Art, Gardens and the Farmers’ Market of Nelson, NZ Sunday- Rarangi Beach Monday-Blenheim Wineries and Gardens Tuesday-Totaranui and Abel Tasman Nat’l Park Wednesday-Birds of Abel Tasman Thursday- Nelson, New Zealand Friday- Picton and the Marlborough Sounds Saturday-The Plants of New Zealand Nelson, New Zealand, lies on the southern shore of Tasman Bay, at the northern…
Sunday- Rarangi Beach Monday-Blenheim Wineries and Gardens Tuesday-Totaranui and Abel Tasman Nat’l Park Wednesday-Birds of Abel Tasman Thursday- Nelson, New Zealand Friday- Picton and the Marlborough Sounds Saturday-The Plants of New Zealand Totaranui Forest Natives Totaranui is a dreamy beach area, golden sand and clear water, located in Abel Tasman National Park. Abel Tasman was…
Winter in the mountains of California is a great time for a sunny trip to New Zealand, isn’t it? Come along with me. Saint Clair Winery Native plant culture is important to New Zealanders. Enough so, that many public areas planted with New Zealand native plants and are great examples to homeowners for what to…
You’ve heard of Shark Week, right? Well, this is New Zealand Week here at the Sierra Foothill Garden, and I hope by the end of this week you feel like you had a mini vacation there. After three weeks there visiting the Marlborough Valley at the ‘Top of the South’ Island, I was able to…
Winter here in California is summer in New Zealand. Yes, the water circles the bathtub drain the other direction in the Southern hemisphere and from California, you lose a day going there and return three hours before you left on the trip back home! I’ve learned much more about New Zealand since my sister moved…
The female praying mantis turns to the male and says, ” after sex but before I kill you, I’ll need help with some shelves….”
What I’m really doing in the garden today? Coffee, then raking paths, clipping faded flowers. Deep watering the new-ish rock garden plants…always a risk to plant in the summer heat, but I hope for their survival!
Swallowtail on the buddleia this morning. Great, got a good focus, even though I was holding the camera way overhead.
Three pots of lilies, with faded blooms, given to me by a friend in May 2009, were planted on the back garden bank and then forgotten until early this summer when the stems popped up from among the yarrow.
In late summer, Nature has a way of reproducing each plant and all you have to do is take notice of how it’s done naturally. Take a good look at your flowers and vegetable plants and notice that their seeds are developing. The seed pods start to swell and dry when the plant has achieved its goal…
When you go out to the garden, with no objective in mind, it’s surprising how much you can accomplish. Equipped with gloves and clippers in my back pocket, I water and putter with no thoughts in my mind. Sometimes, just start to clip and water and sometimes you take on huge jobs never planned on.
I sent for these seeds from Wildseed Farms. in Texas. Here is what I planted in order, from most to least, how many bloomed and how long they stayed in the garden.
There are a certain number of plants that I brought from our previous garden in Southern California. The zone is 10 or 11 there, or Sunset’s zone 24. Most anything can be grown that doesn’t need a cold winter. The list is in my Dave’sGarden journal under ‘Plants Brought from SoCal’ I brought many succulents…
Russ called Larry to say there’s a fire on Rd 274, our road! Said he’d try to find out more. In the meantime Larry called Marcie and Paul, no one home. I called the Forest Service and they said it was between Thunder Way and Gentle Way!
This is a transcript of the diary I kept during the first years of our transition to the mountains. We had lived in Orange County, CA for the past 20 years and decided to check out property in Bass Lake, CA where we had vacationed for several years. No work on these two trips, just family…
