- The Living Art bonsai fraternity will be at Cedar Lodge Nursery on Egmont Road this Sunday from 10am to 4pm and are keen to share their knowledge and enthusiasm with anybody interested in learning more. Some might style this hobby as occupying the bondage and discipline sector of the gardening world and there is no doubt that the skills are highly specialized so it helps to learn from people who know what they are doing.
- You are running out of time for moving large plants. They need time to settle in and make some fresh root growth before the heat of summer starts. Take as large a root ball as you can manage and prune back the top to reduce the stress on the plant. Make sure you dig a deep enough hole to replant, ensuring that the level of the plant remains the same but no deeper than it was.
- September is nearly here and that is the big time for planting the summer vegetable garden. If you haven’t yet dug your green crops in, do it this very weekend so the process of breaking down in the soil can be well underway before you want to plant.
- Learning to grow vegetables from seed can save you a great deal of money as well as extending the range of different varieties you can grow. Some seeds, such as carrots, peas, onions, beet and lettuce can be sown directly into the position where they are to grow. Others, particularly tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, aubergines and pretty much anything exotic or needing a long growing season are started in seed trays or small pots for planting out later in the season. Egg cartons can be a useful quick turnover seed tray and, like the cardboard core of toilet rolls or even newspaper folded into tubes mean that when the seed has germinated and put on some growth, you can plant out the whole item without disturbing the roots. The temporary pot will decompose very quickly in the soil but keep this technique for germinating quick turn over crops such as lettuce, cabbage or bok choy.
- If you haven’t got a copper spray onto your deciduous fruit trees yet, do not delay. You want it done before bud break and that is imminent.
- Further to the article on growing apple trees at home by Glyn Church in the Taranaki Daily News last week, I have been looking at control of codling moth, the single most troublesome pest we have for apples. The short answer is that there is too much information to summarise in brief. If you are organic, Hort Research have been doing a lot of work on organic controls which you can find easily on the internet. There are no one-step answers – the pheromone traps need to be used in conjunction with other measures. The collar of corrugated cardboard around the main stems is not a stand-alone technique. If you had a problem last year and didn’t do anything, it will get worse this year. This is why we will be resorting to spraying this year, to try and break the cycle after a decade of total neglect which has allowed numbers to build up. Springtime is when you need to start the fight against codling moth.
Author Archives: Abbie Jury
Countdown to Festival August 27, 2010
- In Stratford at Merleswood, Erica Jago has been enjoying her drifts of little English snowdrops beneath the deciduous trees. Their flowering season is now pretty well over for the year but the winter display of the cornus is more lasting. Cornus alba has bright red stems while Cornus stolonifera “Flaviramea” has lovely yellow stems. Erica has them planted in her pond garden and the cooler climate of Central Taranaki accentuates the colour. Cornus are otherwise known as dogwoods and the reference to stolonifera just means that plant suckers along below ground.
- Just down the road at Te Popo, Lorri Ellis has been waging war on surplus tree ferns. Lorri has come to the conclusion that tree ferns sneak in under the radar and manage to grow before she even realises they are there, though she is willing to admit that this may in part be her failure to differentiate them from more desirable ferns in the early stages. If you want to shock English and northern European visitors, tell them how we cut down ponga ferns willy nilly – they pay mega bucks for them at home and value them greatly, taking great care to over-winter them though the closely related Tasmanian tree fern is more commonly available than our NZ species. Lorri and Bruce have also been reconstructing their low wall of sawn timber logs which edges an area near their pond. But as the mondo grass (ophiopogon) which softens the hard lines has spread (it, too, is stoloniferous), to get it out has involved digging out all the irises, tulips and daylilies as well to disentangle them. The day lilies and irises will appreciate this lifting and replanting exercise and should romp away with renewed vigour.
- Around the coast past Okato, Chris Goodin is feeling pretty relaxed about this year’s festival, now that she knows what they are in for after being first-time openers last year. Chris has finished making her quota of wedding and opera dresses for the time being and is now into gardening mode. She is particularly thrilled to have just had it confirmed that Auckland artist Karl Maughan will be exhibiting some of his paintings, particularly of rhododendrons, at the Goodins during festival. There is an added incentive to visit. Chris tells me that in the latest Next magazine (the one with Petra on the cover), on page 59 there is a photograph of a fancy woman standing in front of one of Karl’s paintings. Just remember page 59 for the next time you are waiting in line at the supermarket checkout and you are not looking at the fancy woman but at the picture on the wall behind her.
- In town, Mary Vinnicomb was relieved to have finished pruning the climbing roses – she says her knees don’t really appreciate climbing up and down the ladder repeatedly. Many other gardeners will have knees which would go out in sympathy with that sentiment. Her Magnolia Lanarth has done its flowering dash for the year but Mary is grateful that it is still alive after its near terminal encounter with spray drift from somebody else’s property last year. Magnolia Burgundy Star is opening its flowers and Camellia Our Melissa has been an absolute picture along the front fence. Mary says it is quite fun to be working out of sight in the garden and to hear people admiring Our Mel as they walk past. She is worried, however, that her early narcissi (jonquils and daffodils) seem to be reducing in number, not increasing, and she wonders if it is due to the nasty narcissi fly which lays it eggs in the crown of the bulb so the larvae wriggle down to feed.
- At Havenview Vegetable Garden, Maree Rowe is frequently accompanied by her son’s characterful dog, Smoke. She is willing to overlook Smoke’s inclination to snooze on freshly dug beds because this dog has developed a taste for grass grub. She is in fact so keen on them that she will actually dig up the lawn looking for them and Maree says it is like having a chook at her feet whenever she is digs – the dog is waiting and looking for delectable grubs. I am sure this is not natural behavior, but at least they are organic grass grubs in this garden.
Tried and True: vireya rhododendrons Jiminy Cricket, Saxon Glow and Saxon Blush
Jiminy Cricket - the hardiest of any vireya we know
- The hardiest of the vireya family.
- Tidy, compact growth around 75cm high.
- Widely available.
- Flower freely over a long period of time.
Siblings, these three cultivars. The breeder, Os Blumhardt, gave us seed of the cross and one plant grew so well we put it into production with his agreement. We called it Jiminy Cricket because the flowers are held upright and as singles, reminding one of the original Jiminy Cricket’s eyes swivelling on stalks. The remaining plants with Os also grew well and in due course another nursery took two and named them Saxon Glow and Saxon Blush. Glow is a little redder, Blush is a little paler pink while Jiminy is more coral orange coloured but they all have similar habits of growth. They are funny dense little plants with stiff, upwardly pointed leaves. And hardiness in colder, wetter conditions where most vireyas would promptly curl up and die – that is their biggest attraction of all. This is not to say that they will take bog, repeated heavy frosts or snow. They are just hardier than any other vireya we know so are a good choice for very marginal conditions. They make a corker little hedge – we have a semi circle planted beneath a mandarin tree and after close to a decade, they are still bushy and only about 60cm high. Vireyas are easy to strike from cutting so patient gardeners may just buy one plant and build up the numbers for a hedge.
Tried and True: Crassula ovata or the Jade Plant
The Jade Plant or Crassula ovata
- Grows like a natural bonsai.
- Flowers in late autumn and winter.
- Widely available and dead easy to increase at home.
- Optimistically called the Money Plant sometimes.
- Apparently good for feng shui.
This crassula comes from a very large family and has undergone a number of name changes – the current choice seems to Crassula ovata. But it is commonly known as the Jade Plant. In near frost free areas, it is fine as a garden plant but inland, it will need some protection. The dry border under the eaves of the house may be an option, or a container brought under some cover in winter. Frosts will destroy the flowers and can burn the fleshy leaves, even kill the whole plant in bad cases. Being succulent, it doesn’t want wet feet, either. In return, the crassula will reward you by being genuinely easy care and undemanding and putting on a very pretty floral display in the gloom of early winter. I have never seen it more than 90cm high but it develops into a naturally characterful, gnarly looking plant with relative speed. To get more plants, just cut a branch off. Let it dry for a few days and then stick it in some potting mix or good garden soil. Bingo, it will grow roots, just as long as you don’t let it get too wet in the meantime or it may rot. This is a good plant for children to try growing – get them to put in cuttings now and the plants should be well established as Christmas presents for grandparents. Be generous and put in larger cuttings, whole branches even, for more impressive results.
Tikorangi Notes – a blue sky day in Taranaki
Magnolias Black Tulip and Felix Jury on a blue sky spring morning in Taranaki, Monday August 23, 2010
We tend to take our blue as blue skies for granted here, especially in mid winter or early spring as it is now. New Zealanders also tend to take red magnolias for granted, not realising that the sheer intensity of colour we can get here is unsurpassed elsewhere and that most of the breeding of red magnolias has taken place in this country – in fact much of the work was done in this very garden here – Jury Magnolias charts the journey.
Tikorangi The Jury Garden 