Topsy Turvy Gardens

Our northwesterly winds kicked in again a few days ago causing much havoc and a headache from the howling that kept me up most of the long night. As windows and doors rattled and crashing noises could be heard on our corrugated iron roof, I found it rather impossible to stay asleep. It was very strong and equally scary. It had followed the torrential rains that caused extreme flooding in the north island with the Auckland region being the hardest hit.

Although those rains actually avoided our country village the leftovers from the winds did us in. As branches fell onto power lines our communications were limited to John ringing the power company on his cellphone on the following morning and luckily our lights and everything else went back on after 12 hours of being in the dark.

We could now watch tv, boil water that came from the now working pump into our faucet and of course I could reconnect with my beloved Mac, my essential link to the world.

Once I got dressed and went outside to check the damage that John downplayed as, ‘nothing much, nothing major’, I felt heartsick. It looked like God had thrown out all manner of rubbish onto our previously pristine lawns and even the wild places looked completely disheveled, more unkempt than usual. The large and very dangerously thorny wild rose that planted itself just outside our French doors in the front was leaning precariously onto the brick pathway. So, I asked John to please fix it. While I was inside thinking he’d thin it out a bit after I cut off the ends of the long branches that were blocking the pathway, he went to work. That gigantic bush covered the left quadrant of the wee patio, until it didn’t. I will not put a photo here of that image of the now one-sided rose monstrosity that I see. Instead of just thinning it, he hacked it and gave it the pruning of its life. I can’t say it didn’t need it but he could have been a whole lot more moderate in his cutting off. When I asked about this result, he remarked that I could find the missing strands and put them back.

They were lying all over the yard behind and to the side of the rose along with bits of twigs, flower petals and long branches that had fallen and been swept over the surface of the ground.

Pruning has always been a sore point between us. Until I met John I never pruned much. I had to work to support my children and I had a gardener for my garden that got little attention from me. By the time we moved to New Zealand after marrying this Kiwi bloke who does things so differently from anyone I ever knew, I actually had a few gardening skills of my own that I gleaned from watching him. Then of course living in a giant garden country on huge properties like our orchard and vineyard and even at our historic home with its half an acre crammed with plantings, some that were very established, I garnered even more knowledge through trial and error. By the time we arrived here at the House of Cluck-Cluck around 2010, I knew a lot more than anybody back home about a lot of things that I too was completely ignorant about for the first half of my life.

So when I hear the warbling of the magpies in the tall trees while I’m gardening, I know that I too am now part of God’s plan and in perfect harmony with the rhythm of our amazing earth. It took me long enough to catch up to what’s important and what isn’t. And I guess that my husband’s crime to cut off too much on one side of the rose can be overlooked. But I will only choose appropriate BEFORE photos to post here.