Author Archives: Abbie Jury

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About Abbie Jury

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In the Garden this week: January 14, 2011

The first corn cobs of the season

The first corn cobs of the season

• A bit of a treat here this week with the very first servings of fresh corn on the cob for the season. Corn being Mark’s number one favourite vegetable, he has been planting successive crops and we will continue eating it from here to June. You can still sow corn from seed with the expectation of getting it through in time this season.

• Keep sowing leafy greens, salad veg, carrots, beetroot, and dwarf beans. The dieticians’ advice is that at least half your dinner plate should be comprised of vegetables (excluding starchy carbs) and it is much easier to achieve this state of affairs if you can harvest your own veg and have plenty of leafy greens to bulk out salads.

• Preparation will be starting for winter veg planting which mostly takes place in February though any spare areas in our veg patch are getting filled with annuals to feed the butterflies. The monarchs are around in abundance here. Having sufficient swan plants to feed the burgeoning caterpillar population is only half the equation. Providing nectar rich flowers for the butterflies encourages them to stay around. Marigolds, cosmos, poppies, phaecelia, zinnias and the like will all provide food.

• Keep mounding soil up over potato plants to keep the tubers deep, cool and away from light.

• Keep tomato plants to one or two stems only and remove laterals (side shoots), along with excessive foliage around the forming fruit. You want maximum warmth, sun and air movement around the crop.

• It is time to get a copper and summer oil spray onto citrus trees. This can help prevent the premature drop of fruit later in the season and cleans up various other nasties.

• Make sure you keep up the daily watering on container plants. If you have let your pots dry out too much, a few drops of detergent on the top can help the water penetrate rather than running straight off (called a surfactant).

• Having advised readers to get onto digging and dividing or planting autumn bulbs last week, I would counsel you not to delay. The nerines are already showing fresh white roots and others will not be far behind. In fact, it is already the time to be thinking of seeing to winter and early spring bulbs – snowdrops, jonquils and even other narcissi, lachenalias and the host of other options.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday January 7, 2011

LATEST POSTS: Friday 7 January, 2011

1) Schimas are flowering trees from the subtropics and tropics of Asia but such is the confusion over classification that the name of the large one we have in full flower this week is a little uncertain but it is likely that it is Schima wallichii subsp. noronhae.

2) Time to see to autumn bulbs without delay (they will be coming into growth shortly) and to summer prune cherry trees along with other garden tasks for the first week of the year in a southern hemisphere summer.

3) I was a bit surprised to find that the common advice is to spray apple trees every 10 days to a fortnight with an insecticide and fungicide throughout summer. Fortunately apples can still survive and crop on benign neglect – ours are lucky to get one winter spray of copper or lime sulphur and a summer spray to combat codling moth. Our latest Outdoor Classroom gives a simple approach to summer care of apple trees.

4) Helleborus orientalis are tried and true plants, understated and undemanding but quiet stars in winter.

One of the trumpet hybrid lilies growing through a lacy, burgundy maple

One of the trumpet hybrid lilies growing through a lacy, burgundy maple

TIKORANGI NOTES: Friday 7 January, 2011
Lilies feature in our summer display here and fortunately in New Zealand, they are generally free from insect pests. The lily beetle which we saw infesting the blooms in the UK in 2009 was enough to make one give up growing them. That is one pest we can do without here. While our main display will come in the next week or two with the auratums, it is the trumpet hybrids which are looking winners this week. The climbing Schizophragma hydrangeoides is also looking very fetching – a fluff and festoon of flowers all but covering the foliage.

The froth of Schizophragma hydrangeoides in flower

The froth of Schizophragma hydrangeoides in flower

Plant Collector: Schima wallichii subsp. noronhae (probably)

Schima, probably noronhae

I went on a bit of a search for the accurate species name of this tree in flower here, trying to sort out whether it was Schima wallichii or Schima noronhae. The naming of plants can be a fluid affair with reclassification happening often but schimas are more like quicksand than fluid – described by the most recent, authoritative tome on trees (New Trees) as simply a mess. What we do know is that it is that schima are a somewhat tender tree family from subtropical and tropical Asia and this particular specimen is rather large now. We live in a two storied house with reasonably tall gables but this tree is now closer to a third story level.

The little white 5-petalled flowers are pretty enough en masse this week, but it is the new growth at the end of October which I like more. The fresh young leaves are bright lime green and it is like a large beacon in the distance. Soon after the new leaves arrive, it drops all its old leaves in a whoosh. It is an evergreen – it is never totally bare, but most evergreen trees gently shed old leaves all the time, not in one hit. We have a number of schimas here (S.khasiana is even larger) but as far as we can make out, this one is S.noronhae. They belong to the theaceae family and are distant relatives of both camellias and gordonias. Schimas are commonly raised from seed – there don’t appear to be named clones yet though in time, no doubt there will be selections made to be grown by people with plenty of space and very mild conditions.

In the Garden: January 7, 2011

• Now is the time to get straight on to dividing and replanting autumn bulbs because they will be starting to come into growth very soon. Belladonna lilies and nerines both get planted with their necks above ground level. Cyclamen hederafolium (I spotted the first flower this week), sit just nestled into the soil, like round discs. Their roots and their flowers both come from the top so it does help to get them the right way up. Ornamental oxalis and colchicums (autumn crocus) are other common autumn bulbs to divide now.

• Summer is the best cherry pruning time to avoid the dreaded silver blight getting in to the cut surfaces. If you have a flowering cherry with patches which did not flower last spring and the leaves are clustered much more densely, you have witches broom which needs to be cut out before it takes over the entire tree. Unfortunately the very popular Prunus Awanui is susceptible to witches broom, as are many other ornamental cherries of the Japanese type.

• You can cut most hybrid clematis off close to the ground if they have finished flowering or are looking mildewed (powdery white leaves). Feed them, keep them watered and they will grow again and flower in six weeks. This works for most of the large flowered types.

Arum lilies may be prized as cut flowers overseas but one look at the root system shows why they are a noxious weed on the banned list here

Arum lilies may be prized as cut flowers overseas but one look at the root system shows why they are a noxious weed on the banned list here

• If your New Year’s resolution was to start a vegetable garden, start preparing the ground now for planting winter vegetables soon. It needs to be in full sun. If you make the effort to get the soil right, it will pay dividends. If you are starting with lawn or grass, skim off the turf before you start digging and stack it to one side to rot down. Then start digging, and digging again to get the soil light and friable. Add in compost or manure and then leave it all to settle, push-hoeing off any germinating weed seeds as they appear.

• Garlic can be harvested now, but leave onions until the tops turn brown and bend down. To store garlic for the rest of the year, it will need drying – plaiting and hanging is the traditional method but you can also lay it out in a well ventilated area. Super fresh garlic is delicious to use in cooking.

• Arum lilies are a menace and on the banned list. I dug out a few remnant plants of the green and white flowered form called Green Goddess. You can see in the photograph how the roots are a rhizome with a multitude of little round babies ready to detach from the main body and to grow. These need to removed from the site too or they will continue to cause problems. We put them out in the rubbish, rather than trusting to the composting process and I will keep checking the area on the look out for babies germinating.

A laissez-faire approach to summer care for apple trees

Step by step instructions for pruning apple trees in winter are available here.

1) Apple trees can survive and continue to crop despite total neglect, but you will get much better results if you give them some attention. This huge old Granny Smith apple tree has not been touched for many, many years and shows why it is better to start with grafted apples on dwarf root stock. This tree is destined to be cut out in favour of our smaller trees which are easier to care for.

2) Apple trees are currently sporting their new growth which shows as long leafy whips. It is this growth which will give replacement fruiting spurs next summer. Ideally, you should be replacing all fruiting spurs on a two to four year cycle – cutting out old clusters and allowing fresh ones to take their place.

3) Trim the long whips back to about half their length to encourage the fruiting spurs to develop. Surplus whips can be cut right back to a bunch of fruit. You want to keep the tree open and uncluttered to allow the fruit to ripen well.

4) If your apples are looking too bunched up, it is best to thin out the fruit so that those that remain will be better quality. The tree will drop some surplus fruit before it is ripe, but thinning ensures that you keep the best specimens and stops the weight from breaking branches. Cut off very small or deformed fruit, reducing bunches to between two and four fruit. Some people recommend taking out the centre apple from a bunch to give those around it room to develop fully.

5) Codling moth is the single biggest problem and the caterpillars can take out an entire crop if left unchecked. They burrow into the apple, leaving nasty black tunnels. It is too late this season to try organic controls (pheromone traps and collars on the trunk of the tree). You need to start earlier in spring. We are resorting to insecticide spray this year to try and break the cycle. December to February are the times for spraying. It is recommended that it be done fortnightly but we will only do it once or twice.

6) We do not carry out a rigorous spray programme so our trees show black spot, mildew, leaf curl and various other afflictions but we still get crops of apples. Traditional practice is to spray with both insecticide and fungicide every 10 to 14 days after the blossom petals have dropped until harvest – ask at your local garden centre for appropriate sprays. Spraying will give heavier crops of more attractive fruit but we are willing to trade that off by having additional trees and not spraying much at all. The leaf curl shown here is caused by a tiny orange midge and is easily dealt with by cutting off the tips of the branches and burning the leaves.