Author Archives: Abbie Jury

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About Abbie Jury

jury.co.nz Tikorangi The Jury Garden Taranaki NZ

Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture (Inc.)

Mark Jury receives the Plant Raisers Award for 2007

Mark Jury is one of this country’s foremost breeders of ornamental plants, and in recent times he has received international recognition for his achievements.

Mark was born in 1951. He graduated from Massey University in 1974 with a BA in psychology, and could well be the only person with such a qualification in the NZ nursery trade. Early plans for a career in counselling changed, and he took time out to be a rock drummer (he still has his drum kit), to teach himself to draw and paint, and to make a living as a wood turner before deciding to set up a plant nursery on his father’s property at Tikorangi.

The late Felix Jury is one of the most esteemed plant breeders and horticulturists this country has produced. Felix was a farmer who took early retirement to garden and breed plants, and the numerous outstanding hybrids he produced are now internationally acclaimed. The nursery, however, is entirely Mark’s effort, one that he ‘built up from one wheelbarrow’. Contrary to popular belief, Felix never had a nursery.

Despite having no formal training in horticulture, Mark learned enormously by working alongside his father for 17 years. He also benefited greatly from having access to Felix’s plant material, and from being able to tap into the wealth of knowledge and experience that Felix freely shared.

His uncle Les Jury was also an early mentor, particularly in the breeding of camellias.

The nursery, however, has only ever been a means to earn a living for Mark, who claims he is not a dedicated nurseryman. Rather, it is plants and the garden that matter to him, and when breeding plants his quest is invariably to produce better garden subjects.

No new plant is ever released by Mark until he has full confidence in all its attributes. Trialling is an integral part of the breeding process, and new hybrids are grown in the field or the garden, as well as the nursery, to assess their performance over a number of years before they ever get put into production.

Following is a representative selection of hybrids bred by Mark Jury:

Camellias

‘Fairy Blush’ is regarded by Mark as the best of his camellia hybrids currently on the market, followed by ‘Volunteer’. ‘Jury’s Pearl’, however, is the one which brings Mark most pleasure because it achieved what he was looking for; compact growth, abundant flowering over an extended period, healthy foliage, good flower form and an almost luminescent flower colour. He has named a number of others, including ‘Gay Buttons’, ‘Pearly Cascade’, ‘Topiary Pink’, and ‘Apple Blossom Sun’. Two promising new selections yet to be released are a compact and very free flowering red formal double, and a purple pompom flowered miniature.

Rhododendrons

‘Floral Sun’ is Mark’s pride and joy. When he told his wife Abbie that he was crossing Rhododendron sino nuttalli with R. ‘RW Rye’, she recalls quipping that he would probably get offspring which were a mass of tiny white flowers and no scent. Instead he did get the yellow colourings into the nuttalli trumpets, compact growth and nuttalli foliage. He has also named ‘Floral Gift’, ‘Meadow Lemon’ and ‘Platinum Ice’, and has various others under consideration. Mark specifically strives for healthier performance, resistance to thrips and where possible fragrance.

Magnolias

The new ‘Burgundy Star’ could prove to be the best Mark has produced. It ‘loses the purple tones’ of ‘Vulcan’ and ‘Black Tulip’ and is described as carrying a very large Magnolia liliifora type flower on a fastigiate tree. ‘Black Tulip’, however, is the cultivar that has caught the imagination of the market place, while ‘Felix Jury’ is his personal favourite. Mark thinks he may have exhausted what he can do with red flowered magnolias, but he has some pinks and whites under trial. In 2004 the International Magnolia Society conferred upon Mark the prestigious Todd Gresham Magnolia Award.

Vireya rhododendrons

‘Jaffa’ and ‘Sweet Vanilla’ are regarded by Mark as probably the best cultivars he has yet named, although he has produced quite a few others. These include ‘Sherbet Rose’, ‘Peach Puff’, ‘Jellybean’, ‘Mango Sunset’, ‘Pink Jazz’. Sadly some of the others have already been dropped from production. Despite fairly rigorous trialling, when in production some are considered to be too vulnerable to root problems. ‘Festival Ruby’ is scheduled for release later this year for the 20th anniversary of the Taranaki Rhododendron Festival. Part of the vireya rhododendron breeding programme has focussed on trying to get full trusses reminiscent of the hardy rhododendrons, whilst also aiming for compact growth, fragrance and abundant flowering.

Michelias

A range of unreleased new hybrids is currently generating great excitement and anticipation amongst those who have seen them. This series extends the colour range of the flowers, growth habits, foliage and flowering season. Mark is optimistic of a great future for these, seeing them fitting a market niche similar to camellias but without most of the problems such as camellia petal blight and yellowing of foliage. The first two cultivars from this series are scheduled for release next year.

Cordylines

‘Red Fountain’ is a hybrid produced by Felix, while Mark introduced it. The next generations of Mark’s cordylines are currently under development.

Dianella ‘Golden Chance’ (so-named because it was a chance discovery) seems to have entered the marketplace with ‘a bit of a whoosh’, somewhat to the surprise of Mark and Abbie.

Mark often ‘plays’ with other plants to produce even more high quality garden subjects. His Arisaema hybrids are regarded as particularly fetching, extending the colour range and holding their blooms above the foliage, but sadly they are unlikely to enter commerce. Unfortunately for gardeners, the same applies to a number of other plants that he ‘wields his paintbrush around’.

It is appropriate that the Institute recognises Mark Jury for his considerable contribution to amenity horticulture. He is a most worthy recipient of the Plant Raisers award.

June 15, 2007 In the Garden This Week

  • After our comment a fortnight ago about seeing the first snowdrops of the spring season in flower already, a kind reader sent a breathtaking photo from the UK Daily Express showing snowdrops below a copse of white barked birches. Not so much a clichéd carpet of them as the dense shag pile of the woodland world. Millions of them flowering across six acres in Berkshire.
  • Cut back on watering house plants as they are best kept on the dry side in winter. Don’t leave them sitting in saucers of water and don’t keep their soil saturated. Overwatering in winter is the fastest way to kill indoor plants. If you have frost tender treasures, move them away from windows unless you have curtains between them and the cold night air.
  • Most of the popular annuals are perfectly hardy and can be planted out now as seedlings or sown as seed. If you are not sure whether a particular variety is suitable for scattering freely (as opposed to the much more intensive practice of starting in seed trays) read the back of the seed packet and take notice of it.
  • Plants in garden centres flower earlier than those planted out in gardens so while there are only a few camellias open at the moment, the plants for sale will be showing much more colour and open flower already. It is a good time to look for the biggest selection.
  • Plant garlic and shallots now. For better yields, search out the New Zealand garlic rather than the cheap Chinese imported bulbs. Break the clump into separate cloves and plant the cloves upright in shallow trenches about 10 cm apart and 5cm deep. The bigger and better the clove, the better the crop will be. Garlic needs rich, friable soil, very well drained in full sun. No garlic lover has ever reported a vampire attack. Ergo, It is an indisputable fact that garlic repels vampires.
  • If you are growing globe artichokes, plants need renewing every three or four years. Unless you are very cold, you can lift them now and separate the new suckers at the base to replant, keeping as much root as possible attached to them. Throw away the old parts. Unless you absolutely adore artichoke hearts and have a large area, you only need a very few plants to give a seasonal harvest. If you have an old clump you want to keep growing, limit the number of shoots to about four or five.
  • Gather your nuts in June. Walnuts that is, though after a bumper crop here last year which lasted us for many months, the crop this year is so bad that it was hardly worth collecting. All nuts need drying – spread thinly on trays in a sunroom, glasshouse or by the fire will work. It can take a few weeks to dry them out.

Of Letters to Editors and Peter Rabbit

In an earlier incarnation, or so it feels, I used to be a school teacher and I can recall the frequent complaint in the staff room that because everybody has been to school, there is a tendency for many to believe that they are experts in learning and teaching. I now realise that particular complaint is applicable to any range of occupations. A smidgeon of knowledge is at times a misleading thing. In the gardening world, this is best revealed in the letters to the gardening publications. I picked up one of the national magazines recently and I am still a little bemused at some of the letters.

Edward from Auckland decided to test out the claims of honey as a rooting hormone. He took two (yes, just two) cuttings and dipped one in honey. It grew whereas the untreated cutting did not. So excited was he by this exhaustive scientific research, that he felt it warranted a letter to the editor. Incontrovertible proof of the efficacy of honey.

Many gardeners follow the practice of putting stones or similar at the bottom of their plant containers in the hope of improving drainage. Millie from Dargaville advocates a whole new approach. Instead of stones or broken china, she suggests using aluminium cans. “They can be squashed, laid on their sides or left standing upright, depending on the size of the pot.” Personally I am deeply puzzled by this piece of advice. Not only do I fail to see what purpose the aluminium cans serve in the container, whether squashed or not, but I am totally mystified as to why anybody would even want to put aluminium cans in with their potting mix.

But Ashburton Anne takes the cake. After marvelling at the freakish sight of her rose which changes colour from yellow through to cream and pink and her hydrangea which has blue, pink and purple flowers all on the same bush, she goes on to tell of an even stranger thing that happened to her neighbour. He had apparently planted cucumbers in his tunnel house and even harvested a few when, in Anne’s own words: “ the plants went crazy – right up to the roof and out of the doors…. He followed along the stems from the cucumber plant and found pumpkins! Not from a graft on the stem, but just changed.” Sadly she goes on to say that he had to pull the plants out as they overshadowed his tomatoes. The world is apparently forever to be deprived of the truly remarkable discovery of the cucumber that could metamorphose into a pumpkin, henceforth to be knows as “cumpcins”, or should that be “pucumpers”? What can I say? What can anyone say? Second Daughter suggested in disbelief that the neighbour must have seen her coming and decided to have some fun at her expense.

On the gardening front, we are a bit disconcerted by the bravado currently being shown by our resident rabbits. Possums we live with on a nightly basis and we have a dog who is a wonderful possum hunter. He chases them up trees and then calls for Mark in the early hours of the morning to come and deal with them. Mark claims to shoot around 75 to 100 a year but as I slumber through many of these night time forays, I can’t vouch for his figures. But the rabbits are a new intrusion. I can’t believe that despite a resident dog and cat, these unwelcome visitors have been permitted to take up residence in the house gardens. I have looked the cat in the eye and asked her how she can pretend to have any self respect at all when Flopsy, Mopsy and the rest of the gang are getting ever braver but the cat merely looked disdainful and went back to sleep. All this because it was bad enough to find the rabbits had repeatedly chewed off all the young foliage of a delightful late winter bulb called onyxottis, to the extent that we have had to lay wire netting over that patch, but I was simply outraged to find that they had been digging in the border which bounds the house. Right outside the window which is the cat’s main exit, in fact, and a mere five metres from where the dog sleeps. It is too much.

The early settlers have a great deal to answer for, introducing rabbits and possums. But I guess we should be grateful that we don’t have bears, foxes or kangaroos and that the naturalised deer keep themselves confined to forested areas. Given the damage a family of small bunnies can inflict, the mind boggles at what could be done by larger mammals.

I am threatening to get another fox terrier. Our departed foxie was a splendid rabbiter although he preferred to sleep at night when the possums were active. At the entrance to our property we have a large gum tree, planted around 1880 by the first Jury who settled here. A couple of years ago, the Peter Rabbit family built a condominium beneath it. With a girth of around 12 metres, there was plenty of room below for dry quarters. Alas Merlot the foxie had never read Watership Downs and he saw nothing wrong with following them into their quarters. Unfortunately he failed to emerge for some time and the sight of his little face peering out from the exposed roots on the other side of the tree from where he entered caused considerable angst amongst our staff at the time. In fact I saw one of them out there with a spade, contemplating digging him out. Fearing for the future of the tree, I suggested we just leave him for a while. I am not sure that I could have followed the English hunting tradition of leaving him there for a few days until he had lost enough weight to be able to fit back out but it didn’t come to that. Left to his own devices below ground where the rabbit family had presumably long scarpered, he soon felt the call of dinner and found his own way out.

I really wouldn’t have minded if the rabbit family had kept to their gum tree condo. They are quite cute sitting around our carpark in the late evening. But venturing in the garden gate is not the most diplomatic move they have made.

June 8, 2007 In the Garden This Week

  • It is blower vac time. If you have one of these handy (albeit somewhat noisy and intrusive) machines, you can easily blow all the fallen leaves off the driveway and paths and onto the garden where they can be left to rot down and suppress the weeds. Or blow the leaves onto the lawn and run a mulcher mower over them to feed the lawn. We can’t believe it took us so long to discover what a boon a blower vac is in maintaining the garden. Electric powered models are fine for small town gardens. Large gardens need petrol driven motors and we have worked out that for very large gardens, the much more expensive backpack models are greatly preferable. Such a shame we bought a cheaper hand held one.
  • Plant trees and shrubs and continue lifting and dividing clumping plants. While summer is all about maintenance in the garden, the cooler months are more about planting. Now is the time to reassess messy patches or to replace tatty looking plants which have not performed to expectations.
  • Luculias and vireyas in sheltered, frostfee positions or sasanqua camellias provide some flowering shrub interest at this time of the year. Dichroa versicolour (an evergreen type of hydrangea) is still in flower.
  • Clean up the asparagus bed. If you are intending to start a bed of this taste treat in early spring (the traditional time for planting asparagus), start preparing it now. Fork in as much compost and manure as you can. More is better in this case, as is a well dug, double dug or even triple dug bed. Don’t waste your time and effort if you are planning on moving house in a year or two – asparagus beds are long term commitments.
  • If you have fires indoors, be cautious of the ash which comes from closed wood burner units. It can be highly concentrated and needs to be spread very thinly. If you are ecologically challenged and burn plastic or polystyrene or even tanalised timber offcuts in your fire, don’t spread the ashes on your garden.
  • On the planting front, if you are frost free you can continue planting potatoes.

June 1, 2007 In the Garden This Week

  1. Beware of frosts which are starting to make themselves felt. It is time to bring any particularly precious vulnerable plants under cover until spring.
  2. It is the optimum time for planting and for redeveloping areas in the garden. Review tatty areas and plan on starting work on them as soon as possible. When winter really hits, it is easy to lose the motivation to grub around in very cold and wet ground whereas at this stage it is still quite pleasant. Garden centres will have a good range of new season’s trees and shrubs in stock by now.
  3. Queens Birthday weekend is regarded as rose weekend for gardeners and their garden centres so there is probably the largest range you will see in store right now. Roses are best planted in full sun and in areas with good air movement to reduce diseases.
  4. Bare rooted plants are those that have been field grown and then dug up very recently to be sold. They are a great deal less common than they used to be (far more plants are container grown in pots or planter bags), but if you are buying any bare rooted plants, chose the ones with big root systems rather than impressive tops. If the tops look far too large for the small root system, then prune the top back as you plant it. If you can see any severely damaged woody roots, prune them back with sharp secateurs.
  5. Give some attention to the herb garden. You can take cuttings of woody herbs now and divide up the clumping types.
  6. There is a lull in planting in the vegetable garden at this time but you can still plant broad beans and winter spinach.
  7. Keep on top of the weeds as usual. At this time of the year, hoeing is not as effective in the vegetable garden so use your shovel to turn the dirt and weeds over, trapping the weeds below the sods where they will hopefully rot off. Push hoeing for weed control is best when there is a hot sun to fry the weeds.
  8. We have found the first English snowdrops (galanthus) in flower already. Harbingers of spring? Maybe we will skip winter this year.