Category Archives: Abbie’s column

Abbie’s newspaper columns

Low(ish) maintenance shade gardening

016 (2)It is clivia season here though it may not be clivia season for those who live in colder areas. Despite being much favoured by modern landscapers, these plants do not like more than a light touch of frost at most.

There are reasons why clivias are loved by landscapers. Of all the options for shady areas, they must be one of the most tolerant, forgiving and easy-care there is. For the better part of the year, they sit as a tidy clump of strappy foliage requiring little or no attention and when they flower in spring, the showy blooms last for many weeks. Plants can be left for years requiring no attention.

I looked at a photo of a property where the owners had used a reputable landscaper and the shady side of the house consisted of an access path with two narrow borders either side bounded by a solid fence. Both borders had been planted with clivias in single file, surrounded by bark chip as mulch. It is a very tidy, utility solution which, if the fence and path are smart, can even look stylish. If you like that sort of look.

Everything looks better with ferns, in my opinion. Ligularia reniformis.

Everything looks better with ferns, in my opinion. Ligularia reniformis.

Clivias are not a great choice for inland areas unless you are confident that you are frost free, which most of Hamilton and the Waikato won’t be. Sometimes such borders are beneath the eaves of the house and that will afford protection. But you will often see the same look achieved with, maybe, the tractor seat ligularia (L. reniformis), Ligularia ‘Desdemona’ or a similarly reliable, evergreen perennial.

It will come as no surprise to regular readers that it is not a look I favour, personally. While I can see the logic to keeping clean, crisp lines and some degree of simplicity, I just think it would look so much more interesting with the introduction of another one or two types of plants. They don’t have to be expensive or choice plants but what they add is textural interest, variation in height and sometimes the bonus of seasonal flowers.

Most gardens have a shaded area – at least that narrow side that runs alongside the bathroom and laundry and is on the other side from the sunny living areas. If it is a little-used area which is primarily access and has no house windows that look out to it, then it hardly warrants great expenditure of either money or ongoing effort. But a small amount of effort can make it so much more attractive and the beauty of shade gardening is that it tends to be much lower maintenance.

left to right: Helleborus x sternii, Francoa ramosa, pulmonaria, arthropodium (renga renga), phlomis, random fern and mondo grass - all cheap, reliable options for low maintenance shade gardening

left to right: Helleborus x sternii, Francoa ramosa, pulmonaria, arthropodium (renga renga), phlomis, random fern and mondo grass – all cheap, reliable options for low maintenance shade gardening

I headed out to the garden to look for options to add interest to a shade garden. There are plenty to choose from – just don’t choose them all if you want a clean look. Keep it to a maximum of three. Ferns. Pretty much everything looks better with ferns in the shade. They add a lightness of texture and detail of leaf to solid plants like clivias or ligularias and it is that contrast that can add interest.

Renga renga lilies are happy in more shaded areas and have the bonus of spring flowers. We have a lot of success with phlomis (P. russeliana or Turkish sage) with its yellow tiered flowers in summer. Similarly, the bridal wreath flower – particularly Francoa ramosa – is easy and obliging with summer flowers. The unattractively named lungworts or pulmonaria family combine very well with bigger, chunkier foliaged plants and add detail with their gentle variegation. Even common old mondo grass, be it black or green, can add a different texture. Helleborus x sternii is a reliable shade option with lime green flowers in winter.

If you keep to evergreen perennials which don’t require much more than an annual clean-up and which can be kept for several years without having to dig and divide them, you can make a low maintenance shade garden. Take care to plant them well in soil you have dug over, add plenty of humus or compost, mulch after planting and generally they can look after themselves.

It does not have to be expensive or difficult. If you can get simple combinations that are compatible, look good together, are happy in the conditions and meet the requirements of the gardener, it is a great deal more interesting than looking at a single plant variety en masse.

But that is the voice of a gardener, not that of a landscaper.

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

The Yellow Magnolias and Honey Tulip

Honey Tulip - looking very good this week

Honey Tulip – looking very good this week

There is some relief here this week as our newest magnolia, Honey Tulip, is looking particularly good. It is always a bit nerve wracking releasing a new cultivar on the market and hoping we have it right.

We are still a little bemused by a communication from some random person when Honey Tulip was first shown in an overseas publication. I will have to paraphrase it because I must have deleted it in irritation at the time, but it said something along the lines of: “It is good that Mark Jury is discerning in the magnolias he names, but the world has enough yellow magnolias already….” It then proceeded to instruct my Mark on what he should be breeding for instead.

The international world of magnolias is pretty small, the number of international magnolia breeders even fewer. We know most of them by repute, if not personally. This email did not come from anyone we had heard of before. What was galling was that in the heady world of new magnolias, Honey Tulip represents a genuine step in flower form for the yellows.

Honey Tulip - a lucky break in flower form and performance

Honey Tulip – a lucky break in flower form and performance

The yellow magnolias descend from a single species and while most magnolias originate from parts of Asia, the yellow deciduous M. acuminata and the evergreen grandiflora magnolias are from USA. M. acuminata is from eastern USA up into southern Ontario in Canada. We can remember when it first came into this country maybe 25 years ago, along with four of the earliest yellow hybrids – Yellow Bird, Yellow Fever, Elizabeth and Koban Dori. They were a collector’s novelty. Who knew that magnolia flowers could be yellow?

It did not take that long to realise that the yellow magnolias were not quite like the big pink, red, purple and white ones. There are a few problems yet to be solved. M. acuminata itself grows very rapidly and very large which takes it beyond the size most gardens can accommodate. The flowers are small, very small by magnolia standards, though they have good fragrance. Mind you, it has to be a very strong scent to mean anything when the blooms are 20 metres up above.

However, the biggest problem with acuminata and most of the hybrids is that the flowers come so late in the season that they coincide with the new foliage which then hides them. We are of the opinion that the whole point of a deciduous magnolia is to have all those fat, furry buds exploding into a mass of blooms on a bare tree in late winter and early spring. So little flowers, no matter what colour, obscured by masses of fresh foliage, are not going to set the world on fire.

Magnolia Yellow Fever planted on our road boundary

Magnolia Yellow Fever planted on our road boundary

We have not kept buying the many new yellow hybrids that have come on the market. There is a limit to how much space we have and too many of them show the same flaws. In a large garden, the best performer we have seen so far remains the early American hybrid with the unfortunate name of Yellow Fever. It is not the strongest yellow but it does flower on bare wood and is a pretty primrose, unlike Elizabeth which is more cream.

There is yellow form of the Asian M. denudata but we have not heard of it being imported to this country yet and have not seen it in person. It is difficult to judge colour from the range of hues shown on the internet. A form called ‘Yellow River’ is being sold overseas but the nature of its breeding and origin is unclear. Certainly it came out of China and it has denudata origins but whether it is a yellow sport of that species, a natural hybrid or a controlled cross seems unclear. Even less clear is when or if it will become available in this country. Only time will tell whether international breeders get the jump on different yellow magnolias using denudata yellow, with or without acuminata.

For all these reasons, our Honey Tulip represented a significant breeding step. It flowers on bare wood, before the foliage. It does not appear that it is going to be of timber tree stature. The colour is a pretty butterscotch but the big breakthrough is the form. While not huge flowers, the tulip shaped blooms are larger than most other yellows – very similar in fact to a soft yellow form of Magnolia Black Tulip. It was also a lucky break because it was the only one of the plants from that particular cross that flowered in that form and colour.

The ultimate challenge is to get a pretty yellow Iolanthe with big cup and saucer flowers. Mark has about 20 years left in him to work towards this goal. I wonder then if the overseas critic who saw himself as an expert on yellow magnolias will concede that there is always room for improvement.

The ultimate breeding challenge - is a yellow Iolanthe even possible?

The ultimate breeding challenge – is a yellow Iolanthe even possible?

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

Pruning and shaping

Ulmus Jacqueline Hillier after pruning. For the avoidance of confusion, this plant is only 3m by 3m, not a forest giant.

Ulmus Jacqueline Hillier after pruning. For the avoidance of confusion, this plant is only 3m by 3m, not a forest giant.

I am married to a master pruner. I recognise his skills are hugely greater than mine. This was reinforced when he pruned the Ulmus Jacqueline Hillier at the weekend. This plant is meant to be a dwarf but it is looking less and less dwarf-like in our rockery and needs attention most years to keep it to a suitable size for that location.

At the end of the better part of half a day, he asked me how I thought it looked. In fact it looked very similar to how it had looked when he started. It is a plant with a lovely characterful shape and fan like sprays which hold the tiny leaves. There was close to as much lying cut off on the lawn as there was left on the shrub but you would not pick that. It had been reduced considerably in size and scale but had lost none of its form or shape. That is good pruning, dear Readers, as opposed to the butchery carried out by lesser mortals.

There was almost as much on the ground as left on the plant but you could not tell that by looking.

There was almost as much on the ground as left on the plant but you could not tell that by looking.

Such dedicated and meticulous pruning takes time, skill and sharp hand tools.

We joined a garden tour in the north of Italy some years ago and anyone who has visited those grand Italian gardens will know that most are clipped and shaped to within an inch of their lives. In fact they are so heavily clipped and groomed that plant health is often not that great. It is all about form and shape and very labour intensive.

Similarly, we have looked at the meticulous bonsai specimens in the Chinese gardens in Singapore. These are tended constantly by people with nail scissors, I kid you not. It may not be nail scissors exactly, but they were definitely nipping and snipping with scissors of some description. Surgical precision and detail. Again, labour intensive.

We lack the personpower here to carry out that sort of heavy clipping and shaping. Oh, to have a small army of serfs that we could upskill and then reward with a hovel in which to live and the occasional sack of spuds. But even then, we would not want a heavily contrived and clipped garden, preferring instead to go with some degree of natural harmony. It is all about degrees, however. Gardening involves a whole lot of management and manipulation to get desired effects.

Once the initial shaping and training is done, it does not take huge skill to maintain it. These are just camellias used as shapes in the garden.

Once the initial shaping and training is done, it does not take huge skill to maintain it. These are just camellias used as shapes in the garden.

Getting the initial shaping on plants is the skill, or bringing an over-sized specimen back to a more manageable size and shape. Once it is done, it only takes a moderate level of skill and care to maintain it.

I have watched Mark bring a wayward plant into line and that is why I am happy to concede his skills are so much greater than mine. He takes his time and he concentrates. He is up and down the ladder repeatedly (despite this playing havoc with a dodgy knee joint), viewing the plant from all angles at all stages. Major cuts are very carefully considered because you can’t glue a branch back on if you make a mistake. It is all about finding the natural shapes within the plant and highlighting those.

Frankly, it would often be faster to cut a plant out, even if it then involves major work removing stumps and roots. But if one forever removes plants when they get some size and maturity, then there is never a chance for them to develop character and the garden will remain perpetually juvenile.

All this comes back to the fact that we use plants as features and focal points in our garden, not ornaments. We prefer to clip a strategic plant here and there than to paint the outdoor furniture a different colour or place an urn.

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

Tulips, but not from Amsterdam

Tulips from Crete - T. saxatilis

Tulips from Crete – T. saxatilis

Tulips. They are Dutch in origin, aren’t they? Well no. The original tulips are no more Dutch than I am, but the modern hybrid tulips largely originate from the flat home of dairy, dykes, windmills and clogs. And in a love affair spanning 450 years, the Dutch have made this plant family their own.

We don’t grow many tulips in our own garden. The showiest by far is a tulip from Crete – T. saxatilis. Most people are surprised to find that there is a tulip from that Greek island because, after all, tulips come from Holland, do they not? In fact the species in the wild – and there appear to be somewhere between 70 and 100 different species recorded – do not originate from anywhere in Northern Europe. Instead, stretching from Southern Europe, through Northern Africa, the Middle East and spreading overland from Turkey to north western China, tulips have a wide territory. Many of them favour mountainous areas with hot, dry summers and cold winters and therein lies the hint to the problems people can have with getting the modern hybrids to flower past the first season in their garden. Most need a much greater winter chill than we can give them here.

Some species - we just don't know which one

Some species – we just don’t know which one

We have three different tulips in the garden. The Cretan species is wonderfully easy-care and increases gently and reliably. I love the unlikely contrast between the lilac pink and bright gold. Then we have a pure yellow one which is inclined to nod its head. Mark thinks it may be a hybrid, not a species, though I am unsure of how he reached this conclusion. It never increases but it does at least return each year. And we have a small flowered, small growing species of unknown origin. Charmingly understated, might be the descriptor.

Indubitably tulip, but we have no name on it and it never increases.

Indubitably tulip, but we have no name on it and it never increases.

I am not the world’s greatest fan of modern tulip hybrids but concede I am in a minority. I have toyed with the idea of bulk buying bulbs of one or maybe two selected cultivars to drift through areas of the garden. A swathe of pure white tulips or maybe clusters of a deep wine colour might add to the early spring herbaceous plantings even though they may be a little clichéd. But I prefer to spend money on bulbs which have a life-span beyond just one season. I can’t bring myself to treat tulip bulbs as a disposable commodity. It seems a shocking waste of money, resources and effort.

I was a bit surprised to find that even in the UK, tulips are often treated as annuals because their repeat performance is patchy at best, despite the fact that their winters are much colder than ours. Tulip bulbs are much cheaper to buy there which may be a factor.

It is not that these hybrids all die after flowering for the one season. They just decline and flowering diminishes considerably in subsequent years unless you go to the trouble of lifting them, separating the offsets, chilling them and replanting in fresh ground. That is a lot of effort. Holland apparently produces fresh tulip bulbs by the billions each year, so I guess there is an insatiable demand from people who do keep replenishing supplies.

The early variegations and novelty breakthroughs were almost certainly caused by virus which, while giving variety, also weakens the plants over time. Nowadays, the variegations are the result of genetic breeding and selection, and considerable effort has been made to get rid of the debilitating viruses. Most of the modern hybrids descended originally from T. suaveolens, which we do not have in our garden here.

I went looking for a photo of tulip fields in Holland and found instead this one of tulip fields in Japan, pretending they are in Holland!

I went looking for a photo of tulip fields in Holland and found instead this one of tulip fields in Japan, pretending they are in Holland!

The history of tulips is fascinating but not without debate. The earliest cultivation of tulips was apparently recorded 1000 years ago in Persia. How and when they arrived in Northern Europe is disputed, but they appear to have been taken there in the mid 1500s. By 1637, what is now called “tulip mania” had hit Holland. Single bulbs could command fabulous prices – reportedly as high as 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. But it was not just the wealthy plant collector who coveted these flowering plants. They had become an investment commodity, priced way beyond their actual value. This extraordinary situation has received a lot of attention because it was the first recorded instance of rampant, economic speculation on a product but there is ongoing debate about the extent and the detail. Economic data from 1637 is always going to be a little sparse and sometimes unreliable. Whatever, it makes a good story and “tulip mania” has entered the lexicon as a term for a freakish economic bubble, such as the sub-prime mortgage bubble in most recent times.

Going back to garden plants, in their simplest form tulips are generally cup-shaped and can face upwards or downwards. Essentially they all have strappy foliage and while it looks as if they have 6 petals, botanically they have 3 petals and 3 sepals. Ten times an average income seems an awful lot to pay for one of those.

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

The story of the red magnolias

Vulcan to the left, Lanarth to the right

Vulcan to the left, Lanarth to the right

Few people realise that the story of the red magnolias is a New Zealand story. Probably even fewer realise that when it comes to stronger colours in magnolias, we get the best colour in the world here.

I am talking about deciduous magnolias. The evergreen grandiflora types are resolutely white in bloom and adding colour to the softer-leafed, evergreen michelias is very much a work in progress. But deciduous reds, we do well.

Most deciduous magnolias are in the white and pink colour range and very lovely many of them are too. But with many plant genus, there is always that quest to extend the range of flower form and colour, to build on what happens in nature to get a better performing, showier garden plant. Some of it is about pushing boundaries to see what can be done. A truly blue rose is still an unfulfilled quest but it is highly likely it will come sooner or later.

Some would argue that we do not yet have truly red magnolias and there is truth in that. There is no scarlet, no fire engine red. All the red varieties on the market still retain a blue cast to them and fade out to pink or purple tones rather than to the orange end of the colour spectrum. But if you line one of the red magnolias up against a purple one, it is clear that they are a different colour.

This (liliiflora 'Nigra')

This (liliiflora ‘Nigra’)

I started by saying that the story of red magnolias is a New Zealand story. In fact it started as our family story. Back in the 1970s, Felix Jury wondered if he could get a large flowered, solid coloured red magnolia on a smaller growing tree. He started with the red species – M. liliifora ‘Nigra’. In itself, ‘Nigra’ is a nice enough, low spreading magnolia but nothing showy. He crossed it with the very showy, indubitably purple ‘Lanarth’ (technically M. campbellii var. mollicamata ‘Lanarth’). The rest, as they say, is history.

crossed with this (Lanarth)

crossed with this (Lanarth)

‘Vulcan’ took the magnolia world by storm. This was the break in colour and form. It is not perfect. We know that. The flowers do not age gracefully. It flowers too early in the season for some areas. It does not develop its depth of colour or size of bloom in colder climates and is a shadow of its own self in most UK and European destinations. But after more than 20 years, it is still hugely popular and very distinctive, particularly in Australia and New Zealand. It set the standard and it opened the door to other cultivars.

... and the result was this: Vulcan

… and the result was this: Vulcan

In due course, but slowly, slowly, Mark followed on from his father. He raised hundreds of seedlings and named ‘Black Tulip’ (the darkest of the reds), ‘Felix Jury’ and ‘Burgundy Star’.

Fellow breeder, Vance Hooper, started his programme on the reds and he has named several. The best known is ‘Genie’. Like Mark, he is continuing determinedly down the red magnolia line in the quest for perfection, although improvement or variation will do as steps along the way.

There are other reds on the NZ market now, though none from sustained breeding programmes to match those undertaken by Mark and Vance.

Black Tulip - the first of the second generation red magnolias

Black Tulip – the first of the second generation red magnolias

It appears that it is ‘Black Tulip’ that has enabled the rise of new selections in UK and Europe. It sets seed and every man and their dog is now raising seed and naming selections. Mark is a little wry as he comments that he raised hundreds of plants to get one ‘Black Tulip’ whereas others raise a few seed and name several. He has an ever-decreasing level of patience for amateurs who, as he says, “raise five seedlings and name six of them” based on the first or second flowering only, when he is still assessing seedlings which are 20 years old and showing their adult form, habit and performance.

So New Zealand is about to lose its position of world domination in the red magnolias. But we still get better colour here than others do overseas. There is no certainty yet as to whether that is related to our mild climate, our soils, the root stock used or the quality of light – likely a combination of all. ‘Felix Jury’, which can flower strong red for us is more an over-sized pink flamingo so far in European gardens. We are just relieved that it achieves full-sized flowers and plenty of them, even if it is not red in their conditions.

Magnolia Felix Jury at its best here

Magnolia Felix Jury at its best here

The quest for truer reds continues. A red that loses the magenta hue. Mark is assessing several with which he is quietly very pleased. They are not scarlet but they are an improvement in colour. Just don’t hold your breath. This is a long haul.

Finally, while NZ leads the world in reds, it was USA which gave us yellow magnolias. These all descend from one yellow American species – M. acuminata. I just say that for the record. Credit where credit is due.

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