It’s been a darn good summer and tested us as gardeners. Extremely sunny across New Zealand. The combination of northwest winds and the ‘blocking high’ resulted in record January sunshine across the eastern South Island. Temperatures were above average. Of the six main centres in January 2013, Auckland was the warmest, Dunedin the coolest, Wellington … Read More
Many of our members are establishing new gardens on old sites post-earthquake. This might pose some problems so look out for: Interference from surroundings such as established big trees over the fence that might take all the nutrients and moisture from the soil. You will need to compensate for this at least until your new … Read More
With Michael Coulter How’s your Spring? It has been a traditional hot/cold start to spring. It was predicted. It was relatively stormy October, with more frequent southwest winds and lower pressures than usual affecting New Zealand. These south-westerly winds produced a rather cool October for the south and the west of the South Island. Of … Read More
August – All About Gardening With Michael Coulter Michael opened with last night’s brilliant display of lightning and roaring thunder, followed by ‘golf-ball sized’ hailstones. ‘’I lost about 100 panes in my glasshouse’’ he said. Hailstones in some suburbs measured about 3cm in diameter. Metservice weather forecaster, Allister Gorman, said hailstones larger than 20 millimetres … Read More
August – All About Gardening With Michael Coulter It was good to see a book on New Zealand’s Native Trees was crowned New Zealand Post Book of the Year at a recent gala dinner in Auckland. Seven years work, more than 100,000 four-wheel drive kilometres and countless hours walking in dense forest paid off for … Read More