Gillian Thrum, Author at The Green Door

Apr 272017 0 Responses

The NZ connection – Gardens of Monserrate

Whilst in the magical town of Sintra we visited three Palace gardens – all had quite different styles. I’ve chosen to write about Monserrate as it had some wonderful plant collections as well as having a very beautiful palace.

Lots of information can be found on the internet regarding the palace and its various owners so I won’t go into detail here but would like to point out the important placement of two New Zealand native trees – the Pohutakawa and Rimu.

The nearest tree to the Palace is an enormous Pohutakawa – too wide to get into a photograph – all I can glean from books is that it must have been planted between 1863 and 1875 when plants were brought in from NZ and Australia.

The enormous Rimu is given centre stage in the middle of the only large lawn area in the garden. (Pohutakawa top left, Rimu mid-right in the photo above)

Throughout the garden there are also many giant tree ferns from Australia and New Zealand and these look magnificent from the various viewpoints. The terraced gardens containing Mediterranean shrubs and many of the old rose beds are being replanted this spring – it is great to see that this magnificent garden is still being renovated and improved.

For more pictures of the Palace and wonderful garden see the Green Door Face Book page – click on the link in the far right green column.

Apr 232017 Tagged with Algarve, coastal plants, Hawke's Bay, Napier, Ocean Beach, Waimarama — 0 Responses

The Algarve’s Coastal Plants

We’ve enjoyed several days poking around the Algarvian coastline scrutinising the plants that have naturalised in this harsh environment with a view to repeating these plants in our home coastal plantings – Waimarama, Ocean Beach, Napier in Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand.

These plants are growing in what appears to be pure sand, they’re obviously not irrigated and cope with the harsh coastal salt winds and the very hot summer temperatures that occur here. Albeit the more wind exposure they’re in the shorter and more compact they grow – but they are very healthy.

These plants would obviously be great choices for NZ coastal gardens. Plant in Autumn as soon as the weather has cooled and the Autumn showers/rain has started and they should be able to look after themselves.

Small evergreen shrubs such as Cistus Snowmound, various low growing forms of Rosemary, Lithodora, Helianthemum, Ice Plants, Thyme, Armeria, Spanish Lavender stoechas will all thrive in very light soils – even sand as we saw in the Algarve. They look great together and require nothing but a light trim every Autumn to keep them tidy and compact.

Apr 232017 Tagged with Algarve, Cistus, hiking, lavender, Monchique, Portugal, walking — 0 Responses

Monchique to the Algarve

Monchique proved to be a great choice for walking both in the mountains and out at the coast. Either side of our rural Casa aptly named Casa Vale dos Sobreiros – house in the valley of the Holm Oak trees there were mountains. Foia on one side and Picota on the other. We were spoilt for choice. To the south and west we had the coastline of the Algarve to poke around. We had four days and a lot of walking planned.

One thing about walking in Spain and Portugal – you practically never have to worry about the weather. It maybe a little cool in the morning but by noon it seems to be always around 22 and by 4-5pm 26-27 unless you are very high up.

The mountains of Foia and Picota are covered with Spanish lavender, Green Lavender, white rock rose and spots of blue – Lithodora and spots of white – Arenaria. If you imagine a walk in NZ and how many manuka bushes there are – multiply that by 10,000 and that’s around how many white rock roses you’ll find on a walk in this area of the world. VERY pretty.

Apr 222017 Tagged with birds, eagles, harriers, lavender, Mertola, Montagu, walking — 0 Responses

Mertola – beautiful historical town

We chose Mertola as a base for walking and because of it’s historic interest – the Phoenicians were it’s first inhabitants followed by a succession of invaders.

The castle is set high on a hill guarding the last inland port on the Guadiana River. It was from here valuable products such as gold and silver plus agricultural products were sent South to the Mediterranean

We loved our 3 night stay here at Hotel Museu which is a relatively new hotel built into the side of the hill and over the top of ruins from centuries ago. Down our passageway there was even panels of glass where you could see the old foundations of ancient homes and these were lit up at night. Very cool!

Our latest interest is dabbling in a bit of bird watching. This works in very well with hiking and searching for rare plants as you are never guaranteed to find the plants or the birds – but usually find at least one of these as well as getting good exercise and usually fabulous views of the countryside – because if there is one thing we’ve learnt. Spain and Portugal are NOT FLAT. Whilst here we had great sights of Bonelli’s Eagles and Montagu’s Harriers, plus after seeing at least 1 billion purple Lavender stoechas – we saw a pure white one!

Posts by: Gillian Thrum