I guess I am a container gardener?

Maramataka

Oike

This moon wants you to rest, tend to yourself, your whānau, your māra and Papatūānuku. Energy is starting to lull after the high energy of Te Rākaunui (the full moon). Take time to plan wānanga, hui, catch ups and try out something new today. Although be gentle on yourself as exhaustion could pop in at any moment. Great to be tending to your garden, however, you don't want to plant anything today.

Me mahira! - Be curious

Final Module for Plant ID Course

Plant Selection: Research for Assessment 3

I have two scenarios to research for this assessment that opens at the end of the week.

First scenario is a dry cafe courtyard that is looking for low maintenance multi functional plants.

Second scenario is a windy coastal urban marae that is looking to start a māra kai and have native plants that will have traditional benefits such as rongoa and raranga abilities, their first step is to create shelter for these plans from the salt laden, windy coastal conditions - very excited about the research for this scenario as this is a vision I have for wherever we live, begin a native multi functional māra.


We are given a list of 10 plants for each scenario and we have to decide which 5 are best suited.


Drought Tolerant Planting

Features of dry loving plants:

• Silver or grey leaves have hairs which reflect heat and sunlight, keeping the leaf cooler
• Small leaves reduce the surface area through which moisture can be lost
• Waxy leaves, like those on the olive pictured below, are coated with a thick waterproof layer to slow down moisture loss
• Deep taproots search for water deeper in the soil
• Succulent leaves conserve moisture.

Dry loving species need:

• Good drainage: few drought-tolerant plants will put up with a waterlogged soil in winter. As a general rule, it is cold combined with wet that kills these plants, not cold alone
• Low nutrient levels: overfertilizing encourages fast growth of soft, sappy foliage, which wilts in hot weather.

Coastal Planting

Coastal sites have strong salt-laden winds which deposit salt crystals on the leaves. The salt then sucks moisture out of leaves, so coastal plants need to be able to cope with high levels of transpiration. 

Successful coastal plants minimise transpiration in several ways, such as by having:

• thick succulent leaves which conserve moisture
• tough leathery leaves to withstand salty winds
• hairs on leaves reduce water loss through evaporation by retaining a humid environment on the leaf surface. Hairy leaved plants may be silvery due to the dense cover of hairs
• shiny leaves which reflect sun to help reduce transpiration
• a growth form which may reduce wind exposure to leaves and flowers.

Coastal planting is similar to drought tolerant planting.

Update on W's Plants

We took full advantage of the high energy weekend and finally got round to sorting out the pallet we picked up a month or so ago.
W added a little bit of colour the other week with an outside painting session. 
On Saturday I attached weed matting and hammered them in with nail staples and filled the six sections with soil and a locally sourced organic compost.
The bottom sections W sprinkled wild flower seeds in and the remaining four are reserved for the herbs growing in W's little garden collection.

A sunflower is taking off and we have a couple of others getting ready, in this container there were also rouge wildflowers sprinkled in by a garden helper a few weeks ago...

Rosemary and Sage with some more wildflower additions from my garden pixie...

Our sheltered swan plants getting hardy and strong before we welcome an egg or two from the monarchs. These weren't the ones we have grown from seed - they still have some growing to do. These were picked up from Mitre 10 and seem to be loving their days on the container garden deck.

Alert level 3 Primroses - with even more wildflower additions from the pixie...
We picked these up when we Aotearoa was slowly moving down alert levels, the bees and butterflies love these beauties

Solomon's Seals from my Nana's collection, absolutely loving their space.
We planted these about a week ago unsure if any additional wildflowers will surprise us in this container...

W's New World Little Garden collection.
We have carrots, watercress and spinach growing everyday. Waiting on borage and kale to sprout. We planted W's basil and red cabbage last weekend.
The sunflower is from the propagation kit we picked up from The Warehouse.
These little gardens will be going to the pallet garden when ready to re-pot; the carrot will be going into the ground though