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I interviewed John Quirk at his home on 19 May, 2007. John remembers how he and a group of his fellow students developed land at Wellington College in 1940. John and his mates were boarders, and is possible the headmaster simply found something for the boys to do. John noted after the interview that some of the boys had to use crowbars to loosen the ‘soil’ as part of the development – the tools can be seen in the photo. John left the school before he got to see any of the fruits of his labour. He took the photo of his school chums, that’s his shadow in the foreground.

Today has given us all of the joys of Winter. The wind has been ripping and roaring and it’s not difficult to imagine lions romping around – disporting, as my neighbour would say – in the Tea Garden. I went out to make photos the Bowen Cemetery at lunchtime and found that despite the rain (and the lions) it wasn’t that cold. Irises are named after the Greek goddess of the rainbow – and there, in a sheltered corner, this lovely iris was nestling beside an old grave. I love irises, and I particularly like the smaller, species(?) irises. I find visiting the cemeteries useful because generally they’re forgotten, and the species that manage to survive and thrive are going to do the same in the Tea Garden.

A number of the other irises (I. foetidissima) have set their big, bright red/orange seed capsules. I’ve never tried growing iris from seed before and if they’ve cross pollinated I might get some interesting variations. List of things to do for June:

* Gather iris seed, clean, and scarify ready for planting.
* Sow grass seed to patch gaps in lawn.
* Continue trimming and readying the herbaceous border.
* Plant garlic on the shortest day.
* Make a start on the herb garden.
* Finish out the driveway border.

My projects for May were:

Plant bulbs – now getting increasingly urgent to get the last of them in

I did manage to get the last of the bulbs in place. I’ve planted tulips (assorted), purple crocus, daffodils (assorted), dutch iris, cyclamen, muscari, blue hyacinth, gladiolus byzantium (the cerise ones), narcissi (assorted), and some white Amaryllis belladonna (not to be confused with Hippeastrum – the ‘amaryllis’ of the floral trade). The Tea Garden has rendered up a lawn of muscari, pink amaryllis (naked ladies), Nerine sarniensis (crimson) and swarms of freesia – possibly that most New Zealand of New Zealand – the sport, Freesia alba ‘Burtonii’. Time will tell. I had hoped the lawn of muscari might’ve been Narcissus obesus – but I don’t think so. Again, time will tell. It’s quite interesting to see what creeps out of the corners of the garden.

This crocus flower jumped out of the ground a week ago – we’re still waiting for the others. I love the soft mauve colours of the petals, and of course, the rich saffron stamens.

Trim back the dead and dying flowers

This has been the warmest May on record, so the ‘dead and dying flowers’ is more about dead-heading the roses and less about plants dying back as the Winter chill approaches. In many respects Autumn is evident more from day length than temperature – leaves are changing colour, the roses continue to bloom, camelias are starting to bud up, it’s all a bit confusing as to what the plants should do next. Meanwhile, the aphids are breeding and carrying on happily.

Make friends with the lawn
* level out some of the holes
* spread the topsoil to reinforce the thin topsoil layer
* sow grass seed
* groom up the lawn
* spray weeds

Photos to follow – the topsoil turned out to be terrific – more on this soon. Have yet to sow the grass seed.

Start planning the herbaceous border garden
Start planning the native garden
Trimming, trimming, trimming
If the leaves finally fall from the plum, prune it.

What would a list of things to do without a list to carry on to the next list? The leaves are still very firm fixed to the plum. It seems that rather than a day length trigger like the ornamental cherries, the plum might be more attuned to temperature. And it’s warm. Trimming – never stops – including a re-tune of the hedge to drop the height a little – it’s close to the house and a little less hedge lets in more light. A little lower is a relative term – I’m still standing well up on the ladder. I’ve started to form some ideas about the native garden – but much research is required. The herbaceous border garden – I’ve been reading anything by the goddess of herbaceous, Miss Gertrude Jekyll, and started to form a few designs. Keep it on the list, meanwhile, we’ve started weeding and looking at what is starting to show there already.

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Part of an interview with Ruth Gedye (my Mum) recorded at the Tea Garden on 7 May, 2007. Ruth shares some of her memories of the New Zealand approach to Victory Gardens (the ‘Dig for Victory’ scheme from the 1940s), what was grown, and how Dig for Victory became a social phenomena, including how the implications went further than was first thought. Mum turned 90 on February 1, 2007. She has a wealth of practical gardening and cooking advice. She’s just the best! Wikipedia describes the Victory Garden as:

Victory gardens, also called war gardens or food gardens for defense, were vegetable, fruit and herb gardens planted at private residences in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom during World War I and World War II to reduce the pressure on the public food supply brought on by the war effort. In addition to indirectly aiding the war effort these gardens were also considered a civil “morale booster” — in that gardeners could feel empowered by their contribution of labor and rewarded by the produce grown.

When I was a kid I kept katydids (Caedicia simplex) in an insect box. I fed them on rose petals and kept a plastic lid with fresh water for them to drink. According to Landcare Research they make a “feeble chirp in the evening”. Granted, they’re not exactly canaries, but I used to find their call reassuring.

I was happy to see a katydid on one of the Tea Garden’s roses this morning after the rain. I know they eat rose petals and probably take a swing at the young buds, but at this time of the year – with the roses heading towards the rest season – I don’t mind. I don’t think there will be huge damage done, given the small population likely to be found here. I’ve seen sparrows take katydids so I’m sure they’re part of a food chain somewhere. Besides, they have that cute bug-eyed thing down pat.

Meanwhile the roses seem uncertain as to whether to retreat for winter (the day length is suggesting that should be the case) or continue to grow (as the temperatures continue to encourage growth).

What’s that bug also has a lot to say about katydids, mostly from North America.

Last night the stars were sparkling bright – should’ve been a frost but for the warm still air. We’re not very far off the Winter solstice, but what I’ve learned is cloudless skies, warm evenings – bad weather on the way. Sure enough, this morning dawned bright but cloudy, and as this evening has worn on the wind has reached brisk (I can feel the house shaking) breeze levels.

When we moved in here I had expected to find a fine selection of bird life – open lawns, sheltered gardens, shrubs, and trees – ideal for a cross section of urban bird species. I was surprised to find little in the way of bird life. Initially I thought it was cats, but apart from the occasional slinker, not much in the way of cats either.

And then my neighbour informed me there was a population of Tui that used most of the Tea Garden as part of their territory, and that the Tui not only saw off most birds, they were happy to dive bomb the cats and send them on their way too.

I love Tuis for their edgy acrobatics, noisy flight, and mad singing, apparently much of which is too highly pitched for humans to hear. This morning there was a real treat – three Tuis – not three metres from our front door, with one working up his repetoir. I believe Tuis breed in Spring – say September/October, and the territory setting/mate attracting is done by singing. I think we’ll have front row seats for the concerts, which will be fantastic.

Let me count the ways…

Taking photos at lunchtime I was amazed at the huge numbers of wasps getting the last slurps of nectar from a shrubbery of Fatsia japonica. Dozens of wasps (either the German or the common wasps – I was unwilling to get close enough to confirm which) were speeding in, ignoring the other flies and insects feeding up large, and then heading away at high speed. German wasps have three dots on their ‘face’, common wasps do not. The dots are small, and it’s probably best if you don’t spend too much time looking at live specimen.

I’ve seen a few wasps in the Tea Garden – I think I’ll take the Victorian approach and use a wasp trap. In this case I don’t have one of the elegant glass wasp traps handy, instead I’ll make it in our century, and build one from a PET bottle. The basic approach is to cut the bottle about 2/3 up, and after removing the lid, invert the ‘funnel’ into the remaining 2/3 of the bottle. Assuming it all fits nicely, smear some jam on the outside of the funnel, and place the funnel back into the bottle. Run some waterproof tape around the edge, and half fill the bottom of the bottle with some soapy water. The wasps smell the jam, and enter down the funnel. They get confused and most find it difficult to get out. They fall in the water, and the soap breaks the surface tension and the wasps drown. Ideally the traps are positioned about a metre off the ground. Over a period of time (quite a short period if there are lots of wasps) the bottle fills and the wasps walk around on their floating nestmates. Empty and start again.

The darling buds of May here don’t mean blossoms, rather coloured leaves giving the clear impression that Autumn is here, and Winter is on the way. There’s a lot to do in the tea garden at this time of year. I’ve already brought in the very tender house plants – the anthurium and the spathiphyllums (all still flowering). We haven’t had a frost yet, but on calmer nights the smell is in the air.

My projects for May are:

Plant bulbs – now getting increasingly urgent to get the last of them in
Trim back the dead and dying flowers
Make friends with the lawn
* level out some of the holes
* spread the topsoil to reinforce the thin topsoil layer
* sow grass seed
* groom up the lawn
* spray weeds
Start planning the herbaceous border garden
Start planning the native garden
Trimming, trimming, trimming
If the leaves finally fall from the plum, prune it.

After the late summer’s warm and dry weather, the first showers of autumn has seen a flurry of aphids on the roses. Some roses appear to be very attractive to aphids, others less so. I don’t know what variety of roses are in the garden as yet – there were no tags and I’m a very long way from being able to identify a variety from the shape and leaves at this point.

My usual approach to aphids is to ignore them because hover flies (syrphids?) would be around before too long – but as this is a new garden my usual ‘parsley in flower’ hover fly attraction devices are still in seed form. I hope the hover flies are next door at my neighbor’s garden, and that they’ll zip over the fence, lay their eggs, and launch their young on the aphids. A nice steady supply of ladybirds would be useful, and then there are the tiny parasitic wasps.

It’s probable that the herbivores (aphids) are feeding a good population of carnivores, up to and including sparrows and other insectivorous birds, so my spray gear (bought specifically for fertiliser and insecticides and yet to be discovered after we moved into the house) will remain unused. If I could find it, I’d like to try a safe aphid spray I came across – 1 tablespoon Epsom salts, 1 teaspoon Condy’s crystals (Potassium permanganate) in a bucket (5 litres) of water, applied every two weeks as a test to see how effective it is. Previously I’ve used soapy water, or hosed the aphids off; but mostly I’ve simply ignored them. With all the carnivores with families to raise that seems like a good option.

Michael J. Raupp has written in splendid detail about aphid predators in ‘Murder and mayhem in aphid land – Ladybugs, Coccinellidae; Flower flies, Syrphidae; and parasitic wasps, Chalcidoidea and Brachonidae‘.

From the USA National Wildlife Federation’s Gardener’s Guide to Global Warming (.pdf, 40pp, 1.55mb),

According to one study, a 5.5-degree Fahrenheit increase in temperature could mean the difference between aphids that produce 300,000 offspring versus those that produce more than 1 million offspring over a 2-month period. (M. R. Frazier, R. B. Huey, and D. Berrigan, “Thermodynamics Constrains the Evolution of Insect Population Growth Rates: ‘Warmer is Better,’” American Naturalist, 168 (2006): 512–20.)

Back in January 28, 2007 I wrote over in Marginalia about the subtle erosion of the low tech/high sophistication expertise. To be honest the experience of researching and then writing the article uncovered something that has nagged away at me ever since.

I always wanted to be good at history – it was my Dad’s thing in life. When I got to school I found history and I were on different paths. I believe history is a documented collection of people’s opinions, interpretations, and ideas – all carefully selected, edited and reconstructed. I’m as guilty of this as anyone – when I take a photo I include or exclude according to my desired outcome – and no matter what, it’s still a photo and not the actual event.

The second divergence for me is my belief in the concept that history is not the sole province of rich and famous, the illustrious, the leaders – effectively the minority. I believe that history is made up of the modest sweat of working people, and I benefit hugely from the unseen and unknown toil of my ancestors and their peers. As an example, I enjoy the heritage roses in the Botanic Gardens because creative people decided to give the idea of bringing roses out to Wellington from the UK in teacups or hollowed out potatoes. The street we live in was once a track, the whole area having been first cleared of the native bush cover and farms being developed.

Now I find more and more examples where everyday people have worked hard and produced creative solutions – not always of the most astounding strategic importance, but simply to make their and their family’s life easier or more pleasant.