September 2012

September was another lovely month - rain often seemed to be forecast but never seemed to come, to our new section at least. So Dave pressed on with the fruit cage ...

...and Alice helped dig out the comfrey that had been planted as a kikuyu  barrier at the bottom of the fruit cage area. The cage was a bit bigger than the existing bed and no longer needed the comfrey as the cage itself had a buried surround. So it seemed only right to extend out the planted area and we planted a whole new row of raspberry canes. The existing rows had produced an abundance of new canes so we had plenty to choose from for the new row - a new experience for me after struggling to get any new canes at our previous house.

We also extended the pumpkin patch and eventually edged that.

Then we were ready to put on our net and discovered a bit of a problem. It was an offcut bought on the internet and meant to be 12m * 20m, plenty big enough to cover the cage in one piece but in fact was rather triangular. And the seller was overseas so things were put on hold for a while.

So Dave turned his attention to his long wanted composts heaps. This meant a bit more gorse and blackberry would go, which was good.

But we retained a few straggly kanukas which hopefully will grow to provide a screen.

And in a rarity, Dave brought in a present for me on our wedding anniversary - quite the sweetest baby rats you could imagine!

He also made a shelter for our lambs from some pallets and some roofing iron from a friend's house.

I was spending my time admiring the beautiful spring flowers - at our old house all seasons seemed very much the same so I am revelling in the joys of our new section. As hoped for, the frilly daffodils returned to the drive after the first flush of standard flowers.

The cherry trees in the drive were flowering but seem to be struggling in the wind a bit.

The native clematis was doing its stuff though it had grown taller than the other native it was meant to be growing through.

It also seemed to have discovered the other side of the trellis with the cocktail kiwifruit was growing.

Still it was later joined in flower with a climbing rata which seemed to be more focussed on flowering than climbing ...

... but was quite beautiful.

Further along the inside of the trellis, the new grape vines were coming into leaf but have rather a long way to grow.

And further along, we had some new daffodils as well as some Christmas lilies from Aunty Diana.

And the montana clematis was in flower.

Around the house, the cinerarias from our rental house were well established.

The plants on the pergola seem to struggle each year in the wind though the left hand vine has nearly made it to the roof. Perhaps this year will be the year.

The cocktail kiwi fruit still have a way to go though.

Down in the orchard, the trees are a bit disappointing as they seem to have made rather little progress. Most of them were now out of their protective cages and some of them had some blossom, but none seem to have really thrived. Again perhaps this will be their year.

August 2012

August arrived and somehow I managed to persuade Dave that the next main project should be a cage to protect the soft fruit and berries. We have always called this area the 'fruit cage' and now it was to become one. Doesn't look too impressive at the moment but I have great hopes for it. We did get a few raspberries last year but, as we just draped some netting over the canes, they were very difficult to pick. Then I removed the netting too soon and lost the autumn fruiting raspberries to the birds. But not again I hope!

Anyway, 'fruit cage' before, in mid-winter.

And by the end of the month, the framework was up and we had sourced a net which would cover it in one piece and was an offcut from a commercial job.

The main 'Dave versus nature' challenge was to keep the sparrows out of the chook run.  It seemed we were feeding the whole of the local sparrow population and while 1 sparrow cannot eat very much at a time, a constant stream of them can get through quite a lot. Anyway, after several attempts, and the compulsory white shoe laces, he came up with the winning solution. It even managed to keep out our neighbour, Paris, who comes each week with some very welcome scraps for the chooks!

Overall, winter had been very mild with the result that many of the plants were fooled and did their spring stuff far too early. The camellia hedge was not exactly thriving but it was still alive ...

...  and blooming.

You could actually see the newly planted natives on Brambly bank and only a few succumbed to the cold on the few nights we had a frost.

The magnolias bloomed again although this was rather hidden behind their wind netting cages. Maybe next year we will expose them to their full glory.

Around the house the star magnolia was awesome ...

...  as were the daffodils.

 

 And the daffodils down the drive were appearing - mainly classic yellow ones first but hopefully the double frilly ones will remember to flower too.

There was blossom in the orchard too, though I was a bit worried that just one plum tree was flowering there rather a long way away from the other one in flower in the vege patch. I was almost tempted to get out my paint brush but decided to leave it to the bees in the end. We will see if they were up to the job.

And finally, I was relieved that the two planters in the breezeway survived the winter and in fact were thriving. The orchids were blooming as never before and clearly preferred this to their previous pampered life indoors.

Wilson St

Just as an aside, as we didn't really have enough to do on our new section, we decided to redecorate the bathroom in Wilson St.

Before: (double click on them to get the full grungy details)

During:
We had thought the ceiling was sound, but it turned out it had paper on it which was loose in places, and when we pulled the loose bits off, it was completely gross underneath!

Yuk, the bleach.

And after:

The repainted kitchen windows

 

The replanted feijoa, moved as it wasn't getting enough sun under a huge tree.

The kowhai nearly to the top of the fence and lots of lovely flowers.

And after day 2, the finished product. Colour is a bit difficult to assess from the photos but basically a sort of creamy tinged white. The windows are pink frosted glass (which we hadn't realised) so in daylight it will no doubt be pink!