade. So nurses and physiotherapists and paramedics and such. I couldn't help thinking what a concentrated bunch of goodness there was, all in one space, all those caring professions, and presumably caring young people.

And here is my darling - proud mother moment. My friend's son also graduated, as a paramedic. Both of us weepy together...

Auckland Botanic Sculpture Trail

We went to the Auckland Botanic Gardens to walk around their free sculpture trail last week. A beautiful day, a lovely walk around the gardens, and magnificent sculptures (yours for a princely sum, should you be so inclined). The ones I loved best were all bird sculptures this year. Check these out.

How long does it take for an apple tree to produce fruit?

Well, if you believe the literature, it takes quite a few years for a new apple tree to produce its first apples. But check this out! An apple! Only small at this stage, so still plenty of time to fall off, but I count this as a win. This is an early apple, the late granny smith tree hasn't got any sign of fruit.

Owning Chickens

One day I'll have chickens in my back yard. In the meantime I visit these chickens. They belong to Spike, the friendly goat of a previous post. And live all around the bees. I wonder if bees sting birds?

How to clean a barbeque

Here it is! The first barbeque of the season. Of, ooooh,  seasons. Years. The barbeque was a bit scary, hadn't been used for all that time. I was afraid essential bits had rusted out and it would all go up in a poof!

So, how to clean a barbeque? A bit like 'how to lay paving'....invite an excellent friend over and open a beer.

For extra points, make sure the friend is also a dab hand with the tongs. And no, no poof, it all went very sweetly.

Unimaginably exciting for me though, the barbeque on the paving.

Goats as Pets

I'd love to have some bigger animals. Alpacas say. But my backyard is just too small.

But on the weekend I met this adorable fellow up close. Spike. A goat. Now I have heard that boy goats are a bit rank. And maybe they are, but out in the open Spike seems extremely OK. The thing I found surprising though was his rough coat. I'm so used to stroking animals and them being soft, I wasn't expecting a bony knobbly back with scratchy hair. He was pretty pleased to be scratched around his face though. Pretty cute!

Trees for Bees

Check this out! Last weekend I repotted 88 manuka trees into bigger pots - the front 2 rows here, the rest are from previously, but all growing like mad now.

And from those 88 bigger plants, I must have made about 150 smaller pots of all the little stray seedlings that came around them. The outdoor dining table is definitely out of commission for the foreseeable future, covered in plants. I reckon in another month these tiny ones will all be growing vigorously too. I'm hoping.

Grey Lynn Park Festival

We've just had the Grey Lynn Park Festival, always a great day out. This year it was a bit wet - could have been a whole lot worse though, its been cancelled a couple of years because of the weather. And the sun came out in the middle. So many things to buy, always quite hard to be able to walk around and not have your brain glaze over with over-choice. Even if just choosing lunch. The music is always great though.

Growing strawberries

One the birds didn't get! Delicious, it was, too. I'm thinking I'll get some hoops, or wire and make them into hoops, and put bird netting over them. The bird netting will have to have big enough holes for the bees though. And the hoops will have to be big enough to fit over the hebe hedge as the strawberries grow below them. So... I'm still thinking.....

Unusual Cat sitting positions

Cats sit in strange positions sometimes.

Bill the cat is very relaxed and comfortable on the steps. He held this position for ages

Then decided that the back feet needed to dangle, not the front ones.

Early summer flowers

Things are starting to get flowering in earnest. Here is my hebe hedge that surround the stone garden. I've been wondering exactly what color it will turn out. The flowers are becoming more blue as they age, these ones are just the first opening color.

And underneath the hebes, the pratia ground cover, little white flowers.

And one of my gardenias. Beautiful scent too.

A watercolor painting of peonies

Doesn't this look just like a watercolor painting of flowers? But its a photo, of some lovely peonies my daughter got for her birthday. They all faded out to a lovely pale cream color before losing their petals.

Manuka seedlings

Now these plants are rocketing away! Just not that long ago they were a couple of inches tall, and now some of them are a couple of feet tall (that would be say 60cm for all you modern metric people). Bushy as anything too. They'll be ready to plant out in autumn, just got to decide where....

Arm Knitting a Blanket

Doesn't this look just like something you would buy from a trendy shop for a vast amount of money? And rightly so. But my gorgeous daughter made it for me. On her arms!

It started life as a 1Kg ball of roving - which is the fat carded wool that you use to spin with. She felted it lightly in the bath, here it is drying outside. Then she split it into 2 to make the yarn a bit thinner. And used her arms as knitting needles. Casting on was tricky, but the knitting was easy. This is natural cream coloured Polworth sheep's wool. Isn't it just the cat's whiskers?

Cats and Gardening

Cats and gardening are a special combination that sometimes works, and sometimes not.  So here I have radish seeds. Now I am pretty sure I didn't just empty the packet of seeds into 1 pile but sprinkled them around.

And here it is again, just a bit up from the radishes, a cluster of beetroot seedlings.

I'm thinking that what has happened is some furry four legged friend (or is that fiend?) has decided that this was the perfect place for a call of nature, and then industriously and scrupulously scooped all the dirt into a couple of piles in the process.

Wouldn't want to blame human error now would I?

Growing Spring Vegetables

It must be spring! Things are growing. Starting to look productive and edible even. This is soooo amazingly satisfying. And once my garden beds were set up, didn't require much effort - bung the small plant in, turn on the sprinkler occasionally. Honestly - the best feeling ever!

Peas

Courgettes

Broad beans 

My Heart's Desire - a Spring Posy

I have wanted to create this for so long! Probably goes back to some seminal childhood experience - my gardening grandmother maybe? A posy of flowers, all picked from my garden.

 Even though my current gardening efforts are not focused on flowers, but on productive plants - vegetables, and fruit trees, and herbs, these still came from all the gaps between. Could have added some fragrant herbs to the posy too, I guess.

A Small Gardening Shed

My gardening friend Barbara and I went on a garden design tour last weekend. There were lots of different garden styles, all done by various professional designers. Some I liked, some were not my thing. As you would expect from a variety of clients and designers. But many of the ideas seemed so...well, large, and proper. I'd look at it and go "that's amazing, but how can I do that at home?".

But, check out this little garden shed! Its made entirely out of 2nd hand glass doors, old french doors, and single doors. Some clear corrugate on the top on rafters. A bit of deck for the floor at the bottom. A plank inside for a bench. Now THAT I want! Wouldn't that look just so groovy down the end of my section?

Heartease seedlings

This is a success story. These seedlings here are from a tray of seeds I put out late winter. Timing was fine, they all germinated. But the cat saw the box, sitting on the garden, and thought "oooo, litter box". I just laughed, moved it out of the way, and expected nothing to grow. But they did germinate, all scrapped to one side in the tray, but growing. So I have potted them up into individual pots now. These are heartsease, a relation of pansies and violets.

Spring Roses

Here in New Zealand it is November. Well, duh, I guess it is November everywhere. Anyway, in November, here, all the roses bloom. November is the big rose month. My roses that have escaped the bulldozer are all flowering madly too. These are old roses, with a beautiful scent. Open the door and it wafts in to my office on the warm balmy air. Paradise.

Paaaaaarty Time

Here it is...we made it! The paving, the steps and deck, even the clean verandah.

Nothing like a deadline to focus the efforts.