- The campbellii magnolias on Powderham Street beside the radio station are in full flower at the moment and worth looking at. They are the big pink and white flowers. The red magnolia just opening its flowers around town at the moment is Vulcan.
- An esteemed colleague in a national publication tells us that there are a number of bulbs which can be lifted when in full growth (but probably better done just after flowering) but he only cites snowdrops and bluebells by name. Normal practice is to dig and replant when the bulbs are dormant in their off season but most of us forget where they are at that time. We knew that the English advocate moving snowdrops (galanthus) when in full growth but it appears that it can be done with other types of bulbs. However, if you are going to do this, we would recommend only transplanting to well cultivated garden beds or pots as opposed to field or woodland drifts in harder conditions. It is a big ask for bulbs in full growth to go into compacted, heavy conditions and to settle in well.
- Pleione orchids can be divided now. Discard the soft black bulb in the centre and replant the smaller green bulbs which have formed around its outside. Pleiones sit on the surface or just below with their bases nestled in, but do not press down hard. If they have started to shoot from the base and you break the shoots off, they do not put out more. Pleiones are easy to grow in well drained conditions or in pots and multiply up satisfyingly except for the choice yellow ones which prefer a colder climate to here.
- In all but the coldest areas, early potatoes can be planted now.
- Peas can be sown. This is a crop where making a sowing every few weeks from here on will ensure continued harvest. Parsnips, carrots, beetroot and radish can also be sown but will need protection from the rain. A coating of compost will help to avoid seeds being washed out. Sheets of glass were the traditional way to cover seeds but narrow strips of clear roofing plastic are easier to handle.
- Start topdressing your lawn. There are any number of proprietary lawn fertilisers. Bioboost is a cheap and cheerful option. Lawns do not need the Rolls Royce expensive fertiliser options. If you feel you must use hormone sprays on your lawn to take out broadleafed weeds, get onto it as soon as the weather allows. Some deciduous plants, particularly magnolias, are very susceptible to these hormone sprays at the time when they are going into growth. The result can be badly distorted and unsightly foliage all spring and summer. So it is best to use the hormone sprays such as Tordon Gold either very soon or to delay until mid October onwards.
Author Archives: Abbie Jury
The Self Sustaining Garden – the guide to matrix planting
Author: Peter Thompson
Published by David Bateman Ltd $39.95
I opened this book prepared to be impressed. The author comes with impeccable credentials (a well travelled plantsman and keen gardener with a career in plant physiology at Kew). The first things I spotted as I flicked through were a couple of photographs of our garden here which was a bit of a surprise in a book by an English author.
But no matter how I tried to get to grips with what matrix planting is (and we should know here because the photo captions tell me we practice it well in our own garden) all I kept thinking was that it is making a mystery out of common sense gardening and good gardening practice.
I am not sure that the writing style helps. “Skin-deep eye-appeal, inability to resist ‘bargains’, and belief in promises for quick solutions – that is how we all start buying plants. Finding places for this little collection in the garden is akin to creating a sentence from ‘elephant’ because we like the word; ‘iridotomy’ because the sound intrigues us, even though we are baffled by its meaning; and ‘manufacture’ and ‘bread’ because they sound reassuringly useful.” Leaving aside the questionable punctuation, I could not help but feel that some ruthless editing might have helped to capture the message a little more clearly and concisely. And had the word count been lower, the typeface could have been a little larger. Older readers may need a magnifying glass.
So, best effort here from three of us to translate matrix planting into plain language is that a range of plants best suited to the conditions are grown together to create layers of mixed planting which excludes weeds and generally requires little maintenance.
It is a nicely presented book which is what we have come to expect from Auckland based publishers, Batemans. Lots of good photos. Plant lists which are always rather random by nature but even more so when compiled by an English botanist for New Zealand gardens. And I am not convinced that a ‘mono-matrix’ plant (Gunnera manicata which is on the banned list here anyway) and a ‘temporary matrix’ plant (cardiocrinum giganteum) are not in fact a contradiction in terms in this heady new world of achieving sustainability through careful matrix planting.
August 6, 2007 Weekly Garden Guide
- While August is still rated as winter, the worst of the winter weather has probably passed in July. So prepare for the sudden onset of spring growth. Mulching garden beds can help reduce the explosion of weeds germinating as soon as temperatures rise but the layer of mulch will need to be around 10cm thick to work. Use bark chips or fines, compost if it is weed free, leaf litter, wood shavings (not tanalised) or pea straw. Dunedin gardeners may still use the cocoa husks from Cadburys that we remember from our days of living there – a decidedly chocolate aroma from garden mulching is a smell peculiar to that southern city.
- Prune sasanqua camellias now that they have nearly all finished flowering.
- Fuchsias can be pruned in mild areas. These are one of the easiest plants to strike from cuttings so you can use the firm growth from last season to create new plants. You will get a higher success rate if you put the cuttings in potting mix in a sheltered place.
- Dig in green crops in the vegetable garden. It takes time for them to break down and the woodier the green crop, the longer it will take to decompose. Allow four weeks before planting again.
- Garden centres will have their biggest selection of fruit trees available at the moment. As a general rule, fruit trees like full sun and good drainage but you can get away with tamarillos in a woodland setting. Generally speaking, plums, apples and pears are successful throughout Taranaki and coastal areas can grow good citrus. Sadly, apricots, peaches and cherries are not going to grow well here. They prefer poor stony soils, hotter summers, colder winters and drier conditions.
- Slugs and snails will be on the move very soon as temperatures rise. Be vigilant but be very cautious with poisoned baits. It is very distressing to kill your dog (not that we have done that here), as well as hedgehogs. Baits have a lure added and will attract the prey so you do not need to carpet the ground. Be sparing. There are also a number of other ways of controlling these pests without poison – the buried beer can, the upside down half citrus shell, digital control by torchlight etc.
- Take a look at the Kings Seeds Catalogue for an impressive selection. No less than 47 different tomatoes with many heirloom varieties. Did you know there are 14 different types of radishes available here? While many of the mainstream annuals and vegetable seeds are included, this is where you source material which is a little different. It also includes an organics section, micro greens, herbs, gourmet vegetables and even fragrant oils. Online at www.kingsseeds.co.nz or phone on 07 549 3409 to order a catalogue.
Listener Best Of NZ
The national magazine, The Listener, included Mark in its Best Of NZ lists this week, August 2, 2007, with recognition for his plant breeding of magnolias. The Taranaki Daily News followed this up by describing Mark as a Taranaki icon, alongside the Govett Brewster Art Gallery, Pukekura Park cricket ground and Whangamomona (a remote Taranaki settlement whose claim to fame is that it declared itself an independent republic and elected a goat as its mayor). Naturally Mark is thrilled to be in such elevated company and to be the only icon who is a person. The goat died of natural causes some time after its election.
Living with an icon
It is tough being a Taranaki icon in our household, or so Mark may tell you. Nobody accords you any respect at all and instead you become a target for endless jokes. Mind you, this is the man who, when I told him I wanted to be a sacred cow so that nobody would dare to write any more horrible letters to the editor about me, replied: “Well one out of two ain’t bad.” So I am milking the icon jokes for all they are worth, singing “I con see clearly now the rain has gone….” A friend contributed Ike on Tina Turner and I think we have several days worth yet to run but I will not inflict any more on readers.
Nor am I going to write about magnolias this week despite their being the genus which is bringing the accolades to Mark. It is a little too early in the season yet as the buds are just starting to break on most of the early flowering varieties. Instead we are back to camellias which provide colour in the season before magnolias.
At this time of the year, I fall in love with camellias all over again. The love affair wanes somewhat as the season progresses. The flowers can turn to mush and they loose the freshness but in June and July, I look at them with delight.
A camellia hedge is a camellia hedge. It tends to be either a formal clipped affair of one single variety or an informal and usually unclipped row of mixed varieties. I can not pretend that a camellia hedge, clipped or unclipped, is ever going to get me too excited. Really, it is just a hedge.
No, it is the interesting feature camellias which get me inspired. For some years I have been nurturing a little collection in pots. Every year I have hosed off the old potting mix around their roots and repotted them in fresh mix for winter, pruned and shaped the tops and transported them out to chosen spots in the garden, only to bring them back into the nursery when the heat of summer hits.
I decided this year it was too much work. While I advocate plain terracotta pots, they are heavy and I always need to find someone to give me a hand hauling the bigger ones around the garden. And I think I had about twenty of them, which seemed excessive. What to do? I hadn’t spent up to ten years nurturing these treasures just to stick them in the garden where they were not likely to remain much a feature. Therein lies the problem. It is not easy to feature a single camellia plant in a garden. Big mature plants in the right place can be thinned out, shaped and titivated. But little character plants can get a bit lost. They tend to meld.
There is an open verdict here as to whether my experimental solution will work and we won’t really know for a few years. We had a simple border which looked great for two weeks of the year. Backed by a buxus hedge, I had planted yellow and red roses, underplanted with mainly yellow and blue perennials. Bright summer colour, I thought. Fortunately, the two weeks of the year when it looked really good with a carpet of red soldier poppies and blue cornflowers were the two weeks around Rhododendron Festival but it was all downhill from there and for most of the other fifty weeks of the year it looked pretty scruffy.
At the time Mark was coming up with his theory that what appeals to people about new gardens is the crisp shape of plants. When freshly planted, each specimen stands on its own whereas when the garden matures, it loses that fresh definition and the plants grow into each other and start to form more of a wall of foliage. I wondered if we could combine my little camellia collection and the permanent freshness of the newly planted garden.
We gutted the border of all roses and perennials and made sure the surface was level. Then, having repotted my camellias for what I hope is the last time, we sank the terracotta pots into the garden with just the rims sitting above the surface. Where plants were rather pot bound, we cut the bottom off the pot so the roots have somewhere to go. So each plant is individually contained and individually displayed. For ground cover, I have used that creeping orange berry plant, on whose name I have a mental block which is not surprising because I have just found out that it is apparently rubus pentalobus. It is a rampant ground cover in sunny conditions even though I have only ever met one person who has seen it fruiting in Taranaki. (It is meant to have delicious orange berries but i think it prefers it hotter and drier.) I am hoping the groundcover will form a simple carpet through which seasonal bulbs can add spots of colour.
So far so good. The plants are indeed featured individually and collectively they create a look of formal structure. They are easily groomed and they should not need watering in summer because the terracotta will absorb moisture from the soil. I will see how they endure through the next few years. If we don’t like it, at least it will be easy to disassemble.
If you looking for varieties suitable to shape into character plants, look at the miniatures and slow growers such as Baby Bear, Itty Bit and Baby Willow which tend to be natural bonsais. The small leafed species are fun to work with (minutiflora, microphylla and a number of the other obscure types). Otherwise, varieties with slightly unpredictable growth habits and wayward branches can lend themselves to turning into feature plants. Bonsai artists often prefer misshapen plants to start with. If you want to create a standard or lollipop, make sure the plant you start with has a good straight central leader.
Camellia petal blight has decimated the flowering impact of the plants in this country. While that is very discouraging, their use and beauty as individual, shaped feature plants or as hedging should not be ignored. They are all evergreen plants and most have a fairly robust constitution which means they will tolerate some pretty harsh treatment. If you hate the big, slushy, spent blooms, keep to the small flowered varieties and the single flowers. There is still a good place for camellias in gardening.
Tikorangi The Jury Garden 