Good-bye spring

It's that time of year again!  As Christmas approaches the momentum builds and the 'to do' list only gets longer at work.  No sooner is a task crossed off than another 2 are added to our plate, there's never a dull day!  But with only 8 days of school left before I'm free as a bird for the summer, I've finally been able to get into the garden this weekend and begin clearing some of the spring plants that are looking decidedly tatty and past their best.  The weather is gorgeous - and it's just been too nice a day to waste on paperwork - that's what nights are for.  After all... who needs to sleep?


Since I've not been able to get on and update my blog I thought I'd just post a pictorial journey of the last 2 months in my garden.  It looked so good for a while there :)

We're keeping the path to the secret berry patch weed free by laying down our grass clippings there.  It's not all that pretty but it' effective.

The asparagus peas filled out the front garden beautifully.  I love their little red pea-like flowers.  I'll definitely be planting these again next year.

The first of the rose bushes to bloom.  The perpetual spinach and rainbow beets were too much for us to eat and bolted, which rather spoilt the effect in this little garden :)

The first sweet peas!

Mignonette, roses and cerinthe major.

Agapathus 'Tinkerbell' and lobelia (and weeds!) in the rock garden.

My beloved Chatham Island Forget-me-nots seems to be thriving.

We de-thatched our lawn this year to remove the moss build up.  I managed to remove 2 wheel barrow loads from a 4 metre squared section!  (There wasn't a lot of lawn left after removing all that moss.  Whoops!  Should have done something about it last year).  


I had the brilliant idea of using the moss to mulch my strawberries (trying save money on pea straw, which is so dear for us townies).  Watch this space to find out if it works or not!

Look what came up in the veggie patch!  

Sam wanted to know if they were toadstools or mushrooms, "Because if they're mushrooms we can eat them and if they're toadstools they're poisonous."  I'm pretty sure this is a very simplistic way to look at it! Wonder who told him that?

Here come the bugs

Summer is coming.  You can feel it everywhere.  The warm air, the warm rain, the warm ground.  The garden is growing at a rate of knots but life is never all rosy because here come the summer bugs!  My rose buds are about to burst forth and decorate my driveway garden with dazzling colour... if the aphids don't get them first.

And while admiring the fresh, lush new growth on my raspberries I came across the first caterpillar and first 'fluffy bum' of the season.  Grrrr ... I loathe fluffy bums!  My garden is packed full of flax and hydrangeas - both host plants for these annoying little critters (also commonly called Passionfruit hoppers).  I guess in a couple of days I'll have to get out there of an evening with my fly spray.  They absolutely decimated my hydrangea buds last season and stung all the new growth severely.  Not this year!

Fascinating!  I wondered why this Cineraria flower was covered in a writhing mass of ants.  On closer inspection I was able to see the 'aphid farms' that the ants were tending.  The ants 'farm' the aphids so that they can collect the honeydew they excrete - gross!

 A closer look at the aphid 'farms'.

Amateur photographer

Why is it that when I walk in my garden I feel proud and pleased with it and then, as soon as I photograph it, it looks totally hideous?  Is it because a photo only shows a sliver and not the whole?  For whatever reason, since it was another foul Manawatu weather day today (the type that flattens my seedlings as soon as they're transplanted) I decided that I'd archive a few 'before' photos in the hope that in summer I'll have a lovely lush, well planned garden to showcase.  Mostly what I saw in the images was chaos and wilderness - not exactly aesthetically pleasing - but then I guess you reap what you sow, *cringe at cheesy cliche* , as I abhor rows and formality in my garden and I tend to bung veggies in any old place where there's room.  Little surprise then that my informal companion planting is creating a tangled mess!  

The rose garden is the only strip of garden to get full sun so the roses now have to share their warm bed with rainbow beet, parsley (companion plant for the roses apparently), perpetual spinach, asparagus peas and cerinthe major to attract the bees.

It looked prettier before I started harvesting the rainbow beet and perpetual spinach!