It’s been a busy and rewarding year in the garden. The Taranaki Garden Festival was a resounding success, drawing visitors from the local community, across the nation and even overseas.
Hollard Gardens
Adding to the excitement, the Seaside Market graced Hollard Gardens in November, attracting an unprecedented number of visitors on a glorious blue-sky day. Now, we turn our focus to the bustling Christmas holidays and what promises to be a long and hot summer in the garden.
Already, the garden is bursting with early summer cheer. Dahlias, hydrangeas, poppies, roses, primulas and philadelphus are displaying vibrant colours and heady fragrances.
In our efforts to nurture the garden, we’ve been chopping and dropping herbaceous material and ‘spent’ perennials like aquilegia in-situ. This creates a natural mulch, providing essential soil coverage and promoting seed dispersal for natural hybridisation. At Hollard Gardens, we strive to work with nature, utilising our abundance of organic garden material to enrich the soil as a free, natural source of carbon and nitrogen.
With rainwater collection supporting all our watering requirements, deep, selective hand watering stays a priority, especially for newly planted shrubs, trees, and thirsty veggie seedlings. The heavy mulching and organic fertilisers applied during autumn and spring have been vital for locking in soil moisture and supporting robust root development, ensuring the garden thrives through the hotter months.
A key tip I’d like to share for your summer garden is to mulch and protect your soil. This simple practice helps keep moisture and suppress weeds, giving you more time to relax with a cold drink and enjoy your Christmas break.