I am taking a break from the decoration
projects at the moment as my forearms and wrists and my right hand are
particularly sore from the unaccustomed exercise they have been getting. Waking
up in the morning with my right hand stiff, painful and creaky is too
reminiscent of my mum’s lupus symptoms to be comfortable …
So instead I have been working on the
section a bit – nowhere near as much as David and Rob have been, but every
little bit helps. I do bits of weeding in the herb garden outside the kitchen and sunroom and I keep pulling up quite a bit of wandering jew from outside the bedroom where it is regenerating.
David and Rob between them have knocked
down a decrepit piece of fence and a block wall between us and one of our back
neighbours. Both of them adjoined an illegal greenhouse/lean-to the neighbour
has attached to his workshop. When the fence came down the novaroof walls had
nothing to hold them in so they were flapping in the fairly strong breeze we
had last week. I suggested to Peter that he probably needed to fasten them
before they split. So one day when we were out he came over and did so, using a
piece of aluminium strapping to screw them to the uprights. When I saw him a
few days later, he apologised for how awful the lean-to looked from our side.
He’s right - it’s very crappy. But we are going to build a fence in front of
it, so we won’t see it, esp when we espalier some plants and fruit trees along
the fence.
When he was here on Monday, Rob removed 4
giant impatiens plants around the front of the section – they were giant by
name and giant by stature. His method
was very efficient – he used his short-handled grubber to chop at a bit of the
root structure and then pulled out the attached branches, repeated and repeated
until the whole thing was gone. He then planted a passionfruit vine next to the
fence and used the grubber to dig the hole for it. Much faster and easier than
using a spade. He has also planted two hibiscus for me recently – an orange one
given to us by Derek, Ted and Vanessa as a housewarming pressie, and a bright
pink one that I bought. The orange one has a few buds and I will post some pictures when it flowers.
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The pink hibiscus |
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I love the colour |
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Rob tells me the hibiscuses will grow as tall as we want them to. They are both looking very healthy so I am keen to see how fast they grow. |
Rob is amazingly fast and thorough – on
Monday arvo he also completed shaping the edge of the garden beside the dining
room – that was no mean feat as the ground is rock hard currently as we’ve only
had 1.5 days of rain in the last seven weeks. He chopped away several extremely
large lilies and trimmed the silver fern outside the dining room, and pruned
two very large rhododendrons so they aren’t drooping on the ground in the front
yard, His pruning is very thoughtful – when he has pruned a plant you know it’s
been done because of the trimmings and because the plant looks smaller. But when
looking at the plant you cannot see the cuts. He helped David get the old stove
and dishwasher into the skip and cut a branch off the maple in the front yard
so it wasn’t impinging on the rhodo below and beside it. The last task of the
day was to plant the mandevilla and tie it to the downpipe on the end wall of
the garage – it replaces one of the giant impatiens and will look so much more
attractive.
Then it was inside for a glass of wine and
nibbles with Jack and Sarah before catching the train home to Paekakariki.
On Sunday I used Bruce and Gary’s
waterblaster to clean the green algae/mould off the remaining back fence which
bounds our place with Graeme and Joy’s. On their side the fence is painted, but
on ours it was scungy – until Luke and Rob cleared the trees and garden
respectively, we could not see the fence as it was absolutely masked from view
by trees, giant lilies and undergrowth. It was good to get it clean enough to
paint on Wet and Forget – I’m not going to spray it on as it’ll get all over
G&J’s plants and kill them. Once that has done its job, I’ll give the fence
a coat of dark paint to give it a bit more protection. Hopefully then it’ll
last for a few more years …
Monday I attacked the backing paper of the
wallpaper sheets Jack has removed. I got most of it off, but it was then that I
decided that I needed to stop because my forearms, wrists and hands were hurting again –
important to take your own advice, don’t you think? I wouldn’t be able to get
on my high horse about people not taking care of themselves if I don’t do it
myself, eh? So I have been on a self-enforced slow down. It is hard but I have
to do it or I won’t be in any fit state for boating or anything that requires
arm or wrist strength.
So Tuesday’s lone task was to plant
Caitlin’s rose. Caitlin is the darling wee grand-daughter we lost to cot death
at age 6 months, 6 years ago now. Friends gave us a rose and they had a brass
plaque made for our garden. As we were originally going to move into an
apartment we had given the rose to Luke and Diane who are friends of Tim and
Marta’s. Now they have shifted from their Tawa house and we have moved into
this lovely place, Luke asked if we’d like the rose back. Diane brought it out
yesterday morning. So I planted it along from the passionfruit vine, against
the fence. I also have a yellow daisy bush that was a seedling from the
original that we had in Caitlin’s garden at Cherswud. When we settle on a place
for that (probably in the cottage garden area we have planned) we will also put
the plaque up again, most likely on the to-be-erected fence.
Over the week, David has filled a skip with
stuff from around the section – the piles of detritus from the giant impatiens,
the stacks of rotting planks behind the garden shed, the contents and framing
of a couple of pretty useless compost bins, Rob’s recent prunings, concrete
blocks from the wall David demolished, and the old stove and dishwasher, plus a
heap of stuff he found up in the attic.
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So, in go Rob and David to rearrange the stove they've just heaved in the skip. |
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Man-handling appliances |
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The rear view ... |
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Champions! |
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A few days later - no evidence there's a stove and washing machine at the bottom. |
The place is starting to look less like a
deforested area and more like a work in progress. We have even started some planting, although there is still a number of plants sitting waiting for their turn ...
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New leaves |
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The new leaf shoots |
It’s lovely to see the that
the severely trimmed camellias almost all have new shoots making their way
through the bark of the remaining branches. At this rate, by next spring they’ll
be looking like no trimming ever took place! Survival is in their DNA.
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