Spring is definitely here

And the trees at the Otumoetai Railway Gardens are looking fantastic. 

This is what spring looks like in Tauranga, New Zealand!

Absolutely stunning!

Where do you find your inspiration?

We visited several garden centres recently looking for ties for tying the roses to wires, and also compost and potting mix to repot the citrus trees. I always find walking around garden centres interesting and inspiring, both in what they have for sale and how they display it. 

We saw a fantastic example of a lemon tree in a pot producing a huge amount of fruit, clearly we have been doing something terribly wrong with ours as we have never had that much fruit off ours. So the repotting of our citrus is very timely I think. In all fairness they have also been moved from one temperate zone to another and did receive some minor damage in the move. 

With repotting, some root pruning, foliage pruning and feeding we are hoping that our trees will spring into action and start producing what they should. We also purchased a second lemon of a different variety as we use a lot of lemons plus a lime tree and these will also be planted into pots. While you do have to water and feed them more often than if they were in the ground, I do like the way that they can be moved around and be contained more.

The mandarin tree showing new growth a couple of weeks on from being pruned and replanted.

I have always been quite apprehensive about pruning but have finally grasped the understanding of the purpose of pruning. Maybe my knowledge of plants and their purpose wasn't enough for me to totally understand what I was wanting to achieve through pruning before or maybe as I have developed a better understanding of what each plant or tree is trying to achieve my knowledge and confidence with pruning has grown. I have also seen myself what happens when pruning hasn't been done early and regularly enough and this has also contributed to my understanding of the importance of pruning. 

When I was younger and had no idea of what I was doing at all, the elder members of the family would provide guidance with all gardening matters especially pruning. As time has gone on and they aren't with us any more I came to realise that I was going to have to step up and take on this responsibility completely on my own and the only way I was going to learn was to remember what they had always said and give it a go, and that is exactly what I have done.

The needs of gardeners has definitely changed in my lifetime, I grew up on large quarter acre sections with fruit trees and vegetable gardens being the norm, now with the shortage of land available for housing in many cities and the smaller section sizes we are needing smaller trees and plants around us as there just isn't the room for them now. However we still want everything that we had before, our fruit trees and vegetable or kitchen gardens so container gardening, dwarf root-stock trees, multi grafted trees and pruning are just some ways that we can still achieve growing our own fruit and vegetables on our smaller sections and still have it all. 

With some careful planning we can utilise the aspects and niches around our sections to grow a good variety of produce and still have some interesting outdoor spaces in suburbia with some good inspiring landscapes in our neighbourhoods. 

I enjoy visiting public parks and gardens for inspiration and they are fantastic places to visit and enjoy some chill out time. I also enjoy walking and driving around suburbs and seeing what everyone is doing in their own personal spaces. The smaller section sizes does definitely enable you to enjoy exploring what else our awesome country has to offer, especially once the yard work is done.

Until next time - happy gardening everyone.

Donna-Maree