Crochet and my favourite tree

The big tree outside the lounge window is leafing up. I don't know what kind of tree it is but it's my favourite - it has small and slender bright green leaves in summer, which change to a glorious yellow in autumn and then drop off, just when the sun is getting low enough to shine through the window again. It shelters rhododendrons at its feet and the bird feeder in its branches. All in all a very considerate tree.

Here's what I've been working on at night lately. These little granny squares are quick and easy to make. I can even get through two on a good night, if I haven't spent too long wandering in the garden (as my wind-down after work) or wandering in blogland.

The pattern is called Summer Garden Granny Square, from Attic24.

They are all ready to be sewed together into something pretty... anyone want to guess what it is? Hint... not a blanket!

I'm so glad it's the weekend, I'm really looking forward to some quality pottering time in the garden, and hopefully getting this crochet project close to being finished. I'll share pictures as soon as it's done. What have you got planned for this weekend?

My potting corner

I had some quality pottering time in the garden this weekend. Above is the potager, half completed. The right hand side is done... the circle paths are laid and (most of) the ground is planted. I have potatoes in the big patch closest to the camera, and chives alongside the central straight path. I know, they look like overgrown grass, but that's only because the overgrown grass growing over the unlaid brick path is making you think that! Once I get those bricks in and the grass tidied up, the chives will look charming and rustic. 'Kay?

Basically the whole left side is still unplanted, because there's no point doing that yet when I'll be trampling all over the whole thing putting the paths in. (The bricks are laid out on top of the ground, but not yet set in.)

Anyway. See back in the corner of the property behind the shed? That's my new potting corner. It's been designed to be home to all the useful but unsightly, or currently un-useful, things that don't fit in my shed.

In the bottom right hand corner is my apple tree "Baujade". It will hopefully screen that area off even more as it grows. Weeds are a major problem in this area of the garden (especially the dreaded convulvulus and oxalis) so I covered a lot of ground with weedmat. Around the apple tree I spread some dirt and sprinkled grass seed and a few wildflower seeds. If it looks like the picture in my head, I'll have a romantic mini-meadow here.

I've got some sweet peas growing in front of the trellis which will help with the screening too. When I put that trellis up, I was imagining hanging bunches of garlic and onions up to dry on it in autumn. Looking forward to that day...

Here are my compost bins. I just love making compost! The act of literally turning rubbish into a product that you usually pay money for really appeals to me, and it's such an easy thing to make. I have three bins so I always have something to be added to while the rest is brewing. I put my compost bins on tarpaulins to stop vigorous weeds from growing through.


This area is also a graveyard for spent bulbs, where they can gather their energy to bloom next season. The green metal stick on the left is my compost turner. It has sort of a corkscrew at the base and as you turn the top it burrows into the compost, which makes it easy to stir and turn.

This side still needs to be organised - I'm going to put a shelving unit up to tidy up all those pots. Then I'll actually be able to reach the potting bench!

This is a sort of avenue, or it will be once the trees grow! There are 2 apples and a feijoa.

Here's the part of the potager I've got planted up - from left to right are green broccoli, purple broccoli, pak choi, and garlic interspersed with some pak choi. In the small wedge shaped garden at the front is a row of spring onions and a tiny little rosemary cutting. I haven't quite decided what else to put here but it could end up being herbs.

This post was brought to you by the letters p-o-t... as used in the words potager, potting corner, pottering, compost and pots. And that makes me think that I've spent a bit too much time thinking about this post and it's time to go sautee some leeks for tea.

Spring posies

When flowers are abundant in my garden, I love to pick them and scatter them in vases throughout the house. I put them in places I'll be sure to see and smell them... the hallway table, dining table, kitchen windowsill, beside my bed. If I get a particularly nice bunch of something gorgeously scented, I've even been known to carry it with me from room to room. But basically I'll pick anything that's flowering or looks interesting... parsley, branches from shrubs, seed heads... it's all good!

Above is an early spring display. I just adore the look created by grouping several glass vases together and filling some or all of them with flowers. It's harder than you might think to create a good grouping of vessels though and mine still looks a bit sparse, so I think a bit of second hand shop trawling might be called for to find some more little bottles and things.

This cute little espresso cup is my favourite vase at the moment.

Here it is again with some pansies. They surprised me and lasted several days in the water.

My neighbour gave me some freesia bulbs and I planted them in my front garden. Behind are some poppies ("angel wings") and some tulips which I thought were going to be pale pink, but turned out red. The yellow freesias were also a surprise, but they became my favourites because of the long graceful stems and elegant structure.

They look so pretty in a vase, and smell divine too!

I just came across a new blog dedicated to sowing, growing and arranging flowers. Have a look at Flaming Petal for lots of inspiring ideas (there is also a seed giveaway on!)

How is your flower garden looking?

Real Gardens #1 - Rae O'Connor

In Rae O'Connor's Timaru garden spring is blooming. The walkway along the north side of the house, which leads to the back yard, is flanked by red and white camellias and vibrant purple primulas. A lemon tree is tucked into the sheltered nook created by the glass conservatory and a mandarin tree nestles in behind it. A wooden cartwheel supports clematis and climbing roses, which also twine along the railing of the ramp leading to the conservatory.

If you follow the walkway down you will reach this sheltered seating area. Sheltered by tall trees, it provides shade and privacy. The trees are underplanted with daffodils and white primulas, making a sweet woodland area. In the background you can see the heritage apple tree 'Peasgood Nonsuch'. (The apples make lovely cider!)

This area has been personalised with hanging garden art. Rae made the heart ornament from chicken wire bent around a wire frame, and filled with white river stones.

Close up of the daffodils in the early morning sunlight. The pots are filled with cyclamen and other tiny flowering treasures.

Look at this magnificent glasshouse! Built by the previous owner of the property, it has a wooden frame and several windows which open for ventilation. Rae grows tomatoes, peppers, early potatoes and 'Kentucky' climbing beans.

In front are three raised vegetable beds, built from concrete blocks. The blocks are slowly but surely being filled with strawberry plants, propagated by runners, which provide an ornamental and productive edging.

Alongside the glasshouse are more strawberry beds. The fruit are perfect to eat freshly picked and warm from the sun. Rae makes strawberry jam with the excess.

The beds are bare at the moment, but soon they will be filled with an assortment of vegetables including potatoes, lettuce, carrots, peas, sweet corn, pumpkins and beans. In the background you can see a grapevine trained along the fence, which produces an abundance of black grapes.

The space behind the glasshouse is useful for hiding compost bins and items which are not currently in use in the garden. Compost bins are made from concrete blocks, and a plastic drum with holes drilled in it to let air through.

Also along the back fence is the wire support for thornless blackberry canes. This way they get full sun and are easily accessible to pick. Along the side wall of the shed are red and blackcurrant bushes. In the bottom left corner of the photo is a gooseberry bush.

The clothesline has been made decorative as well as functional by planting a small flower garden around its base. The old metal peg holder has also been given new life as a planter.

I'm on the lookout for one of these for my own garden!

And so ends the first Real Gardens tour. I hope you've picked up a few ideas. See you back here next month for another tour!

(Click on the photos to view them larger)

Beautiful Nature

Nature dealt us a doozy of a blow last week. She is now redeeming herself with warm and lovely spring days, gentle overnight rain, lush growth (particularly of the lawn and weed variety), and a general air of promise and hope.

I went to Timaru last weekend. The trip, to visit with family and friends, was already planned, but the timing ended up being perfect for a much needed break from the city of shakes. Travelling south, the road was flanked with camellias, forsythias and glorious magnolias. Front yard gardens overflowed with the brightness and exuberance of spring - daffodils, flowering cherries, aubretia, primroses and blossoming hedges of all descriptions. I took quick snapshots from the windows of the car, both for inspiration's sake and to try and take something fleeting and hold onto it forever. Spring passes too quickly.

I also took some photos for a new feature that will soon debut on this blog. It will be a monthly feature called Real Gardens, and will profile real people's gardens: beautiful gardens, of course, but real - gardens with washing lines, compost bins, cats and car parks. My aim is to show how real people deal with all of these real needs and assimilate them into a beautiful liveable outdoor space. I'll be gleaning inspiration and ideas for my own garden, and I hope you'll be inspired too. Check back next week for the first installment!

(The photo at the top is my heliotrope which I put in the glasshouse to overwinter. It's thriving in the warmth, and filling the glasshouse with it's vanilla fragrance.)

Aftermath

Today was a glorious day. The weather was balmy and warm, and everything was happy and sunshiney and just peachy-perfect... oh, as long as you could ignore the cracks in the roads and the rubble and the tarpaulined holes where chimneys had been.

For most of the past two days I've been staying at home, keeping safe and trying not to use too much water. On Sunday morning I went to the supermarket, which was busy but well stocked (not running out of milk and bread like the rumours said). I stayed at home for as long as I could but eventually I had to get out and just see for myself what was going on. Not being suicidal I haven't gone near the CBD, but here are some pictures from round and about...

Burst water pipes.

Formerly a dairy.

Condemned shops. I used to like shopping at Madame Butterfly's vintage emporium...

This is the fish n chip shop where we got our tea on Friday night.

Formerly a hairdressers.

I used to work in this building - not anymore. I still have a job, but we are relocating to temporary premises until a new location is found. (If I had been at work here when the quake hit, the outcome could have been so different...)

The Gayhurst Road bridge crossing the Avon river. You can see the tarmac has lifted up in chunks. I'm standing on Avonside Drive to take this photo - most of it is open again now, but further down the street is blocked off where a lot of cracking happened.

This church on Edgeware Road really took a hammering. See how the gates are all twisted at the front. A stained glass window has fallen out of that round hole.

This is the building behind the church. Such a shame to think of those beautiful stained glass windows being demolished.

I'm glad this is not my car.

I forget which street this is, but there are a lot of these potholes around. In a lot of places the ground actually liquefied which caused sinkholes, and in other places there are big piles of dirt and sand which has just bubbled up from somewhere.

Amidst all this catastrophe, mostly what I am thinking is lucky, lucky, lucky. Lucky no one died. Lucky that the city had plans for dealing with an event like this and that they seem to be running smoothly. Lucky that power is on for most of us. Lucky that most people will be able to claim insurance on the damage. Above all, lucky that me and mine and my little patch are safe and whole.

I am sure that in the weeks to come there will be plenty of things to be annoyed about, but for now I am counting my blessings.

Earthquake

This morning at 4.35am we were hit by a 7.1 magnitude earthquake. The epicentre was about 30 km west of Christchurch and man, did we know about it. I woke to a rumbling that quickly got loud as the room started to shake. Lui and I bolted out of bed and made for the doorway as everything lurched. I could hear doors and cupboards banging, drawers slamming in and out, and the weird, almost supernatural rumbling all around. My instinct was to get outside where nothing could fall and trap me but I couldn't make it further than the doorway - it was too hard to run with the rocking and rolling and violent lurching. At last it subsided and I grabbed my coat and ran outside, shivering and shaking and listening to alarms, sirens, and barking dogs.

Lui hid somewhere. I went back inside and gathered food, phoned my family, ran outside each time there was an aftershock, and waited for Jon to come home from work. Eventually dawn broke and we checked out the house - amazingly there is no damage! We are incredibly lucky, especially given the damage to other parts of town. The power came back on at about 8.30am for us which was great - much kudos to the power companies, and in fact everyone who has worked so hard today to restore infrastructure - thank you all! We still have to conserve water, and boil before drinking and all that, but at least we have heat and light and internet.

Lui is incredibly spooked - he spent the day hiding under our bed, but he has at last come out and is slinking round, staring at everything with big eyes and flinching at every noise. It's going to take a few days for him to be back to normal I guess... the same can be said for everyone really. Thanks to everyone who has commented and emailed to see if I'm all right, I very much appreciate it! Here is an article with everything you ever wanted to know about The Big One of 2010: http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/4094979/Huge-earthquake-rocks-Christchurch

Here's hoping for a good night's sleep and a boringly uneventful day tomorrow...

3rd of Spring

Well, time is flying. It's the 3rd of spring already, although the weather today was anything but springlike. These pictures from last weekend are my proof that we are all starting to spread our wings, stretch in the sunshine and enjoy the lenghthening days.

See the little star flowers, all in a row... Eventually I want to spread this planting all along the driveway. And I will have some cerise pink hyacinths in there next year!

Here are some more earlicheer daffs in the lovely green gazunder (ooh I love that word). They smell so beautiful - I have the front door open and the scent blows in and perfumes all through the house.

More bulbs... I'd forgotten these little crocus were even there, until they peeped their little faces out. They are such fleeting sweeties - little blooms gone within a week.

And the patch of sunshine that is jonquils. Glowing with spring cheer even on a cloudy day.

Happy spring! How does your garden grow?

Ghosts in the garden

Blossom time is here at last! The leader of the pack is my dwarf almond, Garden Prince. He has these lovely pink flowers and, since we are not nearly out of the frosty woods yet, I have to be super vigilant with the frost cloth.

I stuck some stakes in his pot, and then it's just a matter of wrapping a couple of lengths of cloth around and securing it to the stakes with wooden clothes pegs. Leave a bit of overhang at the top, and clip together to make a roof.

Here is the ghostly spectacle. I'm also watching out for my peach Rose Chiffon. She hasn't burst her blossoms quite yet, but she's not far behind.

Now, don't forget to remove these covers when it's windy, or they will catch the wind and sail your pots right over to the ground, where they will deposit quite a few of their unopened buds. Yeah, ask me how I know this.

Saturday morning dawned sunny and even... warm? I didn't stop to ponder it, but quickly grabbed my paintbrush and got stuck into that job that for some reason I'd been looking forward to all week... painting my potting corner.

Above you can see my collection of unearthed glassware, sitting on a shelf I "built". Building the shelf consisted of cutting an old fence paling to size, and nailing it on top of the support beam that was already there. This fence was recently put up by our back neighbour, and we have the "wrong" side of it. Since it's in this little corner I figured it would be of most use if it had shelves to hold my pots and et ceteras. So I nailed boards over all the support beams, I figure a coat of paint will mostly unify it and once it's holding pots and things you won't really notice that it's a bit wonky. Right?

Anyway, here it is after it's first coat. (May I just say, painting trellis is a joy and a delight.) Another coat to go, then I can start arranging the compost bins! Can't wait!

Dull days

I'm so sick of these dull winter days. Seemingly every day is cold and grey outside, with a chill wind blowing and specks of rain clinging to your hair and dampening your clothes and spirits. I force myself to go outside and mope around for a while but really I'm just killing time, waiting for spring when I can launch into action. I'm tired of all my indoor hobbies - tired of crochet, tired of movies, tired of baking, tired of the internet, tired of the couch and my blankie, tired of brainstorming ideas for a warm day, tired of magazines. Tired of everything except books - I spent most of today reading (The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder) - which did in fact make me feel better. At least I'm not snowed in by a scary gigantic blizzard.

When will spring come?

It must be getting closer because the birds are very active. We heard a scuffling and a squabbling and saw these two blackbirds having a go right outside the window. It was very exciting there for a couple of minutes.

In between moping, I have got a wee bit of work done in the garden. Not painting the trellis, but I'm still busting to do that - just need it to be dry, dry, dry. I got my apple and feijoa trees planted (I got a Monty's Surprise to go along with the Baujade apple) and discovered a hidden cache of glass medicine bottles when I dug one of the holes. No kidding, I must have pulled out 30-40 pill bottles of varying sizes and the same amount broken. Fun. Seriously, who decides it is a good idea to landfill a backyard with glass? Fortunately it's not everywhere, but I did uncover a couple of similar patches of rubbish (including glass, bricks, coal and rotted shoes) when I was digging up ground for the potager. Not cool.

I've also sown a few seeds, just peas and pak choi for now. It wasn't even a debate as to whether I should sow some tomatoes or not - it's just too cold and cloudy. I did transplant out some broccoli and spring onions from the glasshouse, they were sown about April/May. The garlic is looking pretty good too, so at least one little corner of the potager is productive. The rest of it will be too, once I get some nice weather to finish laying the paths...