New Peonies and a Rose Bush
Hello friends,
Recently I purchased some wish list plants for my garden, three peonies, and a recently released rose bush.
When NZ Bulbs released their peonies for the 2025 - 2026 season, I bought Duchesse de Nemours, Dr Alexander Fleming, and Sarah Bernhardt.
Duchesse de Nemours has ivory white double flowers and the sensational scent of Lily of the Valley.
Dr Alexander Fleming is a double, sweet smelling, pink peony with strong stems and a very good vase life. A very reliable peony variety for cutting.
And finally Sarah Bernhardt has classic double blooms of deep pink petals, which are lighter toward the edges, and has occasional flecks of raspberry throughout.
I also recently bought the floribunda rose bush 'Cuppa Tea' from our local garden centre. 'Cuppa Tea' was released for the first time in 2024 as a pre-order online, and it was sold out before it even reached garden centres that winter. I was disappointed to not get one when it first was released, and was pleased to find out our local garden centre had one available for me to buy this year.
'Cuppa Tea' floribunda rose has clusters of antique platinum blooms open into changing shades of warm lilac hinted with lavender pink. Bushy, healthy growing habit with
mid-green foliage. It was bred in New Zealand by Bob Matthews from his popular for picking creation 'Cappuccino'.
Now having acquired both peonies and a new rose bush, the problem was where to put them...but luckily I had an idea about that.
At the very front of garden alongside the driveway was a small section of garden which had two problematic plants, a rhododendron and an azalea. Routinely while growing, they impinged into the driveway, and make it too narrow for us to drive our car down the driveway without brushing up against them with our car. I'm also not fond of azaleas and rhododendrons, so I was more than happy to dig them out over a number of days.
It was a battle to remove them, but it was finally done. After removing both plants, I added compost to the soil and then dug it over.
To that space I placed the 'Cuppa Tea' rose bush and the Sarah Bernhardt peony off center, so they stayed well far away from the driveway.
To even the garden bed out, I then dug back into the lawn by 10 cm, to increase the size of the front garden area. If I had to choose between more lawn, or more garden to work with, I'll always choose more gardening space.
After removing the turf, I then planted out the Duchesse de Nemours and Dr Alexander Fleming peonies into the new space in the front garden.
With that all done, there is nothing do do but wait for spring, for both the peonies and rose bush to start growing. There is also more space now for other plants to be planted into the front garden. And as for the space between the Cuppa Tea rose and the Sarah Bernhardt peony, I plan to plant two dahlias when they arrive in spring.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Tearing Down The Old Aviary
Hello friends,
Down the south side of our house, in the part of the garden you never get to see on the blog, is an outdoor aviary the previous owners of our home constructed to house their many birds. When we first moved into the house we used this section of the garden to host our strawberry and raspberry plants away from local wild bird life who wanted to eat our fruit.
The aviary was beginning to rot back then, and in the time since, the aviary has been falling further and further apart. Now with pieces of rotten wood falling off it, it was time to tear down the aviary this winter. The first job was to rescue the strawberry plants, and then tie back the raspberry canes to protect them while the aviary was being demolished.
Next up was taking off all the facing boards so we could access the chicken wire, so we could tear it off with brute force using hammers and a prying bar. We also removed the doors to get easier access into the aviary while demolition was under way.
The aviary was far more rotten than we expected, especially on the south side, so we had to leave some wire netting in place so that whole walls wouldn't fall down. In the mean time the pile of rotten wood and chicken netting was steadily growing bigger and bigger in our empty vegetable garden beds.
We decided that the best way to go forward was to start taking down the aviary at the most rotten end, which was the south end. It didn't take very long to remove stuff section by section. By the time we got to the northern end of the aviary, the structure became quite unstable. And considering we were due for 100 km/hour gales in the coming days, we made the decision to take an hour off work one day to drop the last of the aviary before it fell down by itself in the wind.
The last wall, which had green corrugated iron covering it, was the last to go, and all it took was a gentle push for it all to collapse. Now all that was left was to finish pulling apart the walls and corrugated iron, and begin hauling it away to the rubbish tip.
Luckily my dad has a car and a trailer, and left his trailer with us so we could fill it up over a weekend. Between that, and also filling up our car with loads of rubbish, we were able to get it all taken away. We also salvaged some good pieces of wood for other projects around the garden.
All that remains now is to clean up the area, do some weeding, and I can begin an exciting project in this space. I can't wait to show you my plans in an upcoming blog post.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Seed Saving And Storage In Autumn 2025
Hello friends,
Recently I finally got around to sorting out the last of my seed saving efforts for autumn.
First up I sorted out the pumpkin and tomato seeds I had drying on paper towels. It didn't take too long to clean up, package and label my Baby Bear, Grey Crown, and Kakai pumpkin varieties, along with my Island Bay Tomato seeds.
Next up was dealing with all the flower seeds drying in the garage. I had two different stashes of Calendula officinalis seeds, a mixed container of seeds from various Calendula plants around the garden, and one container with seeds from the Calendula Strawberry Blonde variety I had growing. It didn't take very long to sieve them using my soil sifter, which I use for seed clean up.
I then sifted my Nigella, Love in the Mist, seeds I collected from various plants in the front garden.
And I also cleaned up and then stored mixed Cosmos seeds I collected from all the Cosmos varieties I grew over the summer. The seed sifter's multiple sieves came in handy, as there was quite a bit of flower bits in the mix.
In my seed clean up session I also found packets of Zinnia, Sulpur Cosmos, and Sweet Peas I had collected earlier in the autumn, but had not had a chance to store away yet.
With all that organising done, it was time to stow all the seeds away for the winter. I now have three matching seed storage containers, with one each for vegetable seeds, flower seeds, and herb and dye plant seeds. It didn't take very long at all to store all the seeds away in their appropriate containers. These containers make it so much easier to store the seeds, and then pull them out in smaller sections for seed sowing.
With that big job done, there's nothing more to do until the seed catalogues come out in the coming months, when I need to go through each box and check if I need to replace any seeds I wish to grow next spring.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Our First Apple Harvest
Hello friends,
Back in the winter of 2024 I planted two apple trees, Ballerina Waltz, and Ballerina Flamenco. I chose those two apple trees after a garden consultant suggested the Ballerina apple varieties, as they grow narrow and tall, and have an abundance of fruit, which make them perfect for smaller gardens.
Ballerina Waltz is a tart eating, cooking, and dehydrating apple, and Ballerina Flamenco is a sweet eating apple. Between both trees, we would have enough apples for hubby and I to eat fresh, and we could also use them for cooking and dehydrating when we have excess produce.
In spring they both flowered for the first time, but only Ballerina Waltz set fruit, and we've been impatiently waiting for them to ripen ever since.
By the time we got to March, only two apples remained. They slowly turned red, and over the last couple of weeks I periodically tested them to see if they were ripe.
And finally, the first apple was ready. When I tilted the apple upward, and it snapped off the tree.
I very excitedly took our first apple inside and showed it to hubby. We cut it open, and the seeds inside were a nice brown colour, showing that the apple was ripe via a another method.
The Ballerina Waltz apple was indeed sweet but tart, but it was also nice and crunchy and juicy. It also wasn't so tart that hubby refused to eat it. A couple of days later the second apple was ready to eat, and we once again cut it in half so that we could share it.
We are very happy with our purchase, and over the coming years when we'll get bigger and bigger harvests. If you are wanting an apple tree, but just don't have the space in your backyard for a full sized apple tree, I really do recommend the Ballerina apple varieties. They now have a bigger selection of varieties, so you can choose one (or more) depending on the type of apple you are interested in.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Cosmos Flowers for the 2024/2025 Summer Season
Hello friends,
Today I thought I'd share with you some of the cosmos varieties I grew in our flower garden over the summer.
First up we have the Xsenia variety, which I grew from seed I got from Emerden last winter. This cosmos variety is just stunning and really unique, and I love the dark band of pink on the edges of the petals. The shade of pink in the petals do change as the flowers get older, so by picking them at different times, you will get a range of colours from just one variety.
Next up we have the Apricotta cosmos variety, that I got from Kings Seeds. It has a similar apricot/pink colour to Xsenia, but the flower is much more open. It wasn't really my favorite, when compared to the Xsenia variety, so I won't be sowing any new seeds next spring.
Then we have the variety, Cosmos Cupcakes White, which I bought as seed from Susie Ripley Gardening. And wow, this cosmos variety really stands out in the garden. I love the cupped flowers, that really do look like the bottoms of cupcakes. These flowers blow daintily in the breeze, making a lot of movement in the garden on windy days. I'm definitely growing these again next year.
I also bought Cosmos Cupcakes Blush seeds from Susie Ripley. They're the same as Cosmos Cupcakes White, but they're a light pink in colour. They weren't as nice as the white variety, with the pink colouring not being even on the petals, so I don't think I'll buy them again.
And finally, we have my new favorite cosmos variety, Cosmos Fizzy White, which I also bought as seed from Susie Ripley Gardening. These white cosmos flowers come in all sorts of variations of fizzy white flowers, and they're just so beautiful in the garden. Of the ten or so plants around my garden, each flower type was slightly different, but each one was just stunning. I'm definitely going to grow a lot more of these in the garden next spring. And as a bonus they were complete bee and butterfly magnets all summer long.
I hope you've enjoyed taking a look at all the cosmos varieties I grew this last summer. I can't wait to begin growing them again next spring.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon or Bluesky.
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