Who else lives 'down under'?

For those who don't know the term - 'down under' , it is used by those living in New Zealand and Australia. We are down under the equator! But, not at all downtrodden for all that. LOL.

Are there any other garden lovers living in New Zealand or Australia or anywhere else in the Southern Hemisphere? It is the first month of winter here and It would be good to be able to talk to others in the same season?

The northern hemispere gardeners have very informative and enjoyable postings and their help and advice are always great but it would be super to talk to others abou up to date happenings in our own backyard as they happen. Perhaps, if there are enough replies we could ask Dave to set up a 'down under' forun.

Even thoughthe days are shortening I still have some plants blooming in my garden but I do miss the pelargoniums and petunias and water fushias which were giving me such pleasure in the summer.
Have taken a few photos to show you what is still in flower. Ericas do bloom their little hears out.

Lovely garden!! Here's the other DG'ers that live in your neck of the world ferrymead:

http://davesgarden.com/memberlist/viewby.php?area=country&arg1=NZ&showonlysubbers=1
http://davesgarden.com/memberlist/viewby.php?area=country&arg1=AU&showonlysubbers=1

If you click on the handle they go by you can dmail them.

BTW if you want a *Down-Under* forum started you should start a new thread in Dave's forum http://davesgarden.com/forums/f/dg/all/ and email a link to it to all the subscribing members listed in the two links above. If Dave sees that many are interested in it he will be more likely to start one up for you. :)

This message was edited May 31, 2006 12:42 PM

Lilypon, thanks you those links, had a quick look but have not yet opened any of the postings. There are not many of us subscribers down under. I will go and and check more fully.

I remember reading your 'things to do' posting and was fascinated to find you lived in the wonderfully named Moose Jaw. Went in and looked at this place on the web and saw the moose statue, there must be a story about how your town came to be called this.

I would love to face your winter ferrymead.....to grow your lovely plants and not have to winter them inside for very long (re my to-do list;) would be heaven. I absolutely love higher zone plants (and tropicals)!!!! I just looked at your diary and you've planted so many lovely plants in your yard (& I see you do get some frost). How long does the freezing and below temps last for you?

re: Moose Jaw it does seem to get peeps attention.....I've had a few here tell me they'd heard of it before but thought it was just a *fictional* name. ;) re: Moose we don't see them too often here but we did have a young family of Moose hanging around town last year and again this year. Farms are getting larger now thus the wildlife seems to be making a recovery that hasn't been seen since the early settlers starting hunting here.

These are possible reasons for the town's name:


We've heard over the years that the name Moose Jaw comes from three different legends.

One legend claims that the name came from the course taken on the Moose Jaw River which resembles a jawbone of a moose.

The second legends name comes from the Indian word Moosoochapiskun, which means Moose Jaw. In literal translation it means: "The place where the white man mended the cart with the jawbone of the Moose." Lord Dunmore of the Earl of Mulberry was said to be the white man.

The third legend is probably the closest one to the truth. It comes from the Indian term "moscāstani-sīpiy" when translated it means "warm breezes." It was a winter campground for the Indians because the shelter, the river valley and the warmer chinook winds from the mountains. When the white settlers came the settlement became known as Moose Jaw.

A newer look at the naming of our city from:

Arok Wolvengrey
Assistant Professor
Department of Indian Languages
Literatures and Linguistics
First Nations University of Canada (formerly known as the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College ).

I would like to summarize our view on the linguistic origins of the name Moose Jaw, which we believe are to be found in the original Cree name for the area in which the City of Moose Jaw is situated. As you are aware, there are many stories behind the origin of the name, all adding to the colourful history of the City of Moose Jaw. From a linguistic standpoint, however, there are two main possible sources that we must consider.

The first is the current and most common Cree name for the City of Moose Jaw, and that has, as found on the city's coat of arms, been written as "Moosoochapiskun". This spelling is an English attempt to represent a Cree word, mōsocāpiskan,written here in the standard roman orthography (SRO), but quite similar in actual pronunciation [MOH so TSAA pis GUN] to the English attempt. The "c" in Cree spelling represents a sound which varies between the "ts" sound in cats and the "ch" or "tch" sound in catch, but never the "s" or "k" sounds in circus. This word, mōsocāpiskan,is in fact the literal Cree translation for "moose jaw", which leads to two possibilities for its origin. Either it is the original Cree name for the area, in which case we must search through Cree oral history for the reason for such a name, or the current Cree name is merely a translation from the English name back into Cree. We are not yet aware of any Cree term "sparrow grass" for asparagus, where -gus becomes grass merely due to similarity but not identity of sound and the common association with plant life of both grass and asparagus.

What these examples illustrate is the exact process by which the Cree name moscāstani-sīpiy was adopted into English as " Moose Jaw ". The name is, then, a folk etymology based solely on the sound of the first two syllables of the Cree name, thus explaining how a name meaning “warm breezes" can be "translated" into English as "Moose Jaw". The actual translation has only come in reverse, with the English name Moose Jaw now commonly known as mō socā piskan [MOH so TSAA pis GUN] to speakers of Cree today. [Note, in fact, that this name too could be seen as a possible sound-source for Moose Jaw if the first two prominent syllables [MOH s(o) TSAA] are considered. However, this would not explain the introduction of "warm breezes" as a translation at any time.]

A little write-up on our location (and further links if you are still curious):
http://www.citymoosejaw.com/about/setting.shtml
http://www.citymoosejaw.com/tourism/attraction/park.shtml
http://www.citymoosejaw.com/about/index.shtml

Do you have a favorite link to your area? We have neighbors that have family in New Zealand (their children come visit here every couple of years). From what I've heard it is a tropical plant lovers paradise. :)

This message was edited May 31, 2006 9:15 PM

I dream about being down-under. Especially NZ. I think we would need to change the name to "Gardener, Mate?"
to attract the Ausies and maybe "Sheep Gardening" to get you NZers. LOL Just not a lot of Daves running around your neck of the Area.

Have a lot of family there, but no longer there myself! Sorry! I know kennedy posts more than anyone else from that neck of the woods I think.

Hi Lilypons, thanks for your lovely email, I have been in and looked at all the links - I have just had the most wonderful tour around your area and I even took the opportunity of signing in to the guest book. I will have to go in and look at other comments made by visitors to the site.
I have been trying to do a hyper link to a Nelson site but can't seem to make it happen, I have only ever managed to do it once before, i thought I had to hi light the web adress, copy and paste it, but for some reason, when I open the web page the address does not show!! As you can tell from this I am not very 'savvy' about computer use.
Just try on google and put in new zealand and hopefully you will get the official new zealand .com site. This one gives a map of n.z. and you can thin click on Nelson (top of the South Island). I see there is on the first page a chance to win a trip here why not have a go at that!
The area at the top of the North Island is a place where those tropical beauties grow best as one travels down the country it gets colder as we are in the middle, we can do some but not the really tender things.
I have to put frost cloth around my hibiscus, well, I did for last winter as it had just been planted, it has doubled in height this year and I will cover it again to be on the safe side.

Hi Saferdsig, or should I say ' gidday, mate'!
Your'e right, not many kiwis are subscribers , maybe everyone else is out looking after their sheep! Gosh, we do get a lot of stick for having 49 million sheep and only 5 million people! I'm not too good with maths so you will have to work out the ration of sheep to people, lol.!
When we fist moved to a 5 acre block in the country, a sheep owning brother in law lent us a dozen ewes and on ram. He was a dedicated fellow and made the most of his opportunities!
12 lambs duly arrived and what trouble we had keeping them out of our newly planted Nashi (Asian pear) orchard. The electric fence kept out the mums fut they were so little they just walked under the wire and their main aim in life seemed to be chewing away at the grwoing tips of the trees.
I also was astounded at how wiry the lambs wool felt. Being a town person, these were the first lambs I had ever touched, their wool was more like steel wool! So, what with the rampaging ram and the steely wool lams, I was very happy when they all went back to their farm.

Echobioangie,
Will have a look at kennedy's postings and still have to check out those subscribers that lilypons told me about. Thanks.

mrporl and bootandall are two members from New Zealand that are regular posters as well.

Ferrymead to make a hyperlink click on the right side of your mouse when it is positioned on the address bar (above the page you wish others to see) & it will turn blue. Then click on the left side of your mouse and click on *cut*. Now go to the reply box and click so the line is flashing and then left click again and chose *paste*. Make sure there is a space after the last word you typed and be sure to leave another space after the hyperlink (or it won't work).

edited to say I see you know how to do most of this but I thought I'd get some practice in doing screen captures and maybe you will see what step you might be missing when trying to add a hyperlink

1.Address bar (circled)

This message was edited Jun 2, 2006 12:07 AM

2. Address bar highlighted..........either by right clicking once on the address bar or by holding the button on the right side of your mouse down and dragging the flashing line over the whole link (so it is all highlighted)

Here's what it looks like after I right clicked on the mouse (the arrow was on the highlighted portion of the address when I right clicked). Then I moved the arrow down and clicked on cut.

http://davesgarden.com/memberlist/viewby.php?area=country&arg1=NZ&showonlysubbers=1

Now the picture below shows what the hyperlink above this sentence looked like before I hit the preview or send button below the reply box. To paste I first click on the reply box so the line is flashing and then I right clicked on the mouse and then clicked on paste (click on the pic below...after clicking on it you may need to wand down to see all of it). Just be sure that no words or letters are beside the link that you are pasting (a space has to be left on either side of the link).

Ferrymead (if I explained this somewhat clearly) I hope to see your hyperlink to New Zealand below.

This message was edited Jun 1, 2006 11:56 PM

I'm looking forward to seeing your post in the Guest Book :) .......I imagine someone at City Hall will be entering it in a day or two.

I'd still be tickled pink to experience your winter. ;)

Lilypons hello again.
Well, after sending off thosee posts, I wracked my brain to try and think what was wrong. I could not see any web addresseses in the address bar and about an hour ago I suddenly thought that the navigation tool had ben turned off.
I have just come back to the computer and sure enough that was the problem. I then came into the garden talk forum and read your instructions and they will certainly help me to get the link on this posting. So here goes -

http://www.nz.com/new-zealand/tourism/nelson/

Gosh almighty, looks like a success!!
I don't thjnk I would have remembered about leaving the gap unless you had told me. thanks for that.
Have a go at that competition to win a trip down under. Mind you I don't know what it entails, hope it is just a matter of putting your name into a draw.
Cheer.

Another site with a bit of the history of Nelson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson,_New_Zealand

Ü Off to work shortly but will be visiting your site today (& for sure I'll be filling in the blanks for that prize)!!! Ü

Sorry ferrymead for such a late reply but it's warm weather crop planting time here and I've got over 150 tomatoes I've been potting up and will be planting out next weekend.

Your Island(s) are so beautiful and with many of the diverse regions/attractions that Canada has (I must admit it would be wonderful to be able to have a short distance drive to the mountains or the ocean from here;).

Your city and mine does share one thing in common .....sunshine hours (it's what keeps me sane during our long winters). This line certainly caught my attention tho:

Gidday, Ferrymead. I'm a uprooted kiwi from Wellington, now living in the San Francisco Bay area. I've been living in the States for three years but Geez, I miss New Zealand! Took me ages to learn about gardening over here. Imagine having a summer with NO RAIN!!! (or wind LOL)

Good to see another Kiwi on the boards.

Lily pns, two questions for you - what is spelunking? whatever it is I have never done it!! Sounds like something one might do in the snow? Or is it caving? A new word to go along with natatorium.

Second question _ what are you going to do with those 150 tomato plants? Surely, they are not for your own use - I once had a dozen of these planted and it was a mission to keep uo with the crop. I can remember bottling spagnetti with it's tomato sauce, made relish. sauce,puree, when getting desparate, i froze them whole, and of course gave away as many as I could. Nowadays, I only put in 3 plants and 1 cherry tomato. enough for the two of us and some to give away.

wgnkiwi, kia ora and haere mai!
We used to live in Levin and often passed through the Windy city, you wll be enjoying the more clement weather in San Fransisco. Our son was in your city for a week a couple of years ago. He is part of a medieval reenactment club (Society of Creative Anachronisms!)and he was there for a big meeting. He said it had to be called off because there were huge rainfalls and the site was flooded out! He is presently in New York for another meeting of medieval merriment. Hope he has better luck this time.

Here we have just seen the weather forecast for tomorrow in our sunshine capital of N.Z. A high of 12 centigrade is predicted and our first frost is also expected. But we will be able to look foreward to a beautiful snny day as we have enjoyed today.l

LOLOL ferrymead we've obviously been reading each others links. ;)

You're right:
Main Entry: spe·lunk·ing
Pronunciation: -ki[ng]
Function: noun
: the hobby or practice of exploring caves
Merriam_Webster on-line dictionary

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re: Natatorium Moose Jaw's original public pool had a well that brought up heated mineral/salt water that lies deep below our city (it was discovered in the early 1900's when they were looking for oil). Now Temple Gardens Mineral Spa is tapped into the well.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A natatorium is, strictly speaking, a structurally separate building containing a swimming pool. In Latin, a cella natatoriua was a swimming pool in its own building; thus, the sense was much as now.[1] It is usually taken for granted that it will also house locker rooms, and perhaps capacity for allied activities, such as a diving tank, facilities for water polo, and so forth. Many colleges and universities have natatoria.

The Waikiki War Memorial Natatorium in Honolulu, Hawaii is believed to be the largest salt-water natatorium in the world. Though the pool has long since closed due to health concerns the structure remains an interesting feature on the eastern end of Waikiki in the shadow of Diamond Head.

*******************

The only other word that you may be unfamiliar with is serpentine.........it is what the creek is called that snakes through our Central Park.

Some of the tomatoes I'm growing are heirlooms that aren't known to be huge producers like Brandywine (Sudduth strain). Most I haven't grown here so I'm not sure how productive they will be. We've grown other ones previously that only produced 2 to 3 tomatoes per plant so I'm playing it safe. If my crop is huge my neighbors will be finding a bag of tomatoes on their doorsteps. ;) I also can and freeze. :S ;) We are also forecasted to have a very hot and dry summer this year (we've already hit 96 F but have since cooled down)....... which usually isn't too conducive to tomato fruit set (the ones that do well here will be at the top of my ordering list). edited to say while we will be dry the water for the tomatoes will come from the river that flows beside the plot (and thankfully) there is a pump that draws the water up.



This message was edited Jun 5, 2006 8:51 AM

It always seems the locals are the last to explore some of the major attractions in their area.........I'd love to explore your caves (as long as they are *somewhat* safe.)

Hi Lily pons, such an interesting reply. Well- I have spelunked! My husband was O.I.C. of a search and rescue team when we liven on the West Coast of N.Z. He tok me, our two childred, 5 and 6, my brother, his three children, 5,6 and 8, on a trip through a cave he knew. We had three torches between us and set off on our hands and knees through the first low tunner., this took about 20 minutes, then we came into the first big cavern. I had been freaked out by seeing all the spiders on the roof of the tunnel on the way in. He said the next bit was very low and we would have to craw through on our stomachs. He also said that this cave was liable to be flooded if there was heavy rain!
I said I would wait where I was until they returned. He said he would not be able to leave a torch for me. I could not beleive how black it was when their torchlight was taken away and although the day was fine with no hint of rain, I worried that the river would rise and we would all be trapped in there. I missed out on all the wonderful stalgtites and stalagmites but I was so relieved when all returned safely to the outside world. I will never spelunk again.
We have many thermal areas in N.z.

http://www.hanmersprings.co.nz/thermal/pools/.

Hanmer Springs is where we visit, remember a wonderful sinter visit there, when we sat in the pool in the evenig while the snow fell all around us.

http://www.polynesianspa.co.nz/
Rotorua is the most known thermal site. It is in the centre of the North Island and we have also visited there.
Serpentine, I do know, we used to be rock collectores and ther is a lot of serpentine and greenstone - jade - on the West Coast of the South Island.
Good luck with you heirloom tomatoes, hope they bear well for you.

I can't blame you in the least.......speluking in the conditions you described above would prolly have me also standing outside the cave. I must admit some movies that have shown cavers facing flooding usually leave me short on air (then I remind myself to breathe.....and I'm in the safety of my living room).

ferrymead after looking at your thermal pool links I've got to work on saving more airmiles (and entering more NZ contests ;). Those pics are awesome!!! Ü

Here the first attempt for drilling for oil came up wet (so to speak) but 100 years later they are aware that the presence of mineral salt water (what is left of the shallow continental sea that covered parts of Saskatchewan (as did swamps and lush forests) during the last 30 million years of the Cretaceous Period 95-65 million years ago http://www.mendel.ca/exhibitions/flow/submissiondetails/regionhistory/index.html) speaks of another find (much deeper than they drilled before). Natural Gas has recently been discovered at a much lower depth and now rigs are being brought in to see how much is down there.

It's hard to believe, now with our wicked winters, that Canada's prairie provinces were once as lush (and warm) as your tropical paradise (the birth of the Rocky Mountains changed that). I must admit I'm always amazed when I discover a rock with the fossilized remains of some ancient sea creature out in the middle of the prairies.



This message was edited Jun 9, 2006 2:10 PM

Just opened your 2nd link and I think I'll just quit buying plants and start saving!!!

Does wishing you lived down under count?

:-)

Melissa, It's always good to have a wish, mine is to be able to visit the U.S.A. mainland but I would be spoilt for choice about what to visit.So many wonderful sights and places to see.

We did spend a holiday in Honolulu a couple of years ago - the most wonderful gardens along Waikiki's streets.

You live in Ohio - my knowledge of your state is very minimal. I think the Wright brothers were from there, was it at Kittyhawk that they made their first flight? I can remember a line from a song that says.. ...on the banks of the O... .H. I. O.....! Not much of a knowlege base is it? L.O.L I do know that your state is a long way away from the oceans but is bordered by one of the great lakes.

wow Ferrymead, you impress me! Yes, the Wright Brothers are from Ohio, but made their first flight at Kittyhawk North Carolina. Wright State University and Wright Patterson Airforce Base are named for them here. Wright Patterson also is home to the National Museum of the United States Air Force. :-)

Ohio really isn't much of an exciting state. We have a lot of Roller Coasters, and a lot of farmland in between. :-)

Yes, we're about 500 miles from the Ocean, unfortunately. :-( We are bordered on the north by Lake Erie, and south by the Ohio River. :-)

I'm the same way when I dream about visiting New Zealand and Australia... WHERE? So many places to see and go. One day, hopefully, I will visit.... my fear is not wanting to return! :-)

Melissa, the only reason I remembered about the Wright brothers was because I did a project on the history of flight!! Isn't it funny the things that stay in your memory. This was when I was a stay at home Mum and I enrolled at the N.z. Correspondence school and did an art course.
So nice to hear from you. I went into the internet and had a look at the info on Ohio after sending the last post to you and read about the roller coasters. I wnet on my first ever ride on a roller coaster in Brisbane, Australia. I was very scared particularly when it looped the loop.
Nothing like that here in Nelson, not even any bungy jumps. Tourists ususally come here to view the scenery, drink the wine and visit the restaurants. We also have ski ing, fishing, horse trekking and the ocassional cruise ship calls into the port.
Cheers, Tess