The bonus of summer flowers on Magnolia Black Tulip

Latest Posts

1) From big picture gardening to small picture detail – Abbie’s column.

2) On the case with Ulmus “Jacqueline Hillier” in Plant Collector this week. It is not a dwarf grower as we were originally led to believe by somebody or other (probably the person we sourced the original plant from in NZ).

3) Grow it Yourself – spinach this week. Silver beet for refined tastes?

4) In the garden this fortnight – the latest instalment of our garden diary as written for the Weekend Gardener where we reference seeding and spreading plant pests (yes! Campanulata cherries, bangalow palms and Daphne bholua).

Magnolia Apollo in summer

Tikorangi Notes:

In days gone by, the Jury name used to be synonymous with camellias. These days it is magnolias and we can chart the year by repeated requests for diagnosis. In late winter and early spring, it is always: “Help. My magnolia buds look fine but then the flower opens all distorted and misshapen.” In this country, the answer is that a possum has developed a taste for the buds and chewed out the centre at an earlier stage. They can do this without it being obvious from below. The solution is to catch the critter – we favour high velocity lead, as Mark says.

In spring and summer, the question is: “Help. The leaves on my magnolia tree are opening all yellow, distorted and sick-looking on one side. What can I do?” The answer is that somebody has used a hormone spray – usually a common lawn spray – at the time when the tree is just breaking dormancy and there is nothing you can do except wait to see if the tree can recover. Oh, and be more careful next year (or ask your neighbour to) because the slightest hint of hormone spray drift at the wrong time does major damage. Don’t spray your lawn in spring if you have magnolias nearby.

Magnolia seed pod, not a sinister growth

This summer, we have had repeated requests for information about alleged abnormal growths and cankers which have appeared. SEED PODS, dear Reader. There is nothing sinister. The plant has set seed and you have just noticed it. Some plants set a fair amount of seed, some none at all (they are sterile) and some only set seed occasionally. And yes, you can grow them but the chances of getting something exciting and better than the parent are extremely remote. And you need space because it may take many, many years before the seedlings get to flowering size – by which time they can be large trees. When the pod eventually turns brown and dry, it starts to crack open and release the red seed. For better germination, we rot that red coating off before planting the inner black kernel.

Out of season summer flowers on magnolias are often mentioned too. There is nothing unusual about this phenomenon. I wrote about it in Magnolia Diary 14. It is in the breeding, basically. And they are bonus flowers, not a major display.

The Tikorangi weather report is better this week – some sunny, warm, summery weather at long last though the lower than average night temperatures and sunshine hours mean the water temperature in our swimming pool remains too low to entice us in. The pool is unheated and would normally be a pleasant 26 degrees celsius by now, maybe more but it is not even close. The only consolation is that the entire country is having a cooler than usual summer. It is always nice to know that one is not alone. At least the auratum lilies don’t mind and flower on beautifully.

Our pregnant gecko, Glenys, is back in view

Latest posts: Friday 3 February, 2012

1) The battle with the water weeds in Abbie’s column this week.

2) One for the dendrologists in Plant Collector this week - Pinus montezumae. It takes a bit to convince most New Zealanders that any pine tree is capable of being special but garden visitors do single our specimen of P.montezumae as being a tree out of the ordinary realm of the common pine.

3) Grow it yourself – silver beet. Some people are even alleged to enjoy eating this iron-rich but utility vegetable.

4) Welcome back Glenys, our highly prized but rather shy resident gecko. We are terribly excited by the evidence that we have a population of gecko in our garden, though that excitement does not appear to have been widely shared by others! But in this country, the small skinks are a common sight whereas our native gecko is nocturnal, elusive and rarely seen.

5) Check out the lily photo album I am building on our Facebook garden page. If you feel inclined to “like” the whole Facebook page, it would be most gratifying. Our popularity on Facebook lags behind the visitor numbers to our websites, and even the subscribers. This may of course just indicate that gardeners are less inclined to use social networks.

The auratum lily season is late this year, but no less spectacular for its delay

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 3 February, 2012

Oh summer, where art thou? Even the auratum lilies seem to be waiting for some real summer heat before opening fully in all their glory. This may go down in history as one of the coolest summers in recent history. On the bright side, the garden is very lush and green and working conditions are not unpleasantly hot. In fact, for Lloyd and I cleaning out the ponds and stream in our park, working conditions have been very pleasant. I just like a little searing heat to justify the fact we have a swimming pool. It has had precious little use so far this year.

Mark is very excited to see the blandfordia coming into flower. I have tried to photograph it but even by our standards, it is still looking a little too modest to boast about. It may look more notable when additional buds open. The reason for our excitement is that it was planted in the rockery by Felix Jury and as Felix died in 1997, it means it has been there for quite a long time and not doing very much. In fact, in all those years, it has only flowered twice before. Its third flowering is cause to celebrate.

Our Lloyd makes a prettier sight than I do when it comes to weeding the pond

Crocosmia hybrids

Latest posts: Friday 27 January, 2012
1) No amount of wishful thinking can alter the fact that we do not in fact have a Mediterranean climate here and romantic recreations of the glam of Med holidays are likely doomed to disaster. Abbie’s column.
2) A big, beautiful, fragrant rhododendron flowering in mid to late January? R. diaprepes in Plant Collector this week (but don’t expect to find this one offered for sale at your local plant store).
3) Grow it Yourself – broccoli. Personally I prefer not to. I have tried repeatedly over many years to learn to love broccoli and have met with dismal failure but others are more enthusiastic and it is fearfully good for you.
4) The latest instalment of our fortnightly garden diary as published first in the Weekend Gardener – dealing with prickly onehunga weed without resorting to lawn sprays and other garden matters.

The sad state of Camellia chyrsantha

Tikorangi Notes; Friday 27 January, 2012

It was only last year that I featured one of the best flowerings we have had on Camellia chyrsantha (it of the butter yellow flowers – bright New Zealand butter at that). It only took a decade or two to start performing well. Alas, it came off second best to the rapid descent of a massive old pear tree last week. The trouble is that it is a grafted plant and the trunk has been split. We are hoping it may still recover and live to bloom again. We can take the long view and wait another decade, if need be.

I have been photographing the different bulbs flowering this month. We were worried we had lost the yellow-orange form of crocosmia but it has leapt into flower and is remarkably showy with very large blooms. The red form (the one above is a hybrid called Lucifer) is such a strong grower that the chances of losing it are negligible, which means we take it completely for granted. Indeed, red crocosmia is a widespread roadside flower regarded as an invasive weed and known as montbretia in our area. The pink vallota is also looking particularly fetching. I would describe it more as peach than pink. There appears to be some debate about whether it is a vallota or a cyrtanthus so the pink vallota may in fact be the peach cyrtanthus. The auratum lilies are still fattening buds and not yet in full stride – just some tasters open so far.

The pink vallota. Or should that be the peach cyrtanthus?

1) How lovely is the golden-rayed lily of Japan? The auratum lilies (of which we have many) are just opening here.

2) Of matters related to social class and social conscience (or basil, cardoon and lawns, to put it in gardening terms).

3) Grow it Yourself – cardoon (warning: it needs space).

4) Tikorangi – the new Texas? What intensive petrochemical development next door actually means to us.

5) Lovely lily, lily love – the first instalment of photos this week in a new album of lilies currently in flower here posted on our Facebook garden page.

Just up the road - on the neighbouring property, in fact

Tikorangi Notes: Friday January 20, 2012

Our indifferent summer continues, the lilies are opening and the clematis look great. I am working in the rockery and we hear there are to be at least another 22 wells drilled in the close environs. Yes folks, we live in the proud energy heart of New Zealand, the new Texas of the Long White Cloud. Taranaki may be dairy heartland with one of the best growing climates possible, but we embrace the boom and bust of the petrochemical industry with unquestioning fervour. It is just a shame that a fair amount of it is centred right in Tikorangi where we live. To raise any objections is to be a sad-sack, a Luddite or worse – a greenie who stands in the way of progress and employment.

Over the years I have devoted a lot of time and energy to trying to get measures to mitigate the impact of the petrochemical industry on local residents. I don’t actually blame the private companies who will do as much or as little as is required of them in any given situation. And to be fair to the company involved next door to us, they have never employed the intimidatory and bullying tactics we saw in the past with other companies. In fact they are unfailingly courteous and do their utmost to keep us informed and to act on any concerns. But the bottom line is that their activities impinge heavily on residents close to their sites.

I hold the councils to account – the District Council and the Regional Council. And they have never done anything at all to inspire any confidence in their planning (what planning?) or in the rigour of their monitoring. No, they think it is great because it keeps the money flow going and they appear to do all they can to remove any impediments to the companies.

So we have learned to roll with the punches and take the long view. We can’t see the sites from our garden – even if that is because we have so many trees. I can generally avoid having to drive past the sites because most of them are up the road from us. We have adapted to the gradual increase in heavy traffic, much of which runs along our two road boundaries. I don’t want to be able to hear the site work either and most of the time I can’t. If fracking nearly the entire sub strata of the area where we live causes problems down the track as many around the world fear, we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

We are circling the wagons and looking inwards. Oil and gas is a finite resource. The Jury family were settled here and planting trees long before that resource was even discovered. I anticipate that we will still be settled and planting trees after the resource has been used up.

In the meantime we smell the lilies.

Latest Posts:

1) It is difficult to do justice to the Cyanella capensis in a photograph, but it must be one of the longest lasting summer bulb. It just gently flowers on and on in an unassuming way. “It looks like a blue gypsophila,” was Mark’s comment.

2) The weird and wonderful world of show vegetables – a competitive social phenomenon in the UK which has pretty much bypassed the more pragmatic gardeners in this country.

3) The wonderful world of growing parsnips. Okay, a bit of hyperbole there – just a bit of practical advice on how to grow one of the world’s less glamorous vegetables for winter.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 13 January, 2012
I guess the one consoling factor in the continued run of dreary weather is that it is not limited to the area where we live! A misery shared is a misery halved, in the weather stakes at least. Even the Australian daughters are complaining about Sydney and Canberra weather and certainly it does not appear to be any better anywhere in the North Island of New Zealand. The raspberries are rotting before they have sweetened. The roses are mush. Anything bravely standing up is beaten down by the intermittent but torrential rain. The swimming pool cover remains resolutely in place. I have not even thought of going for a dip in recent weeks. The only consolation is that we know fine weather will return – it is just a matter of whether it is sooner or later.

The clematis remain valiant stars in all this dreary weather. We have lost the names on all of them though, should we feel the need, we know how we can get them identified. We have dug out the ones that are too rampant and thuggish in their ways and I remain unconvinced at the idea of ground cover types (too strong and choking). But given something to climb up, we have a range which are quiet and undemanding performers. All I do is cut them down once or twice a year to near ground level. Beyond that, they just get the standard treatment of other plants in the borders (a mulch of compost). I was told by a clematis expert that most of the hybrids can be cut back very hard after flowering, fed, watered and they will return with a new flush of blooms in six weeks time. I haven’t timed it, but it did make me realise that many clematis are not shy and timid plants and can take fairly ruthless handling. Should you feel the need to make a bamboo obelisk (you can just catch a glimpse of one supporting the clematis in the photo below, we gave step by step instructions in an earlier Outdoor Classroom.

The Turk’s cap and trumpet lilies are in flower with the auratums in heavy bud. It is the auratums that are the stars of summer display so we are hoping for better weather in the next fortnight.

And not my work at all, but check out the poignant study of “Locksley Avenue – A Portrait of a Street” by Adrienne Rewi. If you have ever wondered what happens to gardens when people are forced to walk away, Christchurch has many such examples. It doesn’t take long for nature to take over, even in a dry climate such as that of Canterbury.

We just refer to it as The Trichocereus

To be accurate, it is Echinopsis pachanoi (syn. Trichocereus pachanoi) and it is in full and fragrant flower again this summer.

Wet pigeons, awaiting the erection of the wedding marquees on the front lawn this morning

Tikorangi Notes:
The rain it raineth, unrelentingly alas. Mark’s pidgies are looking sad on the front lawn. I am merely contemplating the arrival of the marquee company, due any minute. On the bright side, at least the wedding party tomorrow did plan on two marquees and not trust to fine weather. And we have wonderful drainage so the grassed areas don’t get boggy and mucky. Add to that, we own a fair number of umbrellas. And it is not the wedding of one of one our own – though it is the daughter’s best friend. Maybe the rain will stop as the day progresses. Maybe the weather gods will smile and the forecasters have the timings wrong. Weather prediction in this country is a notoriously difficult activity, given that we are long, thin islands in the midst of vast oceans with competing tropical and polar air masses. But wait, do I detect a lightening in the sky to the north?

I am privy to all sorts of information about the wedding but my lips are sealed. All I can say is watch this space… The orange toilet brushes, dropped in yesterday by the bride’s father, rather caught my attention.

It would be so nice if the rains would stop. We will battle on otherwise – this is an unstoppable event – but it would be more fun if we were not making dashes around under umbrellas.

Red dahlias for Christmas (but not for Plant Collector profiling)

Latest posts:
1) Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree (Abbie’s column) and why it may be a misnomer to brand the iconic pohutukawa as the New Zealand Christmas tree.
2) While the reasons why philadelphus is often referred to as mock orange blossom may elude me, the pure, fragrant beauty of the flowers at Christmas is above reproach.
3) Was there even life before basil?

The dainty Hydrangea quercifolia "Snowflake"

Tikorangi Notes: Friday December 23, 2011
Just two days before Christmas and the sun is shining brightly, temperatures are rising and there is no wind. After the torrential downpours of last week, it feels like a little Christmas blessing. In the garden we are busy with a grooming round. Well, two of us are. Mark is determinedly following his own path of draining the settling pond which stops our stream in the park from silting up and doing a weeding round. He takes the lion’s share of responsibility for weeding here. Lloyd and I are titivating in preparation for a wedding to be held here on New Year’s Eve.

Other gardens focus on the wedding venue market but not us. Mark prefers people to come because they want to see the garden rather than to see the place used as a venue. I did a handful of weddings a few years ago – singlehandedly because Mark resolutely stuck to his principles and made himself scarce. But then I met… Bridezilla. That was my last ever booking. If I had known how demanding she would be, I would have trebled the price I quoted and even then I do not think that would have compensated for treating me like the hired help in my own garden.

But, we have a wedding coming and we agreed to this one because it is our daughter’s best friend. And it is proving to be a Major Event. Pride says we have to have the top gardens in immaculate condition, even though we know that guests are here for the event and few will do anything more than cast their eyes around and say, “Oh, very nice…”. Given that the colour scheme for the wedding is the wonderfully retro orange and brown, it is perhaps just as well that the dominant garden colour at this time is lush green. We are in the gentle hiatus between late spring flowers and summer lilies, though the hydrangeas are coming into their own.

The garden remains open for visiting each day. There is an honesty box if we are not around. Best wishes for Christmas to all who read this page.

Filed under: Tikorangi notes Tagged: gardening, Hydrangea quercifolia "Snowflake", Mark and Abbie Jury, Taranaki gardens, Tikorangi: The Jury garden ]]> http://jury.co.nz/2011/12/23/tikorangi-notes-friday-23-december-2011/feed/ 0 -39.042098 174.300314 -39.042098 174.300314 tikorangi Red dahlias for Christmas (but not for Plant Collector profiling) The dainty Hydrangea quercifolia "Snowflake" http://jury.co.nz/2011/12/16/tikorangi-notes-friday-16-december-2011/ http://jury.co.nz/2011/12/16/tikorangi-notes-friday-16-december-2011/#comments Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:17:13 +0000 Abbie Jury http://jury.co.nz/?p=4770 ]]>

The DIY Christmas tree

Latest posts: December 16, 2011

1) Gardening books that have stood the test of time (or are likely to). Abbie’s column giving recommendations old (some positively vintage) and new.

2) Please do not buy me garden ornaments for Christmas (what we are up to in the garden this fortnight, first published in the Weekend Gardener). Using plants as focal points.

3) The delightful small Chinese tree Tetracentron sinense in Plant Collector this week.

4) Grow it yourself – leeks this week. An easy crop for winter harvest.

5) The DIY Christmas tree for 2011 – step by step instructions. Though this is not exactly a spur of the moment creation this year.

The black sands of a North Taranaki beach

With rain every day this week, there has been little gardening going on here and little of the current flush of blooms will survive. The one consolation is that it could be worse – as it is in other parts of the country. Mark has been busy in the shed sowing seed while I made the Christmas tree but we may start to suffer from cabin fever, unless we get some sunshine soon.

Rather than battling out to try and photograph some sodden plant or garden scene this week, I have turned instead to two beach scenes from last Friday (when the weather was gratifyingly good – sunny, calm and mild) and we headed to the beach at Tongaporutu to gather oysters and mussels for dinner. On the west coast we have very fine black sand beaches. It used to amuse me that despite only ever seeing black sand, the vast majority of young Taranaki children still paint beach scenes showing golden sand. In mid summer, the hot sand can get too hot to walk on with bare feet above the high tide mark, but this early in the season, it is not a problem. Tongaporutu is about 30 minutes up the coast from us and is a wide open beach, often completely empty of people and completely magical. It felt like the essence of New Zealand, captured in a few hours

Mark, gathering dinner last Friday

Celmisia - New Zealand's mountain daisy

Latest Posts: Friday 9 December, 2011
1) No fewer than 700 Higo iris waiting to be planted out in Plant Collector this week.
2) Yet another joint venture infomercial masquerading as a reputable garden reference book – the Tui NZ Flower Garden this time.
3) The current quest for self sufficiency, of sorts at least. More a measure of a high quality of life here than a point of principle – Abbie’s column.
4) Grow it Yourself – rhubarb this week.
5) And absolutely nothing to do with gardening but a link to my other website (www.runningfurs.com) where I publish book reviews of a non gardening nature (mostly cookbooks, children’s literature and a bit of adult fiction) – the latest of which was indeed a cookbook: The Molten Cookbook by Michael Van de Elzen. Food porn, my chef friend calls it.

At last the temperatures are rising and it feels as if we may be on the cusp of summer after all. The tall white foxgloves have been bringing me much pleasure, simple though they are. We saw these used to great effect at Hidcote Manor in England but, being a biennial, it has taken eighteen months to get them performing here. I am hoping they will seed down as readily as their pink counterparts (most of which are being consigned to the compost to try and keep the white strain pure).

Sparrows in the Queen Palm condo

We have been somewhat amazed in recent weeks watching the entire condominium of nesting birds in the crown of the Queen Palm (Syragus romanzoffiana) – they must be fifteen metres up and it appears that every nesting space is occupied. The dominant population is sparrows with the odd starling having made a move on vacant property. As we sit in our favourite conversation spot, we look out at the many comings and goings, while the tui nesting in the nearby rimu attempts to patrol the entire area and convince all other birds that they are deeply unwelcome.

The celmisia in flower is a reminder to me of the next website project – building the record of native plants we have in the garden. This is of less interest to New Zealanders who tend to fall into one of two camps – the dedicated purist (natives only) and the rather dismissive (“natives are so boring”). In fact, we use many native plants in the garden but interspersed with exotics. I read an opinion recently that the use of native plants is an important way of anchoring a garden into its environment and its country of origin, which seemed to make good sense.