Regeneration: Update

Planting eventually got under way in July, and will happen again next year :)  

We have kaka-beak already established and anchoring what will be a very colourful part of the garden. Four kowhai nearby.









 

Plus several hardy hebe. They'll have to be; it's mostly clay and exposed to all the elements!

 The plan here is to be eye-catching, as well as attractive to insects and smallish native birds :)

So, two red-flowering manuka mark our boundary line - most of that carpet is in the neighbours' place.

Pinker variety in the foreground is inclined to spread densely sideways as much as up; should be fantastic!

And then there are a couple of colour themes; tending purple...

(amazing the varieties of that useful colonizer, coprosma)





And bronze.

Korokia,

native iris, and matipo

In the green corner... with tui in mind and on the advice of Oratia Native Plants, some hardy individuals from the Poor Knights.

Yet another Pittosporum; never seen one with leaves this large and luscious though, and...

Bushy mapou.

These northern imports are planted near some harakeke, guaranteed to attract nectar-feeders. The flax was transplanted from self-sown seedlings elsewhere on the property. One just survived the gorse-cutting exercise!

I'll be doing more transplantation next year, and plan to raise rengarenga seedlings to fill up quite a lot of space. It's all patchwork at the moment, but in a few years... just wait and see!

He tama iti, he tama nui

Whanau time at Titirangi. Nice.

Miro (5 mths) happy with Papa

 et Maman

Tahi gets acquainted with Leander (aka Bugs)

and discovers a Lego buddy

Tama iti, tama nui (& a dinosaur)

 Uncle Andrew's even taller than Papa;
 useful on the bars :)

Meanwhile, the hunter dissects dinner

Miro and Granny

Sunny Interlude

Andrew, Viv and I had a warm laid-back week in Rarotonga a while back. Seems like a good day today - chilly, winterish - for some memories.

There were blue skies...

and a little red convertible one day, to circumnavigate the 35km island. 

An alternative to catching the Clockwise or Anticlockwise bus :)

There was companionship... island dogs are very sociable

and exotica - tangy, juicy starshaped fruit

Mad moment at the beach - what you don't see is the washed out sand bridge!

But there was quietitude as well.

We shared round our novels, and there was always the cloud-gazing

All in all, just what a holiday should be, say I (except not long enough!)

Regeneration

A corner of our 0.3 hectare bush section has always been more or less cleared. Glen and I grew veges there for a while, and spent a lot of hours up there. But it's a bit far from the house, and too easily accessible from the school grounds. Lost a whole crop of sugar-snap peas once!

I decided a few years ago the best thing to do was to encourage the bush back, but in Auckland that means a battle with weeds, and I haven't been winning lately. Time for action!

Step One: Deal to encroaching gorse. Yaay for power tools! And a son to wield them...

Step Two: Scavenge carpet pieces from the inorganic collection piles left in someone else's street(!). Lay carpet over ground for ongoing weed control. Revised plan is to grow the bush in from the edges, and plant strategically in the middle.

Step Three: Keep on spreading berries and seeds close to mothering bush. Nature is so profligate, there are heaps all over the property, and seedlings too!

Step Four: Buy in some hardy colonisers as well...

 Step Five: Planting, transplanting and more planting. I expected to have started in May, but it hasn't been wet or cool enough. Update will follow when there's more to see!

Tahi Time

Well, time with his maman and petit frere too, but my week seemed to feature the 3 year old...

We collected snails and caterpillars,

washed dishes

visited friends... Jude had a great marble run!

went for a long walk to Wairere Falls

were kings of the castle with Quignon, on the way

and boys did what boys do when we found the water!

We also shelled walnuts

and read/discussed numerous dinosaur books - in English, although Tahi can do just as well in French. Tahi knows a lot about dinosaurs I didn't know!

We had a lovely time.
:)

Came a hot Sunday

Waiheke's Sculpture on the Headland. Two plus hours in 99% humidity, too much humanity and very little shade. But the views!

Mowah.

 Peter Lange's "Comfort Stop". Bit of a misnomer, I thought, but the chairs were certainly comfy!

French Knitting. My second favourite work. I remember doing this with cotton spools as a kid...Coiling a coiling pohutukawa. Love it.

Stacked firewood in the shape of a huge armchair, facing a perfect view. Along the length of the other side, in about a metre at most of shade, reclined a whole line of people enjoying the vista and staving off heat stroke!! Probably in the reverse order. Third favourite.

Thought I was over corrugated iron works, but Jeff Thomson's still way ahead of his imitators!
Superbly perfect in this place, and the photo doesn't do justice to the organic feel. Looked as though it was always part of this low-lying ground. No question: first prize from me.

Architectural piece... nooo... open-air cafe frequented by nearly everybody desperate for fluids. Megan and I crawled around the side, through some manuka, for the shade. Note the beautiful copper water tank!

Lifebuoys; easy, but effective! There was another very cool floating piece which I seem to have missed photographing. Imagine a large rusty milkchurn shape out in a bay, with a big yellow tube protruding... extending... retracting... Powered by some kind of pneumatic pump; definitely reminiscent of.... tentacles? Clever anyway, and mesmerising. And then there was the rusty iron whale, shingle-beached, that reminded me of Capt Nemo's submarine.

A good day :)

Oil and water

Starting with the water... Remember, this was all going to happen before Christmas? Well, on the 21st Dec our plumber was rushed to hospital with appendicitis - it wasn't good; he was there a whole week. So we've been waiting patiently until he recovered, and he returned last week with a mate to help with the heavy work. Operational at last!

Viv and I celebrated with a bubble bath each; aaah bliss! The shower's good too; you wouldn't know we have low mains pressure (cos of the wetback).
My Dad and Viv spent a couple of hours yesterday adding towel fittings etc. There was much measurement and companionable consultation!
Not quite signed off though - the floor tiles are being oiled by moi this weekend, with a blended oil mix from Motueka: 'Java oil' from Ecohouseco. Website's mostly about timber, but slate is mentioned, and Middle Earth highly recommend the oil. Very easy to apply, and it's enriching the colour beautifully. One more coat now and we're done :)

That's it, Bathroom Blog concludes... been fun!

So what's next, I wonder?? e.

Tiles!!

I'm thrilled! Tom's done a terrific job, and the effect is everything I wanted. Turns out he learned this style and technique from, and still works with, the Kiwi guy who tiled for Hundertwasser... think Kawakawa loos! So,  handmade local tiles with lots of variation in the finish, and the influence of a maestro - well ok, third hand ;) Anyway, it's a little bit different. Here they are!

The lack of symmetry is very Hundertwasser, as is the grouting rounded to the walls... Didn't actually set out to emulate any of his principles, and there's only a hint really. I was just thoroughly bored with whites, creams and faux marble or granite in most of the tile shops, and Middle Earth was a breath of fresh air! The colour combination was an interesting outcome from Viv and my design collaboration - I wanted brights, she wanted blues, and we ended up here! The bronze wall tiles throw all kinds of interesting tones and a bit of texture when they catch the light. See the one in the middle at the top of the lowest photo. Doing the skirting was an afterthought, but it's worked really well, and I'd have had to introduce another element otherwise.

I'm very happy... We just need water now - but that's another story!