We are in the final days of slow growth

Well, it’s happening. We are returning to jobs to see that the growth is increasing, and we can’t leave ‘little’ weeds anymore like we generally do in Winter.

This means that (for you as well as me) whatever we manage now, and cover, and plant, will be miles easier to manage over Summer.

The afternoons are also getting warmer, and the evenings slightly longer, so for the first time in months I was able to do some gardening after work! Woooo! I finally repotted these enormous tree aloe (Aloe Barberae)-

You can see how long they were waiting for repotting because they have extended a little bit and gone wonky while leaning against the house!

Tree aloe have really lazy, poor root systems. The roots take forever to form, and I can only strike cuttings by leaving the root end completely exposed for a summer, resting slightly on dirt lying flat. Then the roots start to come out and stretch and I can pot it up without risk of root rot. I rarely if ever water them, and it takes about 6-12 months further before I can think of repotting or planting in a garden. The left hand aloe was struck from cutting years ago and has still failed to develop a decent root system, although the Y stakes are ugly they are badly needed and the right hand Aloe is leaning on the house and the Y stake to stay upright at all :( but they’ll get there, get established.. and then need planting in the garden as these babies get absolutely enormous.

What I am obsessed with this week

Two exciting things happened this week- Enrich with Nature, one of the primary suppliers to garden centres, sent me their trade catalogue for this season and it was jaw dropping. Four pages just for beautiful lavenders. I asked them if I would be able to share some clippings (it’s a huge catalogue) but they are undecided, so I can’t do a thing yet.

The other thing is that I have been chatting with Stems of Wonder (instagram link), a really cool new business that sends out mystery exotic seed boxes on a subscription basis. They have agreed to come onto the blog for a chat, but aren’t free until they have finished doing other mysterious things overseas, so I am looking forward to bringing that to you as well!

Some pretty things, and good ideas

This is Chris’s garden in Mt Cook, a bed which is incredibly hard clay and almost south facing. I have a rule that every time I arrive, if it doesn’t have flowers blooming in it I need to order some. This bed has Christmas lilies, hellebores, daffodils, ferns, a few daisies and dahlias in and I am really enjoying it! I thought you might like to see it to remember that things don’t need to be particularly carefully thought out, if you bulk plant and go with your gut.

On the other end of the spectrum, in one of our dead zones at a rental, the nasturtiums have smothered out the tradescantia!! I have been going up and sporadically weedeating the entire area, but haven’t needed to this season for the first time, because the tradescantia has gradually slowed in growth to the point that I didn’t need to weedeat at all this time. Now I am starting at the edges and carefully weeding out the trad from underneath. This bed will eventually be full of alstroemeria, which I actually thought would suffocate the trad itself- it keeps the trad at bay, but doesn’t smother it like the nasturtium.

Yes, that is unsmothered pellitory in the back right. Grrrrrr.

Final announcement

Well it’s been a ride, but I am going to be moving from Substack to another platform- probably our website, and we will then publish the blogs on all social media feeds.

Substack refuses to monitor blogs in the name of free speech, a move that is great in theory but has ended up with it actively promoting a Nazi blog (I’m serious- the logo image is a swastika, and the background image… also a swastika. Not subtle). I’m following David Farrier in moving on, but can’t until I have some back end support to make sure everything will change seamlessly for you all, so will keep you updated (but you will still receive the email in your inbox just like you do now, without you having to change anything). For more information you could read David’s write up here.

This weekend

Do some gardening (lots of weeding, and any final pruning, and hopefully some mulching, but only a little bit of planting)! Get in that sun! Have a cup of tea!

Have a great week everyone!