Whangaroa Harbour, North Island, New Zealand
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Spring photo album of the Whangaroa Harbour Lodge Garden
Click on any photo below to enlarge
New Zealand Lavendar in Spring
Planted throughout the garden zone to attract honey bees in spring through to Autumn, Lavendar also assists with keeping Mosquito's and other nasty bugs away from the area and you.! When picked, the flowers can have a calming influence when placed under your pillow and can assist with a restful nights sleep.
The scent of Lavendar is so heavenly that when Reel Awesome embarks upon a charter, we pick a selection of flowers and fresh leaves and place them throughout the boat to act as a home grown pot-poury of natures best scents.
Peach Pixee, a dwarf Fruiting Peach tree
The Peach Pixee puts on a display of the most densly blossomed fruit tree of any kind in the world. So dense is the blossom display that some blossoms are unable to even fully open due to lack of room. Further more, the degree of pollination success is so stunning that we have to thin the budding fruit by almost 75% to ensure there is enough room for the peach fruit to develop.
These peach trees are resistant to most diseases and bugs except leaf curl but we still prefer not to spray with Copper with a preference to being more organic than not. The peach trees do not suffer adversly due to a "no spray" program.
Rose in full sun
Believe it or not, this Rose bush was selected relatively at random from a local garden centre as a bare-rooted thorny twig wrapped in damp newspaper and sealed in a plastic clear plastic bag. It has been in the ground 1 year now and such is the mild winter that we have at Whangaroa that the rose bush has not gone dormant but continued to blossom throughout winter.
I have never been a fan of roses but this specimen has triggered a desire in me to plant more like this one. The fact that it hasnt dropped it leaves and continued to flower throughout winter had given me a new respect for these flowers of beauty.
Blue Dawn® Blueberry in flower
Perched on the leading edge of a retained bank in the Whangaroa Harbour Lodge garden exists a row of Blueberry bushes planted 1 year ago. Blue Magic® and Blue Dawn® are inter-mixed for better pollination with the smaller Blue magic proving to be more blossom laden that the larger Blue Dawn® plants.
The Blue Berry plants have been planted into a thick layer of pure Peat Moss with pine cone needles spread as mulch over the top to add to acidity as the pine needles mulch down. Fine bark, partlly composted has then been laid over the top to discourage weeds. We have found that the close proximity to the waters edge in combination with a very mild winter climate has meant that not only do the Blue berry bushes tend not to drop any leaves in winter, but also they can continue to produce flower pubs on and off over the warmer parts of winter. We pick all flower buds during this time to discourage fruiting till spring. This will be our first season where we will let the Blue berry bushes retain their flower buds to go to fruit, just in time for Christmas, yippee.!
A surprise to us was the fact that Bumble bees absolutely love the Blue Berry flower buds and can be seen pollinating the flower buds from dawn till dusk whereas the normal honey bees tend to prefer the peach tree blossoms. The Blue Berry flower buds seem to be having almost a 100% success on pollination so we will be stripping a good percentage of the pollinated flower buds to allow the remaining blue berry fruit to reach full size.
The Blue Berry bushes have proven to be extremely wind hardy and no damage was sustained over winter even in the worst Northerly gut0busters we get here. With the property facing due north, we have to be careful what we plant and how we stake to protect our more fragile plants from the winter storms.
Peach Rose Chiffon, a Dwarf Peach Tree
We have planted 4 Rose Chiffon Dwarf Peach trees just behind the Blue Berry bushes mainly for the awesome display of Rose Red blossom in spring. The blossoms are packed almost as densely as the Peach Pixee and successfull pollination of the blossoms is such the we need to thin the fruiting buds down by 75% to allow enough room for the peaches to grow.
As well as the Peach Pixee, the Rose Chiffon seems to be little affected by pests and diseases except leaf curl, to our delight. Having had these peach trees for the second year now, we will allow a small number of fruit to grow to harvest. This year our fruiting trees will benefit from the addition of a new 15000 litre water tank, dedicated to the garden zone with it's own irrigation. With the benefit of a proper water plan this coming summer, by the end of the summer season, we should see significant growth on these dwarf Peach trees such that the following spring, the blossom display will truly be a sight to behold.