Garden Articles 2000

These are the articles I wrote in the year 2000. I'm starting, slowly, to assert my gardening independence - gaining confidence in my creative abilities. I am a typical fledgling garden writer, with far too much to say about far too little...

Glass-house...
Fri 10th Nov 2000

My glass-house is in the back corner of the house gardens, near the water race and the shade of the Wattle Woods.

Gardening Fashion...
Fri 22nd Sep 2000

Fashion in the garden is much misrepresented by all those mischievous country charm catalogues. Do you fancy a spot of weeding in your oyster moleskins? Visualise yourself doing the winter slash and burn in trendy?

Garden Shifting...
Sun 6th Aug 2000

Does anyone have a garden that stays the same? I hope not. There has to somewhere for all the winter gardening dreams to go. There are always more plants than the soil or pots to house them...

Mother of the Year - 2000...
Tue 20th Jun 2000

One year Moosey's Country Garden handed out a Mother of the Year award. Nominations were accepted in the two weeks leading up to Mother's Day. The winner was...

My Garden in Autumn...
Sat 20th May 2000

Autumn in New Zealand is a puzzling season. Here in West Melton it's a mixed-up time of the gardening year. The timetable gets a bit confused. The edges are a bit blurred...

Garden Design...
Sat 20th May 2000

Today I found a spot in the garden where I'd actually got "it" right! The yellow lime green bracts of the late flowering salvias were actually echoing the clear light greens of the Breath of Heaven bush nearby. Ha!

Garden Frost...
Thu 11th May 2000

The house woke up to find a frosty blanket covering the garden. The first frost of the year had the garden in its grasp until the morning sun warmed things up...

Plants Behaving Badly...
Tue 4th Apr 2000

Plants usually behave badly for a reason. Often the gardener has made a tiny mistake or a small misjudgment. Sometimes it's just a question of scale. Or you'll hear the popular excuse of bargain bin fanatics - there was no label anyway.

Virtual Gardening...
Mon 20th Mar 2000

In reality, I'm a very shy gardener. When friends come and ask to see the garden I shrink. Real visitors get the express tour, the quick whisk around in less than five minutes, the vague sweep of the hand alluding to new plantings over there.

The Trailer...
Wed 15th Mar 2000

There is a wholesale nursery about two kilometers from my garden. They have a trailer which they fill with plant seconds, and this is put out on the side of the main road most Sundays...