That Time of Year

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

Earthquakes, Earthworks and a Good Feed

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

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