That’s me I’m talking about. An epicly failed blogger. Never mind, one can get a better overview this way…
Summer was brilliant, if a bit short on mana from the skies. The humidity was comparatively low, so masses of sunny days easy to cope with and I didn’t feel the need to turn the a/c on very often.
It certainly dried up and by February all the grass was gone and the cattle and horses were eating the abundance of baleage and hay. The sprinklers and hoses were working overtime in the garden and nursery and planting anything was out of the question. The drought seemed pretty brutal after 2 years of continual greenness. but never reached the scorchedness of the 2 “pre-flood” seasons.
The early Autumn was great in the garden, despite the extreme dry. The roses continued to bloom and the Dahlias were amazing, so many self seeded beauties keep popping up about the place. Some small drops of rain painted a green patina over the brown paddocks and lawns, tricking people into thinking maybe the drought was over, but not yet I’m afraid.
Early April bought some nice bouts of rain, enough to get things growing on the farms and gardens, but still dry as a crisp half a spade down. Now here we are at the end of April and it just won’t stop raining!!!! Dreaming of the dry… We’re currently experiencing what seems a week of non stop Northerly rain with ridiculously high temperatures for the time of year and way more rain than necessary! Hopefully we get the high tantalisingly projected for later in the week and things can still dry up a bit. We’re in the middle of a small logging operation here, which has involved pretty much every fence on the place being knocked down or crushed. In fact we had to ship all the cattle to another farm as there is no power left in the electric fences here. If they’d come when they were meant to and got on with the job, it would all be done and dusted, but what do you know there were many delays and now the logging trucks can’t get up the track to pick up the logs. 
There’s always something to stress about!
We’ve had 2 Open Days and a visit to Ayrlies Plant Fair since last I blogged in your direction. Ayrlies was something new for us as we don’t usually attend fairs and markets. It was quite a mission transporting and setting up so many roses, and to be honest , not really financially viable, but one has to try these things! I don’t think the fact that we were in the middle of a atmospheric and economic drought helped gate sales!
The Open Days here are always fun and whilst time consuming getting the nursery ready, there’s no stress involved these days and it’s always great to meet old customers and new every time. Another is upcoming on May 18th and there will be one last of season one over King’s Birthday weekend, then a couple of months off during the worst of the Winter.
This is my busy time for cuttings so I have little time to do any gardening other than odd bits around the roses I’m harvesting wood from. The not-enough hours I get from my daughter and son-in-law will have to suffice in the meantime, so if you’re planning on a visit, don’t expect tidy gardens! Making cuttings is a very time consuming, and often thankless task. So many die! I approximate about 90%. Some types. like the Ramblers, are often 100% growers, but other families like Noisettes and Bourbons are more like 99% die ers! I keep on making them every year to grab at the odd success, especially with cultivars which I only have an older grafted plant of. Many of the Old Fashioned varieties are no longer commercially available in NZ, so if my grafted plant gets to that age and kicks the bucket it will be very difficult or impossible to replace. Own root is the way to grow, as own root roses don’t have a use-by date like grafted ones do.
The last year has been an awesome one for the garden, with most of the roses making up for several years of excess dry or wet. The perennials have also been extra happy, many outgrowing their welcome and others seeding as never before. Lots of certain Salvias are frequent self seeders, but I’ve never noticed a Gregii seedling before…this year I have veritable carpets of them, so have potted many up and are waiting to see if any are different to the parent plants. As they are very hybridised, I’m hoping I’ll get some different colours amongst the seedlings.
Another plant, a short lived perennial called Pelargonium Quinquelobatum, has always managed to give me a seedling or two to continue when the plant snuffs it. This season I got a thicket of them all over the path, which I could dig up to plant about the place or sell.
I mentioned already the multitude of self seeded Dahlias I get to some extent every year already, but this year I found what I think is a sport on one of my hardy garden Chrysanthemums which is a first for me. The parent plant is a tall semi double apricot pink colour, in the middle of the clump I spied a stem that was quite different. I’ve extricated the stem with some root so will wait for next year and see if it stays true. It’s very different to any others I have in this genus.
All plants are so fascinating, you can see how many people become fanatic about plants and gardening! I’m one of those many, everyday there’s something new and exciting to notice.
The rain continues this morning, so far we have been blessed to miss any of the extreme weather a lot of NZ has been receiving in the last few weeks, but of course I’m hoping for the weather to improve soon so things don’t get too saturated before Winter.
Firewood is on the menu for this weekend, I have a small stash already I’ve scavenged from around the farm. We have so many trees on the property and they have a nasty habit of falling down all over the fences…The forecast is good for some fine days to attack some of the big trees that have been down a couple of years and should keep us all warm thru the coming Winter.