This is my third post in a series which covers English gardening idioms and metaphors. There are quite a few that I thought of so I have spread the material across a few separate posts. In this post I cover garden creatures. This is just what came to mind. I didn’t do any research and I’m sure there are expressions I didn’t think of.
Worms
Bees
Butterflies
Insects
Slugs and snails
Birds
Rodents
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This is my second post in a series which covers English idioms and metaphors that contain gardening vocabulary. There are quite a few that I thought of so I have spread the material across a few separate posts. Please note again that some of them are not very nice things to say. That stands in stark contrast to the beauty I find in gardening and the enjoyment I get from it. It is quite weird to me.
General
Stones
Earth/Dirt
Roots
Grass
Bush
Forests
Trees
Plants
Nuts
The elements
Gardening can be downright unpleasant. I don’t just mean that it’s hard work or you lose plants along the way. That’s nothing. I couldn’t help but notice that there are some very un-PC (not politically correct) plant names. Here are some examples.
While we were travelling home from Whangarei on Sunday after spending the weekend with family, some English expressions that refer to gardening came to mind so I jotted them down in my notebook. I haven’t explained what they mean as it is sometimes debatable but please feel free to research them for this. Bear in mind that some of these expressions are old and they might not be used much in every day conversation, either. Note also that a lot of them have very negative connotations and are even downright nasty. I thought it would be a good idea to warn you in advance as you might not want to read this post. I’m not sure why this is because for me, gardening is my passion and I absolutely love it. I created our garden from scratch and it is a little sanctuary where I can escape and where I feel so much peace. I find it strange that so much gardening vocabulary is so negative, whether it stands alone or is part of a phrase.
Most of my audience is overseas. I thought sharing these idioms might be interesting for people who have a different first language. I wonder if there is a similar expression in other languages or if there are other gardening-related metaphors with a different meaning. I’m sure there are many expressions that I have overlooked but this is what came to mind without conducting any research. Because there are so many that I thought of, I will cover this topic over a series of blog posts. In this post, I have focused on fruit, veggies and flowers. Apples
Cherries
Grapes
Other fruit
Veggies
Roses
Flowers
Mum and I returned home from our bach on Sunday after spending a lovely weekend with family in Whangarei. Here is a potted summary (no gardening pun intended of course!) of what I have been up to in the garden over the past couple of days. Ginger is still missing Our beloved cat is still missing from Anita’s Garden. She is dearly loved and missed. She was always so friendly towards others so if she has ditched us for them and found another home, I just hope she is fine and happy with the new owners! She is a really lovely cat. Harvest I couldn’t believe how many Kamo Kamo grew and matured while we were away. We were only there for a week, too. There were also quite a few butternuts that had died off the vines and were ready to be harvested. I also harvested feijoas. They were from our Kaiteri tree, which is an early variety. We have only eaten a couple of feijoas each for supper but so far it appears that the guava moth didn’t affect them which is a relief, especially since I didn’t bother setting traps in spring. We have been very lucky. In saying that, when we have used homemade traps in the past, they weren’t always effective and some or most of the fruit ended up being affected by the guava moth. Mum harvested these passionfruit. They are very yummy. Amaryllis belladonna I was delighted to see lots of amaryllis belladonna (naked ladies) in bloom upon our return. I picked them all, as you can see below. On a whim, I went into the city yesterday and gave them to a staff member at the law firm I used to work at, along with a kamo kamo and butternut. I tied the three bunches of flowers together to make a large bouquet. We caught up over a coffee in the café in the lobby. It was really lovely to see her again and I hope to catch up with someone else at the firm in the near future and do something similar for her too. Dahlias It was lovely to see some of my named dahlias in bloom upon our return home. Here are some pictures. I intend to keep my dahlias in the ground over winter rather than lifting and storing them as I have done in the past, because taking care of them in storage is very hard work and I still end up losing quite a few tubers. I will be interested to see if my tubers survive in the ground over winter when the ground is cooler and wetter. I think it’s a good idea for me to lift, divide and replant them in spring, though. That way, the tubers won’t be too large and become less productive. Yesterday afternoon mum and I did a stocktake of what I have in our dahlia garden as I didn’t keep a record of what I planted. Sometimes not everything survives anyway. My dahlias are all labelled with flagging tape which is tied around the base of the tuber. Tuber sales will probably start soon for this year and it’s a good idea for me to see what I have so I don’t double up when placing orders. I’m going to try and limit myself to just a small amount, given the terrible summer we had last year, complete with floods and cyclones. I lost many tubers in the ground to rot, which is why I am proceeding cautiously. I was also greeted by seedlings in my dahlia breeding programme which have flowered for the first time. Here are some photos. All of the dahlias in my breeding programme were planted in large containers and I am in the process of moving any that I feel have potential into the ground.
Website audience I like to keep an eye on the geographical spread of my website traffic out of curiosity. Don’t worry, I can’t see who you are! I wouldn’t want to find out either because people should feel free to browse my site freely without worrying that their privacy has been invaded. My audience is from the following 44 countries, from the highest to least: New Zealand, India, USA, Australia, UK, Canada, Ireland, South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, Belgium, Brazil, Netherlands, Sweden, Turkey, Germany, Singapore, South Africa, Ukraine, Austria, Bangladesh, Barbados, Croatia, Fiji, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kuwait, Latvia, Mexico, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Switzerland, UAE and Vietnam. Welcome to my website. I really hope you find the information interesting and helpful. I love sharing my passion for gardening with people both in New Zealand where I live and other countries all over the world. Perhaps some people may enjoy reading about gardening and what I am doing, but don’t enjoy gardening themselves. I completely understand and hope that my audience enjoys reading my blog posts and newsletters. Please be careful of sowing and planting times, as they may differ where you live. You might not be able to grow everything I have either, depending on your climate. On the same token, you may well be able to grow other plants which are native or suited to your conditions. I should probably point out that there are so many plants that we could have in our garden which we don’t, due to space constraints. Just incase anyone wonders why we don’t have X or Y growing in our garden! Planting veggies for autumn Today I was very busy clearing the kamo kamo and butternut vines which were dying and were ready to be removed. I went to Roger’s (a garden centre in a nearby suburb in Auckland) to purchase some veggie seedlings and will plant them in that area later in the week. In closing: Some international gardeners who I find really inspiring Sarah Raven (UK) Adene Nieuwoudt (South Africa) Erin Benzakein (USA) Antonio Valente (Canada) I have written a few blog posts about myself so my readers can get to know me. I thought it might be nice to continue to share a bit about my passion for gardening and describe what it means to me. I have been gardening for over a decade. I divide my time between gardening (a practical act) and garden writing (in the form of my blog and free weekly gardening newsletters). I also maintain an active Facebook and Instagram page which enables me to connect with people who would like to be a part of my world. I enjoy sharing my gardening journey. So many people have inspired, encouraged and taught me about gardening so it’s nice to share what I have learnt with others.
I started by planting a lily in an existing garden bed after my father passed away in June 2012 and it grew from there. I do put my heart and soul into our garden, which is quite humble and situated on a suburban sized section in Manukau, a suburb in South Auckland in New Zealand. I dug up our entire front lawn! Those were the exact words that one of my former bosses, a partner at a large law firm in the city, said to me when he saw the garden one evening. Gardening has helped me to grow and develop as a person. However, it isn’t for everyone and others may find that they enjoy other activities. I made the mistake of creating a larger garden than I could handle because I got carried away by my passion. I ended up developing a love/hate relationship with gardening, so I try to make time for other hobbies to maintain balance in my life. I enjoy going for a walk in the morning and swimming at the local outdoor swimming pool occasionally. I also try to remember to make time for socialising. I catch up with my best friend who I went to school with and is a secondary school teacher. This year I want to spend more time chatting to my younger cousin in Whangarei and getting to know her more. The garden has helped me immensely with my mental health. I have already written about this here, so I won’t repeat myself. You can also read the post I wrote for the UK Gardening with Disabilities trust here. The garden is a little sanctuary, an oasis where I can escape the hustle and bustle of the outside world. It is a place where I can go to so I can reflect on things. While I am working, so many ideas for developing my garden and content for my blog and newsletters come to mind. It’s a lot like that when I exercise outdoors. I find that I think a lot more clearly when I’m active than resting and also when I’m outdoors rather than indoors. It was a lifesaver during the lockdowns because it provided me with a safe space to go where I wouldn’t catch Covid. I didn’t want to go out because I would have to use the Covid app or sign the register. I didn’t want to risk being forced by the government to take a Covid test and whisked off to the Airport hotel under the law if it came back positive. I know that the people isolated and incarcerated there were looked after very well with proper meals and good medical care, but I didn’t like my freedom being interfered with like that. It was bad enough that our rights were already infringed by measures taken by the government during the pandemic. The airport hotel was the last straw. A major worry was being separated from our adorable cat Ginger, who is currently missing from Anita’s Garden. We hope she returns to us one day after she has enjoyed many exciting cat adventures somewhere else. The garden has helped to unleash my creative side. In recent years, I started to spend time designing garden beds, such as my formal mass flower displays (click here to read my blog post about them). Gardening has also provided me with a way to express my gratitude and affection for others. I love sharing produce, plants and flowers with people that I’m close to. I used to go to a gym in a neighbouring suburb and really enjoyed sharing things from the garden with staff members who were very kind and helpful towards me. It’s the first of March today and therefore officially autumn in New Zealand. The mornings are crisper, the days lovely and warm and daylight hours are shorter. The sun rises later than in summer and has started setting earlier. Before we know it, daylight saving will be here and we will have to put the clocks an hour back. The season for ordering spring bulbs has started and I’m so excited about the new bulbs I will be planting this autumn for flowering in winter and spring. We already have lots of jonquils, daffodils, dutch iris, gladioli nanus and freesias in our garden. We also have lachenalias and miniature daffodils growing in pots. I usually plant fresh anemones, ranunculus and tulips every year as they tend not to reflower that well. Although tulips especially are essentially an expensive annual, for me it’s worth it because nothing beats picking fresh flowers daily and making arrangements, many of which we share with close friends. I also love taking photographs of our arrangements so I have something nice to look back on when they are out of season or at times of the year when we don’t have flowers in bloom in our garden. I have ordered the following spring bulbs for planting in autumn. I have tried to order a large enough amount of each variety so hopefully some of them flower at the same time and I can make arrangements, which look nice. In saying that, bouquets of mixed tulips can also look nice. This is a bunch of mixed tulips which I gave to the gym I used to go to. I have indicated the supplier of the bulbs I purchased this year in brackets incase other gardeners in New Zealand are interested in sourcing them for their own garden or to give as a gift. I have done that myself a couple of years ago when I sent some tulip and daffodils to my cousin to plant in her garden. She was very happy. If you live overseas, you may be able to find these varieties through foreign bulb suppliers. You may also have lots of other lovely varieties which are not available in New Zealand so don’t worry. I’m sure there is a good selection overseas, too. Don’t forget to check whether your climate is suitable for growing tulips. I am not sure if they will do well in very hot climates. It pays to keep an eye on suppliers’ websites because sometimes they add more varieties over the selling period, which is usually autumn. On the same token, popular varieties can sell out quickly so it pays not to delay too much. You may find that you end up placing several orders which is what I did but suppliers are usually very understanding about this. Sometimes it’s possible to merge orders or the supplier might add the additional bulbs to an existing order and you can pay for them by transferring the funds into the suppliers’ bank account. For the first time, I ordered the following Italian anemones: Azzurro, Bianco Centro Nero and Rarity. I am very excited about growing them as they look so beautiful and very different to the ordinary varieties I have grown in the past. I have left it a bit late to sow anemones and ranunculus from seed but it gives me something to look forward to next year. Egmont Seeds have a great range in the cut flower section on their website. I haven’t seen Italian ranunculus corms available for sale anywhere but I would like to buy some plants from Emerden when they sell them in June or July. They also look very beautiful and different to regular ranunculus varieties. Suppliers Here are links to the New Zealand mail order bulb suppliers that I have sourced the bulbs set out below from. Anemones
Mixtures
I have already shared some pictures of tulips I ordered this year which I have grown in the past in my previous blog post. Here are a couple more photos. Usually I plant my tulip bulbs towards the end of May when it’s cooler as we live in Auckland, where the winters can be quite mild. If you plant the bulbs too early, they may not flower well. The bulbs are also going to be pre-chilled for me (or I am doing so myself if the supplier can’t do this. Some can, others can’t) which helps achieve longer stems in warmer regions.
Break Mum and I are currently at our bach (beach house) in the far north for a fortnight. We are very upset that our cat has been missing (see below) and needed to escape from our home and garden which our beloved cat is very much a part of. It has given me the opportunity to order more spring bulbs for the winter garden (see below), work on my free weekly gardening newsletters and write some blog posts. Ginger is missing! Our beloved garden cat has been missing from Anita’s Garden. We miss her dearly. If anyone has any information, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. Spring bulbs Last year I had a break from gardening after a decade because I felt very drained. I am pleased to return to the garden with fresh ideas and enthusiasm. I have ordered the following spring bulbs for planting in autumn. Anemones and ranunculus
Tulips
Here are a few photos of some of these varieties that I grew two years ago Roses
Wairere Nursery have been expanding their collection of David Austin roses. I planted The Lady Gardener last year, which I purchased from them. I couldn’t resist ordering two more for our garden to replace some of the roses I lost last year while I wasn’t well. I have requested Roald Dahl and Bathsheba. Website audience When I first started writing my gardening blog back in 2017, I had not planned on having a global audience. I am an extremely passionate gardener who lives on a small section in a suburb of Auckland called Manukau. My intended audience was local and I started to write a free weekly gardening newsletter to help people get into gardening. I recently installed Google Analytics to help me keep track of the geographical spread of my website visitors and was very pleased and surprised to see that they come from many different countries around the world. Welcome to my website! I really hope you find the information interesting and informative. When I last checked, this is where my website traffic is from, in order of highest to lowest.
I’m pleased to share more photos of dahlia seedlings in my breeding programme. This pink one is my favourite so far. Here are some photos of other dahlias in my trial which I feel are worth growing on for a further year to stablisise before deciding whether to keep them.
Two years ago, I planted a number of daffodils in our garden. I thought it might be nice to share some photos of them. I planted a naturalizing mix which contained different varieties. The bulbs were different sizes. I also planted some different named varieties. I have never had much luck growing daffodils in the past and was really happy with the results. I really enjoyed arranging the flowers too! Mixed bouquets I really enjoyed making mixed bouquets. I gave most of them away to friends and other people that I am close to. Naturalising mix Here are a couple of photos of my favourite variety in the naturalizing mix I planted. I’m really sorry but I don’t know its name. Miniature daffodils I have a few different miniature daffodils planted in pots. Here is a picture of one of them. It is called Jetfire. Jonquils Erlicheer Dick Wilden Early Orbit Kiwi Sunset Pink pride
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