Friday 12th April, 2019
Hi
There is a little rivalry going on lately, between Cathie and myself, about who takes the best pics since the need arose for a new pic to be loaded on our
facebook page with our new, updated road sign... LOL well of course it's 'Moi'... but then I am biased and I guess a little competition doesn't go astray! Not only have we upgraded the
roadside sign (looking crisp and gorgeous) but there is also a new sign on our
gate, those of you who have arrived too late on some occasions to find our gate closed will be happy to know it now has our opening and closing hours on it :) and one over the shop saying '
SHOP'. To those of us who work here it is quite obvious but as there are buildings on both sides of the carpark, many who are new to the garden centre were often not sure where to find the shop, so now it's official... it's at the shop. On that note 'Bossy' Cathie says that I can't start another email about the rain... but I have!
Only 8 mls last night... beginning to think that the rain is avoiding the Gordonton area, especially when I hear others who got 40 mls and not that far away either. Oh well nothing to do other than wait patiently and you know we will all be moaning soon that its either too wet or too cold, LOL, I hear it all the time in the garden centre. There are those clients that don't like the heat of the summer and those, like my mother, who really just can't stand the cold and damp of our Waikato winters.
It's amazing how changing the clocks back, the other weekend, changes your thinking. The reality of how it is definitely now autumn sliding into winter... the season has changed so now all those tasks for the garden, planned for the autumn, can happen.
Garlic is here too and can be planted from now on. I'm wondering if I get this in earlier than the traditional shortest day that I might get even bigger heads than I have done in the past. Having said that there is heaps of time to get these in as the shortest day is some time away. I usually plant heaps of the
Elephant kind as I'm lazy in the kitchen and they are nice and big to peel but the
Printanor has such great flavour, available now in 100 or 200gm bags.
The elephant garlic has come in gorgeous and plump so should make lovely big bulbs for harvest but there are less corms per kilo so we only have a limited number of bags available, these are available in 5 or 10 cloves per bag.
Why do we plant garlic in the Autumn?... so that the garlic will develop a strong root system before winter that will then support lush foliage for first thing in the spring which will in turn produce large heads.
To dead head or not to dead head? That is the question... from rose growers everywhere at this time of year! Just know that if you dead head then you are promoting growth which means flowers in seven weeks. if your roses are coming up to flower then let them do their thing and then leave them to produce hips. If they have just finished flowering, cutting them back will encourage flowers in June, so its best to just leave them so that they can rest for the winter.
Autumn is just the best for planting and we have been waiting for this rain to get some mass planting of some areas done, but now that our long evenings are done and dusted it will have to be the weekend, but hey, next week there will be lots of days off. I know of so many who are taking three days off for a 10 day break and that gives time for heaps of tasks before the winter.
Those Aussies are being a tad controversial
The Aussies seem to be copping a bit of flak, of late, with the latest Twitter comments from the combative, rugby player Israel Folau... I can't begin to imagine why someone would be so intolerant of the many different cultures that together, make our people.
But I am not going to be biased about those Aussie native plants but rather appreciate them for their sun hardiness and tolerance of poor soils... remember not to feed them with normal ferts as they mostly don't like phosphates having evolved in a country with a phosphate deficiency.
Ange has a lot of the Aussie natives on order and the Grevilleas arrived yesterday looking like lovely strong plants. There is real versatility in the assortment from groundcovers that have a low sprawling habit and good denseness for weed suppression such as Aussie Crawl, Bronze Rambler, Drummer Boy, Gaudi Ghost, Gaudi Chaudii,
New Blood and
Royal Mantle. Lots of the shrub sized ones that will look good in any shrubbery. These can range in height from half a meter to 3 meters and usually flower in the lovely hot colours of Australia. Check out
Dorothy Gordon,
Knockout Peaches n Cream and
Scarlet Sprite to name a few. There are some Grevilleas that will attain tree status of up around 10m if given the right space to grow.
Nothing to do with the aussies but...
I stopped in at a friends place and noticed their Pieris formosa
Wakehurst was looking gorgeous. It would be about 2.5-3m tall and was just budding up. It had lots of new red growth and the white buds stood out against the glossy deep green leaves and the combination of colour looked amazing. I am so used to seeing these as young small plants that it was great to see a large mature plant in all it's glory, it will look spectacular when the buds open.
If you have room for one of the larger varieties then check out Wakehurst, Forrest Flame and
Scarlet OHara.
The medium range varieties would be Flaming Silver,
Mountain Fire,
Pink Delight and Valley Valentine while the smaller growers are Christmas Cheer, Dorothy Wykoff,
Purity, Temple Bells and Sarabande. These are all currently in stock so click the links to view their details.
April is a bit of a tricky month with its long weekend of Easter followed very quickly by Anzac day.
Easter Friday is looming on the 19th of April and we will be closed but if you are planning ahead to visit we will be open 8.30 to 5pm Saturday, Sunday and Monday... following that will be Anzac day and we will be shut for the morning but open from 1pm to 5 pm.
The week of Easter Monday and Anzac day, we wont be sending any mail orders out as the week is too disjointed by public holidays and my guess would be that plants won't arrive in a timely manner.
To recap
Closed all day Easter Friday 19 Apr and closed all morning ANZAC Day 25 Apr
Open ANZAC Day 1pm to 5pm Open all other days for normal hours through the month of April
No mail orders will be dispatched through the week of 22 to 26 April
Booblicious is a fundraising event held in Auckland to raise awareness of breast cancer with proceeds going to the breast cancer foundation and Hospice. You can find a link to this event on our
facebook page. Dust of your pink lycra, get your pink tutu and get training for this worthwhile event.
Have a fabulous weekend
Cheers
Lloyd, Harry and the Wairere Team
