A definite autumnal feeling...
March is marching on - I'm sure I've said that before. The mornings are much darker, and there's a definite autumnal feeling in the air. It's goodbye to summer - all too soon!
Garden Seat
Thursday 12th March
OK. How commercial will the Ellerslie Flower Show, local for the first time, be? I have a ticket, and I should go. Will my photographs be over-full of busy crowds spending their horticultural grey dollar? Will I see cute, 'miniature' Gunneras in designer garden displays?
Four Good Reasons Not to Go to the Ellerslie Flower Show Today
- 1. Stiff legs and feet.
- Yesterday's brilliant hike in the foothills up to the top of Mount Grey, then looping back into the bush and going gently down the (New Zealand) bush-world's longest zig-zag.
- 2. The Garden Club visit.
- Aargh! How long now? I need to beautiful my patio pots, and do a squillion other things.
- 3. General personal gardening.
- Ha! I would not want it thought that the only reason I am busy this month beautifying and improving the Moosey Garden is the Garden Club's visit early in April.
- 4. My cats and the dog.
- I miss my cats and Rusty the dog, and I was out all day yesterday (see item one).
Right. Enough recording. Why don't I just go into town, get this Flower Show over, do my Moosey Garden reporter thing, and then get back to the real gardening world?
Flower Shows...
Early Afternoon, Apres Ellerslie Flower Show...
Right. I have some serious work to do. Firstly, to tidy up the gum bark from around the Hen House - there is a fine line between rustic and rubbishy. Then to revamp the patio pots - I have bought two fat supermarket-yellow Chrysanthemums, a New Zealand pepper tree, and two Green Goddesses (fat-leaved Cordylines). These are 'in', by what I saw at the Flower Show. I also bought some more Choisya Ternatas for the Hump, a replacement Astelia, and a clump of Acaena which I keep reading about in English gardening magazines. Nice foliage colours - I'm going to put it in the old silver coal scuttle and wait for the compliments...
Patio Pots
So I obviously have a lot of planting to do - and I also need to start clearing the gum tree rubbish from the back of the Pond. The Ellerslie Flower Show has taught me many things, one of which is : Feature your natural water features! Later, after I've done some real gardening, I'll write down more of my thoughts...
Much Later...
Phew - I'm tired. I've been clearing the paths and gardens around the Hen House, and carting and burning my rubbish. My silly garden called Henworld could do with a few new inhabitants (plaster chooks) - as could my real chook house (I'd like to get two young Barred Plymouth Rocks). Now I should be repotting all those plants mentioned above, but I'm too tired and my feet are sore. Oh dear! Time to peep at the Ellerslie Flower Show photographs, I think.
Friday 13th March
Right. Today, definitely apres-Ellerslie, I am having a seriously big planting day. Wasps and lost spades will not deter me. The new plants are going in absolutely everywhere, in a grand planting sweep of the Moosey Garden. I will need my wits about me!
Glass-House Garden
I am also burning, collecting more river stones, clearing paths, trimming dead leaves from flaxes, and weeding the edges of all garden borders. I'm off to a huge cheap warehouse to look at hens, gnomes (why not?) and some new large pots - if they are cheap enough. Important new garden beautifying rule - plastic nursery pots are only allowed for plants in transition, these to be placed behind the glass-house. For example, my two standard Brides (very boring in the off-season) are thus banished from the patio until next spring. Fair enough!
Guy Savoy Rose
Hi Guy!
Oh - I've just remembered - must take some colourful photographs of the recycled roses I've just discovered flowering in the Glass-House Garden. One is called Guy Savoy, and he's no reject - he's drop-dead gorgeous!
Lunchtime...
The more I do, the more I see to do and the less I seem to have done! Aargh! But I am on track as far as today's plans go - now I'm off to buy those plaster hens. I am retiring two large bright orange plastic pots, and will need replacements. I understand the rusty tones spectrum much better now, since looking at the designer gardens at the Ellerslie Flower Show. Real rusted metal would be nice...
Much, Much Later...
Just my patio pots are done - nothing else. I have four new blue ones, and I've filled them with all sorts of lovely plants. I've also weeded madly and swept the patio and the decking. And I've made a start weeding in the Shrubbery, around the sunken courtyard. I do have yet another list for Non-Gardening Partner, of things he must do before the Garden Club visits. He hasn't taken any notice of the first one...
- Water-blast the patio tiles.
- Weed-kill the driveway, particularly for clover.
- Reinsert waterwheel into water race.
Yippee! NGP thinks the waterwheel will work now, and it has a new plastic bucket. I've cleared some old fountain grasses away so it will be more visible from the path. And another yippee - the pond scooper is coming on Monday. This means that the water has to be pumped out, and several plants shifted, as well as path stones and a cluster of pots. The truck will drive down the ram paddock and through my garden!