People keep asking us why we got a puppy and the short answer is because we have rats. And these aren’t pet rats I’m talking about but vermin.

We were going to get a cat because cats kill rats, but there were two obstacles in our way: a road and a dog. We live beside a busy road and roads kill cats (well actually it’s cars and trucks and buses that kill cats but ‘roads kill cats’ sounds better). Also, we have a dog who hates cats. These were two very good reasons not to get a cat. So we shouldn’t have told our 15 year old son about the cat (really it was a throw away line, ‘maybe we could get a cat.’). As soon as we’d uttered those 6 words he messaged his friends ‘I’m getting a kitten called Moussa!’. Moussa Sissoko, incidentally, is a French midfielder who plays for Tottenham Hotspur. We should’ve said, ‘Sorry son we’ve changed our mind.’ Instead we said, ‘We’re getting a puppy!’

The garden hasn’t been the same since.

Bessie, the black dog, and Moussa, the little dog, playing in the back garden.

Notice the balding grass in the photo above. It’s got a lot worse since the picture was taken 3 weeks ago. The dogs have free reign in the back garden. The garden part of the back garden was designed for a large dog in her middle years, not a puppy and a big dog having a mid-life crisis. There are potholes in the lawn; the meadow garden, which was in the process of being planted, has rock-hard compacted soil and has become a dog toilet; the rose come fruit garden is full of bamboo barricades and mop-bucket planters in an effort to stop the plants from being trampled on (the big dog runs through the bamboo stakes knocking them over and the little dog walks all over the mop buckets).

Bamboo stakes and mop bucket planters in the fruit and rose garden.

Last week I built an ugly temporary fence around the meadow garden using wooden stakes and chicken wire (it’s no longer a dog toilet). Now I need to come up with a robust planting plan that can accomodate wandering dogs, because like I said in the last sentence - the fence is temporary. I need to accept that there’s going to be collateral damage so I need plants that can bounce back - literally and figuratively.

My latest compost experiment using a rubbish bin. It’s a method from 1976 and involves holes drilled in the bottom and lower sides. The bin is then buried in the ground so worms can get in but rats are kept out.

The meadow garden, which is built around the rotary clothesline, was extended before we decided to get a puppy. It forms an ‘L’ shape. Some bits get good sun and some bits are shady. Part of it is under the oak tree and while these parts get great sun right now, once the oak leaves arrive they will be in shade or part-shade. I need shrubs that are too big for large and smaller sized dogs to sit on or lean on. I need perennials that are robust and bendy and won’t break if stood on or sat on. I’m thinking big grasses and shrubby plants like roses (except most roses like sun) interspersed with umbelliferous annuals. In addition to all of those other requirements the plants can’t be the sort that grow too tall or else the clothes and sheets and towels drying on the washing line will get tangled up in them (they’re already get caught up in the fence). Probably, I should’ve left the whole area as grass then I wouldn’t have this problem in the first place (I’d still get potholes).

Dogs can be great companions for gardeners. Take my dog Bessie, she’s great company. She follows me all around the garden. Usually she’d finds a comfortable spot and has a nap while I’m weeding or pruning or planting, occasionally waking to bark at people walking past the fence (after all it’s her job to guard the perimeter). A puppy isn’t a great gardening companion. A puppy is a garden menace.

My friend Ali, who’s a very knowledgeable gardener, and was holidaying with us last week, asked me if I had any plants in the back garden that were poisonous to dogs. I identified these ones:

Bird of Paradise - Strelizia regirae (fruit and seeds)
Lily/Liliaceae family (all parts)
Daffodil - Narcissus (bulbs)
Foxglove -Digitalis purpura (leaves, seeds and flowers)
Hyacinth - Hyacinthus orientalis (bulbs, leaves and flowers)
Rhubarb - Rheum raponticum (leaves)
Tulip - Tulipa (bulbs)
Sweet Peas - Lathyrus latifolius, Lathyrus odoratus (not sure what parts)
Yarrow (a gardener on Instagram posted that this plant was poisonous to dogs)
Black nightshade (a weed)

And these were only the ones I could find after a quick google search. I have lots of native plants growing too and the only one that’s a dog killer (from my limited information) are the berries on the karaka tree (which fortunately I don’t have).

I have a lot of plants to relocate this week.

As you know I’m a big fan of Musk Roses, so when I saw this book (above) for sale I had to have it. What a splendid little book. My only complaint is the font size - the writing is tiny. Maybe back in 1920 people had better eyesight or better glasses. I need a magnifying glass, as well as my glasses, to comfortably read the text.

Here’s an excerpt. ‘When going back to school in September, I used to take with me a pointed flower of Souvenir de la Malmaison, packed in an empty barley-sugar tin; it kept fresh in that tin box for a long time, and daily I would take it out, admire it, and recall happy memories of home of which it reminded me. Brown and battered I brought it home with me at Christmas. The peculiar perfume of a Souvenir de la Malmaison - a kind of beery smell - reminds me to this day of the rose in the barley-sugar box; and although so long ago the standard from which those blooms were gathered is with us still.’

Rev. Pemberton is a lover of old roses. He covers the history of roses, the development of roses (with lots of wonderful lists) and explains how to care for roses. Rev. Pemberton (he could be a character in an Agatha Christie book) only writes about roses he’s grown himself so his advice is reliable and interesting. It’s a real treat to hear Reverend Pemberton’s voice throughout.

I was inspired by Rev. Pemberton and Trevor Nottle (who wrote an excellent book called ‘Growing Old-Fashioned Roses in Australia and New Zealand’) to have a go at growing a few roses from seed. I collected the hips from several musk roses and my climbing rose Étoile de Hollande and put them into labelled jars of water. I’m waiting for the hips to break down so I can pull the seeds out. So far nothing has happened. I’m thinking I’ve done something wrong. Trevor Nottle said that after a couple of days in water the ‘flesh of the fruit will decompose’. The rose hips I collected were hard. I think they were supposed to be soft …oops. Like everything to do with growing things, either something will happen or nothing will happen.

I forgot all about the 3 roses I ordered from Wairere Nursery until I received a text last week telling me they were ready to be dispatched (once I’d paid for them). I bought: Rosa rugosa ‘Hansa’, Rosa moyesii ‘Geranium’ and a Pemberton Hybrid Musk called Pax.

Rosa moyesii ‘Geranium’ is the plant with the label still hanging off it. I probably planted it too close to the fence, but what choice do I have when I have to cram so many plants together.

I planted Rosa moyesii ‘Geranium’ in the flower garden outside the kitchen and dining room. I’m in denial about its size. It’s going to end up being an enormous shrub. It’s the same story with most of the plants in my garden. In 5 years time I’m going to have to have an almighty edit, especially as I’m not a fan of hard pruning. The Rosa rugosa ‘Hansa’ has been planted between the crabapple tree and the low boundary fence in the front garden. I’m hoping it will provide some wind protection for the crabapple, which is now in the eye of the northerly since the rangiora bush was blown over last week.

Rosa rugos ‘Hansa’ right in the middle of this photo. The crabapple is the tall thin trunk on the left.

The same part of the front garden during an autumn storm this year. Since the photo was taken, I’ve dug up the flax and lost the rangiora (brown shrub far right) in a storm last week. The crabapple has leaves.

Rosa rugosa ‘Hansa’, Bolton Street Cemetery. This is what my rose will look like one day.

Rosa rugosa ‘Hansa’, Bolton Street Cemetery.

I still haven’t worked out where to plant Pax.

St Francis Hospice in the UK has the biggest collection of Pemberton roses in the world (don’t quote me on that). They still have a few gaps in the collection. People are asked to send in photographs of roses they think may be Hybrid Musks, in the hope that the gardeners at the hospice can track down the missing ones. Check out their webpage if you're interested - pembertonroses.org.uk - there are photos and good information about each of their Pemberton roses. Here’s what they say about Pax.

Pax

Hybrid Musk introduced 1918
2009-6314

Trier (Hybrid Musk, Lambert, 1904) x Sunburst (hybrid tea, Pernet-Ducher, 1911).

Pax (1918) was created to commemorate the end of the World War 1.

"Commemorate peace by planting a bed of Pax" was Pemberton’s message to his customers in 1918.

" A new Hybrid Musk of the first order, very strongly perfumed - real musk - foliage dark green, the young shoots claret colour. The blooms are semi-single, three or four inches in diameter. Produced in corymbs, and carried on long stems, sometimes as many as thirty being on the one stem the colour pure white, tinted lemon in the bud, with prominent golden anthers. Continuous flowering, blooming more freely in the late Autumn than mid-summer. It is a pity it is not a vigorous climber, but as a big bush it will be most effective." (NRS 18).

"Rather distinct carnation perfume, like R. Moschata." (NRS 21).

National Rose Society Gold Medal 1918.

I’d really like to plant Pax in the meadow garden. It has thick thorny stems which the dogs wouldn’t mess with and it can cope with part-sun. But, these same stems might snag and rip sheets and shirts hanging on the line - then again they might not.

In August I have 15 roses arriving from Tasman Bay Roses. I ordered as many Hybrid Musks as they had. It seems that due to a lack of demand for these roses some are getting dropped from production. I’m not sure where I’m going to put them all. Some of the roses I’ve ordered are climbers and serious ramblers.

I want to start growing roses up and into my big trees. Not all rambling roses are suitable. Roses that climb and scramble up trunks and along branches need to handle some shade and they have to be able to grow very very tall. I couldn’t make my mind up which rambling rose would look best with my oak tree so I ordered 3: Rambling Rector, pre-1912 (which I ordered thinking it was another name for Pemberton’s White Rambler, which it’s not, but who could resist a rose with a name like Rambling Rector), Paul’s Himalayan Musk, 1916, and Wedding Day, 1982. I have a couple of weeks to make up my mind. Luckily my dogs have already started on the hole.

Moussa working on a hole, that Bessie started, by the oak tree.

The Rosa X Dupontii climbing rose is growing well behind the sycamore tree. It will lose the early morning sun once the tree gets its leaves in spring.

All the seedlings I planted in pots in late autumn are growing very slowly. I don’t know why I expected them to do anything different - it’s winter! My sweet peas, on the other hand, are growing quickly. That’s because they’re growing in a mini-greenhouse. I have 3 mini-greenhouses now.

Growing seedlings in winter without a proper green house or a cold frame is very labour intensive. When it’s sunny I move all the seedlings from my front porch out into the sun and take the lids off my plastic boxes. At night time and when there’s heavy rain I move the seedlings back onto the porch and replace the lids on the boxes. Sometimes I forget to do this or only remember to do this in the middle of the night.

Some of my spring bulbs are are getting ready to flower. Here are some pictures.

Paper whites and bluebells coming up under the crabapple tree.

I want to apologise on the lateness of this blog. There are two reasons for this (excuses excuses). Yet again I’m having technical difficulties. Ones that seem insurmountable for a tech-idiot like myself to solve.

Firstly, my MacBook Air is refusing to accept any more photographs. What’s worse is that I can’t access my photos on iCloud. My work-around at the moment is use my husband’s iPad to upload photos. By the time you read my next blog I should have saved up enough money for my own iPad. The other reason for the lateness is that I’m about to embark on writing a novel (I know, I’ve said this before)…it seems that finally, after hundreds of dead-end stories, I’ve come up with a novel that’s worth committing serious time to. And to make sure it’s going to happen I’ve joined a local critique group with very serious writers.

So the blog is changing. It will be weekly and shorter. It will have a shift in focus too. I’ll be telling you more about my own garden. Consider it a weekly visual diary of the trials and tribulations of a suburban gardener. See you next weekend.

Bulbs sprouting in my front garden: paper whites, gladiolus and Crocosmia ‘Lady Hamilton’