18/05/2026
A grand design:
I have a papaya, a soursop, and a moringa in pots all clustered together with a couple of calamansi trees.
Sometimes I wonder why I insist on growing them when I do not have a proper place for them yet. Then I remembered, I have adhd and when life gets boring, I need to find ways to have enough dopamine to sustain me. I guess that's where doing odd things like this come from.😁🥰🙈
It may still be autumn here in NZ but the temperature has dipped down below 5°C on us already. Though these plants get full sun during the day, the nights are cold and soon rain will be constant during winter and it means root rot. Even without the rains, constant low temperatures will damage the roots. I have got nowhere to put them away for winter. But I lost my mother's papaya last year, covered all winter, fruits dropped but it stayed up all winter only to die mid-spring. It was in the ground, by the time I lifted it, the roots have rotted and there was no saving it.
Though I want to test the limit of what these plants can tolerate, I also do not want to lose them. This is one of the times I miss Queensland, almost everything that I have grown flourished with much neglect. Yet so many of us in NZ fight against all odds just to grow plants and trees not meant for this climate! Those who can afford build big greenhouses to accommodate them. It sounds rather selfish to put a tree in the wrong environment but I must say, it is a good thing there are mad people who pushes boundaries. When I first got here more than 30 years ago, there was hardly an Asian shop in the North Shore. It was like a holiday, a festival when I could come across food, vegies from my country. Things are now different because of people who pushes boundaries.
People think, places in Northland are a much warmer place to grow tropicals. The answer is yes and no. Unfortunately for us, it's more a 'no' than a 'yes'. We live along the fringes of Northland and our temperature is several degrees lower than the Far North (that is Kerikeri up to Cape Reinga and is often lower than Auckland's temperatures.
In the last few days, it has been the same. We are a few degrees lower than Auckland, according to weather forecast which varies depending where you are.
For us it has been a constant under 5°C the last few days; 2°C being the lowest so far I have seen. Last night, around 1am; it was 3°C for us.
So today, I need to find a way to protect these three tropical shrubs/trees from the elements of nature before they succumb to the cold.
I thought putting plants in a portable plastic greenhouse keeps the temperature higher but I found out it's not much. I have plants in the shed under one of such, but everynight the temperature dips down to about 8° or 9°C. I have been trying to keep it above 10°C using tealight candles under inverted terracotta pots. It raises the temperature a few degrees, maybe a tad more. It's not sustainable though as it is a bit expensive to burn candles 3 tea lights, on cold cold nights up to 4 tea lights every night for 3 months, but it's my only option of heating them at the moment. So far they seem to be alright.
I think I am sharing this because I have started to see the resilience and strength of plants and trees. For them to survive the cold that I cannot handle, even the little ones; that to me shows the beauty and awe of God's creations. I have a little seedling I have thrown into a bucket of water so it won't wither, I planned to plant it but forgot.
For four days now, it floats on icy water that pretty much numb my fingers in the evenings and still looks fine. I would have died the first night.
And for seeds to stay dormant in the soil; frosts, snow, ice and all yet come spring they wake up and grow to a plant hundreds, or thousands, or tens of thousands more than the size of the seeds they came from. To pack in all that genetic code in something as small as a grain of sand; it's not magic (although we like to call it that)...it's a miracle but more than that even; it is a grand design!
If we can't see the grand design of our bodies; could it be easier for us to see the grand design in plants and the trees! Because if we do, we may actually realize, we have been marvelously designed above all things on earth!♥️🙏🫛🌱🌿🌲
