New Zealand is a wonderful place…

lush autumn growth happening amongst the david austins
wife of bath producing exquisite autumn flowers

March is over. Not really your average March, but then we don’t live in an average country! Much rain fell in March and with temperatures staying very warm the garden soaked it up and became extremely happy. The roses are having the best ever Autumn flush, laden with blooms, and some of the absolutely ONCE flowerers can’t control themselves till spring and are having some autumn flowers too! These include some in the species garden…Ecae, Alba Maxima and the Kerria, a close rose relative.

And then April arrived with more rain and storms. There has been much flooding in the district, but we are blessed here with free draining soil and good run off, so the farm across the road got all our water and lost a lot of fences and hillsides, while we just got momentarily water logged. The temperatures have stayed very mild. so full growth continues and the summer veg are still producing (albeit more slowly)

I had fun on the 11th, a beautiful sunny day for my birthday, so I treated myself to a morning in the garden playing with roses! I decided to pick flowers chronologically from the David Austin garden, so ended up with 5 vases brimming. Starting with the 60’s and 70’s and finishing with the mid 90’s. The result is a very sweet smelling house!