Tikorangi The Jury Garden

The Taxodium ascendans nutans has turned orange on one side only

Latest posts:

1) Our garden diary for the fortnight (as published in the Weekend Gardener) and mostly on autumn flowers.

2) Slightly nervously, I offer up a carefully crafted opinion on the current state of garden assessments with reference to the New Zealand Gardens Trust.

3) The most lovely schefflera I know in Plant Collector this week – Schefflera septulosa. Not that I pretend for one moment to be an expert on scheffleras, but it is a beauty.

4) Feijoas feature this week in Grow It Yourself.

5) Revisiting Outdoor Classroom (in conjunction with the Weekend Gardener) – how to deal with large clumping plants. We tackled a massive Curculigo recurvata but we might equally have tackled an astelia or a flax.

It is time to gather magnolia seed. I mentioned in an earlier Tikorangi Diary that we have been asked several times about odd growths appearing on magnolias. Each time it has been seed pods – photographed below for reference, now that they are ripe. These pods will open in due course and produce the red seeds, looking like the michelia seeds in the lower photograph. The soft red casing is then rotted off to reveal a black seed.

Michelias these days are more correctly known as magnolias – a reclassication based on scientific analysis. We persist in referring to them as michelias for clarity, while acknowledging that we are probably incorrect botanically.

Magnolia seed pods

Michelia seed

The perfection of the fantail nest

Latest Posts:
1) Lagerfeld Rules – what the fashion maestro might say, should he ever turn his attention to gardening.
2) Despite the tendency in New Zealand to think that there is only one sasanqua camellia and that is the white Setsugekka, there are others and even some which are not white at all. Crimson King in Plant Collector this week.
3) Grow it Yourself – kumara this week. You have to get your timing right where we live because it needs maximum warmth over a relatively long period to get a good crop but it can be done.

And a second fantail nest, crafted in the fork of a magnolia stem

The Cyclamen hederafolium are a delight

Latest Posts:

1) Those who shun all of the vast oxalis family because of the abominable habits of a few miss out on the autumn delights like Oxalis massoniana.

2) Raised beds and to dig or not to dig – that is the question. It seems these days that the rage is for raised beds, irrespective of whether they are needed.

3) GIY broad beans – we are very partial to this crop in our household.

4) Common wisdom is that you should only grow plants well suited to your area and conditions but Real Gardeners know this is a fallacy. It is wonderfully rewarding to succeed with marginal plants. My latest garden diary from Weekend Gardener magazine.

5) Secrets of a Lazy French Cook – nothing whatever to do with gardening, this one. But one of my other activities is book reviewing – mostly recipe books and children’s books (in addition to the gardening ones I receive.) This one is an entertaining read and a handy starting point for classic French dishes.

There has not been a whole lot of gardening going on here in the last week or two – too much energy and time required to renovate our one and only rental house on our property across the road. I think the role of property owner and landlord is much over-rated. But I did finally get to visit New Plymouth’s much loved and awarded new bridge on its coastal walkway. And it is a sensation, evoking the rolling waves so close by. It is wonderful to see a bridge that goes way beyond utilitarian and is dedicated entirely to pedestrians and cyclists. On a gloriously sunny and calm autumn day, it was a magical scene which left me in awe at the beauty of the district where we live.

The lovely autumn peacock iris, Moraea polystachya, blooms for an exceptionally long time

Latest Posts: Thursday April 5, 2012

1) The pros and cons of the decorative, formal vegetable garden – the potager which seems to have become inordinately fashionable. Personally, we lean more to the meadow style of vegetable gardening.

2) The Ornamental Edible Garden by Diana Anthony and Gil Hanly reviewed. And well done to publisher Batemans, for continuing with some practices we used to take for granted in reference books but which others have done away with in the trend to over simplify for novice gardeners who get treated like children.

3) Brugmansia Noel’s Blush – huge trumpets in peachy pink.

4) Grow it yourself – asparagus. A crop for the long haul, this one, but ranks as my all time number one favourite vegetable.

The lovely autumn oxalis - O.eckloniana

Latest posts:

1) Lycoris aurea – the golden spider lily
2) I guess it was inevitable that the thoughts here would be directed to trees after the casualties of last week. We accord them a rather higher value than many New Zealanders who see them as a disposable commodity. Abbie’s column.
3) Grow it yourself: rocket. Merely a humble, quick growing brassica that has been elevated beyond its status in the lexicon of vegetables.
4) In the garden this fortnight and the talk is about sustainability and our guilt over the use of motorised equipment.

The clean up continues

... and Oxalis massoniana

Tikorangi Diary

A magic week of weather has seen first Mark and then Lloyd out cleaning up the fallen totara and Picea omorika. It is done. I rather liked the piles of sawdust like a zebra crossing where the ramrod straight trunk of the picea was cut for firewood. While it looked wonderfully straight, the wood lacked heart and was pretty soft.

The pretty ornamental oxalis are all coming on stream. I used to pot some of each to sell but finally figured that too few people shared my pleasure in these autumn bulbs so it was a waste of time potting them. These days we just enjoy them ourselves. The nerines are starting but won’t peak for another week or two.