Facebook for Dowdeswell"s Delphiniums

Janice has constructed a Facebook identity for our Dowdeswell's Delphiniums business and we're in the process of attracting followers. The page will be a place where we can showcase our delphiniums, offer seasonally timed growing tips etc. and keep in touch with our customers and friends.

See  Dowdeswell's Delphiniums

Come and join the fun. Click on "like" beside our name on the Facebook page to become a follower.

Cheers

Terry

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!

And now - The diary Format

This is the new diary format, the latest ruse to get me into the blog again.

Nursery

This week we’ve been concentrating on setting up some trials under lights to see how our varieties respond to night-break lighting over winter. We have a number of good cut flower varieties and also some promising pot plant varieties that we want to evaluate. Our background in growing chrysanthemums many years ago means we still have the equipment to do this and some experience to draw on. We’ll also be conducting a small trial under lights with a heating regime.

The week has also seen the start of some major planning for next season.

Garden

Nothing much has happened this week as we’ve been busy on the nursery front. Janice has however completed her “French Rooster” quilt and the cleaning up work I did in the garden last week still looks good. I’ve still not pruned the Wedding Day rose. The grapes and apples are ready but the tomatoes won’t last long as they have the start of blight and I don’t want to spray them.

Family

Janice is well and very beautiful. I am well and as handsome as ever. Sarah is back into running, Emma had a hard week but is on the up and John is somewhere in Auckland.

Other

It looks like the barbeque I was planning for Sunday will be an indoor job as it may be cool and rainy with a breeze blowing in our faces – not a good look.

Images

I'm having problems moving images so I'll work on that next time

Back to the Blog

I've been doing a little gardening lately. Don't worry northern hemisphere folk, you'll get out there soon!

At the weekend I tidied, weeded etc all the area visible from the dining room, then swept the courtyard, pruned Cecil Brunner and the rampant weeping elm tree that was preventing us using our entrance gate, and then had a rest. In the evenings this week I've pruned the Westland(?) rambler over the woodshed and weeded the gardens near there, removed the peeling blue gate and generally tidied the area, then had a rest. Tonight I removed a few wheelbarrows full of soggy clay from around the back of the house and cleaned up the mess that the builders had made over a year ago. Then had a rest. Tomorrow evening I'll tidy up the area around the ferns near our water tank. Friday evening I'll just rest.

The Wedding Day rose which is now threatening to strangle the new porch is in line for a prune next weekend.

Janice has a broken tooth and needs a crown on it. She is booked in for next Tuesday. She'll get lots of sympathy from me of course, but I'll probably be quite busy gardening.

Could be I'll add a photo or two tomorrow.

Cheers

Terry

Birds,electrical work, garden and back to work,

Wow! Time has flown again and I have a few things to catch up on.

Sunday Jan 3rd.

Robert, seen in the image below screwing up a lighting system, picked me up at 6am and carted me to a place at the back of beyond. We arrived at the back of beyond at around 9am and by 9:20 were starting on a job wiring the implement shed and workshop of a local farmer at Whakahoro (a good place for you to search for on Google maps).

We had no trouble communicating with the male members of the Steele family as they were all Richards. Richard - the 1st, 2nd and 3rd (Grandad, dad and his son) and we just loved the spread put on for lunch too.
Well, we toiled all day until about 4pm when the job was declared done, helped Richard 1st, who obviously wanted a hand with some Scotch (Thanks Richard) and toddled back home. By the way, the homestead had beautiful views of the Wahnganui River and national park but I forgot to take a picture.

Monday Jan 4th








This was a lovely day spent gardening, doing a little work, walking around a lake with my lovely Janice, having mum visit, visiting dad and otherwise relaxing and enjoying a national holiday.

And so to today the highlight of which was seeing a sparrow feeding off the peanut butter and bird seed pine cones that Aimee and Jessica had made during their Christmas visit. I thought they would have had better things to eat but over the past few days I'd noticed the cones seemed to have much less seed on them, but put that down to rain washing it off. However, this evening a sparrow came right up to the one at the window and helped itself. Janice noticed and I took a few shots to prove it so there you are Aimee and Jessica, your bird feeders worked!!!!!!
And what else today?
A visit to Bristol's place to check up on our delphinium trials (no images, top secret) a couple of hours watering the trees planted a few weeks ago, a few more hours working, a little gardening, a game of Catan with Franziska, the young German woman staying with us at present, and soon, bed.

Cheers

Terry

Christmas is coming

I took time off today to take a few images of happenings in the garden. We've had wonderfully sunny days lately after some good warm rain and the plants are responding with a good show.

There's a hollyhock flowering now and shows great loss of colour over tha past few generations. Starting out as a deep pink several years ago successive seedlings have become paler.










Our hydrangeas are approaching full bloom and this one looks happy draped with a Kowhai (sophera) hybrid










Hostas are also about to bloom.










Although the longest day has passed already we're still planting native trees as I've managed to extend a hose some 250 metres from the pump shed into the valley beneath our house. The view from our dining room window is now almost filled with trees whereas when we arrived some 10 years ago the area was mostly grass. Must look up some comparative shots!

Janice, Sarah, Aimee and I are all tired tonight and waiting for Chris (son in law) and Jessica (grandchild) to return from the hospital where Jessics went for tests after a particularly bad nose bleed that turned several serviettes at the Rutland Arms Hotel (where we went for "Wedges on Wednesday") bright red - quite a show it was but I'll spare you a photo of it.

More later

Cheers

Terry

Backgammon Christmas Dinner

Tonight was backgammon night. All members of the backgammon club, plus wives were there for a Christmas Dinner. That made 7 in total.
Janice had to leave a little early because the quilt club had a committee meeting but quilt club meetings are very efficient so she returned before we'd finished desert.

Just for fun, another day lily image:


I didn't bike or walk today and spent it in quite a lazy fashion doing some pollinating and gardening. This was one of my days off in lieu of the open weekend. I'll have another half day off tomorrow.

Cheers

Terry

Breathe promise of merry sunshine

And Merry sunshine is sure something we could do with. This spring may have been good for the bloomin' flowers but it sure needs a little more brightness. Below are the first blooms of our Wedding Day rose struggling to find a little sun.














One of the parents of Purple Passion is in flower in the nursery trial garden. There are a few of our cutting grown clones here waiting to be photographed. They have a real narcissus complex but I guess I would too with a name like that.



I just included the next image for something to do. It's a view, well, of part of our garden. I bet you didn't know that eh!


Today was spent doing errands in town and then tripping over to Palmerston North to have the car serviced. This is a pain and happened because the garage in Wanganui, the only one that services European cars, just went broke. We now have an hour's trip for the service. However there are some compensations. I get my glasses frames fixed ( I refuse to buy glasses in Wanganui as they are too dear compared to elsewhere) and Janice and I get to go Christmas shopping. Whoopee, do I love Christmas shopping!! Year right. Got some nice books though and found another cafe not to visit again.

Ok, all for now

Cheers

Terry

A day of rest

I'm blogging on a Sunday because yesterday was so good that I didn't have time - or I forgot.

Janice and I spent until 3pm yesterday at the market, grocery shopping, visiting my mother and doing nursery work and quilting. You can work out who did what. After 3pm a couple of our neighbours who we saw at the market came for afternoon tea and we just frittered the rest of the day away. Nice.


This morning I plan to spend time in the garden and will take a few images to show you how, despite the cold, some plants are growing at pace.


The delphiniums are coming into flower too and it looks like we'll need more pollinators in a couple of weeks.



Roses are breaking bud.









And there is a small, summer interloper setting up shop in the greenhouse.



So, a good day in the garden and I finished off the activity with a bike ride, the first for some months. I figure if I can keep up the blogging then I can keep up the riding too.

Cheers

Terry

More at last

About time we had some more I think.

This is for Anne.

On Jan 12 I bought some real cheap roses from the bargain bin of my local garden centre. They looked like this:





























Three weeks later they now look like this:












Since the last post, August wasn't it? lots has happened. So much that I wont even start to tell you.

Ah well, ok. Just some.

We had a great black current crop from our three bushes.

We've almost completed extending the house (well, the builders have). Just paint and tiles to go. See Janice's blog for details.

The delphinium crop has flowered well and been pollinated successfully.

Father Christmas came.

The new dog ate Janice's shoes.

The new plastic house finally got completed.

Anne Cooke from Dawson Creek visited.

We arranged to have a French Horticulture student come next June to August.

The grandkids had chicken pox.

The garden grew and expanded.

The orchard produced plums and nectarines.

The weather has become warm.

It rained some.

I may even post more stuff on the blog soon.

Motorway to the washing line

So, we have the line up and an explanation of why it is where it is but you haven't been told how we'll get to where it is from where we are. After much thought we decided on a path. No, don't scoff, we ruled out the flying fox on the grounds that Occupational Safety and Health would probably object to having it fly over a rose bush - far too dangerous - a helicopter would cost too much and a lift was just too darned impractical. Yes, a path, or rather a motorway, it would be.
This job was going to take an afternoon but CIS (Creeping Improvement Syndrome) reared it's ugly head and so far it's taken three days, on and off. There's still a good day's worth of work to finish it off but hey, it's operational. If you look closely at the lower image you can see a seat at the end of the lower wall on the left, which just happens to be right beneath a tree house in the cherry tree to the right. The tree house was a project of a couple or three years ago and was built for our grandchildren who love to climb up and have Janice and I sit below while they tell us stories, made up on the spur of the moment. The seat will facilitate easy listening. Don't forget to call back for the next exciting installment in the saga of the washing line.....washing actually hanging on it!

The Shortest Day

Today is the 21st June - Winter solstice in New Zealand and Summer Solstice in Canada when Anne Cook carries on her tradition of working all day (about 19 daylight hours) in the garden.















A few years ago Janice and visited Anne on the longest day and helped her with this feat.

Today I'm going to work in sympathy with her, only for me it is the shortest day and only from 7.45am until about 5.15 pm.

Janice is away in Wellington for the week end and I've decided to build a new clothes line. The images are of progress throughout the day. By lunch time I had the posts laid out and ready to place in the hole and ram tight with soil. After lunch I took a trip into Wanganui to buy clothes line chord and hardware.

The posts were then stayed for soil ramming. I'd earlier in the day trimmed a few large branches off the cherry tree to make room for one of the posts





























Interruption!! Nick Churton, our neighbour's grandson, has come to dig a pond in our paddock. This will be able to be seen form our dining room. I have to break off from the washing line to supervise.















Ok, too busy to take photos until near dark. Posts are rammed in and lines up.
















And that was that. 5:50pm and too dark to continue. Just the tidying up bits and pieces to do in the morning. That's hopeful as there is some heavy rain forecast. With luck it wont arrive until morning tea and I can get some pathways started.

Summer/Winter

At this time of year, when northern hemisphere gardens have delphiniums either blooming or heading that way gardeners often write with questions about how well, or not, their delphiniums are growing.

Usually they have been growing well but as the flower spikes reach, say a metre tall, we begin to get reports of lower leaves dying, or a paleness of colour in the leaves or maybe short, thin stems. What is causing all this? Is the question, and how do I fix it?

I thought it may be a good idea to run through a few common problems and their cures, for the benefit of any reading this blog who may like to know.

It will help to list those conditions that delphiniums like and to also tell you that they are gross feeders. Not gross feeders as in gluttonous individuals eating a hundred and forty four giantburgers in the minimum time possible and slopping tomato sauce over a “once white” tee shirt t-shirt; no, not at all. There’s a big difference. Delphiniums don’t like hamburgers, or tomato sauce for that matter. What they do like however is plenty of food, particularly when they first begin new growth. They like plenty of NPK. Go more heavily on the nitrogen at the start, gradually easing off and putting more emphasis on the potash as the stems grow tall and the buds begin to form. If you have access to animal manure you probably won’t be able to give them too much no matter how hard you try. If you are relying mainly on chemical fertilisers then using a 12-10-10 fertiliser at rates just as much as you dare will give great results. As a rule of thumb feed delphiniums about 1 ½ times what you would feed your roses.

Be sure your soil ph is above 6 and preferably closer to 7. If not add lime, lots of it.

Delphiniums also like that ideal type of soil that most growing books and planting instructions demand ......well drained, holds lots of moisture, doesn’t dry out too quickly, doesn’t go puggy and get too wet, not too fine, not too course and obviously after all this, it should be covered in at least 2 inches of good, rich, brown, friable organic mulch. If your soil is like this then I’ll send a truck right over. If not then just be sure that the ph is high, the plants don’t get waterlogged and they have plenty of tucker, plenty of tucker, plenty of tucker.

If mulching, make it thick. If mulching with wood products then be sure to add more nitrogen.

Delphiniums like lots of sun so give them plenty of room in a sunny spot.

Delphiniums do not like lots of heat so if your summer temperatures regularly exceed 25 degC then plant them in a position that gets afternoon shade.

Keep them damp, but not wet.

Place slug pellets (or sharp sand or something similar) on the crowns to deter slugs and snails.

Remember, feed them often and well, water them often and well, sing to them often and well and to enjoy them. If you can’t sing well – practice.

Beware of the wind. Delphiniums are a bit like you, they enjoy a good steak and remember, if your delphiniums don't look like these you need to give them more fertiliser. If they still don't perform, buy some of our seed. You will really see the difference.

Take care. Have a great time in the garden.

Falling into Winter

Hi again,

A whole month has passed in a couple of days again. Where does it go?

Part of it went with a trip to Auckland to see my mum and dad and I was able to be with mum for her birthday and as a bonus see our daughter Emma in Hamilton on the return joureney. Emma works as a software tester for the largest dairy company in the world (Fonterra). As you can see from the foyer of their head office, they have a thing about cows!

The drive was a good one with typical autumn weather – heavy showers and fine spells – and the trees were beginning to put on a great show. All in all it was a good three day break, leaving Wanganui on Wednesday morning and returning by 5pm in time for “Fries on Friday”.

On the nursery we have been finishing off the last of the season’s pollinating, taking a few cuttings and starting to close the delphiniums down for their winter rest. The most exciting and stressful part of this was having the trees trimmed. We’d left it for over three years so there was quite a lot of growth to cut away and I was anxious that no trimmings flew off and punctured the plastic growing houses, especially the new one. However, the contractor, Ron King, knows his job and is a careful dude so there was no damage. All that remains now is for his mate to arrive with a rather fierce mulching machine and drive over the trimmings, reducing them to a fine mulch, we hope.

All the wood is now cut up and either in the wood shed or stacked outside to dry. Of course I was late doing this again so we’ll have to buy some really dry stuff in and save most of ours until late winter or for next year. Now that would save a job!

The garden is a mess so I’ll not show images of that until I’ve tidied it up a little.

I really enjoy the seasons changing and wherever you are, outside the tropics, the seasons will be changing for you too right now so I hope you’re enjoying it too.

Cheers

Terry

The tree fell

Daylight saving came off yesterday so, naturally I’m up at 5am this morning and what better else to do than catch up on the blog.

The delphiniums continue to display their enjoyment of the cooler conditions (below 24DegC highs and cooler nights) by producing, dark green foliage and strong, new flower spikes. The summer heat seems to have delayed the autumn flowering a little but it looks like the quality will be excellent. This is good news as seed for some of our lines is scarce and we need more to fill orders.

I’m not sure where I left the saga of the new growing house. The situation now is that since being “fixed” it has sprung leaks in both the roof vents, where rain water is somehow seeping between the two layers of the “twin skin” plastic, and in the central gutter from where it pours inside. I’m told that it will be fixed. We await developments in this on-going saga. In the mean time the delphiniums are growing well inside.

The automation of the roof vents is still about two weeks away and that means I have to keep a close eye on weather conditions (wouldn’t want the vents blowing off would I?). To help with this I bought a weather station. The monitoring of this was going to need the cooperation of our computer in the work shed, the LAN cables from the shed to the house and a friendly computer programme to allow me to “see” the station from the pc in the house. Well, this time we have a bonus as the weather station can communicate directly with the house, 140 metres away via radio that is advertised at being good for 100 metres only. This goes to prove that in life there are swings and roundabouts – but sometimes we get to go on the slide!

This last week end was populated by other fortunate events too. I felled the last pine tree destined for late winter firewood. This was fraught with possible calamities as the 25 to 30 metre tree had to fall in exactly the right place in order to avoid ...the garage; the large, decorative oak tree; the young feijoa (really nice fruit); the “Black Boy” peach and the ginkgo. Of course the garage was the most important target for avoidance. Well, the feijoa is mid distance between the oak and the peach, there being about 5 or 6 metres between each one. I figured I couldn’t possible fell the pine with that sort of accuracy so decided to aim straight for the feijoa. Bingo! It landed mid distance between the feijoa and the peach as you can see – what a cunning plot!. I was extremely happy and relieved.

If your week end was half as successful you will have had a great one.

Cheers

Terry