Background to our Garden

We garden on 1200 sq metres in the South Island of New Zealand, where the climate could be likened to Mediterranean countries with warm, dry summers and cold winters. Not cold enough though to have snow lie in any great amount, but frosts of down to minus 5 degrees.

We are very lucky as we can grow many things like roses, clematis, hostas, rhododendrons, camellias, asiatic and oriental lilies, and many bulbs like daffodils, tulips, ranunculus, anenomes, crocus, hyacinth.

We garden very intensively, hence the name of the blog, "The survival of the Fittest Plants."

Because I like plants I try to fit in as many as I can, it discourages the weeds as well!

My husband has a very productive vegetable garden, and a glass house in which we grow tomatoes in the summer, and a few lettuces in the winter.

At the moment it is getting into later summer, with the roses having their second flowering for the season, and the oriental lilies flowering. Hydrangeas very colourful at this time of the year as well.

Have just begun reading gardening blogs and getting a lot of enjoyment from them, and as there seem to be few from New Zealnd thought I would start one, and try to keep a diary of the seasons.