Last week we were given 2 more trees by Judith from the Mount Eden Village People, a banana and a mandarin. You may have seen the banana tree down by the back gate to the swimming pool and you may not have seen the mandarin tree at all but noticed a kind of new stick in the ground just by the orchard. This poor fellow is the new mandarin tree – he was on public land in Mount Eden and has been vandalised so needed a safer new home which we were happy to provide. The trunk is still very sturdy and he has a good root system so with plenty of compost and tlc he will probably survive. I have no photos yet but will try and get some in the week.
Plenty of daffodils are showing their faces down in the orchard but no bluebells as yet. It’s lovely to walk down there each week and see more and more opening up. I have also noticed an increase in the bird life over the last few weeks; rosella’s, tuis and finches have been visiting for a while but for the first time last week Lloyd and I saw 2 kingfishers and then on friday I was surprised to see 2 ducks down there. Hope they ate a lot of snails while they were visiting.
Finally, a big Thank You to Ben Goodwin, a friend of Karen Jane’s who donated that great big pile of mulch to us a couple of weeks ago. Ben contracts to Kaurimu Garden Management which is owned by Mark Baddeley, so thanks to all involved for getting that to us. Mulching saves us so much time and energy with watering and weeding that it’s importance to our garden cannot be overestimated.
This post has also just reminded me to say that another great part of being involved with the gardens at school is the community connections we are making. It is a collaborative effort and once people get to know what we are doing many are keen to help in one way or another, which is a nice and positive antidote to all the constant bad news and sad news we find in our media every day.
Looking forward to the first day of Spring on Wednesday and daylight saving in 4 weeks time!
