Author Archives: Abbie Jury

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About Abbie Jury

jury.co.nz Tikorangi The Jury Garden Taranaki NZ

In the garden this fortnight: Thursday February 9, 2012

A fortnightly series first published in the Weekend Gardener and reproduced here with their permission.

The only justification for growing seeding campanulata cherries - feeding the scores of tui in late winter

The only justification for growing seeding campanulata cherries - feeding the scores of tui in late winter


A rash of germinating campanulata cherries

A rash of germinating campanulata cherries

We are very cautious about invasive plants here. I know there is an old cliché that says a weed is just a plant in the wrong place but in a large garden, we can’t afford to have out of control triffids. If a plant starts to look dangerous, it probably is. If it is a prolific seeder and the seed is dispersed by birds, it is even more problematic. The campanulata cherries fall into this category and if it weren’t for the scores of tui they attract to the garden each spring, we would do away with them. The seeding bangalow palm (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana) is also a source of angst. The same goes for the Himalayan Daphne bholua which doesn’t just seed. It also suckers below ground. If we lived near a national park or adjacent to a native reserve, we would feel morally obliged to review our hospitality to these ornamental plants.

We are nowhere near as tolerant of wayward perennials and annuals. Forget-me-not may be pretty but it is aptly named. We have been weeding it out for years here and still it stages a comeback. The orangeberry (Rubus pentalobus) had to go when it formed an impenetrable mat after just one year then started climbing and leaping to extend its territory – but never fruited. Some of the ornamental tradescantias (wandering willies) are also invasive. We have a very pretty blue flowered form but it sets prodigious quantities of seed and is popping up in thickets many metres away. The remains of the arum lily Green Goddess still require regular attention to get rid of the last remnants of tiny rhizomes out of the ground.

Where we have plants which set miles too much seed, like the granny bonnets (aquilegias) and the sweet williams (dianthus), we try and deadhead straight into a bucket. From there, they either go to the bottom of a hot compost heap, out with the rubbish or on the burning heap. Composting alone does not kill seeds unless you manage your compost in a way that generates considerable heat. While we don’t mind a certain amount of seeding down of pretty plants, we like to keep them confined to particular areas and don’t want to spread them everywhere when we use the compost as mulch.

I am very fond of eryngiums

I am very fond of eryngiums

Top tasks:
1) Persuade Mark to head out with the chainsaw and cut down some of the self seeded pongas. We don’t regard these as weeds because they are native, but we end up with too many of them. We have them as raised beds in the rimu avenue, where some are now 50 years old. I want to extend the constructions along further and feature more bromeliads. I have never learned to use a chainsaw and am terrified of them. Mark is equally worried by what I could do with one if I became confident so has never encouraged me to learn.
2) Mark has been raising perennials from seed in the nursery and I need to get onto planting these out. I was particularly pleased to see a tray of eryngiums – blue sea holly. It is a little bit prickly but so very pretty. Blue flowers are my absolute favourite. It would have been better had we got onto planting these out earlier but they are perennial so should grow on to star next summer.

Ponga (tree fern) trunks, used to make raised beds andwhich have lasted for five decades already

Ponga (tree fern) trunks, used to make raised beds andwhich have lasted for five decades already


Tikorangi Notes: Friday 3 February, 2012

Our pregnant gecko, Glenys, is back in view

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

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

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

The battle with the water weeds

We have dropped the water level for me to hand scoop the stream

We have dropped the water level for me to hand scoop the stream

I have been getting really down and dirty this week, hand pulling the weed from our main stream. As this involves wading in mud up to my knees, I emerge looking decidedly worse for the wear and no, you are not going to see a photo of me in this state.

Our main issues are with dreaded oxygen weed, Cape Pond weed and blanket weed. If we didn’t stay on top of them, the entire water surface would disappear below vegetation, which rather defeats the purpose of having a stream in the garden. I asked Mark if he thought our problems were related to farm run-off and excessive nitrogen but he is of the opinion that it has more to do with slow water flow rates, though he felt the build up of mud and silt in our streambed would be extremely fertile. When we get sudden bright green algal bloom, it is an indication of nitrogen being applied on farms upstream.

The worst offenders: Cape pond weed and oxygen weed

The worst offenders: Cape pond weed and oxygen weed

There is something very appealing about a natural stream but they are not without their problems. Offhand, I thought of three gardening colleagues with natural streams. One has problems with flooding in torrential rain. The water cannot get away fast enough so it builds up on his property. One has no problem at all with flooding because their stream is in a deep ravine, maybe 20 metres below the level of their land, but this means it isn’t really a significant garden feature. The third has a picturesque mountain brook to die for, bar two factors. Their land has sufficient natural fall to clear flood waters quickly but the bubbling brook can turn into a torrent that scours everything alongside. This means that they can’t have streamside plantings of any quality. They tried two or three times before giving up, having seen the plants ripped out and carried away. Their second issue is that the water is of high purity so a number of neighbours have water rights granted. Each neighbour has installed their own alkathene pipe at the top of our friends’ garden where the stream enters, running the pipes along the streambed until they exit at their adjoining properties down the bottom. There must be at least five alkathene pipes, both black and garish white, visible in that stream. It is not a good look.

So be careful what you wish for. None of these people, however, have to do what we do and clear the waterway of vegetation every year or two. We eliminated problems with flooding and scouring but our water flow is not sufficient to stop the growth of water weed. Our wonderfully natural looking stream is actually the result of outside expertise and in-house experience coming up with a low tech solution. We control the water where it enters our property by means of a simple weir. In normal conditions, this allows the water to flow equally down two streambeds. One meanders pleasantly through our park while the other is a deeper flood channel girded by stop banks. The two stream beds join up again on the other side of our property so the flow downstream is completely unaffected. When heavy rains cause flooding, a mechanism is triggered which directs all the water down the flood channel. By these simple means, we eliminated flooding, boggy patches and scouring from the park though we do have to manually reset the weir in order to get the water flowing again.

The pond weed is the direct result of having a relatively low flow through the park area, though our stream is such that it never dries up. Oxygen weed is a curse. We had a bad infestation which Mark finally eliminated entirely for some years. He blames the reinfestation on people emptying unwanted goldfish bowls into the stream at the corner by the road. Do not ever do this. The goldfish are most likely to die but the oxygen weed is an invasive menace in slow moving water.

Our other great burden comes from a former neighbour who, as far as Mark is concerned, should be lined up and shot for liberating such an invasive weed. African Cape Pondweed, also known as water hawthorn, (botanically Aponogeton distachyum) is undeniably pretty, with a very long flowering season. Presumably this is why the former neighbour planted it on the margins of his ponds. Because he had no control over the water flow, the inevitable floods scoured it all out of his place but it found a lovely home in our slow moving sections. I don’t know how many hundreds of hours we have spent rooting it out. It is quite good friends with the oxygen weed because it can grow through it and spread its lily pad-like leaves. Between them they have the potential to turn our stream to bog. Native weeds are nowhere near as aggressive.

It is only yours truly who has shed most clothes to get in and hand pull the water weeds this year. Generally this is done by the two men in my gardening life (Mark and Lloyd) who take it in turns to wield the long handled rake and manually haul it all out on to the bank. It is a slow process and pretty hard on their backs. I thought it would be faster and easier to do it by getting in and so it is proving to be. The water is pleasantly warm, the mud even more so on sunny days. I just have to time my mud wrestling because I can’t exactly stop for lunch or a cuppa. Wisecracks about eels are not welcome.

Lloyd at least stays cleaner on the end of the rake but it is harder on the back

Lloyd at least stays cleaner on the end of the rake but it is harder on the back

First published in the Waikato Times and reproduced here with their permission.

Plant Collector – Pinus montezumae

Pinus montezumae - just one of the more special pines

Pinus montezumae - just one of the more special pines

The pine tree family is a great deal more extensive than the common radiata pine we know so well in this country. Perhaps it is because the timber tree is such a widespread and drearily predictable planting that we tend to take little note of the other 100 or so species in the group. The beautiful Pinus montezumae is a case in point. It comes from Mexico and into Central America (think Guatemala) though usually growing in areas with some altitude which cools temperatures. Despite this origin, the Montezuma is hardy for our New Zealand conditions.

What sets the Montezuma Pine apart as a specimen tree is its very long needles which give the appearance of a pendulous or spreading habit of growth. The needles can be 25cm or even more, whereas most pine needles are in the 10 to 15cm range. Because they are so long, they appear to curve and drape themselves in a most elegant manner. They are also of what is called glaucous hue. This simply means they are toned to a bluish-grey in colour, not the forest green we associate with common pines.

You do need space. It will make a large tree, over 30 metres or more so it is not one for the back yard. As with all the pine family, it likes open, sunny conditions. It is not a forest or woodland tree. What about the pine plantations, you may ask. They are planted at the same time and at prescribed spacings which allows equal sun to all the plants. A plantation is different to a forest. With hindsight, I would plant the Montezuma in splendid glory all on its own. We have a few lower, evergreen shrubs beneath ours and they tend to look a bit scruffy when the falling needles catch in their foliage. At least keep underplanting deciduous for easier grooming.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

Grow it yourself: silver beet

Call it silver beet, chard or Swiss chard. It is what you start planting as space becomes available from now on to offer a reprieve from frozen peas in winter. In fact you can grow it pretty much any time of the year but there are more delicious crops to eat in summer. Some of us think there are more delicious crops to eat in autumn, winter and spring as well but it is the proven ease and reliability which has made silver beet such a longstanding vegetable garden staple. Some people even claim to like it.

Being a leafy green, silver beet likes lots of organic matter, nitrogen and water. This is a crop where you can dig in animal manures, preferably composted first (and definitely composted if it is poultry manure). Sow the seed and cover lightly to a depth of a couple of centimetres. You can eat the thinnings as fresh salad greens when young, achieving a final spacing of around 30 to 40cm per plant. Silver beet can be a handy plant for tucking into odd spaces instead of a uniform row. It will sit there for a long time until it bolts to seed in spring because usual practice is to harvest a few leaves as you need them, rather than picking the whole plant at once. It is that cut and come again ability in cool conditions that makes it so handy. Just don’t cut too much at once or you will weaken the plant.

The rainbow coloured chards with red, yellow and pink stems and leaf ribs may add a decorative element in the garden and to raw salads when young, but they taste no different to the usual white stemmed version and the colour disappears entirely if you do more than the lightest blanching. However, they may encourage children to take a more kindly attitude to what is essentially an obliging but utility vegetable which is dead easy to grow and high in iron.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.