The Upside-Down Garden

Trying publishing from Picasa

2011-10-08T19:34:00.000-07:00

The first, rather scruffey delphinium of the season. This malformed individual would have initiated this spike before winter .

I bought a new camera today and am just playing with it

2011-10-08T19:07:00.000-07:00

Mmm I wonder if this will work

Seems to. So here's another.

And another

I wonder if I'll get back into this?
The problem was that the i-phone and Facebook came along.

We'll see.

In which A Puppy Rules my Life - Part Two

2010-12-09T16:41:00.000-08:00

Ergo laughed at the gate to the nursery and slipped right under and through it.

Ok, so I covered it with fine mesh chicken wire. Cool it worked! For a whole hour. Ergo simply found a gap in another fence a way off from the gate and sneaked through. Right, so I blocked that and extended chicken wire mesh about 10 metres from the two gates (one to the road and the other to the nursery) that were causing problems. A day passed and no puppy visited.

Delphinium "James" and rose "Sweet Perfume"

Two days passed. Yay! But on the third day a little wet nose rubbed against my arm while working in the greenhouse. I put him back. He came to visit. I put him back. He came to visit. I put him back. This was becoming boring but I persisted. I was not going to be beaten. Ergo is strong willed. He wasn't going to be beaten either.

There always has to be a crunch time. Crunch time in this instance came when a passing cyclist returned Ergo from where she found him, wandering on the busy main road playing "chickin" with the logging trucks. Well, I tried folks, but in the end had to resort to the same solution that finally deterred Kaz some years ago. New Zealand is the home of the most efficient electric fence units for use with stock and dogs do not like electric shocks. Farm dogs all over the country quickly get used to the white electric fence signifying a no-go area. I really wasn't wanting to use this option but to fence the whole house area off with conventional wire fencing (either sheep netting or chicken wire) would cost serious money and be quite a chore. Sorry Ergo. Let's have some rheas under the elm.

Well, it was the dry for the last half of October and it's been the driest November on record in Wanganui. Furthermore we've had no rain in December yet either. Ergo obviously knows something about electricity. He knows that without a good earth electricity will not flow to ground. He also knows that dry soil does not provide a good earth. He must have been talking to Robert, my electrical engineer friend who is passionate about animals. "Ergo" Robert must have said, "don't use your nose, push under the wire with your hairy back and you'll be all right, the ground's dry".

The elder dog Kaz is no saint either though. Here she is pinching unripe apples.

The result was that by and large the fence simply made him frown and wonder what the neat little tingle was that was happening every time he visited me. This morning I even saw him roll under the electric fence wire, stand up and scratch his back along it.

Three days ago I lined the existing seven strand wire fence along the road frontage (all 200 metres of it) with what we call sheep netting.

This is wire mesh designed to keep sheep contained, and should be a tight enough weave to keep Ergo in. I have an electric fence in front of that. So far Ergo has not been on the road, that I know of, nor has he visited me in the nursery. I wonder what will happen tomorrow?

In which a Puppy Rules My Life

2010-12-08T01:48:00.000-08:00

This post is tangentially connected to my garden and will eventually lead there.

Things are happening at the moment. For a start, there is that rather nebulous affair called "life' which is in full swing wherever I look That's ok, I love it. I'd love it even more though if it would wait for me! I'm over Janice's fabulous significant birthday dinner, anything that is happening at Janice's Quilt Club or the Rotary Club to which I belong but would not belong if it were an arch-typical Rotary Club. I'm over my mother not being able to remember where she put her teeth or left her fag. I'm over dad not having any memory at all except for the occasional, unforgettable smile when he just might, just for a split second, remember me. I'm over a back that wore out 20 years ago and despises me for ignoring that fact and I'm over a garden that has grown 6 month's worth in the last 30 days, which have been far too busy to even get the next crop of radish seed sown. I'm over the delphinium seed crop plants that are in full flower - and will be so for a few months as we have a staggered crop this season and I'm over last weekend's once a year open days, but, what I'm not over is Ergo.

I love intelligence, weather it be in people, electronics, omnipotent entities or dogs. Ergo is very intelligent, probably more so that any omnipotent entity come to think of it, and I'm lazy. That's the crux of the problem.

Our garden is large. The road frontage is over 200 metres long. Fast cars patrol the road. Don't worry, Ergo is fine! We have a fence, that is good. The fence was erected in the days when our garden was part of a farm. It was made to keep large animals in. That is bad. Ergo is not a large animal. Yet. That creates some tension between fence, road, Ergo and me.

Initially we could leave little Ergo with big Kaz in the small courtyard, as even a small yard is big to a tiny puppy and an old, lazy dog (sorry, no quick brown foxes here). As Ergo grew however this situation became untenable because although Kaz could retain food until we took her for a walk, Ergo could not, or at least did not feel so motivated. Then there is terrorism exacted on the garden. The solution? Well perhaps the fence on the boundary would not be challenged until Ergo grew a little and the gate to the delphinium nursery would have sufficiently small spacings to prevent Ergo from coming to visit me at work. "Yeah Right" (Well known New Zealand saying that means "never in a million years!).

Right now I'm going to bed and will leave you hanging mid story. Stay tuned folks!

That Time of Year

2010-11-29T01:14:00.000-08:00

Janice has had a very significant birthday this week (tomorrow actually) and you're not getting to know how significant either. Last Sunday we had a great seven course degustation dinner in our house cooked by a leading New Zealand Chef and enjoyed by our immediate family and two good friends. It was wonderful. I hope to blog about it this week. Below are the hors d'oeuvre:

On garden matters - the only downside of being involved with growing plants for a business is that when summer comes, it comes and ordinary busy becomes frantic. Gardening gets left behind.

This year summer has arrived a month early. November, normally a cool, windy month has been decidedly hot and dry. The soil, initially still moist with the left over excess rainfall from September is now beginning to dry out, but not before fueling a massive growth spurt from all the plants in the garden. I have no intention of listing them all but this is "Diamonds Forever" flowering again

In the delphinium business we've been busy planting the last of the flower trials and viewing older ones

but in the home garden I've been sowing more vege seeds and harvesting a whole raft of mature crops.The image below is not a vege, it's a Yucca, a campanula and a sedum (I think) growing happily together

It's wonderful to have a large range of salad plants and herbs once again; the fresh, sweet, new season peas are particularly nice. But I must get more salad veges sown..now!

The flower garden has been left to its own devices but doing well none the less. The horizontal elm is enjoying shading the house.

I have been very lax in reading and commenting on blogs I like to loosely follow so if any of you are reading this please excuse this lapse.

I love our rustic fence

Cheers

Terry

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day 15th November 2010

2010-11-14T19:02:00.000-08:00

Sunny days and warm weather have brought the first of the summer flowers out so our "Down-Under" garden is filling with colour. For the purpose of the Bloggers Bloom Day I've decided to include some flowers from the nursery too and the first of these is the Wisteria, now in its full glory:

Meanwhile, back in the house garden some late apple blossom hangs on. You can just make out the young apples, set from the main flowering, behind these flowers:

Up at the nursery again one of out cream delphiniums known only as Y0102 is showing off:

The nursery is separated from the house by about 200 metres of medium incline so I think we'll stay for one more delphinium before going back to the house again. This one is part of trials to produce delphiniums compact enough for sale as pot plants. It is a little too tall at 55cm but that makes it ideal for a low border plant:

On the way back to the house I notice the first sunflower opening up. The seeds were planted under cover in early August:

The first day-lily is flowering. Our day-lilies are raised from seed we bought from Nan Riply of the American Hemerocallis Society http://www.northernlightsdaylilies.com/index.php?pr=Walkabout_Gardens

And now, looking towards the house the Cecil Brunner rose is putting on a show too. This rose blooms for most of the summer:

You probably all know this common papaver specie. I don't.:

Nor do I recall the name of the white flowering plants behind the campanula glomerata:

Still not to the bottom of the hill pansies are happy among the forget-me-nots:

And the pink hollyhock that has been flowering all winter is still on the go:

And a geranium specie:

And a white campanula percicifolia:

And so to the house garden where Westerland is all over the garage:

Wedding Day is about to dawn. This is my favourite rose, prickly and flowering only once a year its something to really look forward too. She is early this year.A bit of a shot gun affair no doubt.

Something you may not see too often in the northers hemisphere, a Manuka hybrid. This is one of our native, endemic I believe, New Zealand plants. We have many, many plants endemic to this country.

This carpet rose has also flowered right through the winter but is doing so a little more enthusiastically now.

Ok, I'll walk back up the hill, past a nasturtium that does a great job of covering the ground later in the season

And back to the delphiniums. This one is Double Innocence, which we bred and sell from seed

These are more trials for short, border type delphiniums

Well, that's 20 images. There are many more but the above should give you a taste of "What's Happening - Down Under"

If you want to know more about our delphiniums please check out our web site, here: http://www.delphinium.co.nz/

If you'd like to be part of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day visit Carol's blog here: http://www.maydreamsgardens.com/2008/02/getting-involved-with-garden-bloggers.html

Cheers

Terry

Match Stick

2010-11-10T00:56:00.000-08:00

This is going to be more of a matchstick than a post but I missed putting something up on Monday so must make amends.

It's amazing what a difference 10 days can make. I've never closely watched the progression of the sycamore tree from flower to fruit before and am astounded at the pace and beauty of it. The elm is fairly nippy about producing seed pods and it's true, they mature and fall more quickly, but as you see from the image below, the sycamore has almost mature pods while flowers on the same panacle are still blooming.

And just for fun:

I told you it was just a match-stick

Earthquakes, Earthworks and a Good Feed

2010-10-30T17:55:00.000-07:00

Some keen gardeners and those with earthquake phobias might like to skip the first few paragraphs - just jump straight to the first images and you'll be safe.

This week's blog will have to do for the past two. After a hectic week attending to work, garden and other things that come under the general heading of "life" and finally sitting before the pc on Tuesday evening, the wheel fell off. Blogger was down and as Janice and I flew to Christchurch on Wednesday morning for a few days rest I simply enjoyed a break from blogging too.

Since the Magnitude 7.1 earthquake on Sept 3rd, and because there have been so many sizable aftershocks (including a Mag 5 a few days ago) Christchurch has earned the reputation in NZ of Earthquake City . It was interesting therefore to see how the city is handling the quake and its aftermath. The first thing we noticed was the lack of disruption and damage. Quakes of this magnitude in places where building codes are less stringent would have caused the city to be flattened -witness Haiti for example, where a quarter of a million people died. In Christchurch there was no loss of life and damage was limited to the oldest brick buildings, some of which have simply been strengthened, some pulled down to be replaced.

Wanganui and most of New Zealand is either on, or very close to, active fault lines, so we regularly experience small quakes here too and are used to a little rocking every now and again. However, as we were "upgraded" to a 26th floor apartment in the hotel we stayed at we were pleased there was no significant shake while we were there. Never-the-less, the fact is that had there been another quake we would have been perfectly safe.

So why am I telling you all this? I have no idea. Perhaps I'm highlighting our good fortune in living in a society that values life enough to take steps to prevent its loss. Perhaps I'm telling prospective visitors to Christchurch and NZ not to worry about earthquakes.Either way I'm digressing from things horticultural.

Spring is well and truly here and heading full tilt towards summer. The vege garden is flourishing, more trees are in flower and perennials are waking up to the fact that they have to get on with another growth cycle..... again. I too must wake up to the fact there is an awful lot of work to do in the garden, not the least of which is making more terraces (more earthworks with a spade) to extend the vege garden into - because i'm RUNNING OUT OF ROOM.!!!!

I love trees and so the blooming cherry which flowered outside my office window (upstairs at home) a few weeks ago and the sycamore and manuka now in flower and also seen from the office are great friends to me.

The wisteria loves to climb the sycamore and rewards me with this sight of them both in flower. I love the sycamore seed pods seen developing mid left in the image below. They will bring "helicopter" excitement for our granddaughters later in the summer.

The manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) is beginning to flower now and will be a mass of blooms in a week or two.

And the clematis climbing up the tortured willow is a great sight in late spring

The willow has also allowed us to hang a swing from one of its branches and this has given much pleasure. Here my cousins James and Jasmine enjoy a ride in the autumn a few years ago

But back to today

The orchard is changing again as the azalea finishes flowering, the lamb's ears (Stachys byzantina) reach upwards and granny's bonnets flower in front of the myosotis

And the first flower appears on a new rugosa rose

The Rhododendron comes into bloom

The vege garden already alluded to as rapidly becoming too small is flourishing. The plant poking through the bird netting protecting the radish seedlings is a cabbage palm Brassica oleracea and the bare ground will be planted up with another crop of onions, beet lettuce seeds etc in a few days. We are harvesting sugar snap peas, carrots, radish, lettuce, beet, spring onions, spinach, broccoli and looking forward to much more

Vegetables and herbs are my favourite plants because not only do they look good but they also feed you. Janice and I love cooking and I'm looking forward to having a garden full of many different species for use in flavouring our meals. Last week I made some delicious vegetable pastes and sauces for garnishing. So delicious they were! Try parsley and spring onion, shredded and then blended with olive oil and lemon juice using a mortar and pestle. Or oregano and thyme likewise treated. Get the combination right and you have a wonderful garnish that's so easy to make....fresh

Just one more thing. This spotted lettuce (below right) has a great flavour and does not go bitter as the plant ages. Fantastic!!

Sorry I can't give you the name as I bought them as a plug. I'll get it later. Anyone know?

Cheers

Terry

Blogger's Bloom Day October 16th

2010-10-18T00:25:00.000-07:00

I missed the Blogger's Bloom Day post last month and am a little late this time too. But here is what is flowering in our southern hemisphere garden this 16th October 2010. Why I make the hemispherical distinction I don't know because we don't have a northern hemisphere garden!
The first images just has to be of the new puppy "Ergo" in the Forget-Me-Nots. Ergo is 10 weeks old and clearly loves gardening. his name came from the fact that we needed a box for his bed and the most suitable box we found had the name "Ergo" branded on it - therefore we called the dog Ergo.

We have the first Sugar Snap peas. Hurray!!!!! Janice and I love all the fresh veges we harvest from our garden (I sowed more radish today) and l love cooking too.

And the last tulip

Blueberries in flower. I just can't wait until the summer. These plants are at teh top of the orchard in heavy clay soil and exposed to a fair amount of wind. They do surprisingly well. As with all fruit however we have to be sure to beat the birds to them.

Then there are the native trees that love to flower at this time of the year. This one is a Pittosporum specie of which there are many.

And this is a tiny Sophera microphilla which is sporting late flowers no larger then my fingernails. It's the first time this plant has flowered since planted some 6 years ago.

The dogs also like gardening among the bluebells. The damage you see on the leaves of these was because our older dog, Kaz, made her bed on top of them until they became too uncomfortable.

The fish and the delphinium are being threatened by the rose and the honesty. Never let honesty threaten you. It's always the best policy.

Ask Johnny-Jump-Up! This one is tiny growing in front of the what's its name?

This Wisteria Amethyst just loves the garage.

And I'll finish as I started, on a blue note, with the first aquilegia flowering in front of the forget-me-nots.

No, no I won't, Heres the view down from the top of the orchard. Getting rather colourful it is but just wait until next month, the colours will all be changed.

There's lots more happening in the garden although its mostly backbreaking weeding and mulching work and the planting of seeds and plants. There's heaps more to be done.

Cheers for now

Terry

And after the tulips

2010-10-10T02:43:00.000-07:00

This weekend was a good one. On Saturday I spent time with a community organisation planting trees around a large sports park and then today managed to divide time between work in the nursery (just a little) and work in the garden. The garden may seem a more attractive proposition and at the moment you may be right.
Heres a lonely bunch of wisteria racimens below the garage soffit.

The main task was to sow more seed, mostly in cell trays or straight into 4inch pots. The seed included gazanias, echinacea, cardoon, euphorbia marginata which are mostly for planting in and around the orchard on the hill. I still have to direct sow some buckwheat for attracting insects and plant marigolds for discouraging them. Gardeners sure do queer things.

Unfortunately I haven't mown the lawn for a couple of weeks. The daisies do look nice though:

The three small azaleas we have are really doing their thing now. This one almost the same colour as the apple blossom on the nearby tree - see below:

For the vege garden I sowed zucchini, carrot, onion (four types). Here's the first sowing of onions that were weeded last week:

I also sowed radish (3 types) dwarf beans, runner beans, broccoli, two types of tomato, celery, chilli, capsicum, cucumber and I'm sure, some other veges too.

Here's the first sowing of runner beans from three weeks ago:

It was a cool day but sunny so I was pleased to get a few images of what's happening in the garden.

I love the bronze phormium (New Zealand Flax) hybrids. Above one seems to be looming like a giant spider ready to pounce on the red azalea while below it looks far more benign:

And here's a flax leaf:

All for now. Have fun in the garden.

Cheers

Terry D

Misty Morning

2010-10-07T01:55:00.000-07:00

Just a quicky to show you the faint ball of mist behind the apple (just starting to flower) in the orchard the other day.

The Azaleas are almost in full bloom and the real easy, almost year round forget-me-nots are perfect beneath the weeping cherry. Next job weeding and planting more interesting stuff. I'll be taking cuttings (probably with roots on) of Lamium sp for beneath the trees too.

Cheers

Terry

Fine weather

2010-10-04T02:15:00.000-07:00

At last, the garden is sufficiently dry to walk in without sinking up to my armpits. There is no sucking "thwup" noise when I turn over a sod. There's a large, round, yellow apparition floating across the sky and my back warms when I'm facing away from it. OOoooh tis lovely, and warm enough to suggest I wear a long sleeved shirt. No, not to protect from the cold but to keep my tender, youthful (Ha!) skin from burning. What a joyful day in the garden. Don't Gazanias and lettuce look good together in the sun? Oh yes they do!

The major task yesterday was to weed a couple of vegetable beds that I've been unable to attend to for a few weeks due to the wet. Boy, were they weedy and unruly! The job took longer than anticipated because when I planted the peas I didn't also plant the netting although I did plant carrots and radish. Here's a before and after:

And when I planted the onions I didn't leave enough room to get a hoe between the rows - really dumb! Here's another before and after only this time the before is looking in one direction and the after is looking the other - just to test you.

I was trying to save space and cram them in. We have shallots, spring onions, red bunching onions, Ishikura (a white bunching spring onion) some small, round fella's who's name escapes me and red onions. Yes, we love onions. We love herbs and spices and plenty of green vegetables too and this year I aim to grow heaps of them for use in cooking and salads. Oh yes, I picked the first radish today too, two actually, long red ones. and that means it's time to sow a whole new lot of veges...tomorrow. Evening. If I'm not working.
Then again I might weed the orchard seen here above the azalias:

Last week I showed an image of our granddaughters preparing to pull up some stocks. here's what they planted in the freed up space:

One of the delights of owning a dog is that if you fence your vege garden off they will find a space to lie in the flower beds. I haven't seen her there but I sure saw the result.

The bad weather of the previous few weeks held most growth back but just a few days of warmth and sun has kick-started the garden big time. Now that the vege garden is weeded I have to tackle the orchard and with luck I'll find a few hours in the evenings during the week. Nursery work is full on because, like in the garden, the cold and fierce winds held growth in check and now that the breaks are off everything has to be done at once - so I might be pushing it to crib time in the orchard I guess.

If you ever wondered what a large hedge of trees looks like when exposed to westerly gales in the spring wonder no longer. Note the battered left side and the rampant right hand side:

Have a nice week.

Cheers

Terry

Grandchildren in the garden

2010-09-27T00:36:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, Sarah and Chris and our two granddaughters drove up from Wellington, arriving for lunch. This was a birthday lunch, Chris's 38th. He also had a birthday dinner, also his 38th and a birthday breakfast yesterday, Sunday morning. Yes, his 38th. I tell you this simply to introduce the fact that Aimee and Jessica, our granddaughters are staying with us this week. We've had almost constant rain this past week so no gardening was done until my helpers came. Normally I'd be able to tell you that Jessica was enthusiastically helping in the garden but, alas, I can't.

Jessica (5) and Aimee (7)

Jessica always helps in the garden - normally. Aimee never helps in the garden - normally. This week-end Aimee was the gardener and Jessica...sort of helped for a while. Here they can be seen acting the fool before pulling up all those stocks to make way for an herb garden which I'm not going to show you yet.

Tulips, hollyhock leaves, a flowering cherry and the two apples of my eye

Neither of them were off their face gob-smacked hot on gardening, something to do with the new puppy that arrived on Thursday I think, but they did spend quite some time wandering around and enjoying the garden.

I tried to get some good posed images but that idea fell as flat as a cow pat. After a while, left to wander, they did offer a few opportunities.

Although it has been wet and cold the garden is still moving along.

The azaleas are under way:

And here's a little Helichrysum petiolare Limelight poking through a local Metrosideros:

But there's sure to be much more next week when the weather improves.

Cheers

Terry

In which we find a Storm, a Power Cut and some Sun

2010-09-20T01:55:00.000-07:00

This week-end was always going to be stormy, that's why I decided to forget the garden and stay inside to catch up on all those things that are neglected when I'm enjoying myself in the garden. Blogging is one of those. It was a chance to explore web sites through Blotanical too. But....

A survivor

Yes, it was stormy, very stormy. No, I didn't explore blotanical and no, I didn't blog. Unfortunately you can't blog with no power. High winds on Saturday morning broke (yes really) a 33,000 volt power cable that supplies our district. As if that wasn't enough a tree blew over onto another cable just along the road from us that evening and we ended up with no power for most of the week-end. So much for using the computer. Don't worry about the dark images, there's brighter ones to come!

Storm passed

Fortunately, when it did stop raining on Sunday and after a few hours work dealing with storm induced problems in the nursery, I was able to do a little gardening and snatch the odd image like that of these tulips still flowering despite the wind and hail.

And this is a Kowhai (Sophora hybrid) tree almost in full flower. The artwork behind is a representation of a geological fault:

A flowering cherry in need of remedial pruning, something I overlooked when savaging the fruit trees this winter:

Fantails (Rhipidura fulginosa) feed on small insects which they catch on the wing. This one seems more interested in the wisteria buds:

Honestly, what on earth is this flowering beside a metal delphinium leaf?

Elm trees are one of those plants that have insignificant flowers but beautiful seed husks. Here are the insignificant flowers. The seed husks will follow in a week or three:

More tulips, this time framed by out of focus myosotis (forget-me-nots):

But most of the week end we were inside, looking out:

And down:

And across the valley at a cabbage tree (Cordyline australis) in front of a wet willow, in front of a dark hill:

The beauty about New Zealand weather is that it generally just can't stomach being wet and cloudy for too long. NZ weather just doesn't do boring so between bouts of rain we usually are blessed with the sun. Let's face it, we're blessed!

Cheers

Terry

It rains, plants grow. It rains again....ain..ain.

2010-09-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

Gardening in the rain can be fun. I've no idea how that can be so but I'm forever optimistic.True, it didn't rain all weekend and the sun did shine and I managed some work in the garden, but I have to be mighty pleased I have waterproof boots.

Delphiniums emerging among the tulips

New Zealand weather is notoriously difficult to predict but as I'm observant, watch my rabbits foot closely, talk to the birds, consider local influences and follow two excellent New Zealand weather web sites and I can generally pick it. In fact I'm almost invariably right - almost. Last weekend I was wrong, consistently.

On Saturday I bought a few organically grown vege plugs and herb pots from our local outdoor market - coriander, a few types of beet, rocket etc, came home and left them in the rain to await planting. They did this patiently all day. Of course all this rain makes plants grow. Ok, pay attention. This is spot the difference time. Here is a shot from last week:

And now this week.

On Sunday the rain cleared and I set about tackling a patch of gorse (Ulex europaeus) plants that had set up camp in the valley below the house. They are coming into flower and ruining the view. I should first tell you that gorse is a noxious weed in New Zealand. Brought to this country by well meaning British immigrants in the 19th century who simply had to have their favourite hedging plant in the new country.

Gorse found paradise. Gorse has large, sharp prickles. It grew amazingly quickly and spread like the plague. it still does, infesting our pasture at will.

Left to its own devices it would choke the country before eventually being choked itself by resurgent native bush....but that would take a lifetime and be somewhat annoying in the meantime. Ok, so Sunday was spent with chainsaw and roundup gun..............and an umbrella.

On the odd occasion when the sun shone and the ground was only a little soggy I planted the veges, sowed some climbing beans and took a few photos. The images of the pukeko under the elm - looking west (second and third images on the blog) and ones below are all from the same spot looking in different directions.

To the north and part of the vege garden:

To the East: through the grape vine:

And to the south east:

I'll be taking these same shots from time to time to show the progression of our garden throughout the year.

Gotta go.

Cheers

Terry

In which we come Face to Face with an Orange Trumpet

2010-09-04T22:51:00.000-07:00

I had some fun in the garden over the week-end so I'll share it with you. This embankment is mostly wet, sticky clay which is gradually being furnished with a layer of garden soil by way of mulch, even rotting pine logs will do!

Would you believe the last leaves are still falling off the pin oak while the ajuga is pushing up flower spikes? Yes, I know it's a primula veris, the ajuga "Catlin's Giant" is poking through the leaves. One of the down sides of winter here is that it doesn't really happen. We kind of go straight from autumn to spring.

Saturday was generally fine but with the occasional opportunity to get wet, which I avoided,. There has been no such opportunity today so as the lawns were dry I gave them a hair cut. In New Zealand the grass grows year round and is especially rampant for the next few months.

What I love about gardening is that it is just simply the best occupation I know for pottering. Pottering in the garden offers such tremendous rewards.

You don't need to plan your day, simply walk out the door and start - anything. It might be pulling up a weed (active pottering), admiring a flower (passive pottering), taking a photograph or simply thinking about the garden plan (procrasterpottering) but whatever it is that one does, one thing always leads to another and by the end of the potter you've done masses of work in the garden and forgotten all about lunch!

NZ Tree fern (no idea which) with flowering acacia behind

I started my pottering yesterday morning by noticing a delphinium shoot in the tulip patch. This lead to wondering where the rest of them were, digging in the leafy mulch, finding shoots eaten by slugs, laying slug pellets, deciding I needed more delphiniums planted, doing that, slug pelleting them, noticing some red leafed geraniums needed weeding (everything always does) and getting carried away and weeding for ages.

A New Millennium Delphinium showing the way

After stopping to allow myself time for another sentence I then found some night scented stock (matthiola bicornis) seedlings that needed planting and so on and so on and it got dark.

Today I paced myself, after all it is Father's Day, and the main activities were mowing lawns and tidying and then allowing myself to be drawn to the nursery and into some of tomorrows work - fool!

I returned, took some photos and checked on the vege garden, having a close look at the peas.

Lastly I took down the dead hanging baskets and fed the dog.

Right now I'm finishing this blog and getting ready for our usual Sunday dinner with friends.

In which a fence is made and almost forgotten

2010-08-29T01:52:00.000-07:00

Wow! Two weeks went. It surely is spring. Both life generally, garden and work in particular have been extremely busy this past fortnight. You can read about the garden here. You can read about the work there.

Daffs and tulips are on the go (didn't recognise them did you?)

Unfortunately I can't properly show the thing that took most time in the garden as I forgot to take a photo and it's dark now. All right....get the camera, change the lens,down stairs, open the door, outside, take a hand held time exposure, back inside up the stairs download the image, here it is:

Over the past two weeks I've been constructing a rustic fence and gateway to replace the temporary electric fence that was erected to keep the dogs out of the garden. The construction phase is now almost complete and the painting of the gate stage about to begin. First I have to water blast it, then Janice has offered to paint a something beautiful on it. This may take a while however as she is busy with work and quilting. This is her latest one under construction:

Spring is quickly unfolding as can be seen by the tulips stalking up in front of the metal whatsit flower.

Some of the plum trees are bursting into flower and the native wood pigeons are having fun contemplating what will be, come January. Actually this one is just catching its breath after some pretty spectacular mating flights.

While up at the nursery today I took a shot looking down on the house and garden from the north. Here it is, clothesline, trolley and all. The white line draped across the bottom of the garden is netting to keep the birds off my radishes!

That's all from me today. Oh, and thanks Kyla, for following!

Bloggers Bloom Day August 2010

2010-08-14T04:53:00.000-07:00

This is my first foray into the world of Bloggers Bloom Day and I'm looking forward to sharing what's happening in the garden in our southern hemisphere, cool temperate maritime climate. While I've been blogging generally, silently and sporadically for a while at Delphiniums Down-Under it was only after discovering BBD that I decided to break out and keep a dedicated garden blog. The Upside-Down Garden is that blog and knowing it may be read by members of the community around BBD is a great incentive to keep it up.

Why The Upside-Down Garden? As I explained in my first post here it is called "The Upside-Down Garden" because New Zealand is one of those places referred to by northern hemisphere folk as "Down Under" as in "At the Bottom of the World". It follows that any garden "Down Under" must therefore be upside-down.

Before reading on I invite you to view the posts "Setting the Scene". They are not "Lord of the Rings" type epics (This was of course Bilbo's Baggins' authoritative classic about ring culture in the undergardenworld) and will give you some idea about the site, situation, orientation, geography and the general mess I term a garden - a sort of let's get to know you before we dismiss you entirely opportunity.

Did you read "Setting the Scene" yet?

Ok, so what's happening then? Remember, it's very early spring here.

This hollyhock is flowering in mid August. That's the equivalent of mid February in the northern hemisphere!

The most noticeable evidence of flowering plants has to be this slough of pine pollen on the concrete pad outside the front door. This of course comes from the pine trees surrounding our house and garden.

Dear Daphne odora is in full bloom and filling the air with her knockout fragrance of spring which drifts through our open folding doors and into the dining room. Unfortunately our bush is on her last legs and will need replacing once the flowers are gone. The plant to the right is a corokia.

Promiscuous hellebores are blooming of course. These are simple blooms from plants that have been allowed to "socialise" among themselves for a few years. Isn't gardening fun!

Just up from the daphne is the Puriri tree (Vitex lucens) go on, look it up! This gorgeous, slow growing, long lived tree is beginning to produce a flush of nectar producing, small, red flowers that will attract birds from near and far. The native New Zealand wood pidgeon (Kereru) will become drunk on the berries later.

Daffodils, gazanias (of all things) cowslips, the first tulip, stocks and paperwhites are also showing off. Janice and I look them over while eating dinner, or breakfast, or lunch or just about any excuse for food at all. Please tell me, what is the difference between paperwhites and jonquils?

In the orchard the early plum is well budded up. There are the odd myosotis goodness knows whaticas (can anyone identify it) that seem to bloom year round here and dissipates it'self via the most extraordinarily clingy seed - they leave velcro for dead and ruin woolen socks.

My favourite of all however Anemone hupehensisis, commonly known as the Chinese or Japanese anemone, which has finished blooming and is now puffing up her beautiful seed heads.

Ok, finally we'll have the native New Zealand plant garden. The only plant flowering there is the tree lucerne (Tagasaste), also beloved of the kereru.

Did you read "Setting the Scene" yet?

And I can't finish without showing an image of, well, what is this?

I hope you enjoyed our winter.

Cheers

Terry

To the West

2010-08-09T02:15:00.000-07:00

Our house is on the valley wall and set such that the ridge of the roof is a few feet below the level of the flat land above the valley. The view to the west is therefore uphill. Looking west from the house you see the garage, behind this a rough driveway for garden vehicle access, and then gardens, orchard and a few Pohutukawa (Metrosideros excelsa - or New Zealand Christmas tree).

Below is the view from just to the west of the garage.

Then from the bottom of the drive behind the garage looking towards the native garden.

To the left (south) of the garden vehicle access is a small garden of native plants.

On the top flat is what can loosely be described as lawn. It could also be described as paddock, wasteland or untended fairway. The lawn is a playground for hares.

The garden doubles as their larder. They especially love day lilies and tender new shoots of almost anything. Beyond the lawn a pine tree hedge reaches almost as high as God. Beyond the pines is a road. Sometimes the hares play on the road, but not often enough!

Our main driveway is to the north of the house and offers access as well as an opportunity for strenuous exercise should we feel the mail needs collecting.

When we arrived some 10 years ago the area between the garage and the Pohutukawa was all pine trees and lawn. There were no retaining walls.No, I do not have a photo!

You may notice some radical pruning of the fruit trees. This was necessary as they grow extremely quickly in our climate and I've been ignoring them for the past few years.

Right now the first of the plums are about to flower, the tulips are well up and almost awake, the nasturtiums are wasted by the frosts, azaleas close to flowering and dahlias, delphiniums and other summer flowering plants are asleep.

It all looks rather damp and dull right now but it will change..soon...really!

Stay tuned.

To the North and East

2010-08-02T13:15:00.000-07:00

So, let's look at the garden and house as they are now, August 2nd 2010.

The two images looking up to the house are from the northeast and east. The paperwhites (Narcissus papyraceus), cinerarias and cow-slips (Primula veris) are beneath the elm tree which in turn is behind the Puriri (Vitex lucens) seen in the portrait shot to the right. Now, as I abhor order I refuse to have more than the barest minimum necessary to be mildly coherent so the use of Latin names will accordingly be quite random (aleatorio).

Below are a couple of images taken from our balcony (seen from below in a previous images) looking down to the northeast and east over the vegetable and flower gardens, not to mention the superb view of the washing line, sans washing.

By now you will have realised that, being an upside-down garden our seasons are inverted too, so while northern hemisphere gardeners are praying for the last of the humid summer heat to leave them we are keenly awaiting the arrival of spring. According to the calendar it is still winter. According to the paperwhites above it is spring already and they wouldn't mind a good weeding thank you very much. Likewise, when we look north we look towards the sun (when it deigns to show it'self).

Beneath the elm and to the northwest is our fish and galvanized delphinium garden. Not everyone has one of these you know!!!

Setting the Scene - Part Two

2010-07-26T02:57:00.000-07:00

So here we are on the outskirts of Wanganui. The house is on the side of a hill, sorry, valley and the nursery on the flat at the top of the valley, sorry, hill. You'll see why the confusion when you look at this first plan:

Our house and land is at centre right (east). Note the flat land to the west and the deep valleys. So why did we buy a property here? The answer lies in that good friend of all gardeners, the weather and more particularly, the wind. Wanganui has a cool (real cool man!) temperate maritime climate. During winter it is cool and relatively calm. In spring it is cool and usually very windy, from the west. This continues until roughly December 20th at 4pm when the wind drops and then remains fairly light, certainly no more than 20 mph - mostly. Temperatures remain cool (20 to 23 DegC) in summer due to an on-shore breeze which blows once the land warms at about 10am. Autumn is, you guessed it, cool. Delphiniums like? You've got it. Cool.

The nursery is built on the level (high) land and protected from (but still cooled by) the westerly wind by pine trees now maybe 8 metres tall. It remains cool. Our house is about 12 metres below the nursery and completely protected from the wind. it is warm. It can be blowing a gale "up top" and just a gentle zephyr at the house. It is in short, idyllic, the best of both worlds - and there's always just enough wind to dry the washing.

The garden straddles these two micro-climates.Not only that but because the valley side is eroded there are many different soil types over just a small area, from pure sand to sticky clay to exquisitely well drained, rich loam that holds moisture like a sponge. We don't have rocks however - but life's seldom that perfect.

The first two images are from Google Earth and are 5 years old. The last image is predates even those but was chosen so that you can see the house which is now hidden by the pines.

So that's where we are and why we are there. In the next post I'll lead you up the garden path and show you around the garden, probably both at the same time.

Setting the Scene - Part One

2010-07-26T01:36:00.001-07:00

Of course it has to be set, otherwise you'll have no context in which to place this blog, my garden and what happens in it.

The Upside-Down Garden is of course situated on an upside-down hill. These are commonly called valleys. Ours is not common at all. You need some history here. The land to the NE of the city of Wanganui was originally sea-bed and an extremely level one at that, like a billiard table in fact but on a much larger scale and without legs. Time happened and the sea-bed rose up gradually forming a plain of some 4-600ft elevation. It also rained - quite a bit by the look of it.

Now, the composition of the land (not sea-bed now) was varied with much sand and loose material interspersed with harder clay and soft rock and as heavy rains fell (probably round about the time of Noah I'm guessing - or a tad before) the loose material was scoured out. This left perfectly flat tabletop land dissected with many steep and deep valleys. Looking down the valleys, so scoured and sharp, it seems they are like steep hills somehow turned upside-down.This of course proves my point. We live on an upside-down hill and our garden must therefore be an upside-down one too.

Once the sea bed was land it began to grow stuff, and very well too. This is because that even before it was land there was a deep base of sediment washed down from the higher country. It was rich in organic matter too. Ok, some of you may think this is a load of rot - you'd be right, because rot it did and in doing so became one of the best soils in the country. Things grew. The above-ground growth dragged gasses and nutrients from the air and combined them with nutrients that rooty bits below had brought to the surface. There was an explosion of plant life. Animals and birds got in on the act too. Then man came and set fire to it all!

More time passed, the fired land was settled and farmed and then houses were built on small "Lifestyle" blocks of land just outside Wanganui. In 1999 Janice and I found just the right block for us to move our nursery business to - ten minutes from the city centre - Ok, twelve - to fifteen. We came to break away from growing cut flowers and plants and see if we could make a living from breeding delphinium plants and selling delphinium seeds which had been an expanding side of the business. We're still here. I guess it worked.

Since 1999 we've slowly developed a garden and this year I'm determined to tidy it up a little, introduce some order and have a lot of fun in the process. Through this blog I hope to share that fun with you.

Cheers

Terry

Delphinium - Fast Track Flowering

2010-07-19T20:58:00.000-07:00

To the house from the clothes-line

As a breeder of delphiniums and producer of seed I often receive mail either directly or via mail lists, groups etc; from people wanting advice on aspects of growing these wonderful flowers. By way of adding interest, perhaps helping a few folk out and (no doubt at all) causing a little controversy from time to time, I will be posting some of the advice given into this blog. If you disagree I invite you to post a comment about it. Disagreement promotes discovery!

And yes, I do grow delphiniums in my garden. And no, you can't see any right now.

There have been a couple of questions in the past few days about how to get delphiniums to flower a second time in the season. I referred to this briefly on our Dowdeswell's Delphiniums Facebook page and am posting a fuller comment below:

Diamonds Forever

The Question

ok so now that my delphiniums are done blooming and have seedpods on them should i cut them down to a couple inches above soil level to let them regrow and bloom again in the fall should I fertilize them with dried cow poop also to get them growing again
any advice would be helpful.

The Answer

The most reliable way to get a second flowering from you delphiniums, provided your are not bothered about saving seed, is to cut them back early, say just after the best of the flowering is passed. The key is to get more light into the base of the plant and to remove the older stalks and leaves which are taking energy from new growth (rather than sustaining it). This is fully understood by delphinium cut flower growers who cut the stems right back to the ground as they harvest the half open flower spikes. It really works.

Just a lonely little Mammilaria in an Alyssum patch

Another good thing you can do is to commence feeding again as the flowers pass their best. This also promotes new growth. The combination of extra feed and more light boosts the growth of new stems tremendously. I strongly suggest feeding well and cutting right down to the ground asap.

Naturally, where you are in the world also influences how many flushes of flower spikes your beautiful delphiniums will produce for you. Here, in upside-down New Zealand, I can confidently expect three flushes if I use the method outline above.

You will find much more information on growing delphiniums here http://www.delphinium.co.nz/DelphiniumInformation.htm

Why not become a follower of our Facebook page about delphiniums?

Yes, Alcea in mid-winter

The First Post

2010-07-18T02:23:00.000-07:00

This is a blog about a garden in Wanganui, New Zealand. It is called "The Upside-Down Garden" because New Zealand is one of those places referred to by northern hemisphere folk as "Down Under" as in "At the Bottom of the World". It follows that any garden "Down Under" must therefore be upside-down.

No, it will not fall off.

Fortunately gravity works just as well Down Under as it does "Up Top" - God Bless Sir Isaac Newton - so there is no need to anchor the plants by any other means than their natural roots. As you can imagine this is very useful and a big time saver. Gravity also stops mulch flying skyward, fruit falling to the heavens and is heavily implicated in assisting rain in its downward path towards the garden. I have to admit that it would be useful to have slugs and snails drift off into space but on balance I think I'll stick to gravity - no option really!

The purpose of this blog is to provide a diary of significant happenings in my garden. I say "my garden" because in this household gardening is the province of the one who doesn't do a great deal of cooking (although he loves it), washing, office management and computer maintenance. Those things are the province of the one who doesn't do any gardening, plant breeding or nursery work. That one is Janice, my extremely lovely wife, friend, counsellor and lifetime partner who I love most dearly.

The other purpose of this blog is to separate out the gardening and nursery aspects of my other blog (although they will still be there too) "Delphiniums Down Under", so that they can be viewed more widely in the gardening community without the said garden community personages being distracted by the day to day family life of a family they have no interest in at all. Anyone who wishes to be so personally voyeuristic should follow Delphiniums Down Under. They should also seek prompt psychiatric help.

So that's about it. Let's see if it works.

Cheers

Terry