I've just had a brilliantly restorative break in Tauranga, seeing my birth mother and going to the garden festival with my friend Julie, who organised everything and drove me and some of her other friends around all weekend. She did the whole four days, I just did two and a half, but it was glorious. I'm only a very spasmodic and inept gardener - unlike Harvey and Julie, I don't have the true gardening gene. I'm one of those people Kipling was being scornful about when he wrote, in
The Glory of the Garden:
Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made
By singing:--"Oh, how beautiful!" and sitting in the shade.
But I am certainly very good at appreciating other people's efforts, and the Bay of Plenty gardens are as beautiful as they come. Here are a few photos.
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Lovely! Foxgloves, and a penstemon, maybe (the picture is a bit too small for me to see clearly), then soft mauvey blue flag irises and I think the rose behind them is Mutabilis, and then a cottagey garden by a verandah, with climbing Icebergs and some over soft roses. It is all so green and soft and lush and very beautiful.
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