In the beginning...

Gardening is a matter of your enthusiasm holding up until your back gets used to it.  ~Author Unknown

I never thought I'd be a blogger but after posting my 15th consecutive Facebook status celebrating the first pea shoot or lamenting the piles of prunings I had to cart to the dump, I had to face the hard fact that, probably, most of my friends and family were quietly unfriending me and losing sleep over the way my life was sliding into the mundane.  Ha!  If only they knew the half of it... my perfect evening involves a glass of wine, 'Better Homes and Gardens' on TV and the latest copy of 'New Zealand Gardener' on my lap.  It was during one of these perfect nights, searching for blogs by New Zealand gardeners like me (ie: amateurs in the suburbs) and coming up with very few that I thought, "Well, why not get the ball rolling?"  Hopefully out there, there are people who will read this and think, "I could do a better job than that," and then we'll all have more free gardening material to read!


A smidgen of background... I am lucky enough to have recently purchased a lovely 50's house and it came with a beautiful established garden full of Agapanthus and Bear's Foot.  I'm about ready to start putting my own stamp on it, as we've lived here for a year now.

The garden as it was when we bought the house.

OK... I'll be totally honest.  I may have already rushed in and made my stamp in places.  The huge patches of mud attest to that but I'll fix it I swear!  Next year my garden will look amazing.  Famous last words.


I'm not entirely sure what I want.  I dream of growing my own food but I'm not willing to sacrifice aesthetics.  I want a veggie garden but I don't want it to look like one.  I would like to feed the senses - ALL of them!  At various stages in the last year I have wanted:

• a totally edible garden
• a sensory garden
• a fragrant garden
• a beautiful wild flower garden
• and a potager

Now I know that I want all that and more!  Join in me in my journey as I, novice and optimistic gardener, try and create my dream garden without ruining all the hard work and design that came before me.