Author Archives: Abbie Jury

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About Abbie Jury

jury.co.nz Tikorangi The Jury Garden Taranaki NZ

In the Garden: October 22, 2010

· While Labour Weekend is the traditional time to get the The Great Summer Veg Plant Out done, the lingering cool temperatures, wind and rain have mitigated against it this year. The soils have not had much of a chance to warm up yet. Don’t rush it especially if you are in a cooler, inland area. A week or two is neither here nor there.

· Priority for planting out when conditions are suitable are the crops which require a long growing season which include aubergines, capsicums, cucumbers, both rock and water melons, kumara, tomatoes and corn. If you have starter plants of these in small pots under cover, be careful about planting them straight out in the open in either blazing sun (unlikely) or torrential ran. You may need to give them some protection while they get established. Cut off soft drink bottles can work as can plastic bags held up by sticks if you don’t have a cloche. A single sheet of newspaper will protect them from the bright sun. You can avoid this by hardening them off gradually over several days by exposing them to a few hours of direct sun only.

· If you are not planting out the little plants yet, make sure that they don’t get set back by being held in pots that are too small or by forgetting to water them. They rarely recover well from such set-backs.

· Clematis are rocketing away and most need something to climb up. If you leave them any longer, you will cause a lot of damage trying to get them to grow in the right direction. A bamboo tepee is a quick and easy solution.

Greeblies in the cordyline

Greeblies in the cordyline

· The caterpillars that chew holes in our native cordylines (cabbage trees) are at their most active. These are the progeny of a native moth (which is why NZ cordylines overseas look so clean and smart). On small plants, running your hands up the base of the tufts of leaves can effect a good kill. On larger plants, if you want clean foliage, you will have to spray with an insecticide. If you look, you may be surprised at what other greeblies your cordyline is hiding, including slugs and snails.

· Esteemed colleague, George Fuller, tells us that it is not a rust that causes orange blotching on renga renga lilies (arthropodium) but in fact a nematode (or wire worm). These critters can build up in a patch over time so if it worries you, it may be necessary to resort to using a systemic insecticide. A systemic insecticide is one that the plant absorbs as opposed to contact insecticides which only kill with a direct hit. The nematode is actually in the plant and it is the same one that attacks chrysanthemums and black currants, answering to the name of afelenchoides ritzemabosi.

· As evergreen azaleas finish flowering, it is time to trim them. These are a forgiving plant which means you can trim back to bare wood and they will shoot again but do not delay if you plan on cutting hard because you want the plant to be flushing with spring growth to help its recovery.

· It is safe to plant both green beans and runner beans now. These are very worthwhile crops for the home gardener, giving good yields and planting successional crops of green beans two weeks apart will extend the harvest season.

Countdown to Festival, October 22, 2010

* It is just one week out from Festival this year and John and Phyllis Malcolm at Lockinge Garden near Kapuni have three young black swans in residence on their lake. The wet winter has certainly suited the hostas and Big Daddy, planted around the lake, is looking particularly splendid. Phyllis says that the irises and Rhododendron Lemon Lodge are looking spot on for flowering right on cue and she is really pleased with how the honesty and aquilegias are naturalising and filling in the spaces under their mature trees.

* Nearer Opunake, Sheryl and Geoff Campbell on Patiki Road are nearly through the last round of preparation (most of us work our way right round our gardens more than once in ever increasing detail as we prepare). The roses put on tremendous new growth in the few sunny days we have had, the clematis are coming into flower and the white wisteria is promising to be spectacular next week.

* Moving around towards Warea, Maria van der Poel is looking forward to her second year of opening. She has been like a big kid playing with a new toy in her recently erected hot house and, with assistance from a friend, has plenty of plants potted up for sale to garden visitors. The wood pigeons have returned to her garden for spring time and the roses have responded to some special TLC and are rocketing away despite recent coastal winds buffeting them around. Maria has her fingers crossed for good weather and a great festival for all her fellow garden openers.

* Inland from Stratford, Lorri and Bruce Ellis have one of the largest private gardens in the Festival and Lorri plans her preparation from six months out. Even so, she wryly notes, she has a tendency to underestimate the vagaries of the spring weather. The recent winds have hurled branches all round the place and the horrendous September rains (324ml of the stuff at their place) saw her and Bruce wading through sticky mud and papa up to the tops of their gumboots as they worked to complete the new trail through their dell. On the bright side, she is enjoying the blues in her garden – a sea of bluebells complemented by a bank of purple ajuga which is alive with busy bumblebees, the mauve pawlonia and the purple sparaxias completing the picture.

* Down the road, more or less, and around a few corners at Gordon Dale Gardens near Toko,
Jan Worthington agrees that timing is all important in the lead-up to Festival. Did she prune the standard photinias at the right time so that they will be glowing red balls at the start of November? Will there be any roses in flower, given the cold spring? How quickly will the vegetables grow so that they look strong, healthy and nearly ready for harvest? Will the bare patches in the garden be filled out with the annuals and perennials over the next week? A few days of sun and warmer weather will make Jan breathe more easily.

* Near Hawera, at Puketarata, Jennifer Horner is irritated by the rabbits nibbling at the new growth on her pinks and tiarellas. Other than that, she is hoping that winds will not return after the mess left last week. They are busy enough with the final round of weeding and tidying and can do without the extra work.

* The unusually wet spring is a recurring theme and Vance Hooper at Magnolia Grove says that at least they have seen the worst case scenario for springs and groundwater on their property after five years of living there. It is so bad in one area that he and Kathryn have decided that best solution will be develop some permanent ponds there in the near future (after Festival, no doubt). However, even the few days of fine weather recently has made a big difference, getting the roses and perennials moving into growth. The pink floribunda wisteria is promising its best display yet.

* It is many years since Josephine and Quinton Reeves at Wintringham in New Plymouth have opened for Festival and they are making a welcome return this year. Josephine says that their blue clematis are rocketing into flower but her Cornus controversa variegata is threatening to become The Wedding Cake Tree of Pisa as it has developed a significant lean in a quest to get away from the domineering influence of the adjacent 80 year old golden elm. It is not the pesky mynah birds that are visiting their ponga trees (as mentioned recently at Te Kainga Marire) but visiting doves who come to sojourn daily and carry out their courting rituals. More decorative, at least, than the mynahs.

* Festival newcomers, Alan and Cath Morris at Pukemara (also in New Plymouth) have been feeling tested by the wind and rain but are well on top of the final preparation work. They are hoping for more sunshine and warmth to hurry along the flower buds on the vireya rhododendrons, but the roses are opening their first buds and the hostas are rocketing away and filling the spaces. They are really looking forward to opening day next Friday.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday October 15, 2010

Latest posts:
1) Hippeastrum aulicum is flowering in abundance in our woodland gardens.
2) Garden tasks for the upcoming week as we hurtle along in spring.
3) Choosing a wheelbarrow – the latest in Abbie’s Outdoor Classroom series.
4) Two weeks until our annual Taranaki Rhododendron and Garden Festival – the pressure is on as we count down.
5) Tried and True – ligularia reniformis (widely referred to as the tractor-seat ligularia).
6) A hot, dry autumn in Spain and Portugal – the first of Abbie’s columns on her recent jaunt to those countries.

 

Rhododendron polyandrum - big and very fragrant

Rhododendron polyandrum - big and very fragrant

 


Tikorangi notes: October 15, 2010
I went away for three weeks and came home to find that I had entirely missed the erythronium flowering for the year, the magnolias are all but over, the michelias are past their peak, but the pleione orchids and rhododendrons are looking great. This is R.polyandrum, one of our favourite species. The fragrance is divine and it is one of the breeder parents of a whole range of cultivars bred by both Felix Jury and Mark, bringing healthy characteristics, flower size and its delicious scent. This is one of those plants where the scent can hang heavy in the air metres away from a large specimen. Others might think it can be a bit open, leggy even, but we don’t mind that because it has splendid peeling bark and we like the open habit rather than a heavy, dense shrub which sits solid on the ground.

Plant Collector – Hippeastrum aulicum

 

Hippeastrum aulicum

Hippeastrum aulicum

At this time of the year the big red flowers of Hippeastrum aulicum look like Jacobean lilies. We use it as a woodland plant because our past experience is that narcissi fly can devastate hippeastrums planted in the sun but the flies don’t go into the shaded areas to lay their eggs in the crowns of the bulbs. It takes a while for the bulbs to get large enough to flower but they are happy to be planted and left alone, gently increasing year by year so, after several decades, we have large clumps of them which oblige with gorgeous blooms in spring, standing 60 to 70cm high on strong stems. With us, they are completely evergreen though they may drop their foliage in harsher conditions.

A colourful woodland plant - H. aulicum

A colourful woodland plant – H. aulicum

Just for a change, the hippeastrum family doesn’t come from South Africa which is home to the majority of bulbs that we grow successfully here. Instead they hail from South America and this particular one is native to Brazil and Paraguay. H. aulicum is a species and not widely available though the curious H.papilio is sometimes offered for sale (expect to pay about $30 for a single, flowering sized bulb) and there are many hybrids which are brightly coloured, big flowered things for growing in containers. I am not so keen on the hybrids, papilio is less obliging as a garden plant but aulicum is both exotic to look at and a consistent performer.

In the Garden this Week – October 15, 2010

• I headed overseas for three weeks and came home to find that I had successfully missed two weeks of hideous weather and the season had changed completely in the third week. The pressure is on in the garden. Most plants are putting on their main growth spurt for the year and that includes the weeds. If you can eliminate the first round of germinating weeds this season, you can do a lot to break the cycle.

• When you have done a weeding round, pile on the mulch to nourish the soil, suppress the next series of weed seeds which will be wanting to germinate and stop the garden from drying out over summer. We favour a thick layer of compost which we make ourselves (but you need to make sure your compost is free of weed seeds). Leaf litter, bark or woodchip, calf shed shavings, old silage, barley straw, pine needles or pea straw are other options.

• Get woody trees and shrubs planted as soon as possible. That includes any new hedging and fruit trees. They need time to settle in and make some fresh root growth before the heat and dry of summer. This is even more important if you live close to the coast where soils are usually lighter or in South Taranaki which dries out faster than the north.

• The cold snap earlier this week was a good reminder as to why it does not pay to rush planting out summer vegetables like tomatoes, capsicums and corn. Labour Weekend is the traditional time but it may pay to wait a little longer until it is clear that we are consistently warmer. These plants don’t like cold changes.

• Get peas sown now. You are running out of time for this season. Planted now, you may have your timing right for fresh peas for Christmas dinner.

• You should be planting out main crop potatoes and in warmer areas, kumara runners can go in soon. Kumara need a long growing season.

• If you have your vegetable garden dug over and prepared for planting, go in with the rake every few days. You will keep cultivating the soil to a fine tilth and hoeing off successive waves of germinating seeds.

• If you persist with the opinion that our native plants are boring, take a look at the island bed on Courtenay Street outside the fire station. It stopped me dead in my tracks from right across the road and I had to go and have a closer look. It is as good a combination of plants as you will ever see. The fact that they are natives is almost irrelevant to the fact that it is just an exceptionally pleasing and interesting small public planting.