The Days Fly By

The delphiniums are really starting to take off this spring now. We have started pollinating already - about 6 weeks early! The images throughout this blog are of that spring growth.


Reading my notes from a web seminar I attended in Portland Oregon at the FarWest Show in August I have a note that suggests I should update my blog every day. I actually wrote that. Can you believe it? I wonder if I could, well substantially anyway.

Thinking about it, if I have time to harvest a crop on Farmville then I certainly have time to do a blog.

Below are spring cuttings already rooted.

The thing is, we have decided to expand our delphinium seed hybridising business and are working on ways to increase our visibility on the ether. We breed and sell the best delphiniums in the world - the world needs to know how to find us. They need to know that they need to find us. When Janice first built our web-site in 1996 we would always come up #1 on a search for delphiniums, just about anywhere in the world. Now we are lucky if we are on the first page if searching from the USA and UK. As a business that depends very heavily on customers finding and contacting us via the Internet, that is not good enough!

So, we are going through the execrcise of finding out what we need to do to regain that #1 slot from seaarches instigated from outside New Zealand. Blogging regularly is one of the things that, so it is said, works.

Below right is an early flowering, extremely short delphinium just about to break bloom. The bed is a trial bed, poorly weeded and neglected. The interesting delph is centre stage:


One thing's for sure; if I am going to do this every day then no-way am I writing an epistle. An epistle you will not get.

So there, I did it today. What about tomorrow?

What about Farmville?

On being absent

Much has happened in family and business since I last wrote including wonderful times with grandchildren, a business trip to western and mid USA and Canada, Europe and Germany and a sweet homecoming to my lovely Janice who kept the business running beautifully on her own - I should go away more often. Ouch Janice,don't throw things!!!


Also at home was a weedy spring garden.

Having a laptop and Skype made being away far more bearable and it was a treat to be able to speak to, and see, Janice, Aimee (6) Jessica (4) Sarah and Chris (our daughter and son in law) and anyone else who has entered the modern communications world.

Visiting our major business clients was a great experience which was undertaken to check out how they were being affected by the "D" word - Shhhh! New Zealand is regarded by North Americans and Europeans as being a long way(s) away and they were all grateful that someone had made the effort to travel so far to see them. This surprised me as I had only traveled for a day or so (including airport down-time) and that is no more than a long car drive. I guess we New Zealanders see travel as something we just do, regardless of distance as all destinations, except for Australia (and who wants to go there?) are "a long way away". It was also timely, as I arrived when I could check out propagation methods and offer a few pointers to enhance production. Well worth while. Please remember to cover delphinium seeds as this prevents drying out of the young root as it emerges!

Time out at the Children's Garden, Frederik Meijer Gardens, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The most important thing to come out of the overseas excursion was undoubtedly the fact that our communications with clients, prospective clients and the gardening public generally needs to be improved considerably in just about every area I can think of be it via web site, magazine, personal visits, demonstrations, radio talks, displays of plants...whatever! It was therefore great to be able begin work with the VanDusen Botanical Garden (Vancouver) to organize a future display of New Millennium Delphiniums within their bounds. Fantastic.

Another highlight was to see our plants growing in The Butchart Gardens and doing so well that they are removing all their old varieties and replacing them with ours. They are absolutely delighted with the way they perform and who wouldn't be after seeing this photograph of the comparative trial they conducted in their nursery area this year.

New Millenniums are staked and in the background left while the Pacific Giants are in foreground right.

On the home front plant sales this season are going extremely well and seed production stock is so well advanced that we may start almost a month early. Our staff managed excellently in my absence; another reason for me to disappear more often.

Other family matters have been to the fore in recent times too. Janice's mother died a few months ago and we have also needed to organize rest home care in Wanganui for my mother and transfer my father, in the latter stages of Alzheimer's disease from Auckland to Wanganui too. Such is life. I need a rest!

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.

Creme Brulee

Janice wants to get me back into blogging again so she has posted details of a dinner we had tonight with our friends and said that I cooked desert and would tell you about it.
Well, Janice's dinner was delicious and you will have to see her blog for the details.

For my bit I had great fun making my first creme brulee. The fun actually began yesterday when I bought a chef's torch. There's nothing like a blow torch for adding fun to cooking!

The recipe was simple and started with separating the yolks from eight eggs. The first one was tentative but by the time I'd done four or so it was fun and fast. Nothing beats blow-torching your desert in front of guests though.
The practice run yesterday went like clockwork but I decided I wanted a thicker brulee so added more castor sugar - not a good move as the top burned before the sugar caramalised right through. Undetered I simply tipped off the excess sugar on the others and all was well - there was a beautiful, real custard (no custard powder, just eggs, sugar and cream) capped with crispy caramelised sugar, plus plenty of drama!

The recipe can be found here:

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!

Brrrrrrrrrrr !!!

Wanganui doesn’t get too many cold winter days but this is sure one of them. We woke up to hail and went to bed to the sound of hail too. I have yet to see snow settle on the ground here but this may well be the year.

Cold and rain notwithstanding, it’s been a good week. At the nursery we’re right into tidying up for the next season and at home I’m enjoying having more spare time to get into the garden. The clothes line that I made while Janice was in Wellington a couple of weeks ago was a real hit (all we need now is some fine weather) and right now I’m building a pathway (more like a motorway really) from the back door to the said line. Janice is really over the moon and I’m loving adding to the garden.

Ok, ok, ok so you think a line is a line is a line. Not so. This one is a four strand line, about twelve metres long (48m of line in total) and will take over three large loads of washing. There is still plenty of space for the air to circulate between strands as they are about 400mm apart.

The next bit is geography, climate and engineering type stuff. Just warning you that’s all.

The land is sloping such that the distance from the ground to the outside line on the upside (where small items are hung) is over half a metre less than the distance to the outside line on the downside (where sheets are hung). What makes it work so very well however, is the actual positioning of the line, the general garden area and indeed the house too, on the side of a deep valley some 10 metres or so below the general lie of the land. Thereafter the valley continues downwards beneath the house and line at an angle of about 45 degrees (and steeper) for another 40 metres.

Ok, more geography. The valley and line are orientated roughly north/south. We have an almost constant prevailing wind from the west. This wind creates a vortex in the valley such that we almost always have a breeze rising from the valley floor (just a gentle breeze) up past the washing line. In fact, no matter what the general wind direction may be we invariably have breeze blowing up the valley towards and through the line, so that on any given day there is always at least a little wind to move the washing and tadah! dry it. Even in winter.... Except when it is raining..... Which is what it’s been doing for the past two weeks, since Janice returned from Wellington..... Except for yesterday, when we dried a whole two week’s worth of washing. This was really useful as we were both getting down to our last few pairs of underpants/knickers and the sheets were getting stiff. Only kidding.

Just in case you can’t visualise all this I’ve inserted a Google shot of our place taken a couple of years ago and indicated where the house and line are. The lower image is of the valley floor.

Storm in a tea cup.

All the shortest day activity overshadowed the fact that we have a new dog. Friday afternoon was spent preparing the garden to receive a 6 month old Alsatian cross (mongrel) puppy. Well, it's a bit late to for taking outdoor shots now but some of the NANSQ (New Zealand quilting body of which Janice is the newsletter editor) committee members who are also in Wellington for the meeting want to see images of the dog. I'd better get some!

Why have I titled this blog "Storm in a Tea Cup"?

Because the puppy was called Storm but I think it is far too gentle for that name so have instead called it "Tea Cup". It has already been shortened to "T" when training