Category Archives: Abbie’s column

Abbie’s newspaper columns

Renovating the rose garden

At its best, the rose garden looked good…

Don’t ask us for garden advice. We hand out endless plant advice and I write regularly about many gardening matters but we do not dispense personal on site advice. This is not for want of requests but oft-times, all the person asking wants is for you to affirm that they are right. Besides, advice carries an implicit suggestion that you think the gardener is not doing it as well as you could. And that doesn’t always go down well.

But there are times when an outside view can be extremely helpful. We have a garden which we loosely call the rose garden or the “sunken garden area”. It is a formal area, laid out in the early fifties and planted by Mark’s mother with her beloved old fashioned roses. These days it would be called a garden room. Over the years, it has had a lot of work done on it including several major renovations. And still it didn’t work as well as I wanted. Sure it looked pretty in spring but it didn’t look pretty enough for long enough. Worse, I just didn’t like working in the garden. I would avoid it until it could no longer be ignored. Clearly something wasn’t right but we were failing to come up with a diagnosis.

Enter a house guest last spring. It was Neil Ross, whom some readers will know from his writing in NZ Gardener. He used to be head gardener at Ayrlies in Auckland but since then, has been working in gardening and design in England. I asked for his thoughts but in busy schedules, it came down to grabbing a few minutes at dusk. To my surprise, that was all we needed. We stood in the garden, wine glasses in hand and Neil nailed it for me.

“Gosh,” he said, “that really is a deep sunken garden.” (This had never even occurred to me. I just knew it had been dug by hand by Mark’s dad, aided by a draught horse). “And that is accentuated by the height of the standard roses. They’re really high. I’ve never seen such tall standards.”

In the following 90 seconds, he fired out suggestions. Get rid of the tallest standard roses. Remove the far border “which merely creates yet another path that I bet nobody ever walks down” (true, Neil). Make the borders wider on the main bed to compensate and lift all the perennials and reorganise them. Instead of the classic mix and match of perennials and bulbs, he suggested I opt for “more blocky plantings” and simple combinations of two or three plants in each block.

That was it. I knew instantly that he was right on the mark but I left it to percolate in my brain until a couple of weeks ago. Besides, such drastic changes needed to be done in winter. It clearly involved moving a lot of plants. Besides, while the advice may have been given in 90 seconds of inspiration, there was quite a lot of solid work in implementation. The garden beds are all hard edged – with footed concrete. Getting rid of one bed entirely is a major operation in itself, especially as we wanted to salvage the 15 year old maples and handsome weeping camellia. There are a lot of plants in just one bed. That said, roses are easy to move – at least compared to other shrubs.

Recycling the turf from the extended borders to the defunct garden bed

I admit I have had help. The concrete garden edgings have been cut into manageable lengths and recycled where needed. This means that once completed and in full growth again, the garden will look as if it has been in place forever. Nothing shouts recent renovation more than pristine fresh concrete. And I am not the one who is recycling the squares of turf from the enlarged borders over to the area where the surplus bed has gone. But my job involves digging the entire garden, lifting all the perennials and bulbs, dividing them and replanting in new combinations. That has been Serious Fun. I speak in gardening terms and while gardening is many things, Serious Fun is not usually one of them. More on new perennial plantings next week.

We have been blessed with wonderful weather. A very wet winter would not have made this easy at all and I am hoping to finish this week before we get the wet, cold rains that will arrive, without doubt, sometime soon.

The upshot of all this, is that I would counsel readers that if you have an area of your garden that you do not enjoy working in, this may be an indication that there is something inherently wrong with it. I was lucky that the right person happened along eventually and gave me a rapid fire diagnosis. The best people to give advice are those who know at least as much as you do about gardening and design and who do not have an emotional investment in you acting on their advice. If you can find a really good garden designer (not just any old one), who gives on-site consultations, they should be able to assess the situation quickly and decisively but they are not easy to find. You may end up having to listen to a lot of ideas from different people before someone hits the mark for you. Just, don’t ask us, please.

A major makeover in mid flight

As it was – the borders are too narrow and proportions wrong

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

Fragrant rhododendrons

This is my final feature written for the Weekend Gardener. However, I would urge readers to respond to their readership survey in this latest issue. They want feedback – give them your comments. Tell them what you think of the new directions they are taking. Do. Please.

First published in the Weekend Gardener and reproduced here with their permission.

Floral Dance gets its scent from R. sino nuttallii but is a very different flower and plant.

Loderi Venus is one of the fragrant Loderi series but hard to find for sale and more of a small tree.

Many people don’t realise that there are more scented rhododendrons beyond the well known Fragrantissimum or the Loderis, though these cultivars have certainly stood the test of time.

The early Loderi series were bred at England’s Leonardslee Gardens at the turn of last century and Fragrantissium has been around even longer. There is little to rival the Loderis even now for big, full trusses, but they are more akin to small trees than to shrubs. Added to that, they have to be grafted and there aren’t many specialist rhododendron nurseries continuing with grafting so they are not generally available on the market.

Most gardeners need plants which are more compact.

FRAGRANTISSIMUM

In the smaller growing, very fragrant white flushed pink class, Floral Gift is our preference

In the smaller growing, very fragrant white flushed pink class, Floral Gift is our preference. Fragrantissimum has been around since 1868 and is the best known fragrant rhododendron. It has a wonderful scent but it is a bit leggy and open and you don’t get many flowers to the truss. Its blooms are also rather soft, so it is inclined to weather mark. There are quite a few different options in this type with their scented blooms in white with a pink flush. Princess Alice, Elsie Frye and Harry Tag are all more or less similar. All are smaller growing (around a metre high) and have good scent but you need to encourage them to form a good shape by pruning and pinching out leggy growths at the right times. Our preference in that colour range is our own Floral Gift. It has a sturdier habit of growth and its large flowers are so heavily textured that it endures most bad weather without damaging the blooms.

R. polyandrum is one of the most fragrant species with its huge blooms, but it is a larger grower with a very open habit.

FRAGRANT SPECIES

R. cubitti is a fragrant species which is easy to grow but because it flowers very early, it is not suitable for cold climate areas.

Most of those we grow as garden plants are hybrids – crosses between different varieties of rhododendrons. There are a number of fragrant species but these are not always easy to grow. In fact many are downright difficult. But the ones which have proven their worth as garden plants for us include the following:

R. polyandrum is the fragrant parent of many hybrids and is so strongly perfumed it will stop you as you walk past with its scent hanging heavy in the air. It has enormous cream flowers with each bloom measuring at least 12cm across. The flowers are soft so weather mark easily and the plant is rather leggy and open in growth, but where space allows, it is a wonderful garden addition.

R. maddenii is hardy for New Zealand conditions and has very heavy textured flowers which feel as if they have been cast out of wax. It is usually white with a pink flush and it flowers late in the season which makes it a good choice for colder areas. It is another relatively large grower in the two metre range.

For frost-free areas, R. veitchianum is a gem with its pure white, frilly, scented flowers.

R. cubittii is a pretty, frilly pink and white with good scent. It is an excellent smaller grower to around 1.5m and will even take full sun but the downside is that it flowers early in the season. This means that in cooler areas, it needs some protection from frosts or the flower buds will freeze and fall off and it won’t be happy at all in really cold, inland areas.

R. veitchianum is even more tender. In fact it is has about the same hardiness as a vireya rhododendron which means that any frosts more than a degree or two will not only destroy the flowering but also burn the foliage. But it is a great option for warm areas of the country and it will reward you with pristine white, frilled flowers smothering the bush in early spring and good fragrance. It also has a tidy, compact habit of growth on a smaller growing plant.

FRAGRANCE AND COLOUR

While we all love the fragrance of flowers, the plants are not producing this scent to please humans. Generally it is linked to attracting the right insects for pollination. While the rhododendron relatives of deciduous azaleas and some vireyas will use both colour and scent, fragrance in rhododendrons is generally linked to white and pale colours. You won’t find big bold, full trusses of red, blue or purple rhododendrons with scent. Part of the hybridist’s quest is to try and get new varieties with combinations of desirable characteristics.

Felix Jury’s series of R. polyandrum hybrids brought a greater colour range to scented rhododendrons in New Zealand – Barbara Jury

SCENTED HYBRIDS

Bernice

The late Felix Jury (yes, he was my father in law) set out to try and combine fragrance, colour and healthy foliage and named a series of new rhododendrons. Many of these are still available on the market today. None of them have the big full trusses of the traditional rhododendron, but they have many other aspects in their favour, including performing well in warmer climates. His R. polyandrum hybrids all have scent, though not as strong as their scented parent. They do, however, make tidier garden plants and bring more colour. These include Bernice (crimson tones), Barbara Jury (pure yellow fluted blooms), Moon Orchid (frilly apricot and yellow) and Felicity Fair (more pastel honey colours).

Felicity Fair

R. sino nuttallii (the sino just means it comes from China) is a magnificent rhododendron species with fragrant white trumpets but it is rarely available for sale. It has, however, given birth to two colourful offspring which are compact growers and much easier to produce so more widely available. Floral Dance (above) has very frilly, very fragrant, large trumpet flowers in white with a yellow throat and deep carmine blush and tips. The heavy textured dark foliage is a bonus. Floral Sun is a half sister with pretty soft golden flowers. Its fragrance is not as strong (which means getting close enough to put your nose by the flower to smell it) but the mass of pretty flowers and the tidy, compact growth make for an excellent garden plant.

Whether we ever get a big red Rubicon or a big blue Bumblebee with strong fragrance is unknown territory but it will be by the hand of the plant hybridiser, not nature, if it happens.

Moon Orchid

Floral Sun is the soft yellow half sister of Floral Dance and becomes a very tidy, compact garden plant with masses of blooms.

Reviewing the role of container plants here

Large gardens need large pots – a weeping totara at our entranceway

I am reviewing my container plants, one by one. I am a bit fed up with them and unless they have a strong case, they will be history.

Generally plants in containers become featured plants so it matters that they look in the peak of health. Unhealthy, starving specimens are a sad sight. This means regular repotting and therein lies the main disadvantage, though the bulbs are no problem. I redo those every year as a rule, using a basic composted bark mix and slow release fertiliser. It is a good wet weather occupation.

No, it is the shrubs or trees that I have in pots that are the issue. This is compounded by the fact that we have a large garden. Large gardens need large pots with large plants. Otherwise they just look out of proportion. And while I can spin most of the trees and shrubs out to a two year repotting cycle, it still has to be done. It is a heavy, dirty occupation and not one I enjoy. It is a two person job to wrestle the root bound plants out of their pots and into the wheelbarrow. I hose off all the old mix, trim the roots, shape the plant, and battle it back into the pot with enough fresh mix to sustain growth.

At least I will never again make the mistake of buying containers which are narrower at the top, no matter how attractive they look. You only do that once before realising that such pots are better as an ornament without the plant. It tends to be a case of destroying either the pot or the plant when it comes to getting them apart. It is all right. You do not have to put a plant into a pot. If it is an attractive pot worth displaying, it can be used on its own as a piece of garden decoration.

There was a time BC – Before Containers. They are a relatively recent garden fashion, aided and abetted by the explosion of plant pots from Asia. Believe it or not, these used to be quite expensive. Now they are cheap as chips and, as far as I am concerned, correspondingly expendable. I have long since dispensed with almost all the glazed, coloured pots I had bought as fashion items. All that remain are those in earth tones or good old fashioned terracotta. It is a matter of taste but I don’t want coloured pots, let alone ones decorated with bamboo shoots, dragons, butterflies, sunflowers or anything else for that matter. Hanging baskets are not for me, either.

Softening the scene but Cordyline stricta has to be repotted every year

My review of the containers has led me to the conclusion that there has to be a good reason for their existence. Either they exist to soften a harsh view – in our case, the entrance way and a small paved courtyard. Or they may be a means to keep treasures or to curtail invasive plants. That accounts for plenty of smaller pots, mostly of bulbs. Or they are bonsais that we keep as feature plants. That is it. There can be no other reason for containerised plants in my garden. I just don’t think they add very much except work.

It is different in a small garden. If I ever find myself with one, I am sure I will end up with lots of containers for various reasons (though there will not be any in shiny blue). In a small garden, you can usually get the hose to most points for the constant watering required in dry spells. I might even go for growing annuals in pots – these days elevated to the term of “potted colour” in order to sell readymade but short lived flowering options to the customer.

If you are potting quick impact, low value plants, any cheap mix is going to be fine. You can even use garden soil, though this tends to compact and hold too much water. Potting mix was designed for pots and is free draining. But not all potting mixes are equal.

Mark calls it his Forest of Tane though these are Picea orientalis bonsai style in a small stone trough

When it comes to longer term plants, it is worth the money to buy better quality mixes. The bagged stuff comes with everything added already so all you need to do is to fill around the plants in the pot and note how long the life of the slow release fertiliser is. The information on the bag should tell you. Slow release can be active for anything from three months to a year. Once it has been used up, there is nothing in the mix to feed the plant so you will need to start top dressing. It helps to know when because if the plant turns yellow due to starvation, it can take a while to respond.

The few bonsai type plants we keep in comparatively small containers to restrict growth and dwarf them. They need a mix with a bit more grunt and better water retention than straight granulated bark mix. In this case, we make up our own of 1/3 compost, 1/3 garden soil and 1/3 potting mix.

The other container plants are history. Either they are worth planting out to grow in the garden or they are goners. I do not have time for them any longer.

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

More mid winter delight than harbinger of spring – galanthus (snowdrops)

Galanthus S Arnott is a wonderful performer here

It’s snowdrop time. Proper snowdrops which are galanthus. These are widely referred to as English snowdrops, though they are not. In fact they occur naturally throughout Europe and down through the Mediterranean. It is just that the English have made them their own and who can blame them? Snowdrops rank right up there beside daffodils for that feeling of seasonal wonder.

We lack the snow of course, so we don’t get the simple picture of the flowers appearing through melting snow. I assume this is why they are called snowdrops in common parlance.

We will never be galanthophiles here, though that has more to do with climate than anything else. We have a number of different types of snowdrops but most are very marginal in our mild conditions and we struggle to keep them going here so there is no point whatever in collecting as many different ones as we can and keeping them separate, as galanthophiles will. While there are only about twenty species, there are hundreds of named varieties. Most of these are species selections. In other words, while snowdrops will seed down in the wild, particular variations have been selected out and then propagated from that original bulb (as opposed to raised from seed which won’t keep the variation stable – most will revert immediately to the usual form). We could only look in awe at the fabulous prices paid for a very good new white and yellow snowdrop in the UK last year. It was knocking on the door of past times when the wealthy paid vast amounts for a new tulip bulb. While we have the old double variety, G. nivalis Flore Pleno, we have not sought the many variants on doubles. Flore Pleno is not flowering yet so I can’t photograph it but it looks a bit of a mutant and lacks the charm of the simpler, more natural forms in my eyes.

In this country, if you want to see snowdrops in all their glory, the place to go to is Maple Glen where Muriel Davison has built up extensive plantings in her large garden. Unfortunately for northerners, it is sited at Wyndham between Gore and Invercargill so few of us are likely to make it at the right time. Or time a late winter trip to the UK. For years I had a photo a reader sent me of a carpet of snowdrops (and we are talking bulbs in the magnitude of five to six figures all in bloom at the same time) beneath white barked birches somewhere in England.

So I know that our snowdrop efforts here are modest by those standards. But we have snowdrops, and quite a few of them now. The one variety that performs consistently well in our conditions, flowering reliably every year and building up readily, is Galanthus S. Arnott. Apparently it is equally good in the UK because it has been given an Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society.

The peak flowering season is not a long one. It is just enchanting while it lasts and snowdrops lend themselves to drifts in garden borders, on woodland margins, in our growing bulb hillside (coming through the grass) as well as being featured in rockery pockets. They flower at a time when there is not a lot else out. While typically regarded as harbingers of spring, they are more mid winter. We keep gently spreading them further afield in the garden. Many British gardens open in February for what is often called a snowdrop weekend. That is the aim here. It may take us another decade to get sufficient carpets of snowdrops to warrant declaring snowdrop weekend, but we could never be accused of taking the short term view of gardening. And we are well on the way.

Curiously with snowdrops, the practice is to lift, divide and replant soon after flowering. There aren’t many bulbs where you are advised to move them in full growth. In England they are often sold as “green bundles” when still in growth. I have taken from this that they are not fussy so I move them any time now – whether dormant or at any stage of growth. Typical of all bulbs, they need good drainage and reasonable light levels. Woodlands overseas are largely deciduous which means they have more light. Our dominance of evergreens in this country leans us more towards forest than woodland. That is why we go for planting the margins rather than the depths.

Finally, just for clarification, what is often referred to as a snowdrop in New Zealand is an entirely different family. The leucojum is much stronger growing, often found in old homestead paddocks, associating with daffodils. It has the little cup without the surrounding skirt of petals and is less refined than a proper snowdrop. Notwithstanding that, it is an under-rated garden plant with a very long flowering season. But it is a snowflake not a snowdrop.

Snowflake (leucojum) to the left and snowdrop (galanthus) to the right

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

Early flowering camellias

First published in the Weekend Gardener and reproduced here with their permission.

White ‘Early Pearly’ is one of the most beautiful of the sasanquas, while red ‘Takanini’ is a japonica which flowers from early to late in the season.

There is always something magical about the first flowers and camellias are no exception. They seem fresh and new, heralding the progression of seasons. While the main camellia season is from late winter to mid spring, the earlier varieties bring colour to the late autumn and early winter garden. Early flowers also escape the curse of camellia petal blight which affects mid and later season varieties.

Early camellias fall into three groups: the sasanquas, early flowering species and a few japonica types and hybrid camellias which have an exceptionally long flowering season, continuing from early to late.

We particularly enjoy the charming sasanqua ‘Crimson King’, seen here as a mature shrub with a graceful, arching form.

Camellia sasanqua ‘Bonanza’ is a bright spot of colour on a grey day

The sasanqua camellias originate in Japan and are renowned for being sun tolerant, having smaller leaves and being suitable for clipping to hedges. While some are slow to get going as garden plants, over time they can make graceful, airy, large shrubs. They mass flower and most are scented, in a mossy, slightly sweet sort of way. Their blooms are softer and lack the defined form and substance of most later flowering camellia types. This is an advantage when the flowers fall and break up quickly, rather than leaving a sludge of brown at the base of the plant. While white sasanquas have been particularly popular for some years, they also come in a whole range of pinks to red tones and bi-colours. We prefer the coloured ones for a splash of winter cheer in the garden when there is not a lot else in flower.

‘Fairy Blush’ is a scented hybrid with a very long flowering season.

There are a range of early flowering species but these are unlikely to be found for sale these days. The most useful of them for us, are dainty little C. brevistyla and C. microphylla which offer potential as replacements for buxus hedging and are a great deal prettier than box when in flower.

There are some japonica and hybrid camellias which have remarkably long flowering seasons. In the reds, ‘Takanini’ flowers early, middle and late and should be readily available. Later season blooms develop an unusual purple hue. ‘Roma Red’ is a new release and not as widely available, with its formal flowers in mid red. ‘Mimosa Jury’ is a perfect formal in pretty pink and shows good weather hardiness. ‘Fairy Blush’ is a scented, small flowered pale pink and white miniature bloom with an exceptionally long season. These varieties open their first flowers with the sasanquas but continue long after they have finished and will still have flowers when the late season varieties are on show.

For perfection in a bloom, it is hard to go past the formal shape of Camellia ‘Mimosa Jury’ which has the added benefit of showing good weather tolerance without marking badly.

GROWING CAMELLIAS IN CONTAINERS

Camellia ‘Itty Bit’ is a dwarf variety that has been kept in a pot here for 20 years

All camellias can be grown for a year or two in a pot but you are fighting nature if you want to keep a larger growing variety long term. Plants need repotting every two years to keep them healthy and lush. Unless you are root pruning and shaping the plant regularly, larger growing varieties will soon get too big to handle.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that small flowers mean the plant is small growing and vice versa. You are better to start with varieties with words like “compact”, “dense growth”, “dwarf”, or “slow growing” in their description. Where heights are given, pick those of 100cm or under (and remember that heights are almost always understated on plant labels).

We have had Camellia minutiflora in a succession of containers for about twelve years. We have a miniature “Itty Bit” which has been featured in a container for at least twenty years. On the other hand, it is clear that “Spring Festival” is going to be too large after only three years.

Rules of thumb are not to drown a small plant in an over large pot, to ensure that the pot has plenty of drainage holes at the base and to use a good quality potting mix with slow release fertiliser. Feed by top dressing after the first year and repot with fresh mix after two years.

WHITE SASANQUA CAMELLIAS

There is a range of sasanqua camellias in white. ‘Silver Dollar’ has a long flowering season and is an excellent option for a more compact hedge.

While ‘Setsugekka’ is the best known white sasanqua in this country, it is not the only one. For perfection in a sasanqua bloom, it is hard to go past ‘Early Pearly’ with its formality in that shape that resembles a water lily. It is unusual to see a formal flower in sasanquas. ‘Silver Dollar’ is a smaller, bushier growing white with a mass of pompom flowers over a long season. It makes an ideal lower hedge option, able to be clipped to about a metre high. ‘Mine No Yuki’ is a slow growing variety, though will ultimately get large if it is not clipped (ours is at least 3 metres high and spans 4 metres wide, though that is after about 50 years). ‘Weeping Maiden’ grows rapidly to give a quick result with its arching growth and masses of large, single white blooms with golden stamens.

CAMELLIA PETAL BLIGHT

Camellia petal blight shows in the top flower as a distinctive white ring whereas the lower flower has been spoiled by botrytis.

If you have been thinking that your mid season camellia display is not what it used to be, you will be right. Camellia petal blight has taken firm hold and cut the display to a fraction of what it used to be.

We have always had botrytis in New Zealand. It is the fungus that turns camellia flowers dark brown and mushy, especially in long periods of damp weather. Petal blight is different. It turns the flowers to a paler coloured mush, spreading through each bloom rapidly. A brown mark one day can cover most of the flower the following day. If you turn the affected bloom over and remove the calyx (the small cap holding the petals together at the end of the stem), you will see a white fluffy ring, indicating camellia petal blight. If it is dark and greyish, it is botrytis. Unfortunately, blighted flowers often hang on the bush rather than falling cleanly. Petal blight is a great deal more rampant than botrytis.

There is no cure and it will take many years before we see resistant varieties on the market. It does not usually take hold before late June or July, so the early flowering camellias can get through with their mass display unaffected.

The ugly face of camellia petal blight which affects mid and later season blooms.

Camellia species can be grown from seed. There will be some seedling variation in the plants but they are usually close enough on appearance for hedging purposes. These are last year’s red seed pods on C. microphylla.

COMPACT CAMELLIA HEDGING

Camellia species brevistyla and microphylla offer an option as buxus hedging replacement and can be grown from seed. This plant is C. brevistyla.

Simply the best camellias we have found as a potential replacement for buxus hedging are C. brevistyla and C. microphylla. These two species are very hard to tell apart and must be closely related. Their leaves are a little larger than buxus but they clip very tidily and are a good dark green. Both species have pure white single flowers very early in the season. C. brevistyla is a little slower growing and smaller but its flowering is over quickly. We have built up C. microphylla as replacement hedging for our own garden.

These species may be hard to source but if you can find a parent plant, they can be raised easily from seed. Both set seed freely. Ask at your botanic gardens. Both species were sold in the past by Camellia Haven in Papakura.

There is nothing special about the individual blooms on Camellia sasanqua ‘Showgirl’, but at the time when it flowers, there is nothing to rival its showiness.

The dainty flowers on both C. microphylla and C. brevistyla are almost identical but last longer on the former, seen here.

C. microphylla has been kept clipped and shaped in containers for at least 12 years.

Tikorangi The Jury Garden

Mark and Abbie Jury

Category Archives: Abbie’s column

Renovating the rose garden

Fragrant rhododendrons

Reviewing the role of container plants here

More mid winter delight than harbinger of spring – galanthus (snowdrops)

Early flowering camellias

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