Author Archives: Abbie Jury

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About Abbie Jury

jury.co.nz Tikorangi The Jury Garden Taranaki NZ

Tikorangi Notes: July 2, 2010

Latest posts:
1) The winter flowering gem, Cyclamen coum ssp caucasicum – well suited to our temperate sea level conditions.
2) It is a funny thing that satire can get more response than a tightly argued piece. The response to this morning’s column published in the Taranaki Daily News on the topic of total public funding for Pukeiti Rhododendron Trust has been both positive and also considerably greater than I would expect from a usual fortnightly column.
3) It may be mid winter, but that does not mean gardening stops and we give our weekly hints on tasks which can be done.

The harbingers of spring - galanthus

TIKORANGI NOTES
The first of the snowdrops, Galanthus elwesii, are now open and the daintier Galanthus S. Arnott are not far behind. These winter joys may be fleeting, but it is hard to find a simpler or lovelier winter picture. That said, we never get snow here. Never. While daytime temperatures in winter can drop down to single digits (as low as 8 degrees Celsius on a bitter cold day), they are interspersed with glorious days like today – bright sun, blue as blue sky and temps around C16. That is not bad for a temperate climate in the depths of winter, especially as it wasn’t preceded by a frost. That is why we garden for the full twelve months of the year here.

Flowering this week: Cyclamen coum ssp. caucasicum

The charm on the winter flowering cyclamen

These winter flowering cyclamen are a delight and over the years we have increased their numbers so that we can use them to carpet beneath the light canopies of large evergreen azaleas (also coming in to flower now) and in open woodland areas. They have a remarkably long flowering season of months but don’t hold on to their foliage very long after flowering and their corms are quite small, so they discreetly disappear amongst the leaf litter when dormant.

Technically these go by the tongue twisting name of Cyclamen coum ssp caucasicum (the ssp stands for sub-species) and the caucasicums are a great deal more successful in our conditions than the straight coum. They hail from a wide area along the western edge of the Black Sea from Georgia southwards through Turkey to Northern Iran, including the Caucasus Ranges, where they can apparently be found growing from sea-level up to 2000 metres. It is the tolerance of sea level which means they will do with us where we don’t get an alpine chill. The Cyclamen Society (based in Britain) have been sending expeditions for years to try and establish the geographic distribution of the different forms of coum but the political instability of the area poses difficulties. The British have a wonderful history, second to none, of intrepid plant hunting and botanical research but they also have a healthy survival instinct. You won’t often see any forms of Cyclamen coum offered for sale, but if you know of somebody with some plants, they are easy to raise from fresh seed.

A letter from a ratepayer

Mr David McLeod, Chair
Taranaki Regional Council,
Stratford

Dear David,
I was terribly thrilled to read your press release about having secured the future of Pukeiti. That is so exciting.

I see that you personally rank the importance of Pukeiti right up there alongside our maunga, our mountain, Taranaki. Now I don’t want to be accused of raining on your parade, but you don’t think that maybe you were getting a little carried away with the hype of the situation? That perhaps you have overstated the importance just a trifle? I admit I don’t know you (you don’t mind me addressing you as David, do you? It is just that as you are quite good at spending my money, I feel as if I have some sort of relationship with you). Maybe you do in fact wake each fine morning and look out at both Mount Taranaki and Pukeiti and feel a sense of identity. Maybe when your travelling children are asked where they are from, they identify themselves as coming from Taranaki, the home of Pukeiti Rhododendron Trust. Maybe you have enjoyed such frequent visits to Pukeiti all your life that you feel a deeply personal sense of ownership and belonging. Alas, much of your electorate has already voted with their feet and decided that in fact Pukeiti is not such a part of their very identity – that is the whole nub of the problem. Visitor numbers simply haven’t been high enough to support the dream – a dream that belonged to somebody else. But I don’t want to be negative. I am assuming that you and your councillors did a breakdown on visitor numbers to work out how many were local and how many were tourists? And as you are so hellbent on making it free for everybody, I guess that your public consultation showed that ratepayers are glad to pay so that tourist attractions have free entry for visitors from out of the region.

I mention this, David, because in your press release you approved the takeover of Pukeiti “in the wake of positive feedback during public consultation…” That is absolutely wonderful, no doubt about it. I wouldn’t for one minute want to be accused of pouring cold water on your plans. It may be that your networks in the gardening, plants and garden tourism scene are hugely better than mine. That would explain why nobody I have met in the last six months has been consulted. My networks must be terrible. I am talking to the wrong people. No matter, you have apparently found the right people to talk to. Mark says he would really like to hear the names of all three of them.

But lest you think I am moaning, really, David, my reason for writing is to offer you some help. Your press release says that ” …work will begin soon on plans to develop and enhance the property and its plant collection. This will be similar to the planning processes which resulted in the very successful redevelopment and refurbishment of the Council’s existing heritage properties, Tupare and Hollard Gardens. We are looking forward to involving the Trust, PKW and a range of people in this exercise.” That sounds absolutely splendid, very consultative. It is just that I am pretty sure that this has all been done already, quite recently in fact, and I still have the discussion papers in my archives. Actually it is not that long ago – 2005 in fact and I can date it exactly because it all happened when Mark and I were flicking off to look at magnolias in northern Italy. I think along with all the discussion papers from Big Names like Boffa Miscall, Berl and others, somewhere, just somewhere, I even have a letter from your CEO, Basil, telling me how much ratepayer money had been spent on these plans. These sums (measuring into the multi hundreds of thousands of dollars but I would need to find the letter to confirm exact figures) included plans for Hollards and Tupare as well, but the ratepayer has already paid for big plans to take Pukeiti in to a new era of popularity.

Sure, it has to be admitted that some of those plans may have been just a tad grandiose. I think they even included a new home for the wandering gondola, along with a little shopping arcade, of sorts. A tourism hub, even. And fabulous (and I mean fabulous) visitor numbers.

But a little bird told me, and I wouldn’t want to be quoted on this because I haven’t had the information officially and it may be completely wrong, that after Regional Council paid for all those plans five long years ago, the Pukeiti Trust Board commissioned another review and set of development plans immediately after. I think what I was told was that the annual grant of $50 000 of ratepayer money, allocated by Regional Council, was further reinvested in this new set of plans to save Pukeiti. I just recall some discussions at the time because some of us felt that maybe they could have been spending that windfall of 50 grand on another gardener instead of yet more development plans. I am just guessing, maybe putting two and two together and making five, that that was why Pukeiti went ahead and appointed a new CEO with a highly relevant record in managing Speedway. I recently found a newspaper clipping where that new CEO declared that within six months of him starting in his new position, Pukeiti would be re-branded as a functions and events centre. Funny thing that. Six months came and went and it doesn’t seem that long after, the new CEO also went. Made redundant in preparation for Regional Council taking over, do we think?

David, I don’t want to be a moaner but it just may be that there are plenty of recent reports already available to be drawn on, without having to start again. We don’t want to be accused of re-inventing the wheel, do we? Or to make ourselves vulnerable to an accusation of pouring more rate-payer money down the wishing well. Maybe somebody could pick up the phone and have a chat to the immediate past CEO to find out what did and didn’t work?

You don’t think, do you, that maybe it could be argued that it is a teensy weensy little bit precious to say that the cost of Regional Council picking up the tab for Pukeiti will have “minimal impact on average regional rates — over a full year, less than half the cost of the $14 entry fee Pukeiti has been charging up until now” (your words, not mine). That might be true had all ratepayers demonstrated that they wanted to visit Pukeiti at least once a year. A veritable bargain in fact. Such a shame they didn’t. Had they shown this burning desire to visit, Pukeiti would not be in the pickle it is. Instead they would have been run off their feet, even more so on their gold coin donation days when the financially impoverished would have flocked there. In fact, if you take the cost of running the place and divide it by the number of visitors, it just may be that you will find the cost of attracting every single visitor is somewhere nearer $70 per person. Even if you double the attendance in a short space of time, it is still around $35 of ratepayer money to give every visitor free entrance.

Lest you think I am being grumpy, David, I am already on public record as saying that for us personally, Regional Council making sure that Pukeiti survives is, on balance, a good move. We know what Pukeiti’s standing has been internationally, which is more than many of your ratepayers who just have to take your word for it. We also know which key individuals worked tirelessly to earn Pukeiti that credibility. In fact we know quite a bit about the history of Pukeiti. We just hope that you and your fellow councillors have a pretty good grip on it all too After all, you wouldn’t want history to record that you were the people who were all too ready to spend other people’s money trying to realise a lost dream. The Pukeiti dream of Douglas Cook and the founders has long gone. Now you have a large garden in a cold and damp out-of-the-way position, served by a really bad road, branded with a plant which used to be incredibly popular and of high status but few people want any longer.

Do let me know if you need the reports I mentioned.
Kind regards,
Abbie

Today’s column is but the latest in a series over recent years. Earlier columns on this topic include:
1) A tale of Pukeiti Rhododendron Trust and ratepayer funding Published March this year.
2) Taranaki Regional Gardens Part 1 – first published late 2004
3) Taranaki Regional Gardens Part 2 – first published, apparently January 2005 – the best piece of writing for those who can’t be bothered wading through the lot.
4) And Taranaki Regional Gardens Part 3 – which rather tells about the treatment of an unsolicited submission. When in doubt, levy accusations of self interest.

In the Garden: July 2, 2010

  • There we were last weekend, enjoying mild temperatures, shedding layers and thinking that really our winters are not too bad at all when bingo, Monday’s cold reminded us that July is the worst month of winter.
  • While it is fine to plant pretty well any and all of the woody trees and shrubs, there is not a lot of point planting out vegetables, annuals or perennials. They will just sit and wait for warmer temperatures before doing much. So give your attention to fruit trees, hedges, or ornamental shrubs, both evergreen and deciduous. Always, but always, try and get the depth of the plant in the soil the same as they were wherever or however they were grown. If you plant too deeply, you risk rotting the woody trunk (collar rot, no less). With grafted plants, you also increase problems with root stock growing away in competition. If you plant them too shallow, it stresses the plant and its top roots are likely to dry out and die.
  • If you are looking at potato varieties, then the advice from the potato grower here is that Liseta and Jersey Benne are both good early varieties but Liseta is more reliable and a better cropper in our conditions. For main crop he recommends both Red Rascal and Agria but he was also impressed by Purple Heart last season and will grow it again. In fact he grew at least ten different varieties and kept them all separate and labelled at harvest time so we have a smorgasbord of choices for different uses. It used to be that there were new potatoes and old potatoes, depending on the time of the year, but many of us are better informed now and can see the different applications of potato types.
  • If you are short of fresh greens, the quickest option is bean sprouts, followed by sowing a tray of micro greens. You will need to keep the seed tray under cover but with good light – a conservatory, sunroom or porch may be suitable. Or a cloche if you have one. Establish a large enough patch of parsley for the future and it will seed down and keep you supplied.
  • Think pruning. Maybe do the roses and wisterias first, followed by grapevines and apple trees. Raspberries can be done any time now. The hydrangeas can wait till last without suffering. Pruning is best with sharp tools so you make clean cuts. If your secateurs are blunt, their action will be more in the nature of crushing, which is not good.. We did an Outdoor Classroom on sharpening tools last year – you will still find it on abbiejury.co.nz (click on Outdoor Classroom).
  • The garden pages are not awash with giveaways and freebies, apparently unlike the food pages, so I was surprised to be contacted with the offer to send me a pack of genuine, fresh, New Zealand grown cranberries. I have never tried proper cranberries, only Myrtus ugni. Now I can’t wait to try the real McCoy. It is early days for this small operation but from the West Coast, they are now getting a commercial harvest, sold under the brand of Cranberriez.

Taranaki Regional Gardens: Part 1. First published December 2004

THERE is great excitement around our place at the moment. This has come about because we finally got our hands on a copy of the report to the Taranaki Regional Council on the path ahead for the Trust Gardens — Tupare, Hollards and Pukeiti.

We had been waiting for a couple of years to see what was being mooted for these gardens and it was certainly worth waiting for. Silly us. There we had been thinking that the TRC might be looking cautiously at spending a hundred thousand dollars or two on the gardens, accepting that they were regional assets even if they were unlikely to ever pay their own way, in our lifetimes at least.

How wrong we were. No. The plans propose spending around $15 million, give or take, and all of that is on capital works with no allowance made for the management, ongoing maintenance and staffing of the gardens. Not that the $15 million dollars is necessarily all TRC money, but some of it is.

Naturally, we turned to the figures to see how many visitors they were expecting to these gardens. And you could have knocked us down with a feather. We were blown away by the visitor projections. Stunned would be understating our response.

This is such exciting news but we are ever so slightly miffed that all the other private-sector garden openers in the province have not been warned about the tidal wave of visitors about to hit us in the next two to three years. We have swung into emergency mode. Clearly we will need to buy the neighbour’s property to extend our carpark. Our existing facilities are woefully inadequate for visitor numbers confidently promised to rise by between 500% and 1000% by 2006 or 2007. We are going to need more toilets, let alone the fact that the paths around our garden are not adequate to cope with the projected numbers. Our excitement is tempered by panic at this hitherto unexpected surge in garden visitors to our province.

And what are the predicted numbers? Hollards is a fine garden that has rightly been accorded the status of Garden of National Significance but is dogged by both a difficult location some distance from the main road and by an unpredictable climate. The predicted visitor numbers are quite conservative for Hollards — a mere 500% or so increase over the next two years to 12,000.

Tupare was once a fine garden but has declined considerably over recent years and didn’t even make the cut as one of the best 23 gardens in the province in the Blue Ribbon days. It has a wonderful location in the city but a difficult terrain for garden visitors. No matter, the report to the TRC confidently predicts that by 2006 (that is only next year), visitor numbers can be 24,000. Tupare’s current visitor numbers are stated with wonderful imprecision as between 2000 and 4000 per annum. Our best guess, based on 17 years of opening our own garden, is that 2500, maybe 3000 max, would be about right.

And Pukeiti? The garden destined to need the lion’s share of the money if the recommendations are endorsed? Again dogged by a difficult climate and a difficult location, but these problems are clearly not going to hold people back.

The report confidently asserts that visitor numbers to Pukeiti will climb to 34,000 by 2007 and that figure does not include visits by members of Pukeiti. Possibly add another 3000 for members’ visits. That is starting from a current base of around 8000 people each year.

We are assuming that there will be a spin-off for us and for all other garden openers in the province. Naturally we don’t expect millions of dollars of outside funding to be spent here, so we can’t expect the astronomical increase in visitor numbers that the three trust gardens are planning for. We will settle for a mere 300% increase in visitor numbers in two years, thank you. That will still mean we will get considerably fewer than even Hollards expect, but it will pay for the new gardener we confidently plan to appoint in anticipation.

A brave new world of garden visiting apparently awaits us all. After all, Business and Economic Research Ltd (Berl) and the TAG group that prepared the reports for the regional council have predicted it and they must know what they are talking about.

How else could they justify advocating spending close to $1.7 million on Tupare over the next few years? That $1.7 million excludes GST, operational and management costs and costs associated with the plant collection. Add another few hundred grand per annum to cover running costs.

Hollards is clearly a bargain. It is only going to take just over $1.3 million (plus GST and ongoing operational and management costs) to lift this garden into its new, heady space. This includes removing the house (Bernie and Rose Hollards’ home may be older than the house at Tupare but it is not grand enough, dear) and replacing it with a “modest” visitor pavilion. A modest visitor pavilion where the house used to stand, costing a modest $581,500 (including the fit-out but excluding GST).

The big bikkies are reserved for Pukeiti, as befits the premier destination expecting the largest visitor numbers. More than $10 million dollars is all that is needed to take this garden beyond what any of us currently know and respect. That figure of course excludes GST, management and operational costs and it also does not include the development of water-supply systems and effluent management systems required in that sensitive environment to cope with the massive increase in visitor numbers.

There we were, thinking that when the regional council took over Tupare and Hollards and took Pukeiti under its wing it would help fund skilled labour to keep these gardens as regional treasures, accepting that in doing so they would be in direct competition with the private-sector ratepayers who pay for their own gardens.

But what would we know about all this? We are just humble ratepayers and gardeners who open our own garden to the public.