Author Archives: Abbie Jury

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About Abbie Jury

jury.co.nz Tikorangi The Jury Garden Taranaki NZ

In the Garden: Friday August 6, 2010

We are harvesting our white sapotes now

  • If you can grow orange trees or avocados, you may like to try the white sapote or casimiroa edulis – an exotic taste of Mexico whose fruit ripens at this time of the year. I would describe it as a cross between vanilla icecream and creamy custard in flavour and texture. It will tolerate light frosts only but you can get a good crop in our coastal areas and it is an attractive plant, tropical in appearance.
  • In case you are wondering after looking at our Outdoor Classroom this week, Mark sowed a rye and fescue grass seed mix for our lawn. He also added microlina – a fine native grass which he tries to encourage, for which he harvests his own seed. There are experts in grass seed mixes around if you wish to seek out good advice. Turf rye appears to be a good option for shady lawns but sandy lawns (which turn brown in summer) remain problematic if you don’t want to use kikuya.
  • Esteemed colleague Glyn Church advised last year that all winter pruning should be finished by the time birds start nesting. Some readers may need to start panicking – it is clear that the birds are gathering nesting materials here and our first clutch of ducklings is imminent. Give grape vines and kiwifruit priority if you have them. Their sap starts to run early.
  • If the tastes of Italy are what you covet, you can get Franchi seeds mailorder from Italian Seeds Pronto – the catalogue is available at http://www.italianseedspronto.co.nz or you can buy seeds off the shelf at Vetro or Fresha. These are large packets of seed with plenty to share and a range of Italianate goodies which go beyond the common tomato, capsicum and lettuce varieties.
  • Keen veg gardeners will be champing at the bit to prepare the ground for planting out (dig in green crops and start cultivating the ground) and sowing seed in trays or pots to keep under cover in order to get an early start in a few weeks time. You don’t gain anything by trying to get summer seed sown or plants out before the soils have had a chance to start warming up and the risk of frost is past. If you really want to try and push the pace, get a cloche or build a cold frame from old windows. However, carrots, onions, parsnip, beetroot, peas and brassicas don’t mind the cold if you want to be out sowing and planting. Get early crop potatoes in now – by the time they come through in three weeks time, you can mound them over to protect them from late frosts.
  • We gave the All Round Bad Idea of the Week Award to the recommendation in a national gardening publication that your wheelie bin makes a great container for growing potatoes (just drill holes in the bottom first, we are advised). Not only do few of us actually own our wheelie bin, as a container for growing potatoes it is miles too deep, will take far too much dirt or potting mix and that doesn’t address how one is supposed to get the harvest out from the bottom later in the season. If you can’t grow them in the ground, try stacks of tyres though why anybody would prefer to fiddle with potatoes in containers eludes us.

Renovating a lawn: step-by-step guide

Sometimes a make-do patch and feed is not sufficient for a lawn and more drastic remedial action is required.

1) Rake out the dead grass and accumulated debris from the existing lawn – referred to as scarifying or dethatching. We have a manually operated tool for this purpose which is easy to use. You can also use a garden rake or there are powered machines which you can hire. Remove the piles to the compost heap.

2) Level out bumps and hollows, bringing in clean topsoil if required. Ideally you want the top soil to be free of weeds. Where possible, rake to a fine tilth but if you are working over an existing lawn, you can only do this in the bare patches. Too much raking and scarifying can remove the existing grasses that you want to keep. Preparation is the key to a good lawn – there are no shortcuts.

3) Grass seed is best bought and sown fresh. The packet will give the recommended application rate. Measure out a sample square metre and weigh out the recommended quantity so you can see the correct quantity. Don’t rely on guesswork. Broadcast the seed by scattering to get a feel for how thickly to spread it. We applied it about half rate because we were over-sowing existing lawn which still had some grass growing.

4) Compress the soil. Traditionally, lawn rollers are used for this process although we used our lawnmower which has wide tyres. Any rolling weight is fine. You are compressing the top layer, not trying to compact the entire lawn.

5) We chose to spread a fine layer of compost about one centimetre thick to hold the grass seed and give it a good start. We raked out all twigs and larger pieces from the compost. This was spread after rolling.

6) The greatest peril is birds – every seed eating bird in the district will be trying to get the grass seed. The worst offenders are sparrows and finches. It is worth the effort to cover the sown areas until it is clear that the grass is germinating and starting to look green. We used a combination of bird netting and old shade cloth and left it on for about three weeks.

Our annual plant sale

STARTING NEXT FRIDAY AUGUST 6, SATURDAY, SUNDAY AND MONDAY AUGUST 9, THEN AGAIN ON FRIDAY AND SATURDAY AUGUST 13 AND 14 ONLY. STRICTLY LIMITED DURATION. I wasn’t going to have a plant sale this year (Mark does his utmost to ignore these matters) but we really would like to clear some of the plants to make way for the planned new gardens. So there are bargains to be had. Click on Plant Sales where I will post further information during this week about plant lines which are included.

Tikorangi notes: July 30, 2010

Latest posts:
1) July 30, 2010: Agapetes serpens – aptly described by somebody else as a vegetable octopus, we love the fact it feeds our native birds despite its origin in the Himalayas.
2) July 30, 2010: All Gardeners Dream – Abbie’s newspaper column.
3) July 30, 2010: In the garden this week – tasks and hints from pruning to making little slug bait stations to lichen.
4) July 30, 2010: Around the province, gardeners are counting down to our annual garden festival at the end of October – the latest update.
5) July 27, 2010: Camellia Diary 4. The sad story about camellia petal blight in NZ.

Towering 20 metres up in the air - our queen palms

Tikorangi Notes:
We enjoy our queen palms (Syagrus romanzoffiana), now of rather towering stature at about 20 metres high and half a century old. But their falling fronds can be a bit of a menace and there is certainly no way of getting up to groom those hanging about waiting to fall. You would not want to be underneath one because they weigh a surprising amount at the base and crash down with considerable force – taking out a large wodge of a camellia below recently. Mark has been moved to comment that there are rather a lot of vegetable time bombs planted very close to houses and apartments in Auckland, often by landscapers who all too frequently lack the

Falling from 20 metres, the fronds can be somewhat alarming.

plant experience to know what their selections are capable of when mature. Palms, you see, take up little space, are easy-care and wonderfully evocative of the warmer temperatures of the tropics so have been all the rage in urban gardens for some time now. As they keep reaching for the sky and growing in stature, the potential for falling fronds to cause damage increases – you certainly wouldn’t want your house spouting to be caught by a falling frond, let alone your car. But the average life expectancy of a garden plant in this country is, I have been told, a mere 10 years (before being chopped out and replaced by the latest fashion) so the chances of many palms reaching sufficient maturity to cause problems are not great.

Plant collector: Agapetes serpens

Agapetes serpens - attracts nectar feeding birds in winter

Agapetes serpens - attracts nectar feeding birds in winter

Agapetes serpens is a surprisingly hardy woodland plant from the Himalayan region and there we have been for years thinking it was a somewhat tender plant from India! Right general geographic area at least (she says in self defence). It is an evergreen shrub but with arching growth – aptly described by another as being like a vegetable octopus. What is really lovely through winter and spring is the prolonged flowering season when the branches are festooned with tiny hanging red bells with cute little chevron markings which Mark always thinks resemble Chinese lanterns and these must contain nectar because the wax-eyes come in to feed regularly. Mark was delighted to see even a bellbird come in to feed on one of our plants.

In the wild, A.serpens is often epiphytic which means it grows perched in the embrace of a larger tree. Consequently, in a more suburban environment, it is equally suited to growing in a container or a hanging basket. As the plant matures, its roots develop into big nubbly, woody protruberances pushing themselves above the soil, which we assume is for water storage. We grow serpens both in the shade where its foliage stays predominantly green and in full sun where it tends to be red-toned. I am still a little hesitant about declaring it as totally hardy so in colder, inland areas it would probably be wise to treat it as a woodland plant which needs some overhead cover rather than using it out in the open.

Agapetes are related botanically to the vacciniums (which includes proper cranberries) and all are members of the wider ericaceae family which takes in the heaths and heathers as well.