Winter Rose Pruning In The Front Garden
Hello friends,
Rose pruning is one of those winter jobs that makes you feel as though spring is on the horizon. It's a chance to tidy up the previous season's growth, encourage healthy new shoots, and sometimes make some bigger decisions before the buds begin to burst in spring
I always begin pruning at the front of my garden, and work my way towards the backyard. As I come to each rose, I assess its health, remember how it performed over last summer, and decide whether it deserves to stay in my garden for another year. Once all those decisions are made, it's time to get to work.
I'm pleased to say that 'Cuppa Tea' rose performed very well after being planted last spring, producing strong, healthy blooms throughout the summer. With its naturally open growth habit, it didn't take long to prune into a neat vase shape, ready for another season of growth.
I'm equally as pleased with my other new rose from last year, 'Chawton Cottage'. It didn't grow as big as I hoped it would, so I'll supplement with compost and rose fertiliser this spring, and hope that it fills up the trellising at the end of the driveway this coming summer.
Three of the roses I've had for many years, 'Aotearoa', 'Happy Birthday', and 'Blackberry Nip' all continue to perform well, so all they required was some pruning to get them back into shape.
Unfortunately this wasn't the case with two other roses in the front garden 'My Girl' and 'Celebration'. Over the last couple of years they haven't performed well, and frequently get black spot and rust. Since they were taking up precious space in my front garden, I made the hard decision to pull them out and replace them.
As they were sitting side by side in the garden, and were quite far apart from each other, it gave me an opportunity to put a total of three roses in that space. The first space was set aside for my Gertrude Jekyll rose that has been the back garden for the past two years. It had gotten cramped in it's current position, so I moved it around to the front garden. I think it'll do very well in all day sun, and the space to stretch into a bigger space.
I then had two more spaces to fill in the front garden. I went shopping at our local Mitre 10 and came home with two David Austin roses, Desdemona and Eustacia Vye.
Desdemona has peachy pink buds which open to beautiful, white, chalice-shaped blooms, with a pinkish hue. It's a complex rose for me in terms of colour, and I welcome it's old world rose fragrance in the summer months.
Eustacia Vye is a pretty rose with soft, glowing apricot-pink blooms, with each flower being packed with delicately ruffled petals. She is now sitting in front of my Lucky Number dahlia with similar colouring, so I think they will go well together.
With both of these new David Austin Roses now in their new homes, the pruning of my front garden roses is now complete. I still have the back garden roses to prune, but they will get done when I do some rearranging of the backyard. I may have ordered too many new dahlia varieties over autumn and winter, and I now need to make space for them...
Have a wonderful day,
Julie-Ann
If you'd like to continue the conversation, you can find me on Instagram, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Facebook.
July In The Garden - 2026
Hello friends,
July is the depth of winter here in Otago, New Zealand. Frosty mornings are a familiar sight, the garden has settled into its winter rhythm, and much of this month's work has been focused on preparing for spring. Although everything feels a little slower at this time of year, there are still plenty of signs that a new growing season is on its way.
Here's what July has looked like in my garden...
What's Flowering:
Surprisingly, the first yellow daffodils are already flowering in my backyard. Their foliage began emerging in early June, with the first blooms opening in early July. For now it's only a handful of flowers, but the main display will begin in August and continue right through until October.
There are still a few calendula flowering in the garden. Over the years I've found they provide flowers for almost the entire year, and their cheerful blooms always brighten the cold, dreary days of winter.
And finally, my young 'Perfume Princess' daphne has been flowering over the past couple of weeks, and its fragrance is intoxicating, filling the entire backyard on sunny still days.
What's Growing:
The lemons on my 'Meyer' lemon tree are beginning to ripen, and I'm looking forward to harvesting them over the coming weeks and putting them to good use in the kitchen.
I'm overwintering some sugar beet plants for seed saving, and they've taken all our winter frosts in their stride. They've remained completely hardy and continue to grow without any problems. It is still another 9 months until I can save seed from these plants, and no doubt I'll have to corral them to stop the seed heads from falling over in summer and autumn.
And finally, I gave my strawberry bed a tidy-up by weeding, removing
the older plants, and replanting it with fresh runners. In the process, I
increased the number of plants from 24 to 40, which should mean a much
bigger strawberry harvest this summer.
Nature Notes
Bird life is abundant at this time of year, with many birds searching for food throughout the garden. As always, the blackbirds have been busy digging up the lawn, vegetable garden, and flower beds in search of worms. Tauhou (also known as silvereyes or waxeyes) have been flitting between the few plants still in flower, searching for nectar, while a pair of pīwakawaka have made themselves at home, darting about in search of insects.
I even managed to photograph one of the pīwakawaka as it followed me around the backyard one sunny afternoon—a lovely reminder that even in the middle of winter, the garden is full of life.
I usually put bird feeders out in the front garden over winter, but with the recent arrival of bird flu in New Zealand, I decided to follow the advice of our local ecosanctuary, Orokonui, and take them down. Hopefully it won't be too long before it's safe to welcome the birds back to the feeders.
July has been surprisingly mild. We've had a total of 19 frosts, with temperatures ranging from –0.1°C down to –2.6°C. For the coldest month of the year, that's quite unusual. In a typical July we would normally expect at least a few frosts of around –6°C, along with plenty of mornings below –4°C.
Every day it seems I'm outside in the early evening throwing frost cloth over my citrus plants, wasabi plant, and seedings growing in my glasshouse. My citrus plants look like ghosts in the garden the next morning...
Our biggest weather event this month occurred on 5–6th of July, when a severe winter storm swept across the South Island. Many areas were blanketed in snow, but unfortunately the air wasn't quite cold enough here. Instead, we received torrential rain from the east, prompting MetService to issue a Red Heavy Rain Warning for Dunedin.
Whenever we get this type of weather pattern, it almost always leads to flooding in our backyard, as well as more widespread flooding across Dunedin. On the 5th of July we recorded 113 mm of rain in just 24 hours, followed by another 80.3 mm on the 6th of July.
As usual, the path leading to our woodshed flooded, so we built a temporary flood barrier using bags of potting mix to keep the water at bay. We keep meaning to fix the problem properly, but this particular weather pattern only comes along every few years, so it never quite makes it to the top of the to-do list.
I took a trip out in the pouring rain to check out our local stream. Luckily it stayed within its banks, even though the water was so swift that even the local ducks didn't want to go anywhere near it.
Luckily, the torrential rain eventually came to an end and the garden began to dry out. We've since enjoyed a run of crisp, sunny winter days, making it much easier to catch up on jobs around the garden.
As July draws to a close, the garden is slowly beginning to wake from its winter rest. My seed orders are on their way, and I can't wait to start filling the glasshouse with trays of seedlings. It won't be long before another growing season is underway.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
If you'd like to continue the conversation, you can find me on Instagram, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Facebook.
Tour de Fleece 2026 Wrap-Up
Hello friends,
It's hard to believe that Tour de Fleece 2026 has already come to an end. I've enjoyed taking part this year and spending the past few weeks using my spinning wheel and drop spindles. It has been an opportunity to slow down, work through some of my fibre stash I found in a previous blog post, and enjoy the process of making yarn.
I thought it would be fun to share everything I spun during this year's Tour de Fleece, along with a few thoughts on each project and what I learned along the way.
"Tequila Sunrise" Corriedale Batt
Fibre: Corriedale
Colourway: Tequila Sunrise
Dyed by: Deepcreek Woolworks
Preparation: Batt
Weight: 20 g
As this was the smallest amount of fibre in my Tour de Fleece stash, I decided it would make the perfect warm-up project using my Majacraft Susie Pro spinning wheel. I split the batt in half lengthwise and spun each half using a short forward draw technique before plying them together into a two-ply yarn.
This was my first time spinning fibre from Deepcreek Woolworks, so I was curious to see how it would spin up. Overall, it spun well, although I found the fibre a little drier than I'm used to. There were also some small slubs and short fibre ends throughout the batt. As Deepcreek Woolworks is a relatively new fibre producer using wool from their own sheep, I wasn't too concerned by these minor inconsistencies and will be interested to see how their fibre develops over time.
The finished yarn measured 34.5 metres of two-ply yarn—a colourful little skein and a great way to begin this year's Tour de Fleece.
"Big Eared Wooly" Corriedale/Merino/Silk Batt
Fibre: Corriedale/Merino/Silk
Colourway: Big Eared Wooly
Dyed by: Dark Harbour Yarn
Preparation: Batt
Weight: 41 g
With my warm-up project complete, I was ready to move on to something a little bigger. My next project was a Big Eared Woolly batt, spun on my Majacraft Susie Pro spinning wheel. As with the previous batt, I split the fibre in half lengthwise. This time, however, I decided to spin it using a woollen long draw before plying it into a two-ply yarn. I was keen to practice my long-draw technique, and see how this fibre responded to this method.
Nikki Jones of Dark Harbour Yarn is a master of dark, moody colourways, and I'm a huge fan of her fibre and yarn. Spinning this rich green batt was wonderful. The colours have incredible depth and complexity, with tonal variations that revealed themselves as the yarn came together. The finished two-ply yarn is soft and squishy, exactly the kind of yarn I hoped to achieve with the woollen long-draw technique.
The finished yarn measured 87 metres of two-ply yarn—a beautifully soft, lofty skein and one of my favourite spins from this year's Tour de Fleece.
"Wrinkle-Lipped Free-Tailed" Corriedale/Merino/Silk Batt
Fibre: Corriedale/Merino/Silk Noil/Tencel
Colourway: Wrinkle-Lipped Free-Tailed
Dyed by: Dark Harbour Yarn
Preparation: Batt
Weight: 57 g
My next project was another Dark Harbour Yarn batt, this time the Wrinkle-Lipped Free-Tailed colourway, again spun on my Majacraft Susie Pro spinning wheel. As with the previous batts, I split the fibre in half lengthwise. This time however, I spun the fibre on the fold, before plying it into a two-ply yarn. The spinning on the fold technique produces a semi-worsted yarn with a lovely balance of loft and structure, while helping to control slippery fibres in the blend, such as silk noil and tencel.
Spinning this moody blue batt using the spinning-on-the-fold technique was a lot of fun. The finished two-ply yarn is airy and soft, and exactly the kind of yarn I was hoping to achieve with this semi-worsted spinning method.
The finished yarn measured 94.5 metres of two-ply yarn, creating a lofty, soft heathered skein in shades of blue.
"Moonlit Amethyst" Merino/Silver Nylon Glitter
Fibre: Merino/Silver Nylon Glitter
Colourway: Moonlit Amethyst
Dyed by: Myself
Preparation: Batt
Weight: 43 g
I wasn't entirely sure how to spin my Moonlit Amethyst merino and silver nylon batt, but the fibre eventually chose the method for me. My first attempt was a short forward draw on my Majacraft Susie spinning wheel, but I quickly discovered that the silver nylon fibres were separating from the merino, and drifting all over my lap and the floor.
Instead, I switched to a woollen long draw technique, which trapped the silver nylon fibres within the merino much earlier in the drafting process. This dramatically reduced the amount of sparkle escaping onto my lap and the floor. The fibre spun up quickly using this technique, producing a yarn that is very soft thanks to the merino. However, in places where the silver nylon fibres became more concentrated, the yarn felt scratchier to the touch.
The finished yarn measured 85 metres of two-ply yarn and is wonderfully soft and squishy, with all the characteristics you'd expect from a predominantly merino yarn. Although the silver nylon isn't completely embedded into every section of the yarn, this project proved to be a valuable experiment in discovering the best way to spin this fibre blend.
Ashford Cinnamon Merino/Silk Sliver
Fibre: 80% Merino/20% Silk Sliver
Colourway: Cinnamon
Dyed by: Ashford
Preparation: Sliver
Weight: 100 g
This project wasn't originally part of my Tour de Fleece plans. While we were visiting Christchurch, I stopped by the Ashford Factory Shop in Ashburton and couldn't resist picking up some of their beautiful cinnamon merino/silk sliver, along with a new drop spindle. Most of this yarn was spun in the evenings whenever I had the chance. It became a relaxing little side project alongside my wheel spinning, and the perfect opportunity to practice spinning with my new drop spindle.
As always, Ashford's Merino Silk Sliver was a pleasure to spin. It drafted well on my new drop spindle, and it was satisfying to watch the warm cinnamon tones gradually emerge as the yarn came together. The slow pace of drop spindle spinning means this project is still ongoing, but I'm looking forward to picking it up whenever I have a quiet moment over the coming months.
Overall, during Tour de Fleece 2026 I completed four projects, spinning a total of 602 metres of fibre, which became 301 metres of finished two-ply yarn. It wasn't my biggest Tour in terms of metreage, but that was never the goal. Instead, I wanted to make a start on reducing my fibre stash while practising a variety of spinning techniques. And looking at the extra space in my fibre storage container, I'd say it was a very successful Tour.
Thank you for following along on my Tour de Fleece 2026 journey. I hope you've enjoyed all the squishy fibre content as much as I've enjoyed creating it.
Have a wonderful day,
Julie-Ann
If you'd like to continue the conversation, you can find me on Instagram, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Facebook.
White Daffodil Project : Planting My Collection
Hello friends,
I've become completely obsessed with white daffodils, also known as white narcissus, and it all began with a single observation.
While taking the Floret Flower Farm Workshop last summer, I came across a comment from Erin Benzakein during the daffodil section of the course. She explained that at her flower farm, traditional yellow daffodils didn't sell nearly as well as the white varieties. She suggested that white daffodils have an elegance that appeals to many people. They are also so much harder to find than the traditional yellow varieties, making them feel a little more unusual and distinctive.
The more I thought about her observations, the more I realised I agreed with her. I already had a few white daffodil varieties growing in my garden, but I'd never really paid much attention to them. Once I started researching the different varieties available in New Zealand, I discovered an incredible diversity of flower forms, colours, and fragrances. Before long, I wanted to see whether my own experience with white daffodils would support Erin's observations, and that curiosity soon grew into a project of its own.
I've included some photos of white daffodils already growing in my garden. I no longer remember the names of these varieties, but they've given me a starting point for what I hope will become a much larger collection over the coming years.
When spring bulb pre-orders opened on the NZ Bulbs and Bulbs Direct websites this past summer, I bought the following white narcissus varieties for my garden:
- Annalise
- Bridal Crown
- Cheerfulness
- Earlicheer
- Ice Follies
- Mint Julep
- Pure White
- Thalia
- Watch Up
Together they represent a mix of single and double flowers, pure white and cream-toned varieties, a range of sizes, and varying flowering forms. I'm looking forward to watching them grow over the coming months, observing their characteristics, and discovering which ones become my favourites.
With the daffodils chosen and delivered to my doorstep, it was finally time to plant them. Wanting to compare the different varieties side by side as they emerged and flowered, I planted them together in one of the empty dahlia seedling beds in early winter (yes, I was a little late!).
I planted the bulbs according to their mature height, with the tallest varieties at the back of the bed and the shortest at the front. My trusty bulb planter made quick work of digging the planting holes before each bulb was safely tucked into place.
It's now been about a month since I planted the daffodil bulbs, and some of the varieties have already begun emerging through the soil. It's always exciting to see those first green shoots appear, knowing the flowers won't be too far behind.
I'm looking forward to discovering the unique character of each white daffodil variety, seeing how they perform in my garden, and finding out whether my own experience supports Erin's observations as my white daffodil project unfolds over this gardening season.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
If you'd like to continue the conversation, you can find me on Instagram, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Facebook.
I'd love to hear if you grow white daffodils, or if you have a favourite variety that I should add to my collection in the future.
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