Moosey News : January 2006
Dear Subscriber,
I hope that the year 2006 brings you everything you desire and need - for your garden, and for your soul. Things like energy for weeding, motivation for gardening planning and lists of new garden ideas, and balance, so that all your plants actually fit properly together. And get some goodness into the soil - it's the perfect recipe for life!
This month's features
- The Moosey New Year's Honours List
- New Zealand's Flowering Spiky Plants
- Rose Claude Monet
- Rusty the Red Border Collie
- Designer Kittens
Regulars
- Plant of the Month : Canna Tropicana
- Animal of the Month : Taj-Dog (Posthumous)
- Garden Quote : Lists
- Garden Gallery : Chelsea Mug Shot
- Forum Focus : Friendship
- Gardening Advice : Foliage First
- Searching for Moosey
- Coming up this month : More roses and Hazelnuts?
This month's features
1. The Moosey New Year's Honours List
Ha! Another list, but this time very serious and official! The first list of the year 2006! Few awards are given, and only for exceptional service to the Moosey garden. These are honours not given lightly...
2. New Zealand's Flowering Spiky Plants
They spike, they impose, they shout out style. They fill a garden's landscape, or sit restrained in a patio pot. These are the phormiums (flaxes) and cordylines (cabbage trees) over whose foliage world garden designers dribble. Wait until you see their flowers!
3. Rose Claude Monet
My goodness, what a beautiful rose this is! Claude the pastel striped rose is every bit as evocative as Claude the painter, and has inspired me to start my very own striped rose collection. Hee, hee - what a good excuse to buy more roses!
4. Rusty the Red Border Collie
Recently graduated from puppyhood (though he still pees like a girl) Rusty the red border collie is now in his second year of doghood. He has grown into such a kind, loving dog, though he is still obsessed with chasing flying objects (planes, bumble bees, ducks, the ex-Moosey rooster)...
5. Designer Kittens
Cute, little, fluffy, irrepressible - Rusty the red border collie has not one but two designer kittens to complement his pale orange and off-white fur. They are both little boys, called Fluff-Fluff and Beige Puss. The head-gardener-and-chief-kitten-feeder's decision is final - no correspondence will be entered into regarding the silliness of these two names!
Regulars
6. Plant of the Month : Canna Tropicana
January is the month where the hot summer sun blazes down - and as long as I remember to water the house garden I'm rewarded with good, strong growth from this hot striped foliage plant...
7. Animal of the Month : Taj-dog (Posthumous)
Taj-dog's memorial almond tree is growing so very well that he needs recognition for his subtle 'contribution' to a small part of the Moosey garden this month. The pet lamb may be cute, the kittens may be skittering around, and older cats (hello, Dame Stumpy) may be sitting on my lap as I write this, but their day will come!
8. Garden Quote : Lists
'A list indicates a tidy, organised mind.' It's well known that the best gardeners make the best lists (and then ignore seventy-five percent of the items). In fact, lists can give a startling insight into the gardener's mind. Check out two stunning examples of Moosey lists from the December journal...
9. Garden Gallery : Chelsea Mug Shot
I've chosen an image from the journal for this month's feature picture. I know the Moosey journal tends to get the mundane, everyday photographs, but my Chelsea Mug Shot is worth a careful look!
10. Forum Focus : Friendship
I am really shy of the forum, which might explain why I don't post as often as I should. Friendship is the main forum focus for me - meet my gardening friends like Liza from Belgium and Pumpkin from the sunny north of New Zealand...
11. Gardening Advice : Foliage First
Even though the flowers in my garden give instant appeal, I wouldn't be without the foliage plants like New Zealand flaxes, hostas, ligularias and pittosporums. These plants work hard when the flower colours have faded. Check out my catalogue of favourite foliage plants...
12. Searching for Moosey
From the search engines this month, I'd like to put forward my latest rose, Jacqueline du Pres, in answer to the search for 'Musical Plant'. A surprisingly unromantic looking rose, though, for this great 'cello player (listen to her version of the Elgar 'Cello Concerto). Message to family and friends - never, ever, ever buy me a plastic nodding daisy singing 'You Are My Sunshine'...
13. Coming up this month : The New Rose Archways and Hazelnuts?
Hopefully more rose growth from the new climbers on the archways in the Hazelnut Orchard, with some first impressive photographs. There may even be a few nuts to harvest! I love hazelnuts!
I'll end this first 2006 newsletter as I began, to symbolise the circle of gardening life. May energy, motivation, balance and goodness brighten every day of your new year!
Cheers,