Friday 8th June, 2018
Hi
A wet day turns surprisingly warm...
Queens birthday .... what a wet one... think that we had some 70 odd mils of rain and I'm sure that many had heaps more... The Sunday of the long weekend was the wettest day and the guys were just finishing cleaning up after dropping a couple of trees. It was easiest to make a fire and burn the wood and rubbish rather than cart it all out as it was in an awkward spot. So next to the creek, behind the garden centre car park and in the pouring rain, we made a fire which was rather smokey due to the wood being a tad green.
The smoke was pouring out through the trees, in the misty drizzly morning that it was, and then next minute flashing lights raced into the garden centre and three men in uniform hopped out of the fire engine they were attached to, to check out our fire. Apparently someone had called them to say our trees were on fire. In the rain that we were having on the Sunday, that is hard to imagine, but was the highlight of my morning/day. Anthony, the landscape designer from Garden Graphix even managed to leave his drawing board to get a
selfie with the departing engine albeit without the fire men in their uniforms ... LOL
Roses are red, yellow, pink and white.... and in every shade imaginable!
Roots pruned, tie tags on, colour labels attached and over to the guys on the potting bench team to get these roses all bagged ... Its going like clock work this year, but so it should as most of the team have done it all more than once now, from those that do the admin to them out on the potting bench. Our potters are reaching numbers per day far in excess of my minimum requirement of 500 units per day. Congratulations to Alex who clocked up an amazing 700 bush roses potted yesterday and I'm sure that Simone is following close in his footsteps. Virginia and Guillermo are taking to the process like a duck to water, having done similar work in their homeland of Argentina. Like us they love roses and we have oh so many to choose from in stock again.
Another day of potting today will see a good bit more of the range in stock and I hear from admin that the majority will be here and potted by next week... yahoo and then its onto
fruit and the
ornamental trees.
Its all been a bit different this year as one of our suppliers are in the throes of winding down to retire and next year 2019 will be their absolute last of supply. These last couple of years we have chosen what they graft and supply however recently they gave us the opportunity to tell them what we wanted grafted, and to that end... this year there is a bigger range of
Austin roses on
standards than we have ever had and so if you love those old fashioned looking blooms then you must check them out early in the season as they wont last. Don't forget to stake your new standards well.
There are quite a few new bushes coming through from the Rob Somerfield stables like
Hot Topic,
Shangri-La,
Diamond Design,
Lemon n Lime,
Looking Good and
Pacific Glory to list and name a few and they are all damn good roses. Every
Lemon n Lime rose bush I have ever seen in the garden is just the picture of health and has masses of flowers all the time. That's the way of our modern breeders as they raise roses that are of high health and mostly don't require any spraying.
The Waikato Rose Society are keen to host some question and answer session here at the nursery and have offered up similar dates as last year. They will be here for a couple of hours on several days throughout June and July. Whether you want to grow roses for show, just have an amazing display in the garden or want to ask about rose choices.. then these are the guys that you want to catch up with. They may also demonstrate how to prune the different types of roses if needed.
Dates: Sat 23 June 11am to 1pm
Sun 24 June 1pm to 3pm
Thurs 5 July 11am to 1pm
Sat 14 July 1pm to 3pm
Sun 15 July 11am to 1pm
These dates are in
facebook events, you can register by emailing receiving@wairere.co.nz or show your interest on the event date you are coming to.
We have an awesome selection of roses already potted and ready for collection but please remember that we still have many to come. We are hoping to have the rest in for potting next week so by the following week we should have all in and ready for purchase. If your roses are on backorder then you will be sent an email letting you move forward with the purchase as soon as they are in stock.
Starwberries Camarosa. We need a fine weekend so that you can actually get into the garden and I think that its forecast for not too bad weather this weekend.
If you are hankering to get
strawberries into the ground then this is the window for you right now. Don't leave it too long to get your plants... the sooner you get fresh bare root plants the better.
Elephant and
Printanor garlic. The longest night is getting quite close and so if you are one of the ones that like to plant their garlic on the shortest day then get your garlic soon, we only have it in stock for a limited time.
Griselinia Broadway Mint. A lovely bushy grade of in ground grown plants arrived this week, excellent grade to get a good start on hedging. These are in hessian wraps for easy planting, if you aren't sure how to plant with hessian just visit our
How To page.
Juniperus
Conferta and
Gold Coast. These excellent low spreading evergreens have also been grown in ground. They are big and bushy grades also in hessian wraps. These are only available as wrapped for a short time and the price doesn't get better for this grade of conifer.
Its been a busy short week here in the nursery and another busy one planned next week and it will be nice if the weather plays ball and is mostly fine. I guess that many will be into winter sports and other winter activities that will take up the mornings.
Have a great week.
Lloyd, Harry and the Wairere Team
Make it a Wairere weekend where even GNOMES know that gardening's not a drag.
