Author Archives: Abbie Jury

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About Abbie Jury

jury.co.nz Tikorangi The Jury Garden Taranaki NZ

Buxus alternatives for garden hedges

With buxus blight cutting a swathe through many gardens, it is clear the problem is here to stay. We set out to review some of the alternative plant options. The advantages of box for low hedging include:

• only needs to be trimmed once or possibly twice a year
• has a very small leaf which means that trimming with hedge clippers doesn’t leave unsightly half leaves visible
• good dark green colour
• sprouts from bare wood if trimmed hard
• so easy to root from cutting that it is cheap to buy and easy for the home gardener to propagate more plants
• will also tolerate a certain amount of shade

We have yet to find a proven like-for-like replacement, only plants that fit some of the criteria.

1) Lonicera nitida – ticks all the right boxes bar one, but that is an important one. Good dark colour, tiny leaves, easy to propagate, cheap… but it grows so rapidly that you will have to clip frequently. This may be as much as once a month in the growing season. It will get very twiggy and leggy if you don’t keep it tightly clipped. The same goes for teucrium which needs even more clipping and isn’t even green, though it does make an attractive hedge.

2) Myrtus ugni, usually referred to as the NZ cranberry. Little leaves, easy to strike from cutting, easy to train and can be kept low, delicious fruit but it develops bare patches. It is really only an option for the edible garden area and it won’t make a nice tidy little hedge that resembles buxus. It doesn’t like shade and can be thrip-prone.

Kurume and Gumpo azaleas - there are also white flowered options for those with refined tastes

Kurume and Gumpo azaleas - there are also white flowered options for those with refined tastes

3) Gumpo or Kurume azaleas – these are the small leafed, low growing, evergreen azaleas. Good foliage, clip well, can be kept small though the leaves are larger than buxus and they have excellent shade tolerance. They flower, which some gardeners may not want. Gumpos tend to have larger flowers than the Kurumes. The big disadvantages are the expense per plant which will be prohibitive for many gardeners and the difficulty in sourcing large enough runs of the same variety. Some will get thrip (particularly the Gumpo types) so choose the variety with care. Evergreen azaleas are much easier to strike from cutting than most rhododendrons so keen home gardeners with a long term view, may want to try building them up at home.

Camellia hedging options - C. brevistyla

Camellia hedging options - C. brevistyla

Camellia brevistyla

Camellia brevistyla

4) Camellias – some of the slow growing, small leafed varieties are suitable though the leaves will still be larger than buxus. They trim well, resprout from bare wood and are a good colour. There is a limited number suitable for keeping down to a metre, let alone 30cm, so varietal selection is important. Camellias are not easy to root from cutting for the home gardener and can be expensive to buy. Microphylla and brevistyla set seed freely so could be raised from seed at home if you can find a parent plant. Itty Bit is a true miniature for low hedges. Night Rider is very slow growing, though ultimately larger in size. You could keep it to a metre but it will be expensive to buy. We have opted to go the camellia route in the event of our moderate metreage of buxus hedging getting blighted and have raised seedlings of C. microphylla in the nursery for replacement.

Euonymous

Euonymous

5) Euonymus – there are assorted selections of small leafed euonymus being hailed as buxus replacements, including one named Emerald Gem. These look promising but international reports are that euonymus are somewhat disease prone and local reports are that it can be thrip-prone which will rule it out for shady areas. We would recommend trying this as hedging in a modest way before getting too carried away and we have yet to be convinced of its long term merit. It should be relatively easy to root cuttings and is sometimes available in a hedging grade at a reasonable price.

Melicytus obovatus

Melicytus obovatus

6) Our friend Tony is sold on Melicytus obovatus, a native from northwest Nelson which takes clipping very well. In the wild it will grow to 2 or 3 metres (but common buxus can become a huge shrub resembling a small tree left unclipped). Plantsman Terry Hatch at Joy Plants is very keen on this melicytus and produces it for sale. As far as we know, it has yet to be tested in the long term (by which we mean as a garden hedge past a decade) but it is worth a close look.

7) Selected pittosporums will make good taller hedges but you are fighting nature to keep them to the low level of edging buxus. Their leaves are also correspondingly larger. The compact pittosporums, Golf Ball and similar selections, make a quick option for clipping balls and topiary, if you don’t mind the paler shade of green. Keep them in full sun with plenty of air movement too.

8) Corokia will make a good hedge and there are dwarf selections available but they are harder to trim if the new growth is left to harden. If not cared for, they can develop bare patches.

Ilex crenata 'Helleri'

Ilex crenata 'Helleri'

9) Twining Valley Nurseries in Pokeno are producing Ilex crenata ‘Helleri’ as a buxus sub. Ilex are the holly family and crenata is a small leafed species from Japan and Korea. It is recognised as a good hedging plant but I have only seen it in photographs and I don’t know how low it can be kept. It is worth investigating.

New Zealand totara - a long term prospect for hedging

New Zealand totara - a long term prospect for hedging

10) Our native alpine totara, Podocarpus nivalis, stays very low and can be clipped hard to get dense foliage. However, it is a long term option, it will be expensive to buy in quantity and it does not have the good green of buxus.

We have yet to hear of low hedges which have stood the test of time – by which we mean 10 years, not one year. Until there are more reliable reports, we would not advocate spending too much money and effort on major plantings of alternatives. There simply are no easy answers for a replacement for buxus and we keep coming back to the view that it may be timely to review the role of low hedges in New Zealand garden design.

For earlier articles on the topic of buxus blight and the role of buxus in a garden situation, check out:
* The appropriately named buxus blight
* There is life beyond buxus hedging
* Trouble with buxus
* DEBBO (that is: death by bloody buxus overload)

The ilex again

The ilex again

Ideas to Import

Simple ideas from English gardens. First printed in the Weekend Gardener, issue 321 August 25 to September 7 and reprinted here with their permission.

Lutyens steps at Hestercomb

Lutyens steps at Hestercomb

Lutyens steps at Great Dixter

Lutyens steps at Great Dixter

Nobody does statement garden steps quite like the great English architect Edwin Lutyens did. Outward facing semi circles lead you into the steps from both sides with the transition of a full circle in the centre. These examples are from Hestercomb and Great Dixter.

Discreet and informal seating for up to seven people in the outer reaches of the garden at Helmingham Hall. The tree trunk sections are set at the same height and backed by an informal brush barrier which frames the seating area. The view from the seating area is across a recent freeform earth feature towards the Tudor deer park.

The simple device of subtly shaping the cross beams of this pergola at Hestercomb gives a lighter, more graceful effect as well as guiding the eye down the long view.

It is clear that this path is closed in Beth Chatto’s garden and the use of fresh saplings (probably hazel) forms a discreet visual barrier. Traditionally, English gardeners have used stakes and supports in their natural form, harvested from their own property, rather than the common use of imported bamboo, tantalised timber or metal stakes used in New Zealand.

A rustic, low wooden fence built like a gate is an attractive, permanent means of holding back the floppy growth from falling over the narrow paths at Great Dixter.

Using small, square cobbles makes the most of what is otherwise a rather insignificant small stream at Lamorran Garden in Cornwall.

Adding a return to this seat at Great Dixter makes it a generous and attractive feature rather than just another wooden garden seat. It does not, however, increase the seating capacity.

Tikorangi Diary: Thursday August 25, 2011

If you are in New Zealand and have Sky, don’t miss Alan’s Garden Secrets on the Living Channel at 4.30pm on Sundays (rescreened at 8am on Monday). It is the inimitable Alan Titchmarsh, a doyen of British gardening. Last Sunday he was tracing the history of seventeenth century English gardening – Tudor England. Buxus hedging, knot gardens, parterres and all that. It was absolutely fascinating, at least the first half was. It fell away a bit in the last section. But it gave much food for thought and has stimulated quite a bit of conversation here since. I am wondering whether the Waikato readers will be ready for some thoughts on how we have taken buxus hedging and suburbanised it. The new look garden pages get launched at the start of September and I will be back into regular, weekly contributions.

We have a profound respect for Alan Titchmarsh who has a wealth of experience. Coming up this Sunday is his interpretation of eighteenth century gardening and we will be watching it avidly. But it should come with a warning. Titchmarsh’s style is very much of the people – he is an unpretentious Yorkshireman. Unfortunately, in this series, that translates into little DIY segments. The thyme knot garden was bad enough, but the trompe l’oeil installation plumbed hitherto unsuspected depths of naffdom. Mark and I looked at each other in utter disbelief and laughed. What else could we do? Goodness knows whose idea it was to intersperse an otherwise excellent programme with demonstrations which would be more fitting to our local Fringe Garden Festival. When the credits rolled at the end, we realised that these demonstrations were taking place in the Old Vicarage Garden in Norfolk, which we have visited. We are now wondering if they left Alan’s trompe l’oeil in place after filming….

It was this TV show which spawned three tweets. If you don’t follow Twitter, the format may confuse you (the essence of Twitter is brevity). If you do follow Twitter, I tweetie under the name of Tikorangi.

#Gardenornamentation 1: If you can’t afford the real thing, you are better off with nothing (repro classical best avoided).
#Gardenornamentation 2: Anything armless or white – best shunned I think.
#Gardenornamentation 3: Hot trend prediction: obelisks. You too can make your garden look like everybody else’s. Just need a focal obelisk.

On the gardening front, a week of fine weather is helping the magnolias but we are still nowhere near peak display yet. The snow and frost hit the early varieties badly but the mid season varieties are untouched. We are open as usual for plant sales on Fridays and Saturdays, though we are around most times on other days. The garden is now open for the season but wait another week or two if you want to see a spectacular magnolia display. However, the daffodils, Hippeastrum aulicum, reticulata camellias, Prunus campanulata (complete with masses of tui) and early azaleas are all looking lovely.

Dividing calanthe orchids

1) We are besotted with calanthes which are an obliging ground orchid suitable for humus rich woodland areas which do not get too frosty or cold. Mark is out digging and dividing them right now, though he feels he should have been onto it in June or July. He is having to take great care not to break off the flower spikes which are showing now.

2) When the clumps are teased apart, it becomes clear that each section of foliage has a chain of rhizomes attached.

3) Break the rhizomes apart with care. Each will form a new plant. Discard any soft or mushy rhizomes. While these orchids will make a full set of new roots each year, leaving the old ones on at this time gives something to anchor the nubbly rhizome into place when you replant it.

4) The top rhizome of the chain will have the foliage attached. Leave this intact and attached to the first rhizome. Replant in well cultivated soil with plenty of compost or humus added. As the rhizomes tend to run along very close to, or on the surface, they only need to be lightly covered but they need well tilled soil below to get their roots down. The division with foliage will still flower this year. The dormant rhizomes should come into growth soon and some may flower next year, the remainder the year after.

Tikorangi Diary: Thursday August 18

The lovely blue Lachenalia glaucina

The lovely blue Lachenalia glaucina

The coldest spell of winter weather we can remember still continues. While Mark was entranced by the unbelievable event of snow falling here on Monday, there is no doubt that the unusual experience of a major hailstorm followed by an exceptionally heavy frost, culminating in snow and a second frost this week has knocked the early magnolia display. Magnolia Lanarth has been particularly badly hit and we may just have to look back to previous years to remind ourselves of how fantastic it usually is. (Check out the Magnolia Diary I kept two years ago). Usually we are peaking with the first flush of magnolias in bloom around now and we have an unsurpassed display of red flowered types at this time. Not yet. Many of the new cultivars set flower buds down the stem so will open fresh blooms but it appears that we will be particularly grateful for the second peak we get in early September with the mid season varieties, including the magnificent Iolanthe.

With the threat of frost, I have upon a couple of occasions rushed out with sheets of newspaper to cover the planting of Lachenalia glaucina that we have in the open. Sheets of newspaper work because if they blow off in the night, it means we have sufficient wind to disperse the frost. We grow a wide range of lachenalia in the garden to give us flowers over many months and only a few are vulnerable to cold temperatures in our conditions – glaucina is one. It is a lovely thing and for the first time in years, we have pots of it for sale ($10). They are only just starting to put up their flower spikes so I had to resort to a photo from previous years. Lachenalias come in blues, lilac, pink, red, yellow, orange, green, white and various colour mixes – we have available for purchase the red bulbifera, white contaminata, blue glaucina, yellow reflexa hybrid and an odd, predominantly green form of aloides.

We are open for plant sales every Friday and Saturday (other days by appointment) and we have Eftpos here but we only sell to personal customers. Sorry, no mailorder. If you want to check what else we have available, check our Plant Sales