Side Garden Project - Planning and Building Raised Garden Beds
Hello friends,
After we had taken down the old aviary/berry cage, it was time to get to work turning this space into garden beds.
The first task was to weed the area, tidy up the fence line, and move two concrete pavers. Once I pulled out all the weeds and then tidied the fence line by putting old pieces of wood up against it for protection, hubby and I maneuvered the pavers into the space next door, where I have my worm farm located.
With all that done I ordered macrocarpa sleepers from our local garden centre for creating the new garden beds. The sleepers are 1.8 m long, which was the exact size we needed for that space.
The next step was to first put up some old trellises for our raspberry bushes, so we could train them along the fence line. We then create 90 cm wide beds using the macrocarpa sleepers, with 50 cm pathways in between for easy access to the garden beds. It was a lot of hard work considering there was a lot of river pebbles in the area. We transferred those river pebbles into the pathways between the garden beds when we were finished.
Once all the beds were in place, hubby did the hard work of digging over the garden beds and adding compost. The first bed closest to the garden shed was set aside for the strawberry plants I had put into pots in the glasshouse before the aviary was removed.
The next garden bed was set aside for my natural dyeing plants including Madder, Woad, St John's Wort, Tomentil, and Lemon Sorrel, which I had squeezed in another garden bed down the side of the house. While transferring the plants I was able to harvest some of the madder roots for natural dyeing. I have enough space leftover now to put more natural dyeing plants in the other half of the garden bed this spring.
Garden beds 3 and 4 are currently empty, and they still need to have compost added, before being prepared to a fine tilth for spring.
My plan is to grow Linen and Japanese indigo plants in bed 3: I have my own homegrown flax linen seeds in storage from last year, and I bought Japanese indigo seeds from Growing Textiles last autumn with the intention to grow my own indigo plants for natural dyeing, and also for indigo seed production.
In bed 4 I want to start my own breeding experiments with dahlias. I've wanted to do my own plant breeding for ages, and I now have the space to start this. I have dahlia seeds set aside from last year's plants to do this. I'm very excited about this project and can't wait to get started in spring.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Floret Zinnias
Hello friends,
I just thought I'd share with you how my Floret zinnia plants have fared over the summer, and all the flowers that have been produced from the various varieties.
This is how the zinnias looked like when I planted them out in the garden in late October 2024. I sowed Floret Dawn Creek blush, Floret Precious Metals, and also Floret Unicorn Mix zinnias that I bought from Emerden Flower Farm back in August 2024. I had 100% sowing success from all the zinnia seeds.
First up we have the Dawn Creek Blush Zinnias:
There's a mix of creams, buttery yellows, and pinky blush tones, they are really beautiful and understated.
Next we have Floret Precious Metals:
The Floret Precious metals, are more pink and purple toned, and when the flowers get older, there is a cool metal sheen on them.
And lastly we have the Floret Unicorn Mix:
The colours for the Unicorn mix are much more bright pinks and yellows and lime greens, and they really stand out in the garden.
All in all, I'm really loving all the varieties that Floret and Dawn Creek have developed. The seeds were super expensive, but the uniqueness of the flowers are worth it in my opinion. I still have some seeds left over for next year, and I plan to seed save from the zinnia varieties when autumn starts in March (on Saturday). If more Floret zinnia seeds become available from Emerden in spring, I plan to pick up a couple more seed packets to increase my seed stash of these beautiful flowers.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Floret Dahlia and Zinnia Sowing
Hello friends,
A couple of weeks ago I sowed my zinnia and dahlia seeds from Floret, that I purchased from Emerden in New Zealand. And yes, if you may have noticed, I ended up ordering a third zinnia variety from Floret, their Unicorn Mix.
I sowed all the seeds in dome propagating trays, along with dahlia varieties including seeds from my favorite Lucky Number dahlia growing in my garden, and also two Keith Hammett dahlia varieties (NZ dahlia breeder), NZ Gardener mix (from the NZ gardener magazine), and also Dahlia Beeline II. I'm considering crossing the Keith Hammett and Floret dahlias to see if I can come up with a new amazing variety.
The seedlings all popped up super quick while living in our warm dining room, and within a couple of weeks they were ready to be potted on into bigger individual pots with potting mix. The seed sowing strike rate was higher than advertised on the packets, so I'm really happy with the investment.
They're now safely growing in my glass house, and are covered in frost cloth each night for protection. I can't wait for when they get big enough to plant out in the garden.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Floret Flower Farm and Other Seeds from Emerden Flowers
Hello friends,
I was doom scrolling on Instagram a couple of weeks ago, and came across a post by Emerden Flowers announcing they were collaborating with Floret Flower Farm in the USA, and they were bringing Floret and Dawn Creek Zinnias and Dahlias into New Zealand.
Before you could blink an eye, I had zoomed over to Emerden Flowers website, and excitedly perused the pre-order links to the Zinnias and Dahlia seed mixes. I've followed Floret Flower Farm for years, and even have a couple of their books. Their book "Discovering Dahlias" is my bible when it comes to Dahlias. I was so excited, even with the very high prices of the seed packets. Now was my chance to get some seeds, and I wasn't going to miss out. I still had money budgeted for our backyard garden project, and had no problem in justifying buying 3 seed packets to hubby, along with some other seed packets from Emerden Flowers I had been wanting.
First up was choosing a Dahlia seed mix, I finally settled on choosing Floret Original Bee's Choice flower seed packet, as I want to encourage bees into my garden. Choosing two zinnia packets was more fraught with danger. After angsting over it for days leading up to when they went on sale, including spending way too much time on Instagram looking at people's photos of the various zinnia mixes, late on the Saturday night I chose Floret Original Precious Metals zinnias, and also Dawn Creek Blush zinnias, as they are colours that will fit in well in my backyard (as well as my front yard). I had also chosen a bunch of very cool Emerden flower seed packets, as some of them were on my list of plants to get for a while.
On the Sunday morning when the seed packets went on sale, I had all of the internet tabs open on the seeds I wanted, and I'd logged into Emerden Flowers website. In the minutes before 10 am I added all the Emerden Flowers into the web cart, and waited impatiently for 10 am. As soon as it hit 10 am, I reloaded the web pages for the Floret and Dawn Creek varieties I wanted, and added them to the cart. Once I was sure I got everything, I checked out, and bought it with my credit card.
It took a while before I got the confirmation email from Emerden Flowers, and then I started happy dancing.
Within a couple of days my precious seeds were delivered to my door, and it was time to fawn all over my pretty new seed packets.
The packaging for the Floret Flower Farm part of the order was stunning, and I really loved the included growing guide.
I also bought a range of Emerden flower seed varieties including pansy, larkspur, floxglove, sunflowers, cosmos, calendula, and echinacea.
I am really excited to start planting these seeds in spring, which is less than a couple of weeks away now.
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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