More Cuttings for Trees for Bees

Its really the end of the season for making cuttings, as it is getting quite cold now (for here, so not really cold at all), but a couple of plants will strike from cuttings all year round - or so my trusty book says.  So I have tried some Griselinia Littoralis - the big leafed green ones, these were the hedge-du-jour for a few years and I thought they would fill in some of my gaps on the boundary, and maybe even make a small hedge along my back border.  I pinched these cuttings from my lovely neighbours, who have recently planted a few plants, although a walk around the neighbourhood would find plenty of others hanging over the footpaths.

 

Then the little roundy leafed ones are from a couple of little azaleas that I have had in my front yard for 20 years, and I have not managed to kill them yet, so they deserve a go.  Might be too cold for them to strike though, we'll see.  Not bee plants, but pretty.

 

And trust rosemary, also might be too late, but I needed to trim it anyway. This is a prostate form, and I'm hoping it will go beside my retaining wall and dangle over the board that I am going to put up to hold all the dirt in.

 

 

And then I noticed one of the council street plantings just outside my place had a big bushy coprosma, so I pinched some of that too.  These should work I think.  Or they would, except after I took this pic one of the cats saw this and thought it was an excellent dirt box - dirt and cuttings all over the deck.  I've since moved them into the box beside the rosemary, but I'm not sure if any fatal damage has been done, time will tell.  Plenty more where this came from though, the street bush is huge, so I think it will make an excellent gap filler.

 

How to Live well

Bread making, spinning, gardening, cats .... its all about this

Wet Muddy Paws

When your backyard looks like this after a bit of rain

 

 

and you have this many sets of paws

 

 

then all your floors look like this.

 

 

 

 

And I mean, ALL.  Beds too. Towels. Fresh washing, should you be so forgetful to leave any lying around.

As an aside...have you noticed the amount of personal space between each, at the breakfast setting? Wouldn't want to actually breath the same air now...

Weekend Alternative

 

This might have been a good option too, for a wet weekend with small sunny spots.  There's much to be learnt from cats, and animals in general.

 

If there is one spot of sun spilling onto the floor, a cat will find it and soak it up. ~J.A. McIntosh

Spinning 2

Rain rain go away...Or not. A rainy weekend is such a good excuse to snuggle up inside doing not very much. Because, you know..."if it was fine I would be out digging in the garden and schlepping rocks and all, but, oh dear, I'll just have to stay inside and drink tea and enjoy myself :)". Not that gardening, and even rock moving, isn't enjoyable.

 

So, here is the rest of the spinning experiment.  This is 2 strands of singles, plied together i.e. twisted together through the wheel in the opposite direction.

 

 

I put the 2 bobbins of singles into a lazy kate.  Well, in theory, a lazy kate, but in fact a box that the spinning wheel new bits came in, with a couple of knitting needles through.  Works perfectly!

 

 

Then fed both strands back into the wheel and spun in the opposite direction, creating double knit.

The trick is to get the twist in one direction the same as the twist in the other direction, not so easy. 

 

 

 

 

Here I managed beautiful singles, but over twisted when plying, so it curled up on itself.  But as it is only experimental, to see if I remember how, no worries. I now know what to check for on the real thing.

2 bobbins of singles made 3 bobbins of plied - more air gaps I guess.  Normally I would wind these on a skein maker, called a niddy noddy (yes, really) and then wash them, but I've misplaced mine, so went straight to the ball stage.  Then I tried knitting it, to see how thick it all turned out.  Quite thick about 10 ply gauge I reckon.  All good stuff.  Don't know what I'll do with these now though.  This is Romney wool, and a bit scratchy, not bad, but not really good enough for a scarf.

 

And...ta dah....this is the real thing. This gorgeous natural chocolate brown fleece is a Corriedale, so lovely and soft.  Also it is a finer wool, smaller crimp, so I'll spin it finer too.  So now I have to make a (small, because I don't want to delay too much longer) sample and ply it, to see if I've got the twist about right.  Looks like a pony tail laying there.

Spinning

What to do on a rainy weekend?  Fish out the ancient spinning wheel from under the house and get it going!  It required a couple of new bits, as the old ones had rusted away.  And a good coat of linseed and turps.  Couldn't for the life of me remember how to thread it all up, where the drive bands attached to, but thank goodness for google.  But once I'd made it actually go round, turns out it really is like riding a bicycle, my hands knew just exactly what to do.  As long as I kept my brain out of it.

I'm pretty proud of this, as my first effort in 20 years.  I've got to make another one the same, and then ply them - twist them together with the spin in the opposite direction - if I can remember how....  I think it will make about an 8 ply yarn, we'll see.

This fleece is leftovers of an old one I had, its a natural grey colour, or will be when I have washed it.  Its possible its gone a bit yellow with age though.  It came as a carded sliver, see below, so it is clean, and all brushed, and very easy to spin. You can spin direct from the cut staples off a sheep's back which takes longer and more preparation, but this is what I had.  I've bought a new fleece, a chocolate natural colour, but thought I'd get all the knots out of my technique on my practice one first.

Trees for bees

 

 

Weekend planting...I managed 6 trees planted today.  They all came from the Oratia Nursery, the most amazing and enormous nursery of native plants.  This top pic is about a quarter the size of the whole nursery.  Mainly they supply wholesale I think, but on Saturdays are open to the public. Just wandering around is an outing in itself, and on such a beautiful day, was splendid.  It does help to have some idea what your plant you are looking for actually looks like, or you could be wandering for hours, although the staff are great.

 

 

So I've got: a Towai - the small stick in the middle front of the pic with a couple of reddish leaves.  Will grow into a biggish tree.

 

A Rewarewa (to left) a forest giant, and native fuscia to the right.

 

A Pittosporum Tenuifolium, to the right with small pale leaves, a medium sized tree, which will fill the gap and protect for wind.  And a Five finger to the left, hard to see with the weeds behind, but has big leaves with 5 leaf bits per stem (surprise!), also a wind break type.  I hope.  This is my biggest, most exposed hole in the boundary.

 

And this, which is hard to see because it has tiny leaves, but it is a Putaputaweta, also a medium sized tree.

 

All these trees have flowers that the birds and bees enjoy.

Winter Fruit

The winter fruit is starting to ripen.  I saw a bird munching away on the top of the persimmon tree last week, always a good sign.

 

Persimmon, nearly ready

 

Orange, got a bit further to go

 

 

Morning Rituals

My morning ritual - tea, breakfast and the newspaper on the front porch.  At this time of year the sun just comes up over the houses over the road.  Its a nice ritual in the rain too, the porch is sheltered and the rain falls just beyond my toes.  Reminds me that all is well with my world.  Reconnects me with nature.

"The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep."
-  Rumi  

A Weekend of Hard Work

My lovely lovely neighbours on the uphill side, behind the retaining wall, offered to fund 3 students for an afternoon, plus a truck load of top soil.  What an amazing offer!  So I said "nah, it'll be right".  Hah, not likely, it was "wow yes please".

They dug clay (surprise), moved rocks (surprise), flattened out the backyard, and then spread 3 bags of lime - the white stuff.  This is supposed to break down the clay.  Earlier I tried out an experiment to see if it really worked, but couldn't tell, so will have to take it on trust that is as marvelous as advertised.

Then...the top soil.  A truck load is a fair amount, all sitting neatly up on the grass verge.  The students ran out of time, but I started on it on Sunday.  I've managed to spread a thin layer over most of the lime - I'm not quite sure how lime will go on cat's feet, and tongues.  So my plan is to spend my lunchtimes doing 10 wheelbarrow loads a day.  Should get there in the end.  Doesn't it look just so good now though?

Pineapple Sage Cuttings

 I needed to trim the pineapple sage, so I turned the bits all into cuttings.  These should root really well, pineapple sage seems indestructible.  Assuming it survives my cats, who are behaving as though it is catnip, not a sage.  I've had to stick the cuttings back in several times, and they are getting all furry now. Its also a good plant for late autumn flowering for bees searching for food.  I thought this might go along under the retaining wall, around other things - mass planting style.

The Last Roses of Autumn

“Feeling at peace, however fragilely, made it easy to slip into the visionary end of the dark-sight. The rose shadows said that they loved the sun, but that they also loved the dark, where their roots grew through the lightless mystery of the earth. The roses said: You do not have to choose. ”
― Robin McKinley, Sunshine

A seam of gold

 

 

I knew this was here somewhere, but was wondering if it was so covered by clay it had disappeared. 

 

Part of the retaining wall destruction involved chopping down all my existing trees on the north half of my property.  We (my trusty and heroic helper actually) then whizzed them all in a mulcher to turn them into valuable compost mulch.  All well and good, except if it is then all lost beneath thick sticky yellow clay.

 

But ah ha! here it is!  At last.  So I've started undermining the clay mountain from the bottom to use all this lovely compost.  The first place it has been going is in the soon-to-be contemplation garden edging.  For a hedge of hebes.  Again.  I'm trying hard to not just plant one of everything, but to have some continuity and repetition going on.  Which is quite hard for me.

 



 

 

Ah, it feels soooo good to be starting on the creating now, not just schlepping clay around.

Boundary Rejuvenation Mk 2 Trees for Bees

 

Further plantings along the boundary.  Many holes to fill, so this will be an on-going tale.  These plants were from a local big chain garden centre, and were expensive, and not quite what I went in to buy.  I'm thinking some of the smaller players that sell on line will offer a better deal for next time.  And supporting small businesses seems just right too.

 

 

Manuka - bushy medium tree, its the typical NZ nursery crop, so will cope well with the windy and open conditions here.  I'm planning quite a few more of these along here.  Good for bees too, manuka honey is a premium, got lots of health benefits, and is a natural antiseptic, as well as delicious.

 

 

Hebe, different kind to the first one.  Hebes have blue, purple, white or pink flowers, and are shrub sized.

 

 

Another hebe, different again.

 

 

A type of pittosporum, not quite the one I wanted, but when you are in the garden centre with money burning a hole in your pocket......

 

 

Hard to see, it is the little lime green plant in the centre of the pic, but this one will grow to be a forest giant.  Its a ngaio, quick growing and will form good shelter.

 

The list of other plants I want is quite long, might have to cull a bit.  Before all the desolation caused by both the digger (from the retaining wall) and the neighbours chopping efforts, my place was a veritable forest of native plants, some forest giants, some smaller, but all just so lovely.  I'm still struggling with the loss.  Good thing gardening is a cyclical thing, and increase and decrease are all part of the package.

Down on its knees

 

 

Bowed down by life but not defeated.  Still plenty of life left in this girl.

Hot Cross Buns

 

The sour dough farm turned out a few batches of hot cross buns.  A bit after the event, but still...  More satisfyingly chewy than normal ones, the audience is clamouring for more, so might need to rename them.  The bread of life.

Manuka Seedlings

Back in summer we spent a couple of weekends making cuttings of manuka and planting them.  So now we need to pot them up. 

 

 

Most of them rooted it would seem, although lately they have begun dying off.  Definitely time to move them on then. Some of the seedlings were also grown from seeds, but we can't tell which are seed raised and which are cutting raised, so as an experiment, not so helpful.

 

 

We also are experimenting with pot types.  Here we've got plastic bags (cheap), paper mache type pots (expensive), and recycled plastic pots (free, but we've run out).  I've also seen a way of making newspaper pots that I'll try next time.

 

 

A Path Round the Back

I'm gradually chipping away at the clay mountain, from the front and the back.

 

 

This is the back view, on the down side.  To the left the ground drops away vertiginously to the neighbours.  I've made this fledging secret path around the back by the trees.  Once the rest of the mountain goes it'll be a gentle slope and I'll plant fruit trees.  And have chickens running on it.

An unexpected feature

It rained.  Lo!, a swimming pool. For very short people, and those that like to paddle.

 

 

Contemplation

Hard to imagine just yet, but I'm thinking a contemplation garden.

 

 

This is a half round that used to be my vegetable garden.  Its lovely and sunny in winter.  Sheltered (or it was before the boundary desecration, but it will be again when the new trees grow), hidden by an orange and a persimmon, tucked away but still in the centre of the universe.

 

So...a single chair, a border of hebes as a back protection, a bird bath? or a beautiful stone statue, or just a beautiful stone.  Rules: no arguing in my space.  Peace and quiet.  That sounds like the ticket.