The Early Cheer and Tazetta type Narcissi are starting to flower and the Hellebores are out as well. It’s amazing that they look so fresh and unblemished when the howling gales and hail have torn half the leaves off the lime trees. The Michelia ‘Bubbles’ is covered with sweet scented flowers which are being torn up as they open so I picked a few buds in the hope they might open indoors. (not yet)
Continue reading “In a Vase on Monday – Narcissi and Hellebores”
Hail, thunder, gale force winds, and the mud that results from weeks of the same made it an interesting weekend for gardening. The rain may have softened the blow for the dogwoods which I mistakenly planted on a steep dry bank – having survived for two years their reward is to be dug up and wrestled into a wheelbarrow for transport to a wetter place.
Continue reading “Spring – hail, thunder, howling gales and lambs”
It’s over a month to the first official day of Spring, but the very first daffodils and hyacinths and the first muscari are blooming, and in the space of the weekend 3 new little lambs appeared in the field next door.
I was hoping to take some photos of various Hebes to continue Christina’s discussion about plants which are naturally ‘pruned’, but the weather is slashing wind and horizontal rain today. I have some photos from the frost a couple weeks ago instead.
We don’t have many frosts a year, so I’m always excited to rush out early and see it before it melts away. This particular morning there was a half inch layer of ice on the dog’s water dish, and a bright sun making everything sparkle.
Work has kept me away from the garden and the blog over the last few weeks, and I’ve returned to a brutal storm with wind tearing branches away and the rain gauge showing around 4 inches of rain ( 120 mm ) most of which has probably fallen in the last week. I assume that the bees are hunkered down like I am inside. Continue reading “Flow Hive ready for Winter”
It’s really Autumn now. The sun didn’t rise until around 7:30, and it rose just to the cold side of the big tree that marks East. In a few weeks we will have daylight savings and suddenly the evenings will be dark.
Well, it’s here right on time, the windy rainy storm that follows the tomatoes being planted out. I’m grateful for the rain, so far about 2 inches in the last week, so not a huge amount but it’s still going and it’s steady so it’s soaking in.
It’s been pouring steadily all day. Rivers of water are running down the drive and puddles are forming all across the lawn. It’s 7pm and we have had 64 mm so far today, so if it keeps on like this it will be 3 inches by midnight.
We have had 3 frosts in a row now, good hard ones, and one a couple weeks ago, which burnt the leaves of my cutting grown hibiscus and plumbago.
The original plants I took the cuttings off are still blooming in the city, so obviously it’s a lot colder here. I’m glad, it will knock back the bugs and kikuyu grass. The weather has been fabulous of course, clear and really warm during the day.
I planted more penstemon Hidcote Pink in the Coral Garden, moved a sucker of Nik’s rose which is a single wine coloured rugosa up to the Mabel garden, and weeded around the Chartreuse de Parme. It usually gets miners lettuce coming up around it, but maybe it was too weedy, or maybe too dry, there’s none I could see.
I found a Margaret Merrill rose almost dead on the driveway, covered with a pile of weeds. I’ve moved it to the new garden on the upper Dorothy path next to an Iceberg, which is still flowering beautifully. This rose is growing on an area where I’ve thrown weeds over the last couple years, and it has made all the difference in improving the soil.
Yesterday I planted some ‘Happy Cherub’ lavender (Stoechas) and Arabian Nights Lavender (English), under the Fig tree at the start of the upper Dorothy path.
Also more Grevillia: Drummer Boy, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and a light green one, rosmarinifolius, which is similar, around the Feijoas on the upper Dorothy path.
I have split up some of the small yellow flowered knifophia and planted them at the start of the Jack path. I will add some more of the burnt Orange, which have just finished flowering.
We also bought another Jack Hum Crabapple and a Golden Hornet. I will move a couple of the accidental cutting grown plums off the driveway and replace them with these. I will add some compost at the same time as the soil is terrible there.
I bought 5 more Kowhai, the coastal one, Chathamica. The others are doing well so far.
A Litchfield Angel rose, which I’m not sure where to plant, and a bunch of Keith Hammet dahlias on sale, Mystic Magic, Mystic Enchantment, and Seeker, which have dark leaves and will go in the nightTime garden along with 2 dark leaved Heuchera – Black Taffeta.
We also bought a Maroochydore Macadamia as a companion for our other unnamed one given to us by a neighbour.
Last but not least, I bought 2 Osmanthus fragrans, which are supposed to smell wonderful in Winter. The are a relative of the olive, and I think the leaves can be used for tea. They look a bit like baby holly trees. They should grow to a shrub or small tree, and need nice soil and moisture – so I’m not quite sure where they are going yet.
Wow we expected rain in the early morning – but it was heavy noisy rain on the tin roof in the loft from 3 am to around 6 am when it started to taper off. We had received 63 mm when I checked around 7 am.
It rained on and off all day. The total rain since last night was 71 mm, so 110 since last Monday am.
I took cuttings of scented pelargoniums and penstemon Hidcote Pink, and planted daffodils, coral bells, and liriope under the plum by the hut. Daffodils were mostly pink and white and orange – Funky monkey, Nona, Hot pink, and Annalise. I also transplanted Stock and some lettuce and silverbeet and weeded around the self sown peas growing from the pea haulms I put around the tomatoes (these will probably be Carouby).
The Tip Dahlias are flowering brilliantly. I spotted a couple of big clumps of these at the rubbish tip and brought one of them home – the other one went to the woman running the tip that day. I expected they must be some really ugly horribly invasive dahlia, or why would someone bother to dig them out and take them to the tip? But they are beautiful, deep purpley red with bit of green at the centre as they open, changing to yellow as they mature.
Absent Gardener 