Retention

Janice and I took three days off last weekend and rested up with friends in Napier in warm, sunny weather. We also saw the show “Cats”. Great relaxation it was - as we both almost fell asleep during the first act. The weekend, however, was great.

Back to work today and there’s plenty to do. I’m still waiting for a break in the Wanganui weather to ready the second plastic house for recovering. It will come – just so long as it’s before late November when the delphiniums it holds are in flower and we’re trying to pollinate them please. Orders for plants are steady and we’ve noted a trend over the past few seasons for gardeners to order more cutting grown varieties. This is great news as they produce a wonderful show when grown in blocks of like clones.

The delphinium plants are enjoying the cool, damp weather and growing very quickly. Please though, don’t send us weather similar to that which plagued the English a few months ago. We don’t need that diseased stuff down here.

The new plastic house we’re building for our expanded seed production is waiting on drier weather and for me to pull my finger out and..... get the grass eaten off, shift a few plants and a rabbit fence, order the white weed mat floor covering, water tanks, drain pipes etc. etc. Not much really but it needs to be done in the next week as we could start building in late October.

Last week saw the completion of a retaining wall at the edge of the parking area behind the house garage. This will be useful . Not only will it stop the prospect of the orchard falling onto the parking area below but it will also allow visitors a little more room to park their cars. The wall has steps set at one end to make access to the orchard easier and tidies up the approach to the house. While the digger was here we also had a track cut from the car park up to the top of the lawn – to give tractor access to the orchard and future garden, and some other drainage work at the nursery.

I haven’t received many questions about delphiniums in the past few weeks. This is not normal. One of the main reasons for setting up this blog was to build a delphinium culture resource so I’m hoping I get asked a few curly ones soon.

Enough for now. I’m still lethargic from a relaxed weekend.

Cheers

Terry