Tikorangi The Jury Garden

Signs of spring - the campanulata cherries are in flower

Technically it is still winter here but we are rocketing into full spring and the garden is looking very colourful. The campanulata cherries are opening and at times can appear to be dancing with the movement of the nectar feeding tui. They don’t sit still for long enough to count (and are very difficult to photograph because they move so quickly but we do seem to have them by the score (as opposed to just a few).

Beautiful but the flowers are too floppy

More magnolias are opening by the day as are spring bulbs and even the early rhododendrons. The early white michelias are flowering. We have rows of these and they look splendid and smell divine. But Mark is very picky. There is only room to name one, or maybe two at the most, and plants such as the one in the photograph are destined forever to be just part of our windbreak hedges. Its flowers are simply too floppy. The cultivars Mark selected for further trialling and the one that has been selected for release in the next year or two have much cleaner flowers which are displayed well. They are a big improvement with blooms which hold up and show excellent form.

The garden is open now but if you wait another week or so, there will be a better display of magnolias out. Mind you, the snowdrops will have finished by then but other spring bulbs are opening day by day. For us, this is a time of year we glory in. For details on plant sales this week (personal customers only, though we will hold orders for later collection if they are prepaid) click through to Tikorangi Diary.

Latest Posts:

1) Growing citrus in the Taranaki garden – the first part of a random series drawing on our experience of growing fruit trees in the home garden here. With the abundance of tui in our garden, I did briefly ponder calling it the Tui Tikorangi Fruit Garden as a nod and a wink to the somewhat infamous publication from Penguin. Given that we also have a surprising and gratifying number of bellbirds or korimako in residence at the moment, Mark was of the opinion that I could instead draw on the common name for these songbirds – mockers. So, perhaps, The Mockers Tikorangi Fruit Garden. At least our advice is based on practical experience underpinned by some horticultural experience….

2) Meet Hedwhig the Morepork (our native owl, also called a ruru).

3) Tikorangi Diary – aka what we have been up to in the garden this week from pruning roses and wisteria to planting broad beans and peas with a bit more inbetween.

The lovely flowers of the early season michelias

Tikorangi Diary: June 26, 2011

We New Zealanders have a love affair with white flowers. I was told that Rose Flower Carpet White is easily the biggest selling colour in this country but not internationally. My informant put this down to the fact that snow never settles here for long (except in alpine ski villages) and, indeed, most of the country never even sees snow. Winter white is a colour from a clothing catalogue, not the view from our windows. Which is by way of introducing two very different white flowered plants in bloom this week – the charming snowdrops (no snow, but growing here happily with cyclamen and lachenalias) and the white perfection of one of our early flowering michelias. One of the attributes of gardening in a soft climate such as ours is that we can have flowers for twelve months of the year in the garden. We tend to take it for granted until we see people gardening in much harsher climates. The corollary is that weeds and grass also keep growing all the time, but that is a small price to pay when mid-winter can still be brightened by the loveliest of blooms.

No snow, but we have plenty of snowdrops coming in to flower

Click on the Magnolia diary logo above to see all diary entries

Magnolia alba - hardly spectacular flowers but an intoxicating fragance

In our southern hemisphere summer, Michelia alba is in flower. One could never describe alba as being in full flower – it just gently flowers over a long period without ever putting on a mass display. We planted it near our swimming pool so it could perfume the air in the summer months but as it grows ever larger, we are wondering if we have made a mistake. After about eight years, it is already around eight metres tall and showing no sign of slowing down. It has splendid foliage for those in warm enough climates to grow it and the flowers make up for their rather understated (almost insignificant) appearance with their heady fragrance. We have never seen any evidence that alba is fertile, either as seed parent or pollen donor and lean to the belief that it is likely that there is only one clone in existence and that is sterile. We have champaca (believed to be the seed parent of alba on the premise that alba is most likely a natural hybrid) which has attractive colour in the flowers but the forms we have seen are scruffy as garden plants.

Michelia alba, in the centre rear of the photo, has lush foliage but is growing at an alarming rate in our garden

Mark’s Fairy Magnolia Blush (the first of his michelias to be released) is also summer flowering but these are random blooms which lack the colour of the main spring season. We have decided that the move to lump all magnolia relations, including michelia and mangletia, into the magnolia group is not helpful so we are going to remain with the former nomenclature at this stage. Mark is of the view that michelias are a distinct group which warrants being kept separate. As far as he knows, nobody has yet proven that they can successfully cross michelias with magnolias, or indeed mangletias although some have claimed hybrids. We will wait for proof because we doubt that it is possible to achieve crosses between distinctly different groups without scientific intervention.

Many of the deciduous magnolias are summer flowering at this time but we never get particularly excited about these. They are bonus flowers, tucked in amongst the foliage, and they lack the impact of the spring flowering on bare wood though it should be said that Black Tulip has put up some fine dark flowers this year. Iolanthe, Apollo and Serene all have summer flowers – in fact most soulangeana hybrids will do so. With our very strong sunlight (blame the depletion of the ozone layer along with our clear atmosphere) summer flowers tend to burn.

Summer flowers on Iolanthe

Magnolia Serene has stand out dark foliage. Generally speaking, the foliage on deciduous magnolias does not excite much interest and in summer, most of them are just green trees with relatively large leaves. But when we cast our eyes around a number of trees in our garden landscape, Serene stood out as having deeper colour and appearing glossier than the others nearby. We think it has considerable merit as a specimen tree for its summer foliage as well as its form and spring flowering. Some magnolias stand the test of time and this is one of Felix’s where we are surprised that it has not been picked up more widely in the marketplace. With its later flowering (ref Magnolia Diaries 11 and 12 to see the flowers) it should perform well in cooler climates.

Click on the Magnolia diary logo above to see all diary entries

It is Magnolia Serene which is the stand out plant here in full flower this week. Big, beautiful and very pink and signalling the impending close to the deciduous flowering season for this year. This is the original plant, as bred by Felix Jury here (liliiflora x Mark Jury). The original Iolanthe may shade our vegetable garden; the original Serene drops most of its leaves and flowers into our swimming pool. Such is life when you live surrounded by trees.

Impressively pink - the original Serene

The early yellows are in flower. While still reasonably sought after in this country as novelty plants (New Zealanders take red magnolias completely for granted but yellows are seen as unusual), the problem with most magnolias with acuminata in the breeding is that they flower too late in the season for us and the leaves have already appeared. Elizabeth, Yellow Fever and Sundance will at least flower on bare wood and are attractive enough, but what most people here expect is a butter yellow Iolanthe (ie very large, bright flowers on bare wood) and that is not anywhere to be seen yet. Instead we have pale primrose, small flowers and strappy flower form on plants that tend to rival timber trees in their rates of growth.

Magnolia Yellow Fever planted on our roadside

In New Zealand we have a harsh, bright light and the dreaded hole in the ozone layer down near Antarctica is usually getting larger at this time of the year so our sunlight is not well filtered. We are noticing quite bad burning on the late flowers on a number of magnolias. Liliiflora burns, as do liliiflora hybrids (though not Serene at this stage). It may be that extended flowering characteristics are not all they are cracked up to be here – crispy brown blooms are not a good look.

Interlocking circles of pink michelia petals

Finally, when conditions are right (no wind and light rain), we are always delighted by the sight of rings of pink petals that fall naturally around the base of our row of Fairy Magnolia Blush (Mark’s pink michelia). It is eyes down for a change, to catch this pretty sight.

Click on the Magnolia diary logo above to see all diary entries

Magnolia Serene, the last of Felix's selections to flower each season

Our magic spring has continued with no wind. A magnolia flowering season with a bad weather factor of only two short lived storms is a good season here. Though I am told that in the south of the province, a series of severe frosts have taken out most of the season’s display. In the deciduous magnolias, Burgundy Star flowers on and is still looking good whereas Felix’s series (Iolanthe et al) are now past their peak. Iolanthe will continue on for weeks yet, but not in her full glory. Serene is still opening. This is one variety that we have been surprised has not had more recognition overseas. Good pink colour, flower form and size, flowers later but still on bare wood and a tidy, well behaved tree. Being liliiflora x Mark Jury, it has reasonable hardiness.

Lollipopped Fairy Magnolia Blush with Magnolia Iolanthe behind

It is full on michelia season. Fairy Magnolia Blush continues in flower and the lollipop row on our frontage is looking good. They were planted in quite harsh conditions (compacted old driveway, in some cases) about five years ago but haven’t minded a bit. I give them a light clip twice a year to retain the shape but otherwise they are left entirely to their own devices.

Mark’s Honey Velvet is in full flower. This is a Magnolia dianica (syn: Michelia yunnanensis) selection and every nurseryman, woman and dog has their own selection made now, so easy is it to raise seed. All we can say about Honey Velvet is that it has a honey cream coloured flower (rather than white) of good size, wonderful bud set, longer flowering season than some and good dark foliage. And it does not appear to defoliate in a cold, wet spring as some of the dianicas do. Other than that, we can’t get too excited about what is just a species selection.

Honey Velvet, Mark's dianica selection

We can and do get excited about the michelia breeding programme and the increasing range of deeper flower colour and size we are starting to see as Mark continues down the track of ever more complex downstream crosses. We can see real progress here but that, alas, is all we can say publicly. It was a bit of a red letter day here yesterday as Mark decided that he was happy to give the go ahead on another deciduous magnolia. Mark has only ever named three magnolias in a breeding programme which has built on his father’s work and thus spans close to five decades now with many hundreds of magnolia plants raised. So to make the decision on a fourth one is no light matter. It is still a long haul from here through final trialling and production before it ever gets anywhere near the marketplace but all we will say officially is that this one is not red.