Category Archives: Abbie’s column

Abbie’s newspaper columns

An abundance of spring bloom

Starting with a small brag photo: michelias used to be white, in the main. At least the hardier varieties are generally white. Sure the tropical M. champaca is orange and M. alba is creamy yellow, but they have not shown compatibility with the hardier varieties and don’t have enough virtues to warrant using them as breeder parents. I did a little round-up of Mark’s current seedlings that we have flowering here. It has taken him 20 years of work to get to this colour range and there is a long way to go yet. A good garden plant is much more than just an interesting bloom. There are a huge number of variables when it comes to selecting a new variety for commercial release. But even I was impressed by the range of colour, flower shape and flower size that he has achieved in this line up.

I see I optimistically posted in August on the early blooming lachenalias. I may at the time have thought there would be two or three posts charting the lachenalia season, but we are now entering the final stage so I thought I had better do a round up. From left to right we have arbuthnotiae, pallida, contaminata, orchioides var glaucina (2) and the attractive end one we have as rosea. I missed several varieties during the mid season, but one reason I missed them is that they are not fantastic performers in our conditions.
Glaucina is our stand-out blue, and we once gathered as many different blues as we could. It is variable in colour and somewhat frost tender, but it does at least stay within the blue spectrum (some of the other alleged blues faded out to cream or very pastelle mauve) and it increases well for us.

Lachenalia contaminata with the rockery behind

L. contaminata is one of the last in the season to bloom, very easy to naturalise, scented, feeds the bees (I have personally observed this) and generally under-rated.

Earlier season L. aloides and aloides quadricolor

L. aloides tricolor

L. aloides var. vanzyliae

L. aloides is pretty interesting as a species. I mentioned aloides quadricolor and the common form in New Zealand which may be aloides bicolor in my earlier post. Aloides tricolor then comes in much later, predominantly green but with enough red and yellow to make it visible. When these three forms of the species are so easy and reliable for us, why oh why is the most striking L. aloides var. vanzyliae so very difficult? It is a mystery to me and it was a bit of a surprise I managed to catch the small patch (which does not get any larger) when it was in flower.

Quite how I achieved this stylish, albeit over exposed image, I am not sure.

We are big fans of the Australian dendrobium orchids and they are at their peak right now in the woodland areas of our garden. I did a little round up of the different ones in the garden and was surprised to find the range was somewhat greater than I had thought. Somehow we do not think of Australia having such pretty and delicate wildflowers.

Tomorrow, if the rain continues, I shall return with… clivias. Big, bright and bold.

A glut. Yes, a glut of avocados.

I mentioned the superb crop of avocados in an earlier post. I can report the avocado crop continues to astound and Dudley Dog is getting ever plumper. Though he is not responsible for all the chomped fruit in this tray. That represents a day or two of windfalls. It is hot competition out there between the dog, possums, birds, rats and humans.

We only have three trees but this year’s crop is all from the one specimen. The Fuerte comes in first but is a rather watery and insignificant taste compared to the ever reliable Hass. We start harvesting soon after Christmas and this year it is still going strong as we near the end of October. Basically, the one tree has kept about four households going in avocado this year, with enough left to give supermarket bags full to other friends, the postie and random visitors. We have to enjoy them because there is NO crop at all for next year. Avocados are often alternate croppers and we are growing them in marginal conditions this far south and 5km inland from the coast.

The third tree is also a Hass but it is looking poorly. Root problems. Avocados are terribly sensitive in their roots, being prone to phytopthera when drainage is anything less than perfect. We can but wait and see if the tree recovers.

It takes about 18 months for an avocado fruit to mature on the tree. Although it reaches full size straight away, it takes time for the oil levels to build up in the tissue of the fruit. If you have been deeply disappointed in the quality of fruit you have bought in the shops, it is likely that they have been harvested too early and the oil levels have not developed. Shun fruit where the skin is starting to darken but has a coppery sheen to it. In our experience, that is a sure sign of a fruit picked too early. Very small fruit which is often packaged in multiples and specialled off cheaply is low grade, reject fruit which will be inferior. If you lack friends like us with a well producing tree, it is probably worth paying top price for good fruit to avoid disappointment.

Mark heard or read somewhere that it is possible to mash ripe avocado and freeze it, using it later to make guacamole. He is trying this, thinking that if it does not come out of the freezer in a state that is palatable to humans, he can at least supplement the dogs’ food with it. It will be interesting to see, though as we are currently eating avocado every day, either in salads or as guacamole, we are not going to need the frozen stuff any time soon.

Plump, avocado eating Dudley and the much lighter Spike – our two rescue dogs

Exotica in the shade

Shade gardens we have a-plenty

Glory be, but I do love spring. This month subtropical bulbs and orchids shout out to be noticed.

We have extensive shade gardens. It is an inevitable result of a large, mature garden with many evergreen trees dating back as far as 1870. We do a lot of what we call lifting and limbing – taking off lower branches and keeping areas open to the light, for there are not a lot of plant options when it comes to deep, dark shade. Beneath the mighty tree canopy, it is dry but frost-free with dappled light. Over the decades there has been much trial and error to find what will thrive in these conditions and the plantings have become increasingly complex.

Dendrobium Bardo Rose

By this time in spring, we are over peak season for cymbidium orchids but the Australian dendrobiums are a delight. These are much smaller and more mounded or clumping in appearance and they take care of themselves. We have found the Bardo Rose group to be particularly obliging and free-flowering in woodland conditions. Ours all came from the local Orchid Society, an organisation that we have found combines generosity with superior technical knowledge.

Pleione orchids in the woodland

Pleione orchids do not last as long in bloom as many of the other orchids. Their flowers are soft rather than waxy but oh my, they make such a pretty carpet. It is easy for them to get swamped so we try and keep the area around them open but beyond lifting and dividing every few years, we just leave them alone. In our experience, the lovely yellow varieties do better in a climate where they get more winter chill. I think all our yellows have died out now but we have plenty in shades of lilac, purple and pure white. Most of our successful varieties came from the late George Fuller, orchid expert and former curator of Pukekura Park, and seem to have formosana in their parentage. If you want to build them up, a single bulb will usually set 2 offsets each season so you can double them every year.

Calanthe orchid - Copy The calanthes are ground orchids and we have big clumps now because these obliging plants can just be left to quietly increase in size. These are fully evergreen and somewhat frost tender but they are a delightful sight through spring and they combine very well with clivias, ferns and even hostas.

Hippeastrums are a plant family that has been much hybridised but I am not entirely convinced that has been to their advantage. It is two species that we rely on, both South American. It was by chance we found they settled happily into woodland conditions. In full sun, they were ravaged by narcissi fly but in high shade they are fine. Apparently nazi flies, as they are often called, don’t like shade. H. aulicum is one of our early to mid spring mainstays, flowering consistently year in and year out while multiplying most satisfyingly. To me, they look like beautiful Jacobean lilies in the woodland.

Hippeastrum aulicum, one of our woodland mainstays

Hippeastrum papilio has been a more recent acquisition for us and it is certainly spectacular, looking more like an orchid than the butterfly for which it was named. It is offered for sale but be prepared to pay a lot for a single bulb – maybe $30 if it is flowering size – because it takes several years to get to that point. I can’t think that we would have started with more than just one or two bulbs at that price. I see with a bit of dividing and replanting we now have about sixty but not all are flowering size yet. Mark has done some hybrids of aulicum x papilio to increase numbers and get some variety, but they have yet to bloom.

Hippeastrum papilio

I will have to leave the arisaemas, trilliums and the Paris polyphylla for another time but will finish with Scadoxus puniceus from South Africa. Many readers will be familiar with the summer flowering red S. multiflorus ssp. katherinae, especially in the Auckland area because it was, and maybe still is, much beloved by landscapers. It is a mainstay of our summer woodland, but in spring it is the lesser known S. puniceus that is the showstopper. Growing from large bulbs which are slow to increase, the foliage is lush and the large blooms are curious rather than beautiful. S. puniceus is not widely available, but if you can find somebody with it, it is easy enough to raise from fresh seed as long as you are willing to wait quite a few years to reach flowering size.

The rewards are there for patient gardeners.

The lesser known Scadoxus puniceus

Text first published in the October issue of NZ Gardener and reprinted here with their permission

The industrial chic garden

I visited a most interesting private garden in Auckland earlier this month. Industrial, urban chic, I would call it.

I wrote about hedging ideas after my visit to the Kelliher Estate on Puketutu Island but I didn’t name the gardener at the time because I hadn’t asked him if he wanted to be identified. It is Grahame Dawson, and as I walked around the Kelliher garden, I asked my companion what Grahame’s own garden was like. What made me curious was that his approach to gardening at the Kelliher showed a flair that is unusual in a public garden (or a trust garden) and I felt sure that I was looking at somebody who had large garden instincts. My companion took me in to meet Grahame in his home garden.

It was very different to the Kelliher Estate garden and I loved it. It is not that I want to emulate it myself. I just thought it was very different, quirky, characterful, self-indulgent even, but not naff and goodness, that is a fine line to tread.

I loved the hanging curtain of tillandsia growing through weighted chains (top photo) and the disco ball echoes of the rounded mounds (threaded through hanging baskets suspended upside down). Yes there was a lot of tillandsia – three main types in the hanging mode, I think Grahame said. Tillandsias, or air plants as they are often referred to, have a huge a family of well over 700 different species and are in the bromeliad group. These ones contributed to the curious phenomenon of a predominantly grey garden. I was viewing it on a grey, cool spring day and I didn’t find it in the least bit dreary, in case you are wondering.

I liked the bold juxtaposition of the almost stark seating area to one side, with the plantings opposite on the site.

The undercover display of specialist orchids were arrayed in the manner of an auricula theatre and that is natural light casting an ethereal glow in the mid afternoon light.

The pool resembled a shrine to my eyes. The little figure, Grahame told me, is Narcissus.

For those who want ideas, Grahame has a natural flair for managing multiple pots without looking messy or cottage-y. The simplest of terracotta pots painted grey made the row a feature with or without the orchid selection they house.

Back at the Kelliher Garden, I had photographed the pots along the front terrace. Alternating square and round pots, he had filled them all with Aloe plicatilis. The very simplicity gave it a formality while softening the scene with thoroughly practical foliage.

People visit gardens for many reasons and goodness knows, with two decades of opening our own garden behind us, we have heard many of those reasons over the years. Too often, a garden is judged – and I use the word ‘judged’ deliberately – on whether the visitor can imagine themselves owning the garden. I didn’t want to own Grahame’s garden – industrial chic is not my style – but it is rare to come across a place that I would describe as genuinely original, combining both wit and skill. This was one.

When saying it with flowers becomes a political statement

Red Peak, floral clock style

It may be a surprise to you, as it was to me, to learn that “say it with flowers” did not orginate as Interflora’s slogan but was in fact a 1934 British musical film. Faced by the many memes associated with the Red Peak flag in New Zealand, I felt I could reinterpret it with flowers. First up was the one in the style of floral clocks, perhaps.

Version 2 in wild cherry blossom and anemone

It is not that I am totally enamoured of the Red Peak flag option. It is that I do not appreciate being given a choice of four designs for our proposed new national ensign that are a silver fern, a silver fern, a silver fern and a close-up of a fern frond (for that is what the black and white koru represents). Given that our Prime Minister has made no secret of his strong preference for a silver fern, I can’t help but feel that crowd-sourcing the designs and then going through a $28 million “public consultation” and not one, but two referendums, all to achieve what looks like a pre-determined outcome is a bit of a have, really. Over 10 000 designs submitted and it came down to three silver ferns and a close-up of an unfurling frond? I feel short-changed, as apparently the majority of New Zealanders do at this stage of the campaign.

Red Peak, rendered in Hippeastrum aulicum and wild cherry blossom.

So I am backing Red Peak as an alternative option to be added to the referendum just to give an alternative choice to the fern logos. In my mind, after doing the floral clock styled Red Peak, I mentally envisaged the Japanese-influenced Ikebana style, stripped bare and exquisitely simple, capturing the essence of the design only. Alas my skills in floral art are non-existent and I quickly realised that translating the mental image to reality was well beyond my capabilities.

Red Peak in Narcissus Thalia and what I think is a tritonia, not a sparaxis

When all is said and done, we’d have had a lot more fun with the wild card, Lazer Kiwi though I feel this may be better rendered in the style of a vegetable animal, such as our children used to create for the annual Show Day at primary school.

Tikorangi The Jury Garden

Mark and Abbie Jury

Category Archives: Abbie’s column

An abundance of spring bloom

A glut. Yes, a glut of avocados.

Exotica in the shade

The industrial chic garden

When saying it with flowers becomes a political statement

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