Frosty Mornings

Another frosty morning in Wanganui, that's four in succession, with beautiful, sunny and unusually warm days to follow.

While the staff are on holiday this week I'm having a good look around the nursery in the quiet and catching up on a few odd jobs....after the frost has gone of course. And while I'm waiting there are seed orders to get out.

But the frost soon goes so I have to too.

Cheers

Terry

Clean up time in the Nursery

We've had a few mornings of hard frosts followed by warm days so today I sprayed the weeds on our delphinium trial grounds and spent some time inspecting the potted plants on the holding pad for growth. These plants are mostly dormant now(see image with small pots below..not the still green plants in the seedling trays) but the weed seedlings are not so I will spray them off and put a pre-merge weed killer on to keep new weeds from germinating until the delphinium plants are filling the pots and ready to ship out - so the theory goes. Hopefully I'll have enough time to do that tomorrow. We''ll see.

Help in the Garden

Like delphiniums in New Zealand, orchard trees don't get a lot of rest either.

It is now getting on for Mid July (equivalent northern hemisphere January) and the last leaves have only just left the apple trees. They in their turn only beat the plums, peaches and nectarines by a couple of weeks or so. I know, I've been waiting for them to fall so I can get on with pruning, which I started a few days ago.

Yesterday and again today I had the help of a really enthusiastic granddaughter Jessica (age 5 1/2). So far she is the only one of my natural offspring to show even the faintest interest in gardening. Our adopted daughter Nadeeka, who recently started an organic garden on her section in Cherrybrook, Sydney, much to my considerable delight, is still ahead on points though, but only just. Watch out Nadeeka! Jessica is coming!

As can be seen from the images, Jessica's help was indeed both real and very useful. She clipped branches, helped me saw large branches off and painted the wounds on the pruned branches. She then helped cart the prunings off.

Of course, to do the job properly you have to be dressed right. The fancy shirt is one of my work shirts. A really big thank you Jessica!

Winter here. Spring here too!

ne of the great things about growing delphiniums in New Zealand is that by the time they die back for winter they are ready to shoot up again for spring.

In the nursery last season's plants are looking quite dormant but the seedlings sown in April are potted up and powering into spring. Also, close inspection of last season's apparent dormant plants outside reveals tiny new leaves starting to break from the crowns too.

We are now past the shortest day by over two weeks and sunset is 10 minutes later than June 21st. Cool! I swear the quality of light is different too and I'm loving being out in it, pruning our fruit trees.

Tomorrow is Saturday and we will take our granddaughters out for morning tea at a garden centre, maybe bring my mother home for lunch (or include her in the morning tea) have our kids arrive (parents of our grandchildren come to collect them after a week) and enjoy what promises to be a sunny day.

Gotta get the winter oil on the fruit trees.

Cheers

Terry

School Holidays

We are looking after our grandchildren thisweekand today Janice and I took them to Kowhai Park which is simply the best kids playground in the country with lots of lovingly made items for children to play on and climb over.

We also walked to the top of the tower on Durrie Hill and took this image.

Delphinium Trial

Towards the end of May we had a few trials of crosses for short varieties begin to flower. These have since died down for winter but below is one that shows much promise as this, the first flowering was very fast from seed and already there is new growth beginning to come from the base.

It will be interesting to see how well it regrows in a few weeks time.

Mid Winter Christmas and other madness

Last Thursday night Janice and I, Robert and Jeniffer and a few others went to the Waverley Aotea Rotary Changeover function. Janice as a Christmas Tree and me as an elf.

The weekend before it was our own club's annual change of officers night too. Here are Robert and Jennifer, Janice and I being Bigger, Better, Bolder and Blue.....Bugger!