Wild Hope Homestead

Let’s take a little walk around the garden and see what’s been going on recently. We’ll just look at the parts that don’t look like a giant mess. You see, gardening has been almost banned in this weather. I don’t like it, but I have to accept it and try to avoid getting things like heatstroke. Over the last seven days, temperatures have reached 28degC twice, 29 three times and 30 twice. Once when I checked the weather page the wind speed was 6km/h, with gusts of 9km/h. ‘Gusts’. I think I need to stop checking the weather page. It’s especially tormenting when they say things like ‘torrential rain’, which is code for ‘some grey clouds, then sun returns’. So, here are some things I was doing in the garden before this mad weather set in…

Out here in the front garden I sprayed and partially cleared The Mound, in hopes that it will no longer be The Weed Mound. I am still deciding what to do with it – lawn it or plant it. Anything is better than weeds. I have laid out some timber edging but need to do some levelling and get The Husband to cut one of the pieces of timber. I re-planted some things along the fence, as the different coloured flaxes I plonked there from the Herb Garden weren’t going to cut it in terms of street appeal.

There are purple-brown flaxes where the posts are and what is supposed to be Corokia cotoneaster as a hedging plant between them. I bought the young plants online to save money, as they’re not particularly common. To cut a long story short, they’re not what a more experienced nurseryman said they were and I should have trusted my knowledge! It always pays to keep on top of your plant knowledge. The plants are one of the green, larger-leaved species of native corokia, not the small-leaved, silvery, divaricating Corokia cotoneaster that I love. Never mind! I will get a faster-growing, thicker hedge, and the green will probably contrast better with the flaxes anyway. I need to move the closest flax, which I planted a while ago, closer to the gate, but that’s not happening in this weather. I have a matching flax to plant on the other side of the driveway but, naturally, there’s a stump there at the moment that needs removing. Story of my life! The fence needs some attention one day too.

 

Down the east side of the house my native planting is doing well, with a nice array of colours developing.

The Maple Garden is starting to look good as the plants grow and I have planted more stuff in there too. I’ve lost count of how many plants I’ve planted but it’s heaps! And most of them from my potted plant convoy. I like to admire this garden out the window from the couch.

Now, the photo above is interesting, because there used to be a tall, skinny, yellow-green, half brown conifer standing by the garage, at the base of the fort ladder. One day I looked out the window to see it toppling down at the hand of The Husband and his chainsaw. Don’t worry, I definitely wanted it gone but I think I should have been out there while he was tackling the task. Plus, I wanted to take photos. The tree managed to split some of the wood edging of the thing below, which I think used to be a sandpit, as it came down. The view looks a lot nicer with it gone though, with the soft shapes of the big pine and the pear tree as the new backdrop. I want the matching tall, skinny conifer gone too but have instructed The Husband NOT to try taking it down as it is much taller and could come down in too many bad ways, including into the neighbours’ place. It is a job for the pro’s at some point in time.

That’s most of what’s been going on outside of the edible gardens. Since garden work has almost ground to a halt with the current stifling weather, I must be patient and try to keep my twitchy green fingers out of the sun…