The Norwester

Good gardeners know their own weather patterns like the back of their gloved gardening hand. The Moosey garden is much affected by Canterbury's classic norwest wind.

The norwester is a nasty hot dry wind which can prevail during the summer months. It sucks the moisture out of the ground, and is very tiresome for the Head Gardener, necessitating much sneaky watering.

 Pretty sunset, horrible wind!
Nor-West Arch

Many of the older Moosey trees are large gums, and the norwest creates a very noisy, aggressive ambience as it whooshes through these. Norwest days are not pleasant gardening days, and often the Head Gardener gets very gloomy as the soil dries out before her very eyes. There can be pretty sunsets, though, as the clouds form a nor-west arch in the sky.

New Zealand's weather sometimes seems to get stuck in a continuous loop, and day after day will blow norwest. Without the shelter trees the house and garden would then become a dust bowl.