There's not been much progress this week; between B being sick and some sequencing issues nothing much has actually got finished.

The compost bins did get their interior paint job, so they're finished and I moved the compost from the old bin to the new.



Now that the old compost bin has been removed the slope can be graded, the chicken mesh can go up and then the trellis. That will allow me to plant the raspberry and boysenberry beds as well as hopefully the chicken run.

Another small step was the finishing of the pergolas (and the repositioning of the Chinese gooseberries) and the framing for the bridge and board walk.



Now that the framing is done the liner can go in, then the bog garden, pump and waterfall, then the planks on the bridge and boardwalk.

So hopefully this week will see lots of completion!

Tags: Compost, Pond, Chinese Gooseberry

As well as the vege garden I also planted the blueberry and kitchen herb beds this week. More excitingly I put the chook house together!



I have to admit it was kitset, so lots of screwing things together and a certain amount of swearing, but nothing truly clever. The only problem has been that all of my screwdriver muscles hurt.



I'm pretty sure there's enough room in the back corner for a straw bale and there's definitely enough room for chooks!

Tags: Chookery

The new dirt for the raised beds has started arriving, so this weekend is looking very hopeful for planting.



The only problem is that it's a bit mobile and that, combined with gales, has left a fine layer of silt in the bathroom and toilet.

For the third Friday in a row I arrived home in the dark carrying stuff and the access to the house was a problem. Worse this time was that it was unexpected – the steps by the letter box were blocked with lumber with no warning or explanation.



I think the explanation is probably to stop us walking on the framing for the steps that was installed on Tuesday for a concrete pour on Wednesday, to be washed back on Thursday. The limit to this explanation is that the steps weren't poured on Wednesday so, with a public holiday and all, the steps will be impassable until at least next Wednesday – nine days total. To add to my general sense of frustration no-one's actually thought to tell me what's going on, and I can't ring K to check until next Tuesday. Hmpf!

Not withstanding my (somewhat reasonable) grumpiness, there has been plenty of pleasing progress. The rest of the path has been laid, the deck is finally cut back (although the side is still missing), and the front lawn has been mostly cleared and levelling to path height has started.

For the second week in a row Friday has seen access to the house dismantled and only partly reconstructed. This week it was the front path – all the concrete slabs have been pulled up, broken down and filled behind the retaining wall. The last remaining piece of the original concrete is between the deck and the fence and can’t go until the gasfitter shows up to move the pipe.



Access has been the theme of the week really. We started the week sorting out the pergola and the boardwalk which, while solved in theory, has yet to be realised. Later in the week work started on the steps; something I’ve been looking forward to as they’ll provide access to the basement once again. Walking around the garden in the dark (with a torch) I noticed that the first landing had been built higher than top landing – a phone call at 7:30 the next morning and the overlooked “0” was back in place and the steps are heading down again.



Saturday morning was spent rearranging the piles on the deck so I could both water the plants that have been there for a few weeks, and make space to add some more.



Next week should see massive progress, all the concrete paths and gravel should be in by the end of the week. This should mean full access to the lower terrace so the gravel paths, pond and pergolas will be able to receive some real attention.

It feels like winter is finally in the offing – after weeks of beautiful clear days we’ve been having gale force winds, cold days and rain is forecast for the rest of the week.

This morning we walked around the garden and sorted out some heights and edges, have hopefully solved the problem with the chinese gooseberry pergola, and maybe even made some progress with the front lawn.

Better still we have some dates, hopefully the back garden will be done by the end of May. The front path might not quite make it as it’s weather dependant and people intensive – two-three days of complete chaos I believe.

Tags: Skies

After all the worry I really like the paths; exposed aggregate with a 10% mix of “Fruit salad” aggregate – which adds interest and ties in to the macrocarpa without making the paths any particular colour.



There’s been so much change while I’ve been away and the garden is really starting to appear from the shambles. All the retaining walls are finished, with a little clean fill needed but otherwise completed. Similarly the raised beds and all the paths from the deck through to the back of the top terrace.

The lower terrace shows some progress, mostly good but I’m having a bit of a panic about the chinese gooseberry pergola.



The posts seem to have been put in below the crib wall, so inside the board walk. While that mightn’t seem like a problem this is a pergola for a chinese gooseberry which will cascade over the pergola (rather than neatly climbing down it) and stretch out for the sun – completely blocking the boardwalk. The two solutions I can see are to move them back to where they were drawn (a hassle as they’re concreted in) or extend the pergola over the full width of the boardwalk so the chinese gooseberry hangs over and outside it. This is on the to-be-discussed list :)

The section of path in the front is also a bit of a worry, as it’s now higher than either the lawn or the flower bed – I am guessing they’re expecting to add dirt to fill/raise both, which will require me rescuing some plants.

The cut back deck looks fine for size, losing a metre hasn’t made much difference to the usability, the fact the gasfitter is ill (?) so can’t move the gas pipe has meant that the old posts can’t be removed and the railings can’t be put back. Which, in turn, means the section of the path next to the old posts is unusable and we have to troop across the neighbours’ lawn. The courier who brought my new passport looked very unimpressed.

So heaps of progress last week, this week may not be as productive as we have five days of wet forecast along with two days of gale force winds.

It’s not been a convenient week to be out of Wellington; I’ve been having arm-waving phone and email conversations about details and changes from all over the North Island. So arriving back on Friday night to new, incomplete, ugly paths was tough.



I started the week by emailing Kevin to say that having looked at the height of the retaining wall by the fig I thought there was no point having a path below it. So some of Monday was spent negotiating changes to the chookery, raspberry bed, paths and compost bins from Auckland.

Thursday morning (Hamilton) was the time to confirm the colour of the pebbles to be added to the concrete, not helped by Kevin and I never being available at the same time so relaying messages through voicemail, sticky notes and other people in his office.

Thursday afternoon (Paeroa, with dreadful cell coverage) was heights, levels and edges of the path at the front of the house, The decision has been to raise the path in the front (laying over the existing concrete) to make it more level and co-ordinated with the deck. This means all the steps will be at the end of the deck, which will definitely need lights!

Thursday night had the complicated instructions about how to get to the front door on Friday night – tricky enough without me arriving home after dark (but before J) with luggage.

So I arrived, got inside, grabbed a big torch, went back outside and was completely horrified; the unwashed concrete was uglier than I had imagined – so I went to bed hanging out for the morning when they guys arrive to wash off the retardant and expose the aggregate.

On Tuesday the path by the front door reappeared and on Wednesday the grapes, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries and black currant arrived from Waimea. They’re all waiting on the front deck, along with a growing assortment of other plants, seeing them in the ground seems so close right now.

The rhubarb was also resurrected, a little blanched but I think it’ll recover in a new home in Spring. The bulk of the retaining walls are finished, with a couple more planks to go on some and a lot of fill needed behind all of them. The raised vege beds have appeared as has the blueberry bed.
The front path feels so much wider already, and the only difference is a nearly finished retaining wall and the plants for the border should arrive in the next week or two.

My only current angst is the awareness that large parts of the garden are still completely unplanned. Every time I look out the front door I realise I have no idea what will be there in six months, I had a ponder about natives a few days ago, but now I’m back to a mixed bed. The planting strip along the bottom of the retaining wall will be hardest of all I expect.

The first concrete was poured today — the retaining posts should be permanent by tomorrow. While this should feel like massive progress the immediate effect has been increased chaos, hardly believable I know :)



There are two contributing factors, firstly last week’s rain — when the concrete went into the holes the water came out, so there are huge grey foamy puddles everywhere. Secondly pumped concrete is apparently hard to control, so there is concrete far and wide. I’ve been assured that tomorrow’s work will scrape back the spare concrete and start putting the clay back behind the walls.

In other news we’ve talked through the quince and rhubarb tragedies and appropriate apologies, reassurances and possible solutions have all happened. I’ll mark the precious plants down the path, K will ask B not to stand on, cut down or pile clay on anything without checking first.

The whole garden smells like cut macrocarpa and progress is visible each day. The guys worked today as it wasn’t raining and they’re hoping to concrete in all the posts on Tuesday. All the retaining posts are in, some of the other posts (for raised beds etc) and the horizontals are starting to go on and be bolted into place.
The replacement of the steps to the bottom level has started, which is a bit of a relief - at the moment the only way to get to the basement is to climb under the deck.



Concreting in the posts (which is a little weather dependent) is a big step as it means the spare clay and crushed concrete can be put behind the walls.

On the down side there’ve been more casualties this week — the rhubarb disappeared under piles of mud from the retaining wall at the front and the quince just vanished one day.

As expected work is keeping me too busy to do much during the week, although the dreadful weather and getting home in the dark every night isn’t helping either. Opening the front door yesterday was a bit nerve-wracking; after half the normal monthly rainfall the post holes were full to the brim.



The collection of plants in the house is slowly building, there are camellias in the hall (six in that box), bulbs in the sewing room and seeds waiting patiently; hopefully some to be planted thisweekend.

One of the unexpected challenges is the free extra plants/seeds/bulbs that get slipped into orders. I’m still trying to work out where ten blue irises will go, not to mention the Camellia transnokoensis.

The retaining walls are slowly taking shape, tho the weather is slowing everything down and the guys are talking about working on Saturday if it’s dry. The amount of mud is just astounding, and it will be interesting talking progress through with K tomorrow

Tags: Camellia

Doesn’t the peony look completely alien? :)



Despite the peony needing to be planted I actually spent the day painting the chook house – my excuse is that the ground is still completely sodden. Believe it or not the post holes are still full of water 24 hours after the rain stuff.

The painting was fun, I started feeling quite competent after a while, which is a good feeling. The trim was a pain because it’s enamel paint - the only way I could match the colour to the house trim. But it’s done – well except for one bit I can’t do until the trim and shutter dry so I can lift them out of the way – and it looks good!



The only down side to the whole thing was that I fell off the deck and into the pineapple sage, so I now have a grazed elbow and bruises on my arse and knee. Oh and the other down side was that I can’t get to the basement which is where the turps lives – well unless I climb under the deck past the bricks and the roof tiles.

So next should be a long bath to get the last of the paint off

Tags: Peonies, Chookery

There is mud everywhere, including a wide variety of clay footprints throughout the house. It turns out that this is a great way to track the cats and their habits, who’d’ve thought they still be muddy by the time they got to the couch in the living room! I blame Seb’s sponge-like feet; Seb blames me and the landscapers and washes a lot.



So it’s started raining, the digger made it out the day before the rain started, but yesterday they worked on the retaining in the rain. When I got home (in the pitch black at 11) there were boards on the front path to decrease the amount of mud tracked around, but other parts of the path were also blocked by the henhouse which has arrived.



Today J and I readjusted the boards and lifted the bits of henhouse up onto the deck as there’s just no way to get to the basement at the moment. I’ve made no progress on painting it because of the rain, but there might be a chance tomorrow afternoon. My current plan is to paint it while it’s still in sections, then assemble it in place.

The digger has gone, and there are holes for retaining posts all over the place. There’s still spare dirt in a big pile, although the new plan of pushing it toward the crib wall seems to have promise.



After much puzzling about access there should be a pile of hen house bits sitting on the deck when I get home tomorrow. I’m kinda nervous about it because there’s nowhere to put it (which means the basement, which is not easy at the moment) and I’ve been told I have to paint it left handed (having done myself some damage scrubbing and painting the fence).

The only other wildly good news is that the kitchen herb garden list is pretty close to finished.

Not such good news: back to work tomorrow, I expect a serious reduction in progress.

I want to use the word “perturbation” to describe today, only without “and despair” or the association with Paradise Lost.



There was much drama today, alongside much progress. The drama has largely been overcome; the (completely wrong) levels under the chookery are nearly fixed, the confused raised beds are back on track, there are plans about where to hide all the spare soil, and the pond looks real!

Actually the pond was probably only a drama in J and my heads, neither of us made it outside to look for it last night until it was properly dark, and it’s unsurprisingly hard to find a waterless pond amongst piles of clay on a cloudy night with only a torch. Lo and behold it was there and perfect once the sun came up. Well not quite perfect, it can only be 30cm deep which is totally inadequate for J.

In other positive pond news I have found a friendly nursery who are gonna work out a planting diagram for me (yay for experts!!). In not so good news it turns out J doesn’t like the shape of waterlily flowers so we have a fall back plan where we have water lilies which are never allowed to flower. We have also reached a positive decision on frogs and a negative one on eels (for so very many reasons).

The fencing drama is hopefully resolved; I counted today and I share boundaries with nine neighbours, so it’s never going to be simple. Not to mention that almost all the boundary structures are retaining walls. The final fence and relaying the entrance path are the last steps before the purple and yellow border can be planted. Oh, and I’ve tracked down the perfect daylilies for the border after a rather endearing conversation where we canvassed the exact nature of “yellow” at length. So there will be three clumps of yellow daylilies (actually one gold; one pale lemon and one bright lemon).

I also have more fence paint, less concrete path, and the henhouse is now at an unknown location in the North Island having made it across the strait

Removing all confusion, a three tonne digger turned up bright and early this morning and made it up the thin driveway, down the bowed concrete retaining wall and across the neighbours’ lawn with no major mishaps. My highlights were:

1. It being driven off the back of the (nice big) truck with no ramps or boards or anything, Paul just used the snork, the bulldozer bit and hydraulics to spider it off very cleverly.
2. The moment he was coming over the bowed concrete retaining wall at a 45° angle and started calling out “she’s slipping” and we all contemplated the fact that a slip of just under 1m would take it through the wall into #5’s toilet.

But she made it :) The next digger challenge was the path by the front door; which has now been cut back pretty severely to make room for the digger and the retaining to hold the (damned) bank up.



So it’s only half past two of the first day and there’s 20cm of clay on the front path (no rain forecast, yet) a huge hole in the back garden, piles of dirt all over the place and one side of the deck has gone. Not to mention we’ve discovered a gas pipe exactly where it shouldn’t be.

I’m glad I’m home, there are lots of little bits and pieces being decided and discussed as we go. We’ve just made some changes to the shape of the path by the front door to stop the water pooling and running under the house, and sorted out a rather confusing gully trap.

No progress on the bathroom ceiling tho :)

Major angst this weekend. The digger’s arriving on Monday; K’s told the front neighbour that it’s a 3 tonne digger having previously told me plus all my neighbours it’s a 1.5 tonne digger. The size of the digger causes all kinds of concerns because the driveway (which doesn’t belong to me) is not very thick. I’m not quite sure what’s going on and I can’t find out til it turns up at 7:30 on Monday. Eep!

All that aside, the section is partly cleared; there are a couple of flaxes still to go, but mostly the shape of the land is reappearing (soon to be changed and retained of course :). The photo is of the path by the front door - it’s so much more light already!!



I spent some of yesterday painting the fence that was previously hidden behind a very awkwardly shaped taupata and pittosporum. I had not realised that the fence was orange and white stripes (I kid you not!) - so much green paint was applied yesterday. Sadly before painting much scrubbing, washing and sanding was also required. So J and I were both a bit stiff, but pleased by the progress.

To celebrate all the progress I’m now working out what’s going in the shady fragrant garden, where the taupata and pittosporum were and the old path still is. I think it’ll be a mostly white and green garden, with camellias, liliies, lily of the valley, and maybe dame’s rocket.

I took the before photos today - amazing to think that it is about to be so totally different. I’m kinda hating this bit; it feels out of control and final. Once the walls and paths go in they’re there forever, or close enough to.



The other part of me just can’t wait - I want to be planting now, I want the plants to be grown now, I want to be able to pick the lemons, walk through the grapes, pick the roses, get scratched by the boysenberries, talk to the chooks.

Good old heavy Wellington clay; it holds water but drowns roots, keeps its shape but slips under pressure.

It’s hard to believe that in only a couple of weeks there’ll be a man with a digger cutting and moving and filling — it seems very final. The only things left to do are to draw the final lines on the hard landscaping diagram; redraw the chook enclosure and tidy up a couple of raised beds.

Then the dirt will be good to go!