November 2009

One day in November, Neil came back from a job, and Tracy told him that she "weeded out the garden", and she has "some" plants for us, if we want them. I was ecstatic! When we went to pick them up, I almost fainted: There were boxes and boxes of plants, all neatly potted into small cups and pots! We took them home and I went up that weekend to do some planting. Neil had jobs that weekend, so I did it by myself. And it took me all day. There were 100+ small palms, a bunch of Agaves, two Aloes, and three bromelias. A few days before I also got a beautiful Kauri tree from my colleague Jane. Her husband Doug won it at a bridge (I think it was bridge..?) game, and they don't have space for it at their home. I happily accepted :)

Most of the palms I put in the garden next to the bach, with the intention to move them later, once we have prepared appropriate spaces around the land. Well, sadly most of them didn't make it. First I thought it was the poor condition, a lack of water, etc. But I put four in larger pots and took them home. Two died, and two are still going strong a few months later. Maybe they are too delicate to be moved so early? A shame, really...:( However, the Agaves are doing great, and so are the bromelias. The Aloes I planted on the sunny side of the bach, and a couple of weeks later they got all brown. I came across an article on the Internet, saying that all Aloes need part shade, and can't cope with all day full sun. Thus, I moved them to the garden next to the bach as well, and they are doing very well - one even got to new side shoots already!

That is the Kauri from Jane. Tane Mahuta is appr. 2700 years old. I wonder if this one gets as old, and who will be there, owning that land and admiring the tree then?

Our bananas are growing well :)

We have a saw mill down the road, and they always have a scrap heap. When we bought timber from them, we asked whether that scrap wood is freely available, and he said we should take whatever/whenever we need! The pile often grows too big and he has to burn it anyway. Thus, we also have free firewood any time :) And we found a few long planks, and I built a planter box in front of the shed.

Here we have some lavender and a bromelia. The tall stick-like plant on the right is actually an onion. We had an onion with a small shoot, and just for fun I dug it in. It grew a lot, and just recently I harvested a hand full of yummy small onions.

Note the bottles in the ground. I read somewhere that plants grow much better in clay ground if you feed them with (cheap) wine.... Well they are doing well - but even cheap wine is expensive here in NZ! OK - just kidding!!! I just use empty wine bottles when we are going home. Just fill them up, and put them upside-down in the ground so that the plants get a bit of water for a bit longer...

It is summer! Lost of green around. Even though most of it are weeds, I love it!

The plant in the front we got for free form that crazy woman, because it got frost damage. It still has the brown'ish/black'ish tips, but recovered well :)