Tidying Up the Grapevine and Adding a New Trellis
Hello friends,
Our grapevine grows in the southeast corner of the backyard, trailing along a fence that has definitely seen better days. The fence has developed quite a lean away from the garden, and I'm fairly sure the only thing keeping it upright at this point is the grapevine itself.
Our eventual plan is to replace the east-side fence and hedges and build a new fence along that entire property boundary. This would give me a new section of usable garden—aka somewhere else to plant even more dahlias. Unfortunately, that's not a project we can tackle at the moment, so for now we're making the best of what we have.
With the fence at risk of falling and taking the grapevine with it, I allowed some of the new shoots growing from its base to develop last season. My plan was to establish a second section of grapevine along the southern fence as a backup. This fence gets full sun throughout the day, which should also provide better growing conditions for the grapes.
With the young vines lying on the ground for most of the winter, it was time to get them established along the southern fence. Hubby and I headed to our local Bunnings and picked up a 10-metre roll of wire netting. On a sunny winter afternoon, we unwound the netting along the fence and secured it in place with staple nails and a hammer.
After carefully untangling the young vines, it didn't take long to tie them up in three rows along the new trellis.
And I'm very pleased with the result. We now have a backup plan for the grapevine if the east-side fence eventually falls down, and in the meantime, the new vines should give us more grapes. It's a small job, but it has given our grapevine a much better growing space and hopefully a more secure future in the garden.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
If you'd like to continue the conversation, you can find me on Instagram, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Facebook.
A Winter Reshuffle in the Shade Garden
Hello friends,
Over the winter I've done some rearranging in the shadiest part of the backyard. A couple of years ago I planted two hostas, 'Purple Heart' and 'Sleeping Beauty', beneath the magnolia tree, and beside a colour-changing Hydrangea macrophylla. As the hydrangea has grown, it has completely smothered both plants, so it was time to move them to another shady spot in the backyard, beside my wasabi plant.
It didn't take long to dig up the hostas and transplant them into their new positions beside the wasabi plant. With a little more space and less competition, I'm hoping they'll be much happier in their new homes.
With that job completed, I noticed the space on the other side of the magnolia tree was looking pretty empty, apart from a single peony that wasn't particularly happy in its current position. It didn't take long for an idea to form. By moving the peony to a better location elsewhere in the garden, I'd have the perfect spot for another hydrangea.
I'd been wanting to add another hydrangea to the garden for some time, so I decided to have a look around a few local garden centres to see what was available. Winter isn't the best time to shop for hydrangeas, but sometimes you get lucky.
As it turned out, I was very lucky. The first place I visited, our local Mitre 10, had exactly the hydrangea I was hoping to find, 'Bridal Bouquet'.
'Bridal Bouquet' is a beautiful white-flowering hydrangea prized for its mop head blooms. The flowers open creamy white before gradually ageing to soft green tones, providing interest over a long period. Like many white hydrangeas, it brightens shady areas of the garden and combines well with a wide range of other plants. Its blooms are excellent for cutting and can also be dried, extending their usefulness long after the flowering season has finished.
It didn't take long to dig a hole and plant my new hydrangea. With its new home prepared, 'Bridal Bouquet' was finally settled into the garden.
Because the soil in this part of the garden is quite compact and filled with decorative schist stones, I decided to add a bag of Tui Mulch & Feed around 'Bridal Bouquet' and along the garden bed. I even had enough to spread it all the way along the bed to my other hydrangea. Whenever I add a new permanent perennial to the garden, I like to add mulch and feed around it. Over time, this helps improve the soil across the whole wider garden.
With all these small jobs done, this shady area of the garden feels much tidier, and the plants are now in positions that should suit them much better. I'm looking forward to seeing how they grow this coming spring.
Have a wonderful day,
Julie-Ann
If you'd like to continue the conversation, you can find me on Instagram, Mastodon, Bluesky, and Facebook.
The Sweet Pea Project: Sowing the Seeds for a New Gardening Year
Hello friends,
Although the garden may seem quiet in the middle of winter, now is the time when preparation for the next growing season begins. For me, July is peak sweet pea sowing season, and I always save this job for cold, rainy days when it's too wet to work outside. Sweet peas prefer germinating in cooler temperatures, so sowing them in winter gives them the best chance of producing armfuls of fragrant blooms in late spring and early summer.
Sweet peas have always been a favourite of mine ever since childhood, when my grandfather used to grow them in his back garden. Their fragrance would drift through the backyard during the warmer months, and ever since then I've dreamed of having a dedicated sweet pea patch of my very own.
Until recently though, I simply didn't have the space in my garden to do this. That changed last summer when our old lilac tree finally succumbed to the damage it suffered during last year's big spring storm. Once the tree had been removed, a section of the backyard fence opened up to full sun from early morning until late afternoon, creating the perfect place for a sweet pea patch. With the space finally available, it seems like now is the perfect time to turn a long-held dream into a reality. So let's begin, and I'll show you the little patch of garden where this year's sweet pea project will take shape.
My sweet pea patch will run along the western side of our backyard, beside the boundary fence that used to sit in permanent shade beneath the old lilac tree. This section of fence line is approximately four metres long, providing plenty of room for this new project. My plan is to install metal mesh along the fence, and let the sweet peas scramble their way upward, hopefully filling the space with flowers and fragrance throughout spring and summer.
With the growing area planned, it was finally time to pull out my sweet pea seed collection, and decide which varieties to grow. Over the years I've accumulated a large collection of sweet pea seed, so narrowing down the choices was no easy task. In the end, I settled on a collection of mostly Keith Hammett varieties, along with a few other favourites, and some homegrown seed collected from my own garden, all selected for their beautiful colours and sweet fragrance.
The varieties I chose and sowed were:
- 23 × Hammett Blue Butterflies
- 15 × Hammett Blue Shift
- 10 × Hammett Blue Reflections
- 15 × Hammett Brilliant Fragrance
- 10 × Hammett Burlesque
- 15 × Hammett's Surprise
- 2 × Hammett Licorice
- 6 × Hammett NZ Gardener
- 10 × Hammett Somewhere
- 15 × Hammett Sapphire
- 9 × Hammett Triple G
- 10 × Hammett Turquoise Lagoon
- 25 × Homegrown seeds from my garden
- 10 × Nimbus
- 10 × Swan Lake
- 10 × Sweet Pea Original
In total, I sowed 195 sweet pea seeds, which should provide a beautiful mixture of blues, purples, smoky pinks, bi-colours, and wonderfully fragrant blooms over the coming spring and summer.
Although 195 sweet pea seeds may seem like a lot, some of the seed packets were older, and experience has taught me that not every seed will germinate. The seeds were sown into seed-raising mix that had been sieved to remove large stones and wood chips, before being placed into four 50-cell seed trays.
After sowing, the seed trays were watered well, and placed onto shelving in my glasshouse. The shelving is covered with some shade cloth, which helps protect the emerging seedlings from strong sunlight, and it also prevents them from drying out too quickly.
There is always something so hopeful about seed sowing. In the depths of winter, seeds are a reminder that spring is never too far away, and that every gardening year begins with the promise of new life.
For now, the sweet peas are sown, and the waiting begins...
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 what you're growing, making, or enjoying in your own garden.
Our Lilac Tree Died
Hello friends,
Our lilac tree stood in the right hand side of our backyard, a fully grown tree already when we moved into our home in 2019. Each year in spring it would bud out and produce leaves followed by stunning purple scented flowers, but unfortunately this past spring was its last.
In the third week of October in 2025, a large wind storm blew through the South Island of New Zealand, causing wind damage throughout Otago and Southland, and cutting off power to thousands. At the time I thought my only plant casualties were some limbs coming off my quince tree, and my Avalanche camellia bush being snapped off at its base, but unknown to us at the time, my lilac tree had been damaged as well.
A week after the storm I'd noticed that our lilac tree hadn't burst its buds, and when I touched the buds they crumbled, having been turned brown and crispy by the wind storm. The tree had gotten wind blasted to the point that it was in serious trouble. We left it for a while to see if it would bounce back, and eventually a couple of leaf buds on the south side of the tree burst open, showing that at that time the tree was still alive (well only barely).
We left it over the summer to see if it would grow more leaf buds, but it didn't, and then around early February 2026 the few remaining leaves on the plant turned brown and fell off. After carefully checking multiple branches at points around the tree, and the suckers which usually came up from the base of the tree each summer, they were all dead and brown. I also checked with a few knowledgeable plant friends, and they also agreed that our lilac tree had died.
I was really upset over this, but also practical, because sometimes these things just happen. Nature gives and it takes away. The next weekend hubby got out our saw and began cutting down the tree limbs. Our first priority was to remove dead branches that could possibly hit the glasshouse or the fence, and then after that we cut the tree down to the ground. Hubby mulched what tree material he could with our wood chipper, and mulched around that area of the garden to help with weed suppression.
We also dug up the old fern plant beside the tree, as in the past a wasp nest had been buried in there, so I wanted to remove the plant to ensure it wouldn't happen again.
The resulting sunlight in this area of the garden after the tree had been taken down, is just amazing. There is now a lot more sun in the garden bed from early morning until early evening. Dahlia plants that had grown under the tree grew vigorously, and have even flowered.
At the moment in mid-autumn there are dahlias and damask roses still growing in this area. As soon as the first big autumn frost comes, and knocks back the dahlias growing there (after I've finished seed saving from them), I think I will rearrange this whole area of the garden, in preparation for the next growing season. And I already have some ideas on what I could do...
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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