Hello world!
So to begin…..
We have bought a piece of paradise here in Levin, New Zealand. It’s two and a half acres of fantastic sandy loam, perfect to make a garden. It is currently in grass, rather lush and long because it is a hassle to get it mowed – expensive and has been hard to find someone with a mower who has time to do the job. The boundaries have been planted up in mostly native small trees, shrubs, cabbage trees and lots of flax. Some exotic trees have been planted on the south border and down the drive. Most of the plantings are 8 years old so are getting to a useful height, we are having to do quite a bit of pruning as the plants have been planted very close, which is a joy to do! The land is partly flat and partly undulating, mainly north facing. The north and west boundaries have DOC reserve bordering on them, these are gullies that go down to lake Papaitonga (no view of the lake). They have swamp and small creeks (we can hear them running) and raupo beds in the bottom with regenerating bush and scrub up the steep sides. Basically it is borrowed landscape that cannot be built out. The property is a part of a rural subdivision on the east side of lake Papaitonga, all being an acre or more in size. So we have neighbours and can see them but they are not close.
The climate here is moderate, very occasional frost in winter to averaging 26 Celsius in the summer. There is a more or less constant nor west breeze off the sea, which is about 5 kms away to the west. The Tararua mountain range about 5 kms to the east, snow covered peaks in the winter. Good rain fall and we also have town supply water, Levin township is about 5 kms north of us.
Now we build a house and make a garden!