Is it spring yet?

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The early magnolias and bulbs are telling us that winter is waning and spring is starting. I noted last month that May and June were quiet months for bulbs. July is not, but it is mostly the daintier bulbs that are opening.

Leucojum vernum ‘Gravetye Giant’ has a very long season in bloom but is more useful than choice

Is this particularly early? Some of us ask that question; others boldly declare, based on ‘vibes’, that this is very early.  I thought it was early but it really isn’t. I have checked photo dates from my files and the snowdrops and narcissi are right on cue, as are Magnolias campbellii and ‘Vulcan’.

left to right: Galanthus nivalis ‘S Arnott’, Lecojum vernum (snowflake) and Galanthus elwesii

It is indeed peak snowdrop time which is but brief in our area which has only once ever had snow that we know of. I can tell you very specifically that it was on August 15, 2011, quite possibly between the hours of 6.00am and 7.00am. Out of all the snowdrops – and there are many, many different ones – we have ended up relying on just two different ones that perform well and actually increase in our warm temperate conditions. People in colder climates will have a much larger range that they can grow and they will have a longer season. We are confined to Galanthus nivalus ‘S. Arnott’ and Galantus elwesii and we really only get a couple of weeks out of them. The snowflake or Leucojum vernum ‘Gravetye Giant’ flowers over a couple of months.

‘Twilight’ as a set of 3 in the centre, ‘Peeping Tom’ on the right

What we lack in range on the snowdrops, we make up for with the daffies. We grow a wide range of dwarf narcissi, both named varieties and cyclamineus seedlings,  and the season is just starting. ‘Peeping Tom’ is in full swing. It has an interesting name – maybe it was peeping out as snow melted? Or maybe somebody felt obliged to name it Tom but didn’t wish to? No matter, it is a bold and reliable performer and it certainly doesn’t skulk around quietly. So too is Felix Jury’s ‘Twilight’ a mainstay performer for us. It is sterile so it puts its energies into flowering for a long time and increasing its bulbs rather than setting seed. Next month will see an explosion in the narcissus varieties in bloom and ‘Twilight’ will continue to bloom alongside them.

L to r: Mark’s reflexa hybrid, red L. bulbifera, L aloides quadricolor and the common old L. aloides var aloides.
Mark’s Lachenalia reflexa hybrid which has proven to be a good early performer

The other group starting its season is the lachenalias. The more desirable pink, blue and lilac ones will come later but these early ones are very cheerful and some have a long season in flower.

Cyclamen coum
A winter flowering scilla. It will have a species name but I don’t know what it is and, to be honest, don’t care enough to go searching through back catalogues of ours and online.
Cyclamen coum and scilla

Cyclamen coum flies the flag for this plant family all winter and we have enough to set seed freely. It is smaller growing than the earlier C. hederifolium, and the dominant form we have is more cerise pink. The blue is an early season scilla, charmingly referred to as meadow squill, but I have no idea which one. We will have had a species name on it at some point. I wouldn’t get too excited about it. It is a pretty blue but has too high a foliage to flower ratio and is more suited to meadow planting than rockery. Not choice.

Overall, there is nothing much out of the ordinary but for mid-winter, the earliest bulbs are a very cheerful sight. July is the early harbinger of the peak bulb season of spring. I should give an honourable mention to Oxalis purpurea alba (still!), Oxalis versicolor and the simple blue anemone seedlings that have gently seeded down as survivors from a packet of De Caen mix I planted maybe 25 years ago.

The gentle charm of snowdrops in a meadow situation

In the ‘you need to be here to really appreciate it’ category, July opens up our season of bulb hillsides down in the park. We don’t have actual acres of snowdrops yet but we do have extensive plantings and they are in flower now. The meadow narcissi are also opening their flowers. We rely on the stronger dwarf forms – particularly Narcissus ‘Twilight’ and cyclamineus seedlings which Mark raised to get high enough numbers to have an impact. Meadow bulbs bring charm through being an unexpected surprise and that is a little visual treat in early spring each year.

Dainty Narcissus cyclamineus competing well with bluebells and grass in the park
Lachenalia bulbifera at the base of an old tree amidst a grassy area that gets mown. Around bare tree trunks is often a good place to start planting bulbs for a meadow of sorts.

Not all Magnolia doltsopas are equal

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‘Tis the season for Magnolia doltsopa to bloom. It being midwinter, this immediately means it is a plant for milder climates and it has been a popular plant purchase in our area for many years. It used to be known as Michelia doltsopa but michelias have been swallowed up into the bigger family of magnolia now.

M. doltsopa, on the main street of Whaitara
The Whaitara doltsopa is growing behind a hedge so I had to peek in from the gateway to confirm from its bottom branches that it is in fact doltsopa, probably ‘Silver Cloud’.

As I scan the roadsides looking for deciduous magnolias opening their early season blooms, it surprises me how often the immediate take from the car window is to wonder what is the white deciduous magnolia flowering now. In fact, on second look, I realise it is the allegedly evergreen M. doltsopa. Often the lowest leaves on the tree are hanging on for grim death while all the exposed branches further up have abandoned the effort. The fresh foliage will start to show over the next few weeks and what is happening is that the tree is opening its flowers and dropping its leaves at the same time. Semi-deciduous rather than fully deciduous in that it drops an almost full set of leaves for a very short space of time.

I watch this doltsopa in Fitzroy each year. I am not sure it is a good advertisment for the species.

I have not put a lot of thought to M. doltsopa over the years, I admit. It is an evergreen species that comes from the eastern Himalayas (low altitude, I assume) and north eastern India. Being a species, in the wild it will spread by seed and those seedlings can be variable. There was an importation of doltsopa to Taranaki, the area where we live, at some stage in the late 1950s, maybe early 60s. We don’t know if they came in as seed or as small plants but Felix received one or two and the magnificent specimen in our park dates back to there. There are a few others of that importation around the province, mostly in private gardens of the day.

Not for the faint-hearted gardener. All those white blooms are from one plant on a single trunk of Magnolia doltsopa in our park.
Our form of doltsopa, loosely referred to as ‘Rusty’, has very good flowers in size, form, abundance and fragrance.

Of the ones I have seen, I think we got the best form. It is H U G E, so big that we never propagated it to sell because there aren’t many people who have the space of a small town section or more to give to one plant. Cambridge nurseryman, Peter Cave, sold a few under the name of ‘Rusty’ on account of its significant feature of furry indumentum that is not seen on most of the other forms of the same species. ‘Rusty’ never defoliates, has very large flowers and the desired fragrance.

The Rayner form of doltsopa

I photographed a different doltsopa seedling from the same batch imported 60 years ago in a friend’s garden, though this is not the original plant. It is referred to as the Rayner form, on account of the original plant being in the Rayner’s garden of the day  in central Taranaki. It is big, it keeps a full set of leaves but the flowers are not as large as our one and it lacks the appealing indumentum.

Our specimen of ‘Silver Cloud’. The flower is a good size but rather too floppy in form. Again this is a lower branch. The higher branches are partially defoliated.

I think most of the defoliated plants I see around are a named clone, ‘Silver Cloud’, selected by the once important nursery, Duncan and Davies, for slightly easier propagation properties and its large flower. I thought it was meant to be smaller growing too but then I photographed this one (below) in the same garden as the Rayner form and I am not sure I would call that smaller growing.

M. doltsopa ‘Silver Cloud’ in Glyn Church’s garden is not exactly smaller growing but at least it is not as badly defoliated as many of the others I have seen.

Back in earlier days, before ‘Silver Cloud’ was widely available, doltsopa seedlings were being sold. By seedlings, I mean plants raised from seed so showing variation whereas every ‘Silver Cloud’ in existence should share the same plant genes as the one original plant because they are propagated by layering or budding, not raised from seed. We know about the next generation of doltsopa seedlings being raised and sold because Hawera nurseryman and friend of Mark’s dad Felix, Roly Barry was collecting seed here from both ‘Rusty’ and ‘Silver Cloud’ which were then planted side by side to increase seed production by cross pollination.

Mark’s Fairy Magnolia White® is half doltsopa – probably the good half.

Mark’s hybrid which is named Fairy Magnolia White® is half doltsopa. When it came to describing it, Mark has always referred to it as ‘a garden-friendly doltsopa type’. I usually try and avoid shameless self-promotion even thought this is my own site, but after surveying all the doltsopas I pass around and about, I will say that I think Mark’s ‘Fairy White’ is a superior garden plant all round. It never defoliates, it prunes well, it flowers prolifically amongst healthy foliage and its flowers are not only well-formed and very pretty, they are also very fragrant. I would plant it ahead of ‘Silver Cloud’ any day.

Fairy Magnolia White® does not defoliate and can be clipped or pruned to keep it a more manageable size.

A day late but Mānawatia a Matariki

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A magical midwinter day with the sun highlighting the furry buds on Magnolia Iolanthe

Mark and I bumped into an old colleague at the garden centre this week. Admittedly, there was a cold southerly wind blowing but we were a little surprised when he commented that he thought we were having a particularly cold winter this year.

July 12, 2026 Our maunga, the mountain, Mount Taranaki

We did not contradict him but it is an indication of how fickle and unreliable humans are when it comes to assessing weather. We had a long and very mild autumn season stretching past the shortest day. The snows came late on the mountain again, as they did last year.

July 9, 2025

I had thought that I had never seen the snow come so late and then Facebook Memories brought up a post from July 9 last year and it had no snow. So it actually came earlier this year, albeit by a few days only.

The pink Magnolia campbellii this morning

Today is a perfect midwinter day – bright sun in a cloudless sky and no wind at all. I headed out with my camera this morning to record what is in bloom already here. While the pink Magnolia campbellii is flowering right on cue, I feel that it is early for the main showing of the snowdrops and the first narcissi.

Narcissus Twilight
Those little white dots, which you may not see on a phone screen, are part of our meadow plantings of snowdrops. Taken early this morning before they unfurled their petals to the sun.

Matariki this year was from July 8 to July 11 with the public holiday on the 10th so I am only one day late to wish you Mānawatia a Matariki, happy Māori New Year.  The dates are determined by the rising of the constellation known here as Matariki, or the Pleiades in astronomy circles. It is only in recent years that the majority of the non-Māori population  in our country has realised the significance of this time but we have embraced this truly indigenous celebration as part of our total culture. In that short time, it has become a special time with a unique character that transcends just the addition of a new statutory holiday.

For me, it is the start of a new year in the garden. And as this world lurches from crisis to crisis at an escalating rate, the start of a new year is a time for hope. We certainly need to reminded of hope and simple beauty in life these days.

Cymbidium orchids are already blooming

The National Library says of Matariki:

“The 3 major principles that guide Matariki are:

  • remembrance — honouring those who have died since the last rising of Matariki
  • celebrating the present — gathering together with family and friends
  • looking to the future — looking forward to the promise of a new year.”
Snowy white blooms on Camellia yuhsienensis

    The storm with no name

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    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.

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    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.