It turns out she’s secretly actually into gardening… subtly hiding it from me with a “no” when I ask if she wants to help me.

This is her garden.

I know she really likes pansys. The flowers periodically disappear into potions or get collected for some purpose (colouring cotton buds for instance) then grow back. There are also peas and a flower mix.

This is her secret recipe. The bottles, I was ever so tempted to remove, are full of water plus nutrients. Nutrients are a mix of these lovely hand made clay balls, sand from the Able Tasman beaches (a mix of beaches) and some  dried leaves of something. She is checking these bottles have water in them regularly. Who knew! Her pansys look a lot better than mine.

Today we joined the local community gardens. She loved it, wants to go again. They are all retired people but Helena found a friend to shadow and help, didn’t need or want me.

Today she also discovered collecting pollen on cotton buds, Helena the pollinator has been invented.