Flowers! And things. - Tactical Ninja

11:43 am - Flowers! And things.

In lieu of compelling and insightful commentary on topical issues, have some pictures of my garden. Which is technically a topical issue for me and also something I said I'd do.

Mostly I'm rapt at how the perennials I planted last year have come in this year. Above you can see the sweet williams and alstroemeria. The alstroemeria is the reddish one just left of centre. Normally these grow on florist-length stems, but our garden is windy so we get short, strong-stemmed ones in dense bunches.



Beans! I prefer the dwarf varieties because they are quicker and again because of the wind. These are behind a shadecloth that I finally got around to setting up properly, and we ate our first of them last night.



My freaky hebe, which I love because it's a cultivar of a native plant, but it's so incongruous for a native to be variegated and have colourful flowers, it looks like an alien plant.



We have a steep bank above the house that is in constant danger of erosion. I planted this pelargonium as a cutting in the autumn and promptly forgot about it. Very pleased to see that it's survived and is now growing. It's something of a bonsai, but anything that holds the bank together while looking pretty is all good by me.



Lemon tree. Every kiwi home has to have one, it's a thing. This one's just been relocated to somewhere where its roots won't be restricted. Remains to be seen if it'll like it.



Herb garden. This was bare soil when we moved in. Left to right: garlic chives, winter savory, plain thyme, lemon thyme, lavender, plain sage, a bay tree (that is struggling to beat the sage), oregano, purple sage, mint, marjoram, lovage, catnip, comfrey. All thriving except the mint, weirdly.



This is one of the few things that was there when we moved in. It just comes up every year and makes these amazing double blooms. I love it.



It hasn't been quite as good a vegie season so far this year. It got dry early, and the butterflies have started already. However, I have spinach, courgettes, squash, broccoli, tomatoes, capsicum, spring onions, brown onions, tuscan kale, peas, and beans in, and the courgettes, spinach, kale, and beans are feeding us already. I have doubts about us having the same tomato inundation we had last year though - they just aren't doing as well.



This blurry photo is in here because a) I thought that little silver creeper was a goner last summer but it's made a miraculous recovery and is now taking over the joint; and b) pink hydrangea! The colour of hydrangeas is affected by soil pH, with a higher pH helping prevent uptake of aluminium from the soil, which in turn makes the plant flower pink.

Interestingly, NZ soil is naturally slightly acidic which would produce blue flowers, and I haven't really done anything much to this soil (added sheep poo and some seaweed and a bit of general fert, but no lime and definitely not on this bush). It barely flowered at all last year, and this year it's come out all over in these bright pink blooms. Seems this garden might be on teh alkaline end - perhaps it's had a lot of lime in the past. Hmm..


So there you have it. I didn't spend my entire holiday playing Inquisition, I did take enough time to photograph some flowers and pull some weeds!