Yes, darling, the earth did move last night

But it was a 7.1 earthquake and what could be more exciting than that, I ask you? Not so much at the time mind, as the apartment building shook so much as did everything in it was really freaky; they do say in situations like this it’s best to be on the top floor of the building – we were,  but I don’t really wish to prove that or any other theory quite just yet! Glad we weren’t outside at the time, that would have felt really weird!

It was just before eight(pm)  and we were waiting for Sono and Maka to arrive (friends of Tim, magazine stylist and hairdresser respectively); they’re both hoping to come to NZ in December. Beautiful young women and independent to boot with lots of good ideas about places for me to visit that I’ve not yet discovered.

Earlier in the afternoon we wandered through Hiro-o, Tim’s neighbourhood to catch the underground to Hibya Park, where we found a coolish spot under the trees to catch our breath. Imagine this, vibrant green grass surrounded by wonderfully sculptured trees with a backdrop of skyscrapers, dragonflies and cicadas humming, jazz playing in the outdoor auditorium, the pat,pat, pat of tennis balls hitting the tarmac, yes many were brave enough to challenge the heat and each other in a game of tennis! Tim read while I wandered with the camera, catching my breath at the plantings of sunflowers,  smiling at the teddy bears sitting in Yebisu Beer glasses at the nearby beerhouse and amazed at the electric colours of summer! I have discovered a new tree to look out for; Lagerstroemia – with its papery soft pink blossoms and bright  yellow stamens, so delicate but the colours seem to travel for miles…

Back on the train again to Ebisu Garden Place for refreshments before the wander home up the hill to await an earthquake. What more could one ask for of a holiday?

 

‘When was the last time

you read a book that made you feel really good?’ said the cover of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society（by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows). Bought it to read on the plane and just HAD to finish it even though I wanted it to NEVER end! Wakefulness encouraged me to sneak it under the bedcover and devour it page by page. Now I wish I’d saved a little for later! Highly recommended!!

So good to be here with my boy! And even better that he’s on Uni holidays! Lots of time to just be.

All quiet on the customs front and half an hour wait for the Narita Express to Shinegawa, quick change to Yamanote Line to Ebisu and there he was at the West Exit. Once outside, darkness prevailed (no long dusk here as there is at home); the blue and white stripes swathed across the sky earlier are long gone (and as yet haven’t returned!)

Forgetting how balmy the days were in July,  nothing could have prepared me for the humidity of August, coming from the coldest NZ winter on record. Moisturiser slides downwards and my face  lies on the floor mocking – you’re surely not going to need that here in this weather! Cold water (and gallons of it) is essential and I’m forever thankful for the quiet hum of the aircon.

Day One: Late morning  we walk to Hiroo,  through  the park (obeying all signs to beware the crows in the sky – one of those will surely deserve a pictorial record!) to Azabu Juban, one of my favourite haunts, the home of ‘Blue and White Japan’, which has changed in style a little with mainly fabric-based products these days. Some good ideas to make a mental note of though. On the train and back to Shinjuku. Off to BIC Camera to check out macro lenses but home to do some more on-line research before commitment. Coffee and a read in Tully’s while Tim makes a stop at the hospital to visit a close friend. Love the way no-one approaches suggesting I buy another coffee (as they would have done at home). Back to Ebisu for a cooling udon soup late lunch and more talk time catching up on the events of the past six weeks.

Sunday morning: Incessant humming of cicadas fills the air. Up close and personal they sound like little electric saws practising to be grown-up ones, sight unseen until this morning when my early morning neighbourhood walk saw one fly over my head and alight on the road. Picture coming later, she’s a beautiful creature and not so small here either! Soft mint green outlines a myriad of browny shades on her body and she mimics a statue so that I can capture her colours. Time to move now, though, my  beauty, or you’ll become something less significant if approaching cars ignore your presence as they surely will.

Neighbourhood homes are a mix of old and new, taste and well, something other than that! The elegant sleek lines are to be admired although I still prefer the character of the older style homes. Needs must with gardens and despite the high density housing where there’s a will there’s a way! The new art museum which has arisen in the carpark right next door to Tim’s apartment opens this week so my visit is well timed. No view now, but there’s careful planting which will enhance the building eventually!

Time for breakfast – cold juice and breakfast calls! Despite the price, $5.50 for a few plums and $18 for a rock melon, in this weather I WILL eat fruit today!

 

Desire for lilies et al

‘O Tiger-lily,’ said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving gracefully about in the wind, ‘I wish you could talk!’ ‘We can talk,’ said the Tiger-lily: ‘when there’s anybody worth talking to’ (Lewis Carroll)

Didn’t talk to them for long; just asked newly-purchased bulbs (and those being transplanted) to enjoy their new beds and willed them to grow, flower and multiply!

My desire for lilies is fairly recent; being swept away by the perfume of a stargazer the summer before last.  Christmas lilies; adore now having them in the garden!  ’Time Out’ is a dreamy-looking creamy- white, painted with yellow along the midribs. ‘Shocking’, shades of yellow brushed with red sits alongside  the more virginal  white ‘Alma Arta’, as a second companion. Adjacent are ‘Muscadet’ white, dotted with pink and just a touch of a blush, ‘Exotica’ promises to be of a more adventurous nature with her pink-on-white-on lemony centre, and as for ‘Nymph’, well, her names speaks for itself with her palest of lemon petals, crimson brushed hearts (worn on her sleeve for all to see and admire!) with a dash of lime green in the centre.  Never again will I buy a bag of ‘mixed’ colours, knowing what I do now, that they’ll be (mostly) unadventurous orange. They’ve been moved to bed with almost but-not-quite-white day lilies , ruby red Fountain Cordyline and Lavender Dentata replacing a large, beautifully waving-in-the-wind grass which has taken centre stage for long enough having grown much too big for  its position. The drizzling rain, persistent all day should be helping it to settle in a new location.

Thankful for the previous two days of sunshine and almost as much time at home in the garden, other plantings have also been completed; white Nicotiana and violet Trachelium have joined gardenias, roses and heliotrope alongside the verandah. Oriental poppies  and a new lavender hybrid ‘With Love’ mingle with David Austin’s Charlotte and ‘Glamis Castle’.

As I wander, once the work is done, a glimpse of Spring appears, the first tulip bud (in July!!), magnolia denudata buds are throwing off their furry jackets and the mid-season camellias are in bloom. The children have phoned,  a dear friend’s dad has been laid to rest and after a few fractious days, we’ll all cope with our little life- challenges; our gardens  supporting us more than we sometimes realise…

In my garden there is a large place for sentiment.  My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams.  The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful.  (Abram L. Urban)

All’s well with our world.

 

My Jewel Garden

If I close my eyes when I’m standing at the west-facing sittingroom window and look outside, in my mind’s eye I see an old shed. it’s on a bit of a lean; there are weeds growing all over the roof and not in a good way, they’re weighing it down somewhat, contributing to the lean. There’s a window, cobwebbed with time, frames rotted more than just a little bit. It stands under a grand old Kahikatea, white pine, up which is scrambling the wild and weedy  but sweet smelling jasmine. It’s rampant and great knots of stem root wherever they touch ground, adding to numerous other invaders whose time is up. Inside the shed, out of view, are piles of old junk, those who no longer dwell here chose to leave behind. Kind of them Not.  Doesn’t feel too safe inside, the walls wobble and the roof is low. Nothing to salvage here. The longdrop alongside adds a touch of whimsy, if you like that sort of thing.

I open my eyes, glance out. The Kahikatea stands majestic, old shed, long gone. In its place grow a myriad of plants, some about to relocate to a new home, others just arrived. It’s approaching mid-winter, an optimum time to plant perennials. Where carrot weed, kikuya, onion weed  and twitch once ruled, new plantings of penstemon varieties nod  in the breeze. And to be honest, tonight, in the rain. Their companions, poppies, roses, veronica  and valerian await Spring so they may begin their show of splendour; at their feet evolvulus and cerinthe wait to spread. Roses, Wild Eve and Glamis Castle are neighbours ‘over the way’  not too far from Ballerina; they’re all about to take their rest, though persistent buds abound.

Come Spring and Summer, they will become a garden of jewels. Penstemon will provide garnets, white opals and pink sapphires galore. Amythests will twinkle amongst them and pink onyx will trade places with armeria. Ceylonese sapphires will stand proud and the odd diamond or two will surely be present.

This is the stuff of dreams. And while the wind and rain now persist; with patience, the beauty of these little plants will endure.

 

In praise of warmth!

I succumbed last night and lit the wood burner. And what a luxury it was to curl up in a cosy armchair, with flames licking around the pine-cones, wind whistling through the trees, hail bouncing off the roof more often than not! A fire! Early May at that!

So, no gardening today? We’ll see! A hint of blue peeps through the clouds, a glimmer of hope that this weekend will not be totally in vain for an intrepid gardener who just wants to get back out there. More bulbs await planting! Baby native trees anxious to settle on that oh-so steep front bank. Now that the ground is damp it may be  agreeable  to the blade of the trowel at last. Paths to be swept and winter vegetable seedlings to go in!

Race out! Beat the next blast of cold wind and hail! Leave thou computer ’til twilight!

An hour or two’s honest work! Reward?  The comfort of a cafe and brunch with cousin Michelle. What the click of a  button and FB can achieve in no time at all!!  A decadent afternoon lolling with magazines, good coffee, head massage and a new look courtesy of an amazing hairdresser to follow.

And in no time at all, back in front of that fire, a yummy dinner, glass of red , good book, no doubt accompanied by  high winds and hail once more, but with the promise of a family day in the morning for Mother’s Day! What more could one ask of those two fly-by days at the end of a busy week!

 

20 April 09: Autumn

Last night the rain came. The parched earth greedily soaked up luxurious droplets; the same also gently brushed petals from flowering anemones, creating a dusting of icing sugar on the garden floor beneath.
Easter break has provided a bonus time in the garden this year; so much to be done, now completed. We’re almost ready for winter. The maples are changing colour, not as fiery-red as the oak-leafed hydrangea but delicately beautiful in their own way. Bulbs, now chilled are ready to find new homes both in the garden and within terracotta walls; they’ll fill our little world with both colour and perfume come Spring. Can’t wait.

A new raised bed has just been constructed with recycled planks, hinged together and put into place; just waiting for compost and soil to go in before the green crop is sown. Heirloom poppies, and Forget-me-nots will bed down with a crop of broad beans on the side.

The huge purple saliva flowers bravely on, heads weighed down with the prolific flowering; they’ve provided a safe haven for the magnolia this summer and kept the base of the tree well sheltered. The newer magnolia, flowers as yet unseen and name unknown (one of a few left behind in a closing -down nursery sale, ‘anybody’s guess, love’) was desperate to survive and grows well on the bank alongside black-leafed Wegelia with lavender at its feet.

Time to collect kindling for the fire from the bush, deadhead the hydrangeas, remove a little more of the wandering tradescantia from the forest floor and feel a sense of satisfaction. The weeding’s mostly done, the skip is filled and gone, winter awaits. Time to give the hands a well earned rest.

 

Colour

Began this awhile ago, ha! Didn’t get around to finishing writing at the time; however much has happened in the garden in the intervening weeks (no, make that months) that I’m now determined to keep a ‘diary’ of sorts, to record the progress of this first generation garden. Reading Monty Don’s ‘The Jewel Garden’ and  Enda Walling’s ‘A Gardeners Log’ have been inspiring. 

What is it about colour that makes such an impression on how and what we feel? A few weeks ago I imagined that I would be spending quite some time in my outdoor space both removing and adding colour to enhance the whole experience of being at peace with nature,  in which to relax, work and think. A four-letter word got in the way; rain, rain and yet more rain! Almost two weeks of it, solidly! This was not the way it was supposed to be, but with such unpredictable weather, the way it was. Intermittently, we have a few weeks of heavy rain, followed by glorious weather. The only hint of autumn being cooler mornings and nights; the evenings remain warm enough to be outdoors until around 7:30pm, but of course it’s now dark before then.

Shades of green are everywhere in my coastal bush sanctuary. A lime groundcover, which glows in winter, almost carpets the slope where the lancewood grove is becoming more established. The pukas seemingly tower over them until one looks further skyward to the majestic ancient pohutukawa which must surely have been one of the first-comers to this little piece of paradise along with its partner reigning supreme at the entrance to our little forest out back. Neighbouring kahikatea, two of three stunning native white pines keep the ground muched and perfect for growing white azaleas. The hellobores are about to be moved to this acid-rich drier space and the blueberries on  one of the back slopes will be muched with the excess covering the paths; apparently they love pine mulch! Should keep the slugs and smails off the polyanthus too!

White complements the green of the bush, oh so perfectly. The magnolia, a gift in remembrance of mum’s passing in 2005 has struggled, but last year, its first two almost pure and seemingly incandescent (in the sun) flowers appeared.  The buds are more plentiful at present, can’t wait until they’re out. Once the tree grows a little more, its going to be just stunning! At its base now sits a bushy, spreading purple salvia, breathtaking for the whole of the summer, a cutting from a friend; it grew here with relative ease. It’ll die back in winter and rise again when the warmer weather returns. Several white roses, both bush and climbing add their colour. I’ve also discovered that little white cyclamen grow well outside here. Not flowering yet, but the leaves are poking through. Tomatoes grew above them all throughout summer this year, the best year ever for these.

In spring, the new underplantings of bulbs will give the beginnings of a carpet of flowers in two of the lower gardens. Bluebells, tulips and sparaxis amonst many others.   Lovely to look down on from the verandah. Nearer the house, on the brick couryard, they nest in pots, the hyacinths, more tulips, lachenalia and in readiness for summer, Christmas and Asiatic lillies, poke through, though maybe too early this year.

Roses are still flowering; can’t believe it; Tess has new buds and Mary Rose too, a bit straggly but won’t be pruned back until June. Windrush has so many blooms it feels like midsummer whenever I  look over in its direction and Peace has also given amazing colour so late in the season. 

Daphne is coming into its own and the heliotrope can be relied upon for fragrance all year. A few late gardenias  are still arriving, but fewer than  in the last month. Newly planted heuchera give colour, peach melba, marmelade and crimson curls have small blue daylilies  and various bulbs as companions, with a backdrop of camellias Jury’s Yellow and Nicky Crisp, and Mansize  also Waterlily nearby. The fig trees are in autumnal shades as are the flowering cherries and cerceris, which I just love, the Forest Pansy tree.  The  Japanese maples are past their best. Hebes, Galway Bay and Beverly Hills have joined the variegated one with flowers of similar colouring, whose name escapes me right now. The sweet peas are going in today, and the wildflower seeds are about to be sown. I’m thankful for yet another beautiful sunny day in which to be at one with nature.

 

 

 

The Buttercups are all but gone!

 The newest garden is now part-planted…

Death to the Common Buttercup!

The Creeping Buttercup (ranunculus repens L. aka devil’s guts, granny threads, ram’s claws, sitfast or tether-toad) is on the way out of the garden! What a battle it’s been! Neither spraying nor repeated mowing has helped so it’s back to basics and trowel digging. The sloping area of ground doesn’t help either; not that easy to sit and dig. But worth the oh so sore hands and wrists! The newest area of garden  now includes mostly natives, generally in drifts of three, chosen for drought resistance once established (if we should ever have a drought here!)…

Ajuga—the one with the giant flower (under the Albany Surprise grapevines), Penstemon ‘True Blue’ clear sky blue in colour and Gazania ‘Kiss Mahogany’

Sisyrinchium Striatium Variegatum (palest lemon yellow) – iris, Miscanthus Sinensis ‘Morning Light’ (Arching, silvery-blue, deciduous Japanese grass) I hope it grows to full height of about 2m.

Heliotrichon Sempervirens (Blue Oat Grass), Coprosma ‘Lobster’ a divaricating plant which is a favourite of mine, Dietes ‘grandiflora’ iris, Phormium ‘Platt’s Black and Carex Flagellifera—beautiful effects with bronze-purple colouring.

‘Oi Oi’ grass, Libertia ‘Taupo Sunset’, Cordyline fruticosa ‘Corbra’ – not surving too well with the heavy rain of a few weeks ago.

Can’t believe that two wheelbarrows full of plants from Roger H.’s (best supplier ever!) filled such a smallish area once planted. The white waterlily camellia is nearby and a few other plants are yet to go in. But it’s a start! Once fully grown there should be no space between; at least that’s the plan… Hey, they’re mostly natives! Not bad for a (previously) committed cottage gardener.

 

Huia

New Years Day In The Morning With Liam And Amelia

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An early morning expedition with two cuties

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Back on the train again

Should have done it years ago, three or four anyway; didn’t live here before that! What a difference it makes! I now catch the train to work as often as I can, that being on days there are no  night meetings at work and when it’s not pouring with rain in town, twenty kilometres away (not always easy to tell when one texts friends to ask; one says yes and the other no!)   

In real terms. the advantages are numerous; only a fifteen minute drive to the train (instead of thirty-five through traffic) and fifteen minutes of day dreaming and quiet time on the train. The free car park nearby is a bonus, long may it remain even after the station renovations are completed, which I’ve been told have begun but as yet are not apparent to the eye. Alighting at Kingsland means that there are good cafes at the door should I choose a diversion before the  fifteen-minute walk on to work. And, as was the case recently, divert early morning meetings to said cafes, ‘Crucial Traders’ in particular I would recommend! Checking out what’s happening ‘on the street’ in terms of home and garden renewals which are many. And best of all, thirty minutes of exercise each day and a little carbon-footprinting reduction.

These outway the disadvantage of having to leave home fifteen minutes earlier which in turn means that much less time to rest and hang about of a morning. I’m also hoping that whilst reducing the impact of my car fumes, breathing in everyone else’s on that otherwise enjoyable walk won’t outweigh the benefits of the exercise. I could always wear one of those nose and mouth masks, but they don’t come in black! White is so not my colour!

The trains of course are not at all like trains in Japan, ours bump and squeak along rather than get you there almost instantly, but you do always find a seat which is a bonus. And on one occasion when there wasn’t one, a very courtous young man stood and gave me his seat! Truly! In this day and age, a gentleman!

I do miss all the advertising in the Japanese trains though, however dubious some of it might be! Anyway, I’m a converted ‘trainee’ ‘trainer’ ‘train-aholic’… just what DO you call some one who loves riding on trains?