Category Archives: Abbie’s column

Abbie’s newspaper columns

The good and the bad of gardening suburbia

Even Magnolia Little Gem drops leaves

Even Magnolia Little Gem drops leaves

I like walking in city suburbia. This is not only because I live in the country so it has a certain novelty value. In our younger days, I dragged Mark southwards to live in Dunedin for three years and we would often walk for many kilometres through our surrounding suburbs. They are rich sources of ideas for both what to do and what not to do. With the right walking companion, they can also be a source of amusement and astonishment and occasional interesting encounters.

Mind you, nothing is likely to eclipse the time an elderly woman asked our help to get her equally elderly and very drunk husband up the path and into their bright strawberry pink house. As we obliged, she said, “I can’t help. I have no hands,” and held out both her arms. Indeed there were no hands at the end of the arms. On a grey Dunedin evening, it was like a scene from a Gothic horror. But I digress.

Being in the gardening and nursery scene, we are used to being asked for landscape advice. We very rarely give any, being aware of our own limitations. We are neither landscapers nor designers. For people with a small budget and no ideas who live in town, our advice has long been to take up walking. It is a case of getting your eye in and starting to analyse what is to your personal taste, style and circumstances. With just a little more experience, you will start to recognise the plants that are doing well and that you like the look of. Walking around your own suburb and then expanding outwards, you will see more useful ideas and good and bad examples than you will ever see in books, on line or even a garden festival.

Where the budget is tight – or non-existent – there is no substitute for upskilling yourself. If you have more money, you can pay someone to do it for you. Free advice is fraught. Retailers will give free advice that ranges from excellent to appalling but is usually predicated on selling you product. If you have a particularly good plant retailer whose advice you trust, then that is great. Odds on, however, if you have built up a good personal relationship with your plant retailer, it is because you have some experience and are not an absolute beginner. Going in cold to just any garden centre and expecting to get good landscape advice is a tad optimistic.

Mind you, as my perambulations around Mount Eden at the weekend showed, having a bigger budget does not guarantee success. I saw one of the worst examples of planting around an expensive new townhouse. I should have photographed it but I felt it was an imposition, given that it is somebody’s private home so you will just have to imagine it. Clearly the owners like greenery and I would guess had trotted down to a garden centre. Given the price on the labels left on the plants and the nature of what they bought, I could probably even name the retailer with a high degree of accuracy.

Alas, the Podocarpus henkelii I saw have no chance of ever reaching this stature

Alas, the Podocarpus henkelii I saw have no chance of ever reaching this stature

Picture a compound of expensive Auckland townhouses, each with a private courtyard not much larger in area than two average sized internal rooms – maybe 10 metres by 4 metres in total. The perimeter was planted with Podocarpus henkelii at 30cm spacings. I am very fond of P. henkelii which is a handsome, African podocarpus (totara). True, it is very slow growing and well suited to the climate in Auckland. But its beauty lies in its lovely shape and habit of growth. Our handsome specimen here measures at least 7 metres across and 8 metres high. I almost wept for those plants at 30cm spacings which are destined either for removal long before they reach anything near maturity or forever to be hacked into submission at 2 metres high by 50cm wide.

The owner of the neighbouring townhouse was most inclined to chat and proudly told my walking companion and me that he had paid $1.8 million for it. He was keen to plant his area and declared that he liked the existing specimen of Magnolia Little Gem in the corner of his courtyard but it was very messy because it dropped leaves. I did not point out that all plants drop leaves and that his tree was going to grow quite a lot larger than he anticipated. But as soon as he ascertained that I knew something about plants and gardening, he wanted to whip me in to his locked compound and pick my brains. I politely declined. You can afford to pay $1.8mill for your house, I thought, but you want free advice from a passing stranger? Pay a professional!

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

Autumn hues

012Autumn colour occurs when deciduous trees shut down the chlorophyll which is what makes most leaves green. It is chlorophyll which enables the plant to combine sunshine, water and carbon dioxide, making the simple sugars that sustain the plant (a process called photosynthesis). Once the green colouring disappears from the leaves, the other colours already in the leaf become obvious.
001 grapeYou can see in this grape leaf that the chlorophyll is still alive in parts, particularly the veins but other colours dominate in the body of the leaf. Not all grapes colour the same way. Our Albany Surprise grape becomes brilliant yellow, making it appear as if the sun is shining, even on a grey day.
002 prunusSome of our flowering cherries (prunus) turn yellow but this one is notable for its red colouring, caused apparently by anthocyanins which are what give the red and purple tones. Bright light in autumn helps the anthocyanins and bright sunlight is one thing we do well in most of this country.
005 patio mapleMaples, particularly the Japanese varieties, are one of the most reliable plants for autumn colour and the brilliant hues occur even in milder areas where some other plants will just skip the colouring step and turn brown. What is more, there are many petite maples (often sold as patio varieties) which will fit in even the smallest garden.
004 taxodiumWe find the deciduous conifers colour well for us. This is a taxodium but the metasequoia and glyptostrobus are also good. However these are large trees, unsuitable for small urban sections. There are many smaller growing options like the koelreuteria or parrotia.
005 Soloman SealJust to prove it is not only the woody trees and shrubs that can flaunt their autumn raiment, Soloman Seal (Polygonatum multiflorum) grows from rhizomes below ground. A common enough plant which fills a role in semi shade conditions, it can startle with its golden foliage as it prepares to hibernate for winter.
006 Fairy Magnolia BlushMany folk never consider that evergreen plants also drop leaves (do they think that foliage is permanently attached for the life of the plant?). All evergreens drop a full set of foliage every year. It is just that they don’t drop them all at once. However some plants, like this Fairy Magnolia Blush, have a tendency for some leaves to colour and then drop in autumn. It is not a bad sign, it is just part of the plant’s cycle.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

The fascination of fungi

A parasol mushroom, though not, I think, the popular edible shaggy parasol

A parasol mushroom, though not, I think, the popular edible shaggy parasol

Fungi are very curious growths. Each autumn I find myself taking a few more photos of exotic looking fungi and wishing I knew more about them. It turns out that there is a whole lot to know about them – the potential for a lifetime of study, even. I lack the rigour let alone sufficient years ahead so I have to make do with random facts.

We have a culturally instilled fear of odd fungi in this country – anything other than field mushrooms really – and this even has a name: mycophobia. This may come from our predominantly British forbears although, curiously, it appears that the traditional Maori diet did not include fungi as a staple food. I even found an article which talked about “the new science of ethnomycology” which, lest you wonder, is the study of attitudes of different ethnic groups to mushrooms. Apparently the Russians are the greatest mycophages or lovers of mushrooms and they recognise over 90 different edible wild varieties*. If we lived in France, we would be able to pop along to our local pharmacist to have our foraged fungi identified but such expertise is rare indeed in our country and foraging is actively discouraged.

We have no idea of the name of this delicate fungal growth in the base of a pine cone

We have no idea of the name of this delicate fungal growth in the base of a pine cone

In fact very few wild fungi are scarily toxic. We have the death cap mushroom in this country but it is quite rare. That said, it has been recorded beneath oaks and chestnuts in both Hamilton and Cambridge. You have been warned! Amanita phalloides is common in Europe in their woodlands and even very small quantities are deadly. Apparently it smells quite sweet and can be confused with the straw mushroom which is widely harvested in Asia.

The story book scarlet flycap mushroom

The story book scarlet flycap mushroom

However the scarlet flycap or fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) is relatively common and we have it in our own garden here. It is one to be cautious around, certainly with children, because it has been immortalised in all sorts of ways from Alice in Wonderland to gnome gardens. My understanding of toxicology is nil but I suspect the hallucinogenic varieties are often categorised with the toxic ones. Certainly this one is hallucinogenic, as a number of fungi are. It may be toxic as well, though as its use has been traced back to Ancient Greece, it doesn’t seem to be fatal. The consumption of hallucinogenic mushrooms has a rich history through many cultures and religions and there are suggestions that controlled usage may have been a factor in some well-recorded religious visions.

The scarlet flycap is not what is commonly referred to as the Magic Mushroom in this country (it is much more anonymous in appearance) but I am not going to go into details on that one. The banning this week of synthetic highs may see a return to wild collections, with all the inherent risks.

I thought I had photographed the wood-ear jelly fungus (Auricularia cornea) but I couldn’t find it. It is a flabby grey affair, a bit like bull kelp in appearance and was the source of a thriving export industry to China, back in the 1800s. I think it is safe to assume that one is both easy to identify accurately and edible but I admit I haven’t tried it yet.

Common-basket stinkhorn (Ileodictyon cibarium)

Common-basket stinkhorn (Ileodictyon cibarium)

Given that I buy dehydrated fungi of both European and Asian origin for use in cooking, maybe it is time I overcame my cultural mycophobia and set about learning which ones are edible in my environment. Instead, I just enjoy looking at the brief appearances of a host of different fungi around the garden, most here being related to the entirely natural process of the eco-system and the cycles of nature. Just as very few are deadly poisonous, few too are those so pathogenic that they will kill their hosts. Most are beneficial and some are highly decorative.

No wonder Alice declared matters becoming “curiouser and curiouser” after nibbling on the scarlet flycap mushroom. It applies equally to the fascinating wider world of fungi.

A bracket fungus, though which one we do not know

A bracket fungus, though which one we do not know

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

An Easter legend – the Glastonbury thorn

I went looking for the Glastonbury thorn but it was not to be found at St Mary's cathedral after all

I went looking for the Glastonbury thorn but it was not to be found at St Mary’s cathedral after all

The legend of the Glastonbury thorn seems timely as an Easter story. I started by setting out to find the local specimen at St Mary’s Cathedral in New Plymouth that is reputed to be the Glastonbury thorn, only to find it isn’t. We have our own legends too.

Glastonbury is in the Somerset area of the United Kingdom. The abbey site has had a Christian church on it since the seventh century, but legend takes it back further. One version has Joseph of Arimathea bringing his young nephew, Jesus Christ to Glastonbury where they built the first Christian church at that location. But the Glastonbury thorn tree is attributed to the second visit by Joseph of Arimathea soon after the death of Christ. Reportedly landing in a state of exhaustion, he thrust his staff into the ground on the slope now known as Wearyall Hill. The staff took root overnight and grew into the Glastonbury thorn tree, revered as sacred through the ages since.

Interwoven through the Glastonbury thorn legend, is the more powerful myth of the Holy Grail that Joseph was believed to have brought and buried just beneath the Glastonbury Tor. The Holy Grail of course is the cup used by Christ at the Last Supper and subsequently used by Joseph to catch his blood at the crucifixion. And with the Holy Grail come the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Glastonbury Abbey is reputedly the final resting place of both Arthur and Guinevere. Sadly, after about 1000 years, they got a bit careless with the remains and when the abbey was sacked and largely destroyed in the 1500s, Arthur and Guinevere’s remains were no more.

But the Glastonbury thorn endured. Not the original tree. It had a bit of a rough history and still has as replacement plants either die, are vandalised or maybe attacked in spiritual fervour. But as the plant does not strike from cutting or grow true from seed, it has to be grafted. And it does appear that the plant has remained true and been distributed for many hundreds of years.

It seems a little mean-spirited to disturb such a wonderful legend with botany. But whatever the truth is about the Holy Grail, it is a fact that that the Glastonbury thorn is simply a variation on Crataegus monogyna that is the common hawthorn of the UK – the fragrant Mayflower. It seems unlikely that Joseph of Arimathea’s wooden staff at the time of his alleged arrival in Britain was fashioned from a plant native to that country. What makes C. monogyna “Biflora” different is that it has two flowerings a year. Its main flowering is in spring but it also puts up a minor second blooming in winter. The tradition of sending a spray of Glastonbury thorn to the monarch at Christmas started back in the time of James 1 at the turn of the sixteenth century and apparently continues today.

These days Glastonbury is probably associated as much with the annual music festival which, despite being timed for the end of June, seems to be a particularly muddy affair. Despite its very early Christian history and even earlier pagan history, or maybe as a result of it, modern Glastonbury apparently now resembles something more akin to Diagon Alley from the Harry Potter stories.

I noticed the wry comments on a BBC New Magazine site from 2012. “The former mayor John Coles tends to the remnants of the thorn. In recent years, people have tied ribbons to it bearing messages, prayers and maybe even spells. Coles removes them. “It takes daylight away from the trunk,” he explains. He also prises out the coins that people have jammed into the bark.”This never used to happen even eight or nine years ago,” he says sadly.The apparent takeover of the town by new age believers disturbs him. “There’s nothing wrong with paganism but there is a certain taste of Satanism as well and I have always regarded Glastonbury as a Christian town.”

Many St Mary’s parishioners in New Plymouth were proud of their Glastonbury thorn until it was revealed that it is Crataegus crus-galli from the eastern states of North America. Apparently it was planted back around 1860 by Archdeacon Govett. This makes it one of the oldest known introduced trees in the province but the Glastonbury thorn it ain’t. This is a bit of a shame as the Cathedral of St Mary is the oldest stone church in New Zealand with its foundation stone having been laid in 1845. It would have been a charming connection back to the Glastonbury Abbey history and legend where the lady chapel is still referred to as ‘Our Lady St. Mary of Glastonbury’. Instead they just have a scrubby but venerable North American species.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

Windflower romance

Wind flowers are a personal marker of our wedding anniversary

Wind flowers are a personal marker of our wedding anniversary

On the evening before we married, Mark turned up with an armful of Japanese anemones that he had gathered from the Taihape roadside. Don’t even ask why we got married in Taihape when we neither lived there nor came from there. It’s a complicated story. Wind flowers, he called the anemones and believe me, although back in the mists of time, it was a romantic gesture I have never forgotten.

Every year the wind flowers bloom on our wedding anniversary and he often brings some indoors. Last week he followed the old cut flower wisdom – re-cut the stems and burned the ends and they have lasted a full week in water.

We have three different Japanese anemones, in light pink, white and a semi double dark pink which is more compact in growth. It seems that the first two are the straight species, A. hupehensis. Although known throughout the world as Japanese anemones, they are originally Chinese – from the eastern province of Hupeh, in fact. They have been grown so widely in Japan for so long that common parlance attributes them to that country. It is no surprise that the Japanese, with their cultural penchant for simplicity and natural form, took a liking to them.

Japanese anemones are commonly found in pinks and white although selections are being made to extend the colour range into lilac blues

Japanese anemones are commonly found in pinks and white although selections are being made to extend the colour range into lilac blues

The semi-double darker one will be a hybrid and a named form that was purchased. Mark commented vaguely that he thought it may carry a woman’s name but I see that this plant family is more highly prized overseas than in New Zealand and there are a fair number of named forms, several of them named after women. For the botanically inclined, the Japanese anemones classified as A. hybrida are likely to be mixes of A. hupehenis with A. elegans and A. vitifolia. This is a plant family that crosses readily – though to get a cross you generally need plants that flower around the same time.

Weeds, I hear some readers saying. Weeds. Yes they can be overly vigorous, given the right conditions and become rampant, bordering on invasive because they spread below ground. You probably don’t want to unleash them in areas with plant treasures which they may out-compete. Lovely though they are in flower, you can have too many of them.

That said, I see that there is general agreement that they are not always easy to establish which made me feel better about our meagre showing of white ones in the woodland garden. I had spotted a pretty patch down the road, growing as a roadside wild flower and it is those I photographed. I love the combination of the single, white flowers dancing above the dried grasses.

The white Japanese anemone down the road looks better than the patch we have in our garden

The white Japanese anemone down the road looks better than the patch we have in our garden

Our pink ones are planted on our roadside and come into flower after the summer colour has largely faded. We have designated our rural road verges no-spray zones with the local council so we carry out our own maintenance. We mow a grassy strip immediately beside the road, get rid of noxious weeds like the dreaded bristle grass and we can do what we like with the rest. And what we like are roadside wild flowers – agapanthus, hydrangeas, robust begonia species, oenothera (evening primrose), belladonnas, crocosmia and the like. It is not just for passing motorists. It is also to feed the bees and to keep some roadside cover in an intensive dairying area which can otherwise resemble a green grass desert.

There are actually somewhere over 120 different anemone species. By far the most common in gardens are A. coronaria. These are the spring flowering corms that you buy as de Caen (the singles, mainly in blue and red but also in pinks and whites) and St Brigid (the doubles). They are very cheerful and cheap to buy. If you get a bulk pack, split it into four and soak one batch at a time overnight before planting. Done at weekly intervals, you can extend the flowering for the first season.

A. blanda is a little Greek species with predominantly blue flowers, more like a carpet if mass planted. A. nemerosa is the European wood anemone. We would like both of these dainty species to naturalise far more widely in our garden than we have achieved so far. They are transient early spring delights.

But in autumn it is time for the wind flowers to star.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with this permission.