Latest posts:

1) Reviewing our mixed borders (and why the old fashioned activity of reading books can have quite an impact).
2) Iochroma grandiflorum (blue tubular trumpets non-stop for the past seven months or more).
3) Grow it yourself: rosemary
4) It has not been a good year for monarch butterflies in the garden – our garden diary from the Weekend Gardener.
5) Revisiting garden mulch options in Outdoor Classroom.

I can’t think I have ever written about maples (except maybe Acer griseum which is notable for its superb bark). Part of the reason could be that I have never got to grips with names of the cultivars we grow here. I recall Mark and I taking a tour of the British Hardy Plants Society around the garden one time. They were a knowledgeable crew but they also collected plant names as some collect autographs – it didn’t matter if they could never grow the plant in the UK. Every plant had to be recorded. Between us, Mark and I could name everything except… the irises and the maples.

At this time of the year, the maples come into their own. Some have lovely autumn colour. Most have a lovely form which comes into sharp relief as the foliage colours and falls. They are pretty in fresh growth in spring, and fit in very well over summer (as long as they are well sheltered from wind), but it is the bare form that I like the most. They clean up very well with a little pruning and grooming to make excellent skeletons in winter.

1) Cyclamen purpurascens – one of the most rewarding of the species cyclamen in our garden.

2) Differing shades and grades of organic purity in gardening. Like being a part-time vegetarian here.

3) Grow it yourself – aubergines (if you can – there are easier crops to grow and timing is everything).

Tikorangi Notes; Friday 18 May, 2012

Back in summer, I wrote about my battle with the water weeds. Now it is time to own up and say that when I reached the first of the ponds, I retired. Mark has persevered and has now reached the point where he has all the sludge now accumulated in the lower large pond. It has reached the point where he needs to hire the sludge pump to finish the job once and for all – or rather once in a decade or maybe slightly longer.

Narcissus bulbocodium citrinus “Pandora” – the first in flower this season

At least we are both back into the garden though it was pretty disappointing when the magic autumn weather staged an exit this week and the temperature dropped. Writing and publishing garden advice and thoughts every week is an exercise in keeping us focussed but it doesn’t always mean we get around to following our own advice. This can make us feel a bit of a fraud at times. The hellebores still need to be cut down (getting urgent), the major project in the rose garden has yet to be started and Mark’s vegetable garden is severely under producing at the moment – though we should be able to hold famine at bay with potatoes and dried beans. But at least we are enjoying the autumn flowering of the massive evergreen tree hydrangea is in flower, looking decidedly impressive (pictured above). The earliest of the narcissi, N. bulbocodium citrinus “Pandora” is coming into flower. Before we know it, June will be upon us and the magnolia buds will be fattening.

Monarch butterfly on Dichroa versicolour

1) Garden diary – in praise of cheering pink sasanquas and being grateful for living in a mild climate.
2) Step by step instructions on how to prune raspberries – Outdoor Classroom revisited.
3) Passing the sniff test – fragrant and scented plants.
4) Metasequoia glyptostroboides Such a difficult name for a magnificent tree. It is no wonder it is oft referred to as the dawn redwood (a living fossil).
5) Grow it Yourself – cape gooseberries or, more correctly, Physalis peruviana.
6) Nothing to do with gardening, but there are new reviews on my book site (http://www.runningfurs.com) including three cookbooks – Jax Cooks, Dulcie May Kitchen and Nadia’s Kitchen – and assorted children’s picture books including a couple of exceptionally good ones.

I have an admission to make – the monarch butterfly was in fact dead. They’re easier to photograph that way and we have an alarmingly low number of live monarchs this year (blame the wet and cold summer – more on that topic later). There were not enough fluttering around for me to snap with the camera. In fact we still have an abundance of swan plants which are now interplanted with stinging nettle. Why stinging nettle? Because we are besotted with butterflies and we won’t get the beautiful red and yellow admirals in the garden unless we have their host food which, unfortunately, is stinging nettle.

Autumn crocus – real ones

Latest posts:
1) An example of really bad naming (from a PR point of view) – Vireya rhododendron “Satan’s Gift” in Plant Collector this week.

2) Stop moaning – the weather here is not at all bad, even in the depths of winter (comparatively speaking). At least we don’t need to wrap our echiums up in individual sleeping bags.

3) Grow it yourself this week is on pumpkins (if you have the space).

4) Episode two of the serialised history of the Jury plants, as published in the RHS Yearbook for the rhododendron, camellia and magnolia group. It is on the vireyas this year (it was rhododendrons last year and will be camellias next year).

5) A slightly aggrieved post on naked ladies, autumn crocus and so-called autumn crocus (colchicums and sternbergia) and why sternbergia are no more accurately called autumn crocus than colchicums…. (We aim for accuracy here).

The original plant of R.macgregoriae, collected by Felix in New Guinea

Back in the 1950s when Felix Jury first became interested in vireyas, they were pretty much unknown in New Zealand with few enthusiasts internationally.

When Felix started raising seed and trying controlled crosses, he was just after anything that was new and therefore interesting. There was so little raw material to choose from in those early stages. He named maybe a dozen and with the passage of decades, about four of that dozen have stood the test of time very well and may still be around in another thirty years’ time. Unfortunately, the finer details on his crosses were never recorded so it is not possible to state with certainty which were Felix’s own crosses and which came from seed sent to him from overseas and were therefore just raised and selected by him. We know that the Australian, Tom Lelliot was particularly generous with seed and there were others from that country.

Golden Charm

In 1957, Felix went plant collecting in the highlands of New Guinea. He brought back a few interesting plants. Ficus antiarus is still the most asked about tree in our garden. Schefflera septulosa is one of the most beautiful members of that plant family you will ever see. His form of Rhododendron macgregoriae is still rated as one of the best in circulation and, astonishingly, the original plant is still surviving. This is an achievement because vireyas are not noted for being long-lived in our climate. It was that plant of R. macgregoriae which gave rise to one of Felix’s best cultivars – Golden Charm (R.macgregoriae x Princess Alexandra). We still rate it highly after several decades. The foliage is dark and glossy, the new stems are red, the habit is compact and healthy and the many flowers, while relatively small, are in good sized heads and attractive apricot to orange tones. It is also relatively hardy.

Buttermaid

With the benefit of hindsight, we now wonder whether Felix’s other two notable R. macgregoriae hybrids, Buttermaid (R.aurigeranum x R.macgregoriae) and Orangemaid (R.laetum x R.macgregoriae) might not in fact be Lelliot seed, raised and selected by Felix. Alternatively, he may have been sent pollen. Mark is not at all sure that Felix had R.aurigeranum at that stage and he is sure he did not have R.laetum. The R.macgregoriae parentage shows dominance in both the flower form and colouring of these selections but hybrid vigour makes them more reliable and tidier garden plants. Queen of Diamonds (R.viriosum x R.macgregoriae) was indubitably Felix’s own cross, a pink version this time but rather too tall and leggy to be of great merit. [Apparently R.viriosum was misidentified for 70 years as R.lochiae. Most records use the R.lochiae name when it appears that they are all in fact R.viriosum. I will defer to those with a great deal more expertise in this matter and have according changed to using R.viriosum.]

Satan's Gift planted by the Schefflera septulosa

Satan’s Gift (R.konori x R.zoelleri) and Silken Shimmer (R.konori x Dr Herman Sleumer) were selections from Australian seed, raised by Felix. These were spectacular for their day, being big and lush, colourful and fragrant. Satan’s Gift is the stand-out plant which has passed the test of time and is still a wonderful performer. The name amuses us. Felix was a completely non-religious man and to him, Satan merely evoked hot colours. Over the years, more devout nurseries have clearly had a problem with the name and this cultivar has been marketed variously as Jury’s Gift, Satin Gift and, best of all, Santa’s Gift. One wishes nurseries would understand that it is fine to reject a plant because of ethical issues with the name, but it is not acceptable to rename it willy nilly.

Cherry Pie

Felix was very taken with the big, scented blooms of R.konori and his own hybrids were the pink Cherry Pie, red Hot Gossip – both sister seedlings of a viriosum hybrid x R. konori – and Lipstick. Cherry Pie is particularly lush and has good bushy, spreading growth along with a good flower (though much of the scent has gone) and we still rate it as a good garden plant.

Red Rover (R.viriosum x R.javanicum) is another of Felix’s early hybrids that we continue to rate for its bushy growth habit, healthy characteristics and plenty of good red flowers in a mid-size. However his R.jasminiflorum hybrid called Lullaby has dropped off the radar now and, while a good performer, Lulu (unknown) has probably been superseded by modern selections with more flowers to the truss.

By the time Mark started hybridising vireyas, there was a veritable explosion of recently discovered species and newly imported species becoming available. He collected every single one he could lay his hands on at the time and propagated a few to distribute to collectors. Our nursery records show that we produced over 60 different species at that time, and very difficult most of them were too. The death rate in the species was far higher than in the hybrids, both in the nursery and when planted in the garden. It was with some relief that we decided after a few years that the few collectors in the country (there were probably only 5 or 10 of them) had everything we held so we stopped feeling obliged to produce them. Similarly we decided that it was not critical to keep every species represented in the garden. We have never coveted a national collection of any plant genus because we would prefer to garden with plants which justify their position as being garden worthy. Only some of the vireya species perform well for us – we would be sorry to lose varieties such as R.himantodes, R.goodenoughii, R.taxifolium, R.hellwigii, R.macgregoriae and R.konori but many of the other species are either too difficult for us to keep going, or not worth the effort (R.inconspicuum, we have always felt, was particularly well named).

Sweet Cherry

So Mark had a much bigger plant palette to work with and this included an ever increasing number of new hybrids as well as the species. Vireyas were suddenly a fashion plant in New Zealand. They were seen as a wonderful alternative for warmer areas of the country where the hardy rhododendrons do not thrive. Added to that, in a country where we would like to be tropical but aren’t, vireyas fitted that exotic look and often obliged by flowering throughout the year. From being an unknown plant family with no market at all, they were a gardening sensation for a few years in the nineties. Fashions change and vireyas are no longer as popular as they were – they are somewhat harder to keep alive, let alone looking good, than many people realised. But in those heady days, there was an insatiable demand for new varieties which had large luscious blooms with heady fragrance and large, heavily felted foliage. Unfortunately, this sometimes meant using breeder parents which, with the passage of time, have not proven to be particularly resilient in our climate.

Mark was also keen to extend the flower form of vireyas into full trusses which more closely resemble the hardy rhododendrons. Many of the species and early hybrids are quite sparse in their flowering and have few flowers to the truss. He also wanted to explore what could be done with colour.

Mango Sunset

With the benefit of twenty years experience, he has gone full circle and come back to the point his father reached earlier – a conclusion that it is more important to produce healthy plants which stay alive, with compact growth and masses of flowers as top priorities. More hardiness and less flash and dash, one could say. This tends to mean sacrificing individual bloom size, foliage size and often fragrance. It may end up that his R.macgregoriae hybrid, Mango Sunset, proves to be one of his best. While he achieved the much fuller truss, he was looking for, it is just a good all round performer without being spectacular.

Jaffa

Market demands meant Mark made the same mistakes as many other vireya breeders – selecting new cultivars on the beauty of their blooms and on initial performance as a nursery plant. The test of longevity rests, for us, on long term health and performance as a garden plant. More than we would wish have fallen by the wayside. Candy Sunrise (R.konori x Halo series) had beautiful, big fragrant flowers with good colour but was very susceptible to phytopthora. Ditto the red Sweet Cherry (R.konori x R.hellwigii) – wonderful as a garden plant but not easy in the nursery, Strawberry Fields (Satan’s Gift x R.brookenaum) – gorgeous big red flower but leggy growth over time and inclined to die, Orange Sparkles (R.retusum x R.macgregoriae) and cute little Jellybean (Red Rover x R.stenophyllum). Frosted Candy, another of the R.konorii x Halo series hybrids, is performing very well as a large garden plant (now two metres plus which is large for a vireya) and it has huge blooms, but again is difficult in the nursery with an unacceptably high death rate from phytopthora.

Jaffa (Halo series x R.javanicum) is in the right direction for a full truss. There are now up to 15 large blooms per flower head (which is a big increase from the 2 to 5 range of many of the species and early hybrids) and a good, strong orange combined with large, lettuce green foliage. It is more frost tender and sensitive than the tougher cultivars (which tend to be those with R.macgregoriae, R.viriosum or R.saxifragoides in their parentage). It certainly has the right tropical look and is a better nursery plant than many.

Pink Jazz

Pink Jazz (R.konorii x Halo series) is another splendid large grower with enormous blooms – bright pink with a central star of cream and scented too. It also has the stand out feature of deep maroon new growth and even the old foliage keeps the burgundy tint. It is not easy as a nursery plant and it is too big for many gardens, but the plants we have in our garden are standing the test of time. We have a special fondness for this one. Mark rarely names plants after people, but this one is for our older daughter who, in her teens, was called Jazz by many friends and who nursed a penchant for wearing hot pink.

Mark has always been lukewarm about Peach Puff ([R.phaeopeplum x R.leucogigas] x R.viriosum selfed) because he regards the pastel peach colouring as insipid. It was an interior fashion colour a decade ago and I still find it very pretty. Again the truss is satisfyingly full with big blooms, good scent and felted foliage.

Sweet Vanilla

Of that type of larger flowered, scented hybrid, Sweet Vanilla ([R.leucogigas x R.viriosum] x Silken Shimmer) is probably the best garden plant for fragrance. Its flowers, while not huge, are a good size, opening soft pink and fading out to cream. This is one plant which garden visitors regularly ask about when in flower – always a good indicator of showy performance. Sherbert Rose (Hot Gossip sister x R.herzogii) matches Sweet Vanilla for scent and it is very floriferous but the small tubular mid pink blooms simply aren’t showy enough for most people. We still like it because we don’t want only big showy or blowsy vireyas in the garden, but we stopped producing it commercially because scent alone was not enough to sell the plant.

Practical Matters:

Preparing vireya cuttings - wound both sides

Vireya rhododendrons must rank amongst the easiest of the woody plants to propagate but one of the hardest to produce commercially. Neither are they bullet proof as garden plants. As long as you have firm, green material, it is easy to get cuttings to root. You don’t even need rooting hormone. In fact it is so easy that we routinely showed customers how to take autumn cuttings so they could have back up plants lest their specimen get taken out by a hard frost or wet roots. The one critical issue is to remember to have a generous sized cutting and to take the sliver off two sides of the stem (wounding). Vireyas put their roots out from the exposed cambium layer and having two wounds gives a more balanced root system and therefore more stability. It is keeping them alive after rooting which is the tricky part, especially in nursery production. Vireyas are not only frost tender and deeply intolerant of wet feet (sodden root systems), but they are vulnerable to pretty much every strain of phytopthora and a fair range of other diseases common in nursery production. In the wild, many of the vireya species are epiphytic or semi epiphytic which is an indicator that their roots need open conditions. This is what fits them to a role as permanent pot plants though they appear to last better in pots which are more permeable (terracotta or wood) than in containers which are impermeable (glazed pottery or plastic) and dependent for drainage on one or two holes in the bottom. When producing commercial runs of vireyas, we maintained a rigorous spray programme to keep disease at bay. Even so, we tolerated a far higher mortality rate in nursery plants than we would in any other crop. We have always produced them outdoors, under protective shade cloth and overhead irrigation – identical conditions to most of our nursery crops.

Vireyas tend to put on a lot of top growth, supported by small, inadequate root systems (an indicator of their epiphytic origins), and new growth is often very soft and brittle. As nursery crops in our climate, they grow very rapidly at all times of the year and it is possible to get a saleable plant through in half the time of a hardy rhododendron, but they are correspondingly more vulnerable to damage by mishandling and disease.

Vireyas used in a garden border

We are blessed with a climate which enables us to use vireya rhododendrons as garden plants. We are not entirely frost free so we use them on the woodland margins where temperatures may get cool but never cold enough to cause significant damage. Any frost at all can burn the most tender varieties which includes anything with R.leucogigas, R.konorii, R.hellwigii and sometimes even R.laetum in the breeding. The hardier types will take two or three degrees of frost without damage but more than that can be a problem. Get it up to five degrees of frost and plants can be killed stone dead. The beauty of vireyas as garden plants is that they do not have a set flowering season so if you have sufficient numbers, there are always plants in bloom – even in the depths of winter. Added to that, they are tolerant of hard pruning so easy to renovate. Even when cut back to bare wood, most will force out dormant leaf buds from old wood and can be bushy and fresh again within a matter of months, even if it takes longer for them to set flower buds. It is a misconception that vireyas are all tropical plants. While natural habitats are often in the tropical latitudes, they are in elevated sites which cool the temperatures.

With their climatic limitations, vireya rhododendrons will never have the geographic distribution of hardier plants and, no matter how good the hybrids, they are unlikely to achieve international standing. There is a long way to go yet in breeding reliable cultivars which are likely to stand the test of time but it is certainly interesting to have been in from the early days on the development of new selections and Mark will continue to work with them here, albeit on a rather casual basis.

A promising lemon seedling - the breeding continues

The first instalment of this series was the 2011 article on Jury rhododendrons.

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.