Let’s Eat It is with great pride that I can declare Room Three of The Palace Garden open. It has been a long time coming with plenty of distraction and a generous helping of procrastination standing in its way, so it comes as a bit of a surprise that there isn’t much left to do except weed and wait. Even as a new garden the … Continue reading Let’s Eat
Room Three Update It has been a while since I mentioned Room Three of The Palace and while my enthusiasm for the project hasn’t waned, the actual work has. To be fair it wasn’t intentional, but life got in the way. The first obstacle didn’t seem like it would cause the work to ground to a halt, but inadvertently it did. We headed off on … Continue reading Room Three Update
Waiting for the sun Today is the winter solstice. At 8:50am the sun was as far away from us as it could possibly be, and I was there for it. Like a crazy person! The sunrise was set for 7:35am but we’re on the back side of a hill away from the rising sun so I knew it would emerge a tad later than that … Continue reading Waiting for the sun
Soil and Things Carrying on with the site survey of the new garden – which pretty much applies to the entire palace garden, I’m taking a deep dive to examine all of the extenuating circumstances that impact the garden that need to be acknowledged and really can’t be ignored. Today I’m not in the garden thanks to the weather. It is technically winter so I … Continue reading Soil and Things
The Lay of the Land I’ve decided with Room Three in the Palace to attempt to do things as close to the book as my wilful disregard for following instructions will allow. Ideally I’d like the inspiration for The Palace Garden to come out of my head, inspired by the land, the conditions and the things I like. I appreciate there is nothing new under … Continue reading The Lay of the Land
Creating a Blank Canvas I have been working hard on Room Three of The Palace Garden, although there isn’t much to show for it at this point. Just a patch of weed free earth. Having said that, getting to a weed free state has taking a long time and a lot of effort. As with all the rooms In The Palace it began as a … Continue reading Creating a Blank Canvas
Ohhh… I’m Dry?! I was away recently soaking in some wonderful gardens and had a fabulous time. During the weekend I was down in Blenheim at the NZ Gardens Trust Conference I had a major epiphany and to be honest I’m a little shocked I never realised it. While the weekend was decidedly soggy with more rain than they’d had in a year falling in … Continue reading Ohhh… I’m Dry?!
Room Three has Begun The Autumnal equinox is on us and going forward things are only going to get colder and bleaker. It sounds quite doom and gloom and this season, although we aren’t having the rain we had last year, the ordinary gentle descent into the cooler weather has been more of a rapid plunge! It hasn’t been as dramatic as flipping a switch, … Continue reading Room Three has Begun
We had another storm… I think I’m getting used to them. They are quite unavoidable here on the wild west coast. There was about four days when the wind howled a hooley and freezing cold rain came in sideways. You could watch the squalls form out at sea and come in across the waves and pound at our window. The strongest gust was 100 km, … Continue reading Storm schorm
