The storm with no name

2 Replies

It seems to be common practice internationally to name severe storms. I am old enough to remember when they were always female names. I don’t know who confers the names these days but they are now gender neutral or gender alternating. In this country, I think it is largely restricted to cyclones that come down to us from the Pacific and stall over this country.

Mark still remembers Cyclone Bola back in 1988 as does every other local resident of a certain age (I was in the maternity hospital at the time). We took a direct hit from Cyclone Dovi in 2022 but that was eclipsed by the magnitude of damage in other parts of the country by Cyclone Gabrielle the following year.

We were a bit sorry to lose the Calodendrum capense but at least we have another one
Happier days for the calodendrum

Friday’s storm was not, I think, a cyclone or even a cyclone remnant (for context, hurricanes and typhoons are what these cyclones are called in other geographic areas). I think it was just predicted to be a severe winter storm with strong winds, possible heavy rainfall and snow to low levels in the mountains. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that warranted an identifying name.

It turned out to be a bit more than that. As reports came in during the morning of road closures and warnings were issued against non-essential travel, we started to realise that it was not just a stormy day. When our power went out, I checked on line and saw that power was out for very large parts of the entire district which is a swathe of land stretching about 150km.

Our electric car is one that has the capacity to act as a battery power source but it can only be connected to a multi board to power plug-in appliances. I felt smug as I had bought the special reverse charging cord that is designed for this very situation so we could boil the electric jug for afternoon tea. We were just completing preparations for a night with neither electricity nor water when the power came back on as darkness fell. We were one of the lucky ones. The scale of restoring power to thousands of homes means it is the luck of the draw as to who has to wait.

The Picea omorika stood maybe 10 metres tall but one side had rotted at the base

Compared to Dovi, this storm is on a much wider scale but for us personally, the damage is considerably less. We only have three trees down, one of which was dead anyway, and none of them are major. There are many smaller branches down and debris everywhere but nothing major, by our standards. Spare a thought for those hit considerably harder.

What didn’t fall was the leaning pine tree I wrote about a few weeks ago.

It is still standing as of today.

This is climate change in action, folks, and your personal opinion of whether climate change is a hoax/conspiracy/over-hyped/not manmade or exaggerated is utterly irrelevant now. The climate don’t care what your personal opinion or political affiliation is. It is just going to keep climating and weathering along on its new trajectory at this stage.

As an aside, spare a thought for weather forecasters and the Meteorological Service who get lambasted every time they over-predict or under-predict a weather forecast. As I understand it, weather is a great deal more predictable when there are large land masses like continents. We are a collection of islands that spans about 1600km in length with an average width of 150km, set in the middle of vast ocean expanses. The weather forecasters do their best but it is not an exact science in our situation. Being just one or two degrees out in calculation of weather trajectories can make a big difference by the time it reaches our shores.

Even after a major storm, Magnolia campbellii looked like this the next morning when there was a brief spell of blue sky and a bone-chilling wind.

Stay safe. I expect the maunga – our mountain – will be covered in fresh snow when the cloud clears and we can see it again.

This spray of orchids was a casualty of the storm – broken off and lying on the ground. It is in the laundry because we heat the house to such a level that cut flowers wilt and die very rapidly in the main rooms we frequent.

The pear tree, epiphytes, AI and me.

2 Replies
I had to go Wiki Commons to find a pear photo because in all my photo files, which are quite extensive now, there were no pears at all. None of these varieties photographed are the little brown one we refer to as a honey pear.
The before photo of the pear tree. No wonder the crop has been dwindling over the years. Those epiphytes are astonishing.

I planned to write about our pear tree this week,  mostly because I remembered to take before and after photos this time and the weight of epiphytes was astonishing, This is a multi-grafted pear, presumably not on dwarfing stock, planted by Mark’s father many decades ago. Mark thinks it came with four or five different pear varieties on it to start with, of which there may be two or three left. The most successful is a delicious little honey pear that we harvested most years. But over the years, the tree has grown ever taller, requiring the extension ladder at full reach to pick the fruit, and we have grown correspondingly older and more cautious around ladders.

The pear tree after its dramatic prune but with some epiphytes still to removed while the ladder is in place. Zach pointed out that the extension ladder has in fact been in place there since he started work here which was 2021.

Time for drastic action and this required our friendly, neighbourhood arborist. Only time will tell how much the tree will respond in spring with fresh growth. In the meantime, with the ladder still in place and the tree reduced in height, I have asked Zach – as the youngest here – to dislodge the remaining epiphytes.

A single clump. The rats sit in them to eat macadamia nuts, leaving the shells behind.

Our epiphytes here are largely seed spread by birds and wind, dominated by native astelias and what we have known as collospermum. “I think that has been reclassified as an astelia,” Mark said. I went to check and he is right – now Astelia hastata. I was hugely amused when checking that fact to find that the deeply irritating AI answer that pops up first whenever I do a net search now, appears to have decided that I, yes – moi, yours truly, is an expert to be quoted on the subject of epiphytes, based largely on this piece I wrote back in 2018. I am very aware of my limitations and it confirmed for me that the unsolicited AI pop up is totally untrustworthy. Skim past it to original and credible sources for better information.

Artificial intelligence will have to improve a lot before I trust it as a primary source! I am more embarrassed than flattered at this.

Reclaiming space and light

4 Replies

I was amused recently when Zach cast a jaundiced eye over a moderately large planting of clivias and sniffily declared that really, they are just a classier version of agapanthus. When I reminded him of this comment a few days later, he showed even greater disdain, suggesting that maybe clivias just think they are of higher status.

There is a certain je ne sais quoi to clusters of rural letterboxes in this country and I like that good blue agapanthus by our pink letterbox

For overseas readers, it is hard to think of a more derided plant in Aotearoa NZ than the humble agapanthus. Maybe a few dwarf or variegated forms are in some gardens, but they are generally dismissed as roadside weeds and every summer brings out the I Hate Agapanthus Collective. Personally, I can see their merits and I enjoy their summer flowers but I am in a minority. I think they suffer from familiarity breeding contempt.

It is true that the clivia and agapanthus both have long, fleshy, narrow leaves, form very big clumps that can be intimidating to remove if you don’t tackle them with a sharp spade and remove them in sections. They grow in areas shunned by many other plants and are low maintenance. Both set seed freely but the seeds are heavy so fall straight down to germinate close to the parent rather than being spread by wind and bird.

The clivias flower over a good period of time in winter and spring and the dominant colour is orange. Their ability to thrive in shade and dark areas is much lauded. Agapanthus flower freely over a good period of time in summer and their dominant colour is blue. Their ability to thrive in harsh conditions on roadsides and clay banks is cursed and derided; they are never lauded for their resilience and dependability.

I have seen gardens afflicted with the TMC syndrome (Too Many Clivias) and as Zach and I stood looking at one area in our garden, I was slightly shocked to see we had slipped into that same gardening affliction.

The orchids in this area are very lovely but even in this 2023 photo, I can see the ferns and clivias squashing them from the back.

In times gone by, I used to remember to take before and after photos of garden projects. My mind was always on possible material for my newspaper and magazine writing.  I don’t usually remember these days so I am missing the before photo. The closest I can find is slightly to the right because it is focused on the orchids. But even this area was in danger of getting swamped by encroaching clivias and ferns.

Behold, the surplus clivias

I can at least give you some indication of the scale of clivias we removed from just this one area. A friend took them as she wants ground cover in a large, shady area and  – being a precise person – she reported back that she planted 143 clumps – not separate divisions but manageable clumps. That is a lot of clivia from an area that can not have been much more than three or maybe four square metres.

Zach has evolved his own style for planting and displaying orchids

Meantime, with a bit of juggling and the creation of another of Zach’s orchid theatres (think, auricula theatre but more au naturelle) of old rings and stumps from our pine trees, it is not at all clear from where those excessive clivias were removed. It does, however, look as though we have given the more precious plants in the foreground room to breathe.

This was an old area planted out entirely in Felix’s camellias until 1990 when Mark took it in hand. We have kept some of the camellias for shelter as much as anything else but the plants are between 50 and 70 years old and many are very stretched, reaching for the light. We took some stray branches off to let more light through but targeted one camellia to cut back to a strong new growth about a metre above the ground. That meant removing about four metres of growth above that height. It will recover and be bushy and lower for the next decade or maybe two. We do a few camellias each year to let the light back in.

Gardens, especially large gardens with many trees and shrubs, can close in on you at a pace that is so gradual that you don’t actually notice the change in conditions over time. In a young garden, the focus tends to be on cramming more plants in to give a well-furnished, established look.

All those clivias that were removed came from the left hand side of the this photo and the middle ground.

It is the opposite in a mature garden. It becomes an exercise in thinning out plants and keeping light and space within the garden, retaining detail that can get swamped out. In my experience, this is the skill that many garden owners struggle with. Too often, it is left too long to take action and then all they can think to do is a major slash and burn to restore juvenility to the garden. Our aim is always to tread lightly, to carry out such renovation and thinning may be necessary but not to make it blindingly obvious.

The flowering bulbs of May and June

3 Replies

I seem to have found the quietest bulb months of the year and they are May and June. I didn’t even feel there was enough to bother writing about in May – just the oxalis, Nerine bowdenii and the carryover from late April. There is not a lot more now but the earliest narcissi are already flowering, along with the Leucojum vernum and they herald a new season as we enter the winter solstice.

Oxalis massoniana (top) and hirta lavender (bottom) are very pretty but their season and overall display pale beside purpurea alba and luteola

As I wrote two months ago, not all of the ornamental oxalis are of equal merit. But here we are and O. purpurea alba and O. luteola are still looking showy and well behaved. That is more than can be said for most of the remaining twenty eight species here.

Nerine pudica is a dainty little species but I can not say it is very free-flowering for us.
Nerine bowdenii in sugar pink

The nerine season signs off with dainty little Nerine pudica and Nerine bowdenii, a species that is arguably downplayed when compared to its showier sarniensis cousins. You do need to like the shade of sugar pink seen in most bowdenii and I am not sure it is ever declared as ‘choice’. But it has a long flowering season, blooms reliably every year and is considerably easier to grow and flower. That is not to be sniffed at. The planting above is below Camellia sasanqua ‘Elfin Rose’ (left) in a perfect colour match that delights us every year.

Leucojum vernum or the common snowflake
Narcissus ‘Grand Soleil d’Or’ in yellow, one of the Narcissus jonquilla in white and the humble snowflake. The first Narcissus bulbocodium citrinus of the season are opening – the hooped petticoats of the daffy scene (below left).

Similarly, the modest snowflake – Leucojum vernum – is not often praised. Maybe many of us remember it as a survivor that we used to pick from old house sites dating back to the mid to late 1800s, along with wild daffodils. Some will recall those sites, marked by a brick chimney and a few garden plants, particularly those common bulbs and a camellia or two. The leucojum or snowflake is a not-quite-doppelganger of the classier and much more highly prized galanthus or proper snowdrop. But, in our climate, the snowdrop is a fleeting delight over a couple of weeks only whereas the leucojum just quietly flowers on in an understated way from early winter to mid spring. It deserves a little more credit as a garden plant than it is often given.

Cyclamen coum is our main winter flowering species

The Cyclamen hederifolium have largely finished their flowering season although they continue to earn their keep with their handsome foliage. It is now time for their cousins, Cyclaman coum to star. Over the years, we have tried any of the species cyclamen that we could lay our hands on. They generally hail from drier climates in southern Europe, around the Med and the Middle East and north Africa. My personal favourite is C. libanoticum – from Lebanon – but there are three that are standout garden plants in our conditions – add C. repandum to the aforementioned hederifolium and coum. Of them all, those three have settled in and increased happily so we can measure them by the square metre rather than as individual plants. We only grow the species but I might have been tempted by the genuinely purple hybrid I saw people commenting on in local garden centres this autumn.

Dahlia excelsa can sometimes be taken out by frost and wind but we have had no frost yet and little wind this autumn so it is flowering at its best.

I could have padded these listings with dahlias and orchids. With the current fad for OTT show dahlias in weird colour mixes and full forms of a size that suggests steroids, our preference for modest single flowers on garden plants just seems out of step. But I note that the last dahlia of the season is blooming now and that is the OTT Dahlia excelsa that towers above most plants at a good 4 metres or more.

Cymbidium orchids have pseudobulbs which are not botanically the same as bulbs and they make excellent garden plants in the right conditions.

And the paucity of more usual bulbs does not give credit to the psuedobulbs of the cymbidium orchids. Our interest is in orchids as garden plants, not for show in an orchid house or cut for indoors but grown fully outdoors alongside a range of other plants. Cymbidium orchid season is just starting and will last for several months.

Eighteen gorgeous flowers on the hardy Laelia anceps orchid, now to be planted in the garden as it has finally flowered.

This Sunday is the winter solstice. Matariki is due (the rising of the Pleiades star cluster) with the official holiday on July 10. Magnolia campbellii is coming into flower, Magnolia ‘Vulcan’ will start showing first colour in a few weeks. The earliest of the narcissi – the strong scented jonquil types – are already starting to bloom and the many spring bulbs are in full growth. We are yet to plunge into full winter, where we live at least. It would be churlish to complain about the weather at this stage.

Finally, all credit to the autumn peacock iris, Moraea polystachya. I commented back in February that it was opening blooms and that it had a very long season in flower. I have never timed it before but it is now into its fifth month of opening fresh buds. That is an exceptionally long season.

Preparing for the fall

8 Replies
The vertical line is the tree trunk on the left

I use the term ‘fall’ not in the North American sense of autumn, nor in any spiritual, biblical or metaphorical usage. I mean it literally. One of our big old pine trees will fall and I am picking sooner rather than later. It has always had a bit of lean to it but that lean has increased significantly in very recent times and it appears the base is parting company with the ground.

Looking up at the remaining length that is likely to fall one piece

It shouldn’t be devastating when it happens. It is already dead and has lost its side branches so it is just a long thin length with a predictable fall area. It is just that the length is probably over 40 metres. Our old pines are dwindling in number and we are well practiced at dealing with them when they fall. They are Pinus radiata, original seed planted by Mark’s great grandfather in the 1870s, so long before this country settled on selections of that particular tree as its forestry tree of choice. They are at the end of their lives.

The palm which it is resting one is just a native nikau palm – lovely palms but they self-seed here so we are not worried about losing it.

Why not get the arborist in to drop it now, you may wonder. There are additional reasons as well as the cost. The tree is dead; we don’t know how much is rotten or soft and trees with extensive decay are hazardous to the operator when it comes to felling. But also dropping a tree that size would require bringing it down in sections and the amount of damage caused by it coming down in sections would likely be greater than letting it fall on its own. Because we have no access for larger machinery to that part of the garden, it would all have to be reduced to the largest size that could be handled by two men and our very small tractor.

I took this photo to show the new home for half the huge vriesea bromeliad that Zach removed from danger but it also illustrates two other aspects. Firstly, that is a previously fallen tree that we have left in situ and are just planting around as it will gently decay over years. The second is to credit Zach with showing skills in transplanting a fairly large plant and getting it bedded in so only we know it has been there for all of 30 minutes.

No. It can fall when ready and we will do our usual clean up. This involves cutting through to reopen pathways and clear lawn areas, removing all broken branches, pruning any other trees or shrubs it damaged as it fell and then just gardening around the lengths that remain in place. It only takes six months to a year for it to have all settled down and the lengths remaining in situ give added height and natural structure in the garden.

The same plant from another angle. I think it is one of the forms or maybe hybrids of Vriesea fosteriana. It started with one rosette some years ago, planted on an old tree trunk that was right in line for the new tree trunk we expect to fall. It had increased quietly to maybe 10 or a dozen rosettes. This clump is half of them.

In the meantime, Zach has relocated a few plants that we would be sad to lose – the vireya R tuba, a charming little wedding palm Lytocaryum weddellianum and an excessively robust bromeliad that has taken some years to reach its current size.

That is the remaining half of the bromeliad relocated to a new position out of danger. As you can see in this photo, we like highly detailed woodland plantings.
Viewed from the other side to the previous photo, Zach moved some rounds of a previous fallen pine into position where there was a space and stacked them three high to give the plant elevation and to create pockets to plant in. That is a dendrobium orchid moved onto the rounds as well. The wood will decay over time but by then, the plants will have established their own little home.

I gave Zach a health and safety briefing which largely consisted of three pieces of advice. The first was to be very aware if he is working in the projected fall area and to think in advance which side to retreat to if necessary. Move sideways rather than trying to run away. And not to wear Bluetooth ear pods when working in the fall area so he can hear the first cracks before the crash.

Zach wondered if we should be running a sweepstake on when each of us thinks it will fall. I say any time but probably soon. Lloyd was guessing the next storm. Mark was saying it was dead and he thought it would just break up and fall over time – but I don’t think he had looked at the increased lean from all sides as Zach and I had.