August 2014 in the Southern Hemisphere

[Maggi Young]

Bought this Cymbidium with two flowering spikes last year and plonked it into the back border. Five flowering spikes now. 

When you've got things like this in your garden you should be calm no matter what others call it, be that "yard" or whatever!

[Anthony Darby]

40 years ago gardening was the number one hobby in New Zealand. It's now down about 24th. I look at new houses here and most of them only have "yards" - just patches of concrete with the BBQ and a patio set. Huge houses on tiny plots of land with no greenery to speak of. 

[Robert]

Sadly the same is true here in California and maybe the rest of the USA - huge houses with tiny yards, and not much in the way of plants. 

[jandals]

40 years ago gardening was the number one hobby in New Zealand. It's now down about 24th.

I was at the Balclutha Garden Club's 70th anniversary dinner a few weeks ago . At the meeting the secretary read the president's report from the 25th anniversary dinner held in August 1964 . Membership then was 150 . Now it is 38 . In 1964 99% of the members were male . In 2014 males make up 1/38th of the membership (me)

In 1964 it was all about vegetables and men were judged on the size of their vegies . Now it's all about flowers and I have to lead a double life as I fear the Golf Club lads will find out I'm in the Garden Club . In 1964 they were probably in both .

Those big houses and their tiny yards are missing their vegie gardens as well as the flower beds . Instead of big vegies men are now judged on their big toys parked in the yard

[Jupiter]

This is a really interesting topic and I grapple with the same all the time. I am constantly looking out for people who share my passion for plants but they are thin on the ground. Of the men I know who are interested in gardening most are involved in a competition to see who can grow the hottest chilli!

When you look back to the origins of the "hobby", the Victorian era when European plant collectors were scouring the globe for rare and exotic plants it was definitely a gentleman's pursuit. I often think I was born in the wrong century!

[Lesley Cox]

40 years ago gardening was the number one hobby in New Zealand. It's now down about 24th. I look at new houses here and most of them only have "yards" - just patches of concrete with the BBQ and a patio set. Huge houses on tiny plots of land with no greenery to speak of. 

Interestingly enough, one of the major hobbies or national pastimes is now - looking at houses. When we were thinking of selling and then when we were looking for a new place, many, many of those who attended "open homes" were just there to have a nosey at other people's homes, no intention of buying.

The trend towards tiny "yards" is partly a matter of greed, with councils allowing people to subdivide almost to extinction. Yet the houses they build for themselves are huge. There are many down this way, houses with 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and God knows what else, and two elderly people living in them. The land is maybe 300 sq metres and the house takes up 80% of that. Madness. Why not just live in a supersize sardine tin?

[Anthony Darby]

Why not just live in a supersize sardine tin?

Here in Auckland many do.

[Hillview croconut]

This is a familiar theme and probably has many threads but the main one is the rise of hyperconsumerism. Hence the McMansions and the rise in "window shopping" garden visits, instant gratification, the infiltration of time-wasting entertainment gadgets, now we have a million and one ways in which we open ourselves up to the ad man, the loss of "own time" and the rise in the manipulated need for "connectedness" (oh look at me, look at me!), a shift in values (I am what I buy), the handing over of the self to market forces, etc.

The other big force for bad is the rise of the managerial class and their propensity to fit everyone neatly into the categories of "the watched" and the "watchers". The result? Bells and whistles, gold-plated regulation dreamt up by rule-bound, risk-averse, "one size fits all" bureaucrats who have become the client as well as the service provider.

Add to this the 21st century gold rush to grab every last living thing on the plant and put it into ownership. You only have to see the shemozzle that's going on right under our noses in Europe to get the picture. These last two forces work neatly together, hand in glove, to ensure a limited, highly controlled market place that stifles real curiosity and interest.

These three forces are the real enemies of gardening, membership and community participation.

If you haven't got a business tax file number you don't have a right. If you don't tow the line you don't have a hope.

M 

[Hillview croconut]

And while I am on my apple case I will add:

Things are not aided by the print and television media in Australia. Their content is as boring as bat's crap because those running the show are lazy and in the pocket's of the big plant importing and distributor companies. Most of the people on the front line are usually inner city, late sippers who don't own a garden and whose idea of communing with nature would be sipping an organic, multivitamin smoothie whilst watching a David Attenborough re-run late on a Saturday night.

M

[Lesley Cox]

Having a bad day Marcus?

[Hillview croconut]

Just positing an opinion M

[Jupiter]

Marcus you hit the nail on the head. Your comment of "look at me, look at me" is bang on. Ego out of control. I have a neighbour who has an urban mansion, above and overlooking our place, fittingly. they've got the big house, the big FWDs (plural). The first thing I did when we moved in here is plant a hedge right along the front of the property to screen off the neighbours and the street traffic. I let weeds grow on the front verge and don't bother to go up there much, so our garden is inside out compared with all the others on the street, which are obviously designed to look nice from the street but get more ramshackle as you go back.

[Anthony Darby]

We were promised the benefits of consumerism and the "trickle down" effect, but what we have got is zombie economics and the "trickle up" effect.

I was going to make myself some fish box troughs, but now realise you need three arms to accomplish this task. 

[arillady]

Sounds like the moon must be in a certain sector down here down under.I have just composed a letter to be sent off tomorrow to a Council re an old property which is now in the hands of a developer. So much early South Australian history will be bulldozed out of existence for those mcmansions. possibly 4 on the block that had one house before. A thatch roof too from early on and an extinct everywhere else rose.

[Jupiter]

Spent the day crevice packing (every time I say that my wife giggles for some reason...  ) and my hands a sore! Took the skin off all my knuckles. I know, I should wear gloves. I hate wearing gloves.

A few from today;

Galanthus 'Straffan'




Origanum syriacum, my favourite oregano.




A common Hellebore