Letters from Wetville

The two people who taught me about gardening as a child were my Dad and my maternal Grandma. Grandma is still alive and enjoying looking at her garden and gardening magazines, but she has to rely on other people to do the gardening for her now. I think of her when I see aquilegias, remembering when we went to the Royal Show in Christchurch about 20 years ago. Grandma and Grandad also bred pedigree jersey cattle, and we wandered around looking at many breeds of cattle I'd never ever seen before, and then moved on to the garden stalls. Kings Seeds have many different type of aquilegias, also known as grannys bonnets. I considered the aquilegia yellow star (photo below) for my yellow theme, but as I only have one garden bed which really needs the yellow theme, when I saw the aquilegia shady garden scatter (top photo), I thought of it for the front garden, which is south facing in and need of special treatment. This is the area which needs the work. Underneath the closest window a...

I think One Magic Square by Lolo Houbein will turn out to be my book of 2011. This interview gives an indication of Houbein's strength and wonderfulness. For me, this book is the best since Linda Woodrow's Permaculture Home Garden , and in practical terms, a better book to start with than Woodrow's. Germs of diverse persuasions have punctured our days and nights, especially the nights, here. The wide shallow red bucket, with handles to grip with, is the best vomit bucket we've ever owned. The large amount of money we spent on replacing the washing machine in January has been worth it already, given that I can no longer easily recall back to a day when no one's bed linen needed hot washing. I haven't escaped the germs, but I have appreciated Favourite Handyman being home, enabling me to stay in bed sleeping and then resting and reading for two days. This TED/Hans Rosling talk on the transformative power of the washing machine is a wonderful one,...