Surprise Gift Provides Needed Inspiration

A good friend of mine named Tovio rang me one day last summer to ask if he could drop something off at my place. I had no idea what it was or what I had done to prompt him to do this, but I was delighted when he arrived with a planter box he’d made and wanted to give it to me.

I absolutely love it and I found the perfect spot for it in front of my home office. I was so pleased with it I wanted to find an appropriate plant to put in it as soon as possible. I eventually decided to buy a new hibiscus which is another tropical plant that seems to do quite well in Auckland and I was sure it would do well in this spot which is very hot and sunny in the afternoons.

I was very interested in how Tovio made this planter, which he had put together using some surplus materials from a job he had done where he installs imitation stone as cladding on houses, fireplace surrounds and other garden features, including letterboxes. The more I looked at this planter box the more I realised how well this material compliments the style of my house which has a kind of colonial character to it but also the material would lend itself nicely to the tropical garden I’ve created out the back. So I started thinking about how I could incorporate this concept into my garden.

One area that has been bothering me for some time is a little garden space at the back of the house where the back garden begins. I put this in years ago using ‘half round tanalised timber edging’ which despite being tanalised has slowly rotted because of an overflow pipe from a hot water cylinder which constantly drips water into this garden. So I decided to ask Tovio if he could install some of his imitation stone into this space, which he was more than happy to do for me.

After installing some tanalised plywood into the space (on both sides) it was ready to have the stone attached to it. If you look carefully in the picture (above left) you may notice how I also added an extra timber rail above the space as the thickness of the stone material would protrude beyond what was there originally by about 50mm. I thought it would look better if the top edge of the stones were concealed.

At this point Tovio set about installing the stones, which are actually made of solid concrete, using a special waterproof adhesive. After that he pointed all the gaps with a cement mix to which he’d added a charcoal colour. If you live in Auckland and you'd like something similar done at your place, why not get in touch with Tovio. Learn more about Tovio's Stone Cladding Service here.

 

After the stone work was completed, I made a custom fit box which I lined with black polythene to sit in the garden where the pipe was dripping and planted it out with a Maiden-hair fern, which had previously been growing in this part of the garden. There should now be no issues with rotting substrate and I know the maiden-hair will thrive in this position. I also added some mother-in-laws tongue which I felt also worked well in this space. (Picture above right shows the plants thriving after just a few months.)

To complete the effect I laid a couple of flat stones in the garden on which I would sit a couple of pot plants, the large bright blue one creating a feature in this area with a Plectranthus ‘Velvet Elvis’ to compliment the colour of the pot.

Although it appears to obscure the stonework, you get glimpses of it as you walk past, in between the pots. I added some white pebbles to finish it off. I’m very pleased with the stonework and I’m keen to use more of it around the garden. I’m already cooking up a few ideas on that — watch this space.

Garden Neglect...the explanation.

I’ve been known to make excuses in the past for why my garden’s looking a bit untidy or unkempt. But lately my garden has been looking the worst it ever has. In addition to the damage caused by a couple of mid winter storms this year the situation has been compounded by months of neglect. 

Observant readers of this blog may have heard me make subtle comments about the various distractions that were keeping me from the garden at various times, and more so probably in the last year or so. Up until now I’ve refrained from going into that on here, but now it's time to break my silence. 

Sadly, the reason is because my wife Izumi who I sometimes mention on here, has been battling cancer since Nov 2011 and despite the efforts of many good people to help her, she finally lost the battle on August 27th (about a month ago) and has now gone to rest.

Izumi loved the Garden, visiting it every day to seek out something for dinner or in more recent times to gather whatever was available for juicing, in an effort to keep her immunity strong. Believe it or not there are still some vegetables growing in amongst all those weeds...somewhere.

But I couldn’t possibly allow myself to do another blog post on here without first acknowledging her passing and crediting her for much of what I was motivated to do. In many ways she was the inspiration for building the garden in the first place, a huge project which took years of painstaking effort.

I got a great deal of satisfaction out of her reaction to everything I did. Without her encouragement it probably never would have happened the way it did. She took a great deal of interest in this blog too although she was adamant that she didn’t want her picture shown on here — at least not her face, probably because most of the photos taken of her in the garden didn’t show her at her best. But also because she preferred her privacy and was more comfortable staying in the background.

Many of the ideas we incorporated into the garden came from our visits to various parts of the country usually during summer holidays. Like the time we visited Russell in the far North of New Zealand which is where we got the inspiration to grow a Bougainvillea vine over a pergola.

Or there was the time we joined the Great Greenhithe Garden tour where we got lots of inspiration from the private gardens we visited. On that tour I also got this poignant shot of Izumi walking down a long tree-lined driveway into the distance. I never imagined at the time how seeing this less than a year later would bring home the deep sense of loss I feel now that she’s gone.

Goodbye Izumi — you'll be missed!

Now spring has arrived... closely followed by daylight savings, so it’s time to get back out into the garden and start tidying up — if only the weather would let me.

Winter Gardens at the Auckland Domain

We’re well into spring in November which is a popular time of year for doing Garden Tours. Thankfully, there are plenty of public gardens around Auckland where I live, that can be visited, even for free, and most of them I’m sure will be looking good at this time of year.

The Winter Gardens at the Auckland Domain are a good example. They basically consist of 2 large greenhouses separated by a large courtyard and fernery.

One the greenhouses is filled with subtropical plants while the other one focuses more on perennials and annuals, etc. and although one of them was closed for maintenance when I visited, the other greenhouse did not disappoint.

I was like a kid in a candy shop not sure of where to point my camera first. It was a veritable feast of colours, shapes and textures. Plenty of inspiration for both the gardener in me and the photographer and artist too. The display of Foxgloves looked amazing.

The fernery was stunning too and while there wasn’t much in the way of colour, there was more than enough textures and shades of green to make up for it. 

So if you ever get the chance to visit Auckland, be sure to visit the Domain and Winter Gardens. I’m sure you’ll be glad you did.

The Great Greenhithe Garden Tour – Overview

When I decided to do a blog post about the Greenhithe Garden Tour I should’ve known that doing a single post about it was not going to be easy or concise. With 15 private gardens being opened to the public one of my biggest concerns was how to write about it without offending any of the exhibitors or hosts that don’t even get a mention should they be gracious enough to even visit my blog, let alone read it, should they happen to stumble across it somehow.

In deciding what to feature, I was conscious that like any creative form of expression, tastes in gardening styles can also be very subjective, so I decided to just concentrate on what appealed to me personally. Realistically I knew that of the 100 or more photos that I took I would probably only use a dozen or so, and just try to give an overview of what I saw.

It was immediately apparent that a lot of time and effort had been put in to each garden on show. Roses featured prominently in many of the gardens and while I’m not really a big fan of roses, some beautiful examples of them got me thinking about changing my view. Like the stunning red roses in garden No.4 which were being trained to grow up some trellis on the side of the house. They provided a beautiful accent to this garden which complimented the house nicely.

Many of the gardens had some kind of water feature in them and I particularly liked the stone work in Garden No.1 which was fenced off to create a private little haven with a tropical theme.

Visiting this Garden was a real treat as the hosts had a live band playing jazz music right there in the garden.

As we meandered through their large sloping section dotted with vegie patches and tropical palms the music wafted through the trees as we went, creating a rather festive atmosphere.



















We arrived a little late at Garden No.13 so missed hearing someone talking about bee biology and beekeeping. But we couldn’t miss the distinctive hum of buzzing bees as we made our way along the board walk which circled around their property past a gathering of several beehives. The water feature here was a completely natural one as this property backs onto the upper harbour entry to Lucas Creek.

Although the gardens on show were the main attractions of the day, it seemed the whole community was in the gardening spirit. We could hear lawnmowers going as we walked from place to place and there were many other gardens besides those open to the public that caught my attention along the way, like this mediterranean inspired house. The white roses and bright green clipped hedges stood out beautifully against the terracotta masonry. This part of Greenhithe got me thinking about how beautiful a place it must be to live... if only you could afford it!

I’ve been thinking for some time about introducing bromeliads to the tropical area of my garden and a stunning specimen I saw by the pool in Garden No.15 was enough to persuade me that I should just go ahead and do it.

As you can see, every garden we visited had it’s own unique character and there were plenty of ideas to take away and think about. Even the most mundane areas of a property can be beautified like this area surrounding the clothesline in Garden No.9. At the time I didn’t even notice the clothesline was there – it was only when I looked at the pictures afterwards.

It’s kind of hard to believe that the last 3 pictures were all taken on the same property at Garden No.9. And as is true with all the other Gardens shown here, the pictures I’ve posted show only a glimpse of what we actually saw on the tour. One thing that all the gardens have in common though is the tremendous amount of work that’s obviously gone into creating them. This particular property apparently has a team of gardeners...

By this point in the tour, after walking what seemed like several kilometres, up and down driveways and between all the houses, Izumi and I both reached the point of exhaustion and decided to go home. We’d had enough garden-hopping for one day. 

There was so much to see that we didn’t get to see them all which is kinda what I expected. But we saw 10 out of 15, so not a bad effort in view of the limited time we had available, as we both had appointments scheduled for the afternoon.

The truth is I am humbled by the whole experience and for a fleeting moment questioned whether I had any right to call myself a gardener. But gardening is something anybody can do no matter how large or small their property might be. Everybody has a different approach and that’s what makes it so interesting. 

A Visit to Auckland’s Botanic Gardens

As I mentioned in my previous post, one thing I’ve been thinking about doing is visiting other gardens besides my own, whether public or private and sharing some of my observations.

When it comes to inspiration you can’t beat a visit to a public botanic garden. For one thing they have a much bigger budget than any private gardens I know of so they are usually always well kept and there’s something of interest to see all year round — and they’re usually free to visit which is always a bonus. 

I happened to be in the vicinity of the Auckland’s botanic gardens at around midday recently so I decided to go there to eat my lunch. I had my camera with me so I thought I would take a look around and if possible get a few nice shots.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t the best. It had been raining all morning and had been blowing a gale too, so I wasn’t too hopeful about getting anything particularly outstanding. Being the first week of spring you never know what surprises await you when you visit any garden. Not that I was looking for garden inspiration particularly but I was looking for some interesting subject matter for my renewed interest in photography, so what better place to go for a keen gardener like myself?

Sadly the wind ruined many of my shots, so I’m keen to go back again on a nice still day. However, the Cactus Gardens were seemingly unnaffected by the wind so I managed to get this stunning shot. The clouds may help you to appreciate what was happening in the atmosphere on that day. The sun even came out momentarily between the clouds. I had fun processing this using the HDR technique. I think this could work quite well as a stretched canvas print.

The particular area I was interested in seeing was the section dedicated to Magnolias. I’ve noticed around Auckland all the magnolias coming out in bloom this time of year. They really are quite a spectacular plant but grow far too big for my garden. So here’s a few pics I got...

The rhododendrons were also blooming. They seemed to be a magnet for the Tuis with several of them in one tree feeding on the nectar.

Botanic gardens are well worth a visit. Why not take a visit to a botanic garden near you if you have one in your area.

A Visit to Kenrokuen Garden

We spent the last couple of weeks in Japan visiting family. While we were there we went to visit one of the 3 most famous gardens in Japan known as Kenrokuen. It is situated in Kanazawa, which is the largest city in Ishikawa prefecture where my wife’s parents live, which is on the west coast of Japan’s main Island of Honshu (north of Osaka).

From what I understand the garden was first established in the 1600’s. It was a private garden belonging to a Japanese Lord and was first opened to the public in 1874. However the garden was only designated as a National Site of Scenic Beauty as recently as 1922, and a National Site of Special Scenic Beauty as recently as 1985 which put it in the top 3 in Japan, and deservedly so. 

I’ve been inspired in many ways by the Japanese approach to gardening which I first came to appreciate when I visited Japan for the first time back in 1990. The first thing you notice is that the Japanese are meticulous in their attention to detail and no effort is spared when it comes to maintaining things of beauty, even sweeping moss off the pebbles on the floor of a meandering stream (as pictured below).

I’ve tried to incorporate into my own garden the various ideas I’ve gleaned from my observations in Japan.

These are a few of the fundamental observations I’ve made of Japanese gardens:

1. They pay special attention to detail when trimming hedges and pruning trees. They’re not afraid of severe pruning where necessary. Even towering pine trees do not escape the attention of the meticulous Japanese gardener.
2. They make sure that all the gardens features are clearly defined including trees, shrubs, pathways, and other landscaping features, including water features and garden ornaments.
3. They make good use of a variety of materials including stone, brick, and timber - even bamboo and ceramic tiles.
4. They keep the design of any landscaping elements as simple as possible.
5. They make the best possible use of every last inch of space.

This is the second time I’ve visited the Kenrokuen garden. Last time I visited was springtime 18 years ago so there was a lot more colour and flowers to be seen compared to this Autumn visit. But even without the blooms and the colours there was beauty to be found in the rich tapestry of form, texture and the majestic vistas they produce, even if only in various shades of green.

Last time we came here my daughter was only 5 years old. She doesn’t remember our visit all those years ago so it was a completely new experience for her this time, which she thoroughly enjoyed. I’ve been hoping my love of gardening will rub off on her eventually.