{"id":3725,"date":"2017-01-08T19:22:07","date_gmt":"2017-01-08T06:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/?p=3725"},"modified":"2019-09-04T21:01:08","modified_gmt":"2019-09-04T09:01:08","slug":"how-did-my-garden-grow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/how-did-my-garden-grow\/","title":{"rendered":"How Did My Garden Grow?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s been a year since I started the\u00a0Mediterranean Garden<\/a>\u00a0and it’s really only\u00a0just starting to\u00a0look garden-like. We’ve all seen\u00a0those renovation shows where people create impressive\u00a0landscapes\u00a0in 24 hours, but real life gardens are not instant. I can’t help thinking that half those expensive super-sized shrubs planted by Jax\u00a0and Sy\u00a0probably die within\u00a0six weeks of the\u00a0show ending — Jax\u00a0and Sy are a\u00a0fictitious couple, but substitute any\u00a0trendily named competitors on The Block<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Okay then, enough sour grapes. My point is that when I first posted about the Mediterranean garden the ‘after’ shot didn’t look wildly more impressive than the ‘before’. Here’s a refresher on that.<\/p>\n

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January 2016. Here’s where we started, in a desert of weed-mat and gravel.<\/p><\/div>\n

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January 2016: After the make-over. I had planted lavender, thyme and rosemary.
Things look tidier, but it’s not exactly a massive transformation.<\/p><\/div>\n

It was a start\u00a0though. One of the things I find most exciting\u00a0about\u00a0gardening is watching a few small (and cheap) plants grow\u00a0to fill out a border. By April, three months after planting,\u00a0the garden still had lots of empty space, but things were moving in the right direction.<\/p>\n

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April 2016: The plants have started to fill out.<\/p><\/div>\n

The good thing about using those small plants was\u00a0that without a whole lot of leaves to support they could put most of their\u00a0energy into root development. Growing roots in situ\u00a0makes for stronger plants in the long run.\u00a0Unfortunately about a week after this\u00a0photo was taken the pool pump repair bloke trampled the lavender plant at lower left and\u00a0it never recovered.<\/p>\n

So\u00a0now, finally we can get to\u00a0the ta-dah\u00a0before and after moment.<\/p>\n

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BEFORE.<\/p><\/div>\n

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AFTER: January 2017. Looking like my vision for the garden. Self sown nasturtiums fill the gap left by the deceased lavender.<\/p><\/div>\n

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January\u00a02017:\u00a0Close up of planting. I do like that combination of lavender, thyme and weathered rock.<\/p><\/div>\n

Thank you for being patient, I hope it was worth the wait.\u00a0Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve just got another 14 acres or so of wilderness to whip into shape!<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been a year since I started the\u00a0Mediterranean Garden\u00a0and it’s really only\u00a0just starting to\u00a0look garden-like. We’ve all seen\u00a0those renovation shows where people create impressive\u00a0landscapes\u00a0in 24 hours, but real life gardens are not instant. I can’t help thinking that half those… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gardening"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3725"}],"version-history":[{"count":48,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6471,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3725\/revisions\/6471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}