The ghost road at the back of Mount Crawford Prison where the prison staff used to live, February 2018.
I was invited on an excursion this week by a friend. He was leading a walk with people from his tramping club. I arrived at the meeting point by bus, forty minutes before anyone else. I was completely alone in the mist, on a hilltop beside a derelict prison, in the middle of nowhere.
Nearby, just off the road and in the shadows was a blue van. It gave me the creeps. I started remembering those abduction movies that always involved black polythene bags and duct tape. There was probably an innocent explanation. Someone else had decided to go for a walk in the mist. Maybe it was a farmer visiting a nearby paddock...only there weren't any animals that I could see.
Mount Crawford Prison closed over 10 years ago. It sits on the Miramar Peninsula surrounded by bush and farmland. Directly south of the prison is Centennial Reserve, the only forest remnant on the peninsula. North-east, through the bush and down a steep hill was Shelly Bay and the Chocolate Fish Cafe, where I've eaten many a potato cake and haloumi cheese sandwich.
The front gates of Mount Crawford Prison, where the bus dropped me off, February 2018.
I passed the time walking up and down a section of the road, admiring the mist, photographing the mist and imagining what the harbour views would look like on a good day.
Centennial Reserve shrouded in mist, February 2018.
Finally, my friend and the other walkers arrived by bus. There were introductions, a safety briefing, a quick discussion about the controversial Shelly Bay proposal (the council and a developer want to turn Shelly Bay into the Sausalito of Wellington) and then we were off. We followed the prison fence-line south and turned into a ghost street. There was a lamppost and an asphalt road, but no houses. They'd been carted away on the backs of trucks when the prison closed.
We wended our way through regenerating native forest in Centennial Reserve, then along steep suburban streets. We took an unscheduled detour up ridiculously steep windy steps, through the bush, to the ex-holiday house of Burton Silver, a famous cartoonist.
The garden and view from a famous cartoonist's recently sold bach, February 2018.
After that I walked down my first ever 'paper road' called Nakora Road. A paper road is a road on a map that may or may not physically exist in real life - as a road that is. There are a number of paper roads in Wellington. In the case of Nakora Road it is a public accessway that the public are ignorant of (well most of them at any rate). My friend and a group of others are lobbying Wellington City Council to have proper signs erected at the beginning and end of Nakora Road.
Nakora Road runs along a shared driveway, under a carport, across a lawn (a shrewd neighbour had taken over the public land and extended their garden) down a series of old council steps, along a narrow path, over a fallen tree, down some more council steps and onto a street that led to the sea. Nakora Road has the potential to be a really good short-cut. In a hilly city like Wellington short-cuts are very welcome.
We stopped at a little bay, that no one knew the name of, and ate morning tea. The sea was like a mirror. It was so still that thin lines of clouds hung just below the tops of the Orongorongos. We could hear the thump thump thump of the ferry's diesel engine as it cruised past.
Nakora Road, February 2018.
I'd brought a small carton of kiwi berries to eat as a special treat, but they paled in comparison to my friend's greengage, which he held up for me to admire. He only had one and apologised that he hadn't any others to share. The greengage (as the name suggested) was green. It was plum shaped and a lot smaller then your average Black Doris or Damson. Personally I'd never tasted one. My friend said their taste was like a plum only better, sweeter, and altogether more special.
I'd heard of greengages and knew they were a kind of plum but that was all I knew. My friend and another walker lamented at the difficulty in finding proper greengages in Wellington shops. Lucky for my friend his local superette in Northland had a special greengage source. The greengages didn't last long on the shelves. Northlanders know their greengages from their plums. I asked some of the walking group if greengages grew in Wellington and no one seemed to know, certainly no one had seen a tree anywhere.
Our walk continued along the coast, past a famous film directors house, or should I say houses, up a series of zigzag tracks, some camouflaged as suburban driveways and paths across peoples land. We stopped for lunch on the hilltop where Whetu Kairangi Pa once stood, the pa would've had 360 degree views way back when the hill tops were bare. My friend informed the group that a natural spring lay downhill from the pa. While eating lunch people speculated on how pre-European Maori would've transported the spring water from the bottom of the hill to the top. 'Gourds,' someone suggested. 'Did gourds grow as far south as Wellington?' someone else asked. 'No,' was the reply. 'They must've used sealskins made into vessels,' someone else suggested. Who knows.
There wasn't anything left of the pa to suggest it had been a pa, no earthworks, and no sign. The view was sublime.
View of Seatoun from Whetu Kairangi Pa site, February 2018.
Then we were off again. There was more zigging and zagging down and up a hill, where we passed a church and ex convent (bought and thus saved from demolition by the famous film director). We went down a steep street and entered the lovely tree-lined town centre of Seatoun.
Days have passed and I can't stop thinking about greengages. There's something delightfully austere about the name. It'd be like calling a banana a yellowhammer or a carrot an orangefunnel. If only I'd been able to taste one. I would've fallen in love immediately, I just know it. Yesterday I looked at pictures of greengages on the internet and they looked like swollen green beads. Green is one of my favourite colours.
I fantasised about greengages so much that I decided I had to have one. It was a bit like my desire for a crabapple tree and I'm sure that was all bound up in childhood nostalgia (crabapple jelly was what nana's made). Greengages have an oldee-worldee sort of mystique. I ordered a greengage, online, from Wairere Nursery in Gordonton in the Waikato (a very beautiful part of the world in a Tolkein/Vaughan Williams pastoral sort of way with hedgerows, green fields and ancient oak trees.)
I chose a greengage variety called Reine Claude De Bavay, which is a heritage plum from Belgium (though it's widely grown in France). 'The attractive green fruit (and I quote straight from the nursery blurb) is full of flavour and highly aromatic. Heavy and reliable crops. Culinary plum par excellence. Self fertile. Plant in a sunny spot. Delightful and deciduous.' The bad news is that I have to wait until July for the tree to arrive. I don't know if that's because they have to fly it in from France or Belgium, or they have to grow it.
I dug a bit deeper on the internet and found some more useful information about greengages. For starters they're a group of cultivars of the common plum and originated in France. Greengages prefer warm dry summers and cool winters. They don't mind frost unless it's in spring. They are happy with dry or wet conditions and even semi-shade. Greengages aren't fussy about soil type and are happy enough with clay (just as well as that's all I've got). They are more disease resistant than any of the other stonefruit and my variety, Claude De Bavay, is self-fertile. Greengages are shallow rooted and like to be mulched. It's best to train the tree into a vase shape and prune it like a peach. Birds love greengages.
Incidentally greengages get their name from Sir William Gage who imported the plants from France in 1724. In France greengages are called Reine Claude (meaning Queen Claude 1743-1826).
And all this talk of greengages and delightfully delicious fruit brings me to the disappointing topic of my plum tree, which I've decided to cut down. I know I've said this before and still the ugly tree is standing, but this time I mean it. My tree doesn't fruit but that's not the tree's fault. It's not self-fertile and I never got around to buying its sister tree. The plum leaves are riddled with holes and have a shabby wind-blown appearance. It wasn't until I visited my friend in Mount Cook and saw her half-dozen plum trees that I realised that it wasn't just my plum that was disappointing, hers were equally disheveled. Obviously Wellington's climate doesn't suit plums. I sure hope it suits greengages.
Crabapples on my tree, Malus 'Jack Humm' February 2018.
My crabapple tree that I planted in spring is doing brilliantly. I managed to find the perfect spot. It has great sun but is protected from the worst of the wind thanks to a flax bush, a Pseudopanax and a Brachyglottis. I planted the crabapple into a newly made garden, into which I transplanted foxgloves, comfrey, coriander, parsley and any other plant that had a meadowish look about it from other parts of my garden. At the same time I sprinkled a packet of Kings Seeds - 'Wild Flower Beneficial Insect Blend '- on the bare soil and threw some compost on top. The flowers grew quickly and there was an impressive variety. The bees loved them. That must be why there are so many crabapples.
The fruit are beautiful. Just look at them with their blush of rose on fresh green skins. I can't wait to turn them into crabapple jelly.
My crabapple tree, Malus 'Jack Humm', in its instant meadow garden.
Apple 'Monty's Surprise', February 2018.
Another of my fruit tree successes is this little apple tree called 'Monty's Surprise', which I bought about 5 years ago. It has enormous fruit that are high in anti-oxidants. They originate from a very old apple tree in the Manawatu and are disease hardy. What this means is that I don't have to do anything apart from water the tree when there's a drought. The apples are tart and have the sort of taste that tells you they're good for you...I'm going to use them as cooking apples.
Growing Monty's Surprise makes me feel like I'm an ace gardener. It has pretty blossoms in spring that have a delicate scent. The leaves and indeed the whole plant looks so robust.
My two apple trees (Monty and Jack) have taught me an important lesson. There's no room in a suburban garden for an ugly and unproductive fruit tree.
Remember that red flower from my last blog? The one growing in the Wellington Botanic Garden that looked like this...
Haemantus coccineus
Well I have a name for it and full credit must go to my friend Ali Potter who tracked it down on the internet. It's called Haemanthus coccineus and it's a bulb from Southern Africa. It's also known as blood flower and paintbrush lily. for obvious reasons. Haemanthus coccineus belongs to the Amaryllidaceae family along with famous flowers such as daffodils, snowdrops and belladonna lilies.
And because reading about gardening is just as fun as doing it here is another great book to look out for. Alys Fowler is a well known gardener and garden expert in the UK.
Alys Fowler's book is inspiring. I keep going back to it to remind myself that gardening is all about being creative and curious and about growing things. Great gardens don't have to have great budgets. Alys has created her own backyard garden, a wild Garden of Eden, out of next to nothing. Alys is resourceful, passionate and very down-to-earth. I credit her with my desire to grow plants from seeds and cuttings where I can.
6 different flowers that I'm growing from seed in my greenhouse, a.k.a the front porch, February 2018.
Some penstemon and lavender cuttings as well as 4 honeywort seedings I weeded out of the flower garden, February 2018.