Green Fingers...

Well I won't profess to knowing much about gardening, to be honest until now it has always been "Dad how do I do this?", and normally he would be there to help.  But until Mum and Dad visit in early 2012 I am doing my best to 'go it alone'.  Kris is supportive but he knows less than me and really doesn't have much interest with it, so the garden is my 'baby'. 

My last blog showed my efforts with the creation of the rock/shell garden, it really makes a difference and everyone who has visited has had positive comments about it.  So after that I decided to tackle along the side of the garage which was so overgrown and full of weeds and open up the side of the garden which was just a mess and had obviously not been touched for a very long time, the Ivy had really taken over.  So there I was with wire cutters, secateurs, pruners, machete and lots of energy!



I  thought I could start by chopping down what had grown above the wire fence but it was soon evident that everything was so entwined with each other I was fighting a losing battle, so drastic measures were called for.  I started to show who was boss and found an inner strength to cut, pull, dig out and yank the fence out, I am sure at times it would have looked quite comical as I went flying across the garden but I was determined.  There appears to have been some steps created at some point so over the coming weeks I will move the succulents and flatten the steps and possible will use crushed shells to define the steps.  So it's nowhere near finished but I am so happy with my efforts so far.  Not only was it hard work pulling it all apart, I then had to continually load up the wheelbarrow and wheel it round to the other side of the stream.

By taking out the fence, weeds, ivy and
unwanted plants/trees, the garden
has really been opened up.





At a glance it doesn't look that bad,
but I can assure you it was a 'jungle'




















While I have been working in the garden, Kris has been continuing starting up the business as more work comes in.  He has also been working on the bathroom, the unit to house the new sink and and the raised flooring area, it's looking fantastic.  We are hoping that our landlord will like what Kris has done and will agree that it can be finished and fitted to allow us to create the bathroom we are hoping for.  I will keep this under wraps for the time being...

But, one other thing that Kris has done is experiment with an old log from the garden, he has made a couple of benches, they are great and very useful so we now know that we have a use for all the others that are to be cut down in the near future.

   

Something else that I hope to update you on next time is the Pukeko's.  We have a few that frequent our garden and have kindly eaten all our fruit!  There is no point worrying about that.  I think they are so cute, they make me smile, they are a bit silly, they can't really fly, they glide, they strut around and in my opinon are just beautiful.  So we are going to try and 'pet' them, others have done so why not...  Here is one of them that was in our garden this morning...