Category Archives: Abbie’s column

Abbie’s newspaper columns

In praise of monarchs

The monarch caterpillars have been contributing to the stress in our lives recently. While our backs were turned, they stripped the plants in vegetable garden to the point where not a single leaf remained and then they started the exodus in search of more plants. I knew this had happened because I came across some intrepid souls in the middle of the driveway heading off to goodness knows where. As the nearest plants were in Mark’s terrace gardens a good 100 metres away, I didn’t like their chances of finding them so I had to do a manual transfer.

In preparation for the late autumn famine and in an attempt to get sufficient population wintering over, Mark sowed fifty metres of swan plants in a nursery block across the road. As these plants are only about 10cm high and already sporting eggs and baby caterpillars, he has regretfully come to the conclusion that he will need to practice some infanticide in order to allow these plants to grow sufficiently to achieve their purpose. The culling now will allow the survival for the greater good of later generations of caterpillars.

New Zealand is sadly lacking in a range of spectacular butterflies enjoyed in many other countries of the world. We have some beautifully marked moths but you need an eye for detail and an appreciation of understatement to perceive the beauty in moths. In the butterfly stakes, the miserable and unwanted cabbage white probably rules supreme in numbers. Red and yellow admirals are extremely rare around here but then so is their preferred host food of stinging nettles. The common copper doesn’t quite rank up with the admirals and monarchs.

In common parlance, a species indigenous to New Zealand includes those that arrive without assistance (this means that coconut palms up north are native now because there are instances where they have washed ashore and taken root). So I guess whether monarchs might now be regarded as natives here depends on whether the first butterflies were perhaps blown over from Australia, or whether somebody introduced them. But they do not, as far as I know, have any negative impact here and only enhance our visual environment.

Butterflies do on occasion blow over from Australia and are not unknown on the north coast of Taranaki. Our elder daughter spotted the lesser wanderer caterpillars on her grandmother’s swan plants at Urenui when she was very young. They were the usual black and yellow caterpillar but smaller and with an extra set of antennae. They morphed into a small monarch type of butterfly with slightly different markings but failed to naturalise despite our best efforts. The large and spectacular blue moon butterfly arrived tattered and exhausted after its long trans Tasman flight and despite Mark’s attentions, it failed to reproduce before it died. It would have been a showy addition to the summer garden.

So all we have in the showy butterfly line is the monarchs and they need some care and attention to their food source to flourish. I read a letter in the Weekend Gardener from a woman who works on three established plants. She nets two to prevent butterflies from laying eggs on them and restricts the caterpillars to one plant at a time. We can’t quite work out how she stops the caterpillars themselves from migrating to the two netted plants. Monarch caterpillars seem perfectly capable of finding swan plants even some distance away but this system seems to work for her. With plenty of space and having saved seed, Mark is more of the overkill type where he hopes his 50 metre planting will ensure continued food supplies.

The bottom line is that monarchs really only like swan plants (asclepias), or milkweed as it is sometimes referred to overseas. The term swan plant comes because of the seed head which is shaped like a swan and full of white fluff which enables the little black seed to become windborne and disperse more widely when the seed pod bursts. Desperately starving mature caterpillars will apparently eat pumpkin or melon flesh to stay alive and chrysalis but I have never heard of anyone successfully raising monarchs from egg to butterfly on anything other than swan plants.

Fortunately swan plants are very easy to grow from seed and if you can keep your swan plant from being decimated during the season, it will flower and seed freely. We had a truck in collecting plants here this week and we noticed it had a load of swan plants destined for a garden centre so if you want to buy one to get you started, ring around and see who has them in stock. Just be warned that if you buy a plant, you will need to keep it netted until it gets established or you will find that a stray butterfly will find it and lay its eggs while you are not looking.

Raising monarch caterpillars is loads of fun, unless you have the distressing experience of running completely out of food for them, and I am of the view that it is mandatory for parents and grand parents to introduce children to the delights of the life cycle of the monarch. Later in the season, Mark starts a hospital where he saves chrysalis which are in danger because they have been spun in inappropriate locations (at times some caterpillars are unwise enough to metamorphose on the swan plant where their brothers and sisters then eat the supporting stem, or on nearby plants which may not last long enough for them to hatch). The chrysalis need to hang in order to develop and hatch cleanly so he used to tie a fine cotton thread to the tip but has now graduated to the faster but less aesthetic masking tape, hanging them from a safer place. He does not get 100% success rate from this intervention, but the row of chrysalis hanging from a bar in front of one of our windows keeps us mildly entertained.

We have had occasional years when we have had good numbers of monarch butterflies wintering over in our garden and it is a joy and delight to see them stretching their wings together on a sunny winter’s day. They tend to congregate in one spot over winter. But every year we manage to keep at least a few resident around here to start us off again for spring.

If you want to know more about monarchs, there is the Monarch Butterfly NZ Trust whom you will find at www.monarch.org.nz

On another topic entirely, Mark has a yen to own a Planet Junior, a manual tilling device from way back, decades ago. If anybody has an unwanted Planet Junior in a back shed, he would be really pleased to hear from you. My attempts to locate him one on Trade Me have failed so far. We could promise said PJ a good and appreciative home.

Fame and Philadelphia

Life is full of amusing little interludes. After my facetious letter to Elton John was published, I was copied in to an email from Don in Colorado. He wrote: “Every so often I receive a Google News Alert linking me to a gardening news article that makes me want to stick my finger down my throat or laugh ’til I drop. Today’s article, by Abbie Jury, in the Taranaki Daily News of New Plymouth, New Zealand is one of these. If anyone would like to send this gardening writer a Dear Abbie, she is: Abbie Jury Phone/fax +64 6 754 6671 jury@jury.co.nz”

Being sharp eyed, I instantly noticed that Don was a d*hlia aficionado (the reason for the asterisk will become clear soon) and each time this genus was mentioned, Google would notify him. My words in that letter to Elton were: “Big, blowsy d*hlias are so vulgar and OTT, really, without even the bonus of fragrance.” While fearing that my email inbox would quickly become overloaded by international d*hlia enthusiasts, I naturally emailed Don by return to clarify whether my column had in fact made him laugh or made him want to vomit. Sadly, he did not reply and there were no incoming emails. Just a few postings on his site.

Tom took it all rather seriously and commented that he was “Surprised we didn’t hear about her Royal Dalton tea service with the hand painted periwinkles.” . I bit my tongue and resisted the temptation to correct his spelling of Royal Doulton. There were a few other neutral entries but it took Elaine from Christchurch to clarify the situation. “Thanks for the article Don. I am assuming that Abbie Jury is a family member of a well known and respected hybridiser of Rhododendrons, Camelias (sic) and Magnolias from the Taranaki area. Elton, is Elton John who recently performed in that area. The Kereru referred to is a native wood pigeon, and the morepork is a tiny native owl. All tongue in cheek I would say.”

Thank goodness for that. But my moment of fame on the internet seemed all too brief and insignificant. Now it is just back the garden pages of the newspaper, as long as I do not mention d*hlias in anything other than a glowing reference.

We had some interesting visitors from Philadelphia this week. We have been having our usual summer conversations on achieving more summer glory in our garden. For us, it is the next big gardening challenge. New Zealanders generally excel at spring gardening. It only takes about ten years to achieve a reasonably mature and pretty spring garden in our climate and we tend to do it with trees, shrubs and spring bulbs. When you think about it, the majority of trees, shrubs and bulbs flower in spring. Summers tend to be rather green. In fact we have more colour and flower in mid winter with the camellias, early magnolias and rhodos than we have in mid summer.

Mark and I have been talking for some time of wanting to make a summer trip to England to see the splendor of their perennial borders. We had assumed the Brits still lead the world in the practice of herbaceous borders. Apparently not. An esteemed colleague emailed and told us to forget going to the UK to see summer gardens. Philadelphia is the place to go, he urged. This may have something to do with the fact that he is leading a tour of summer gardens there next year and he would like us to join him. And it certainly had something to do with the Philly duo that were visiting him and subsequently came here.

hese visitors came bearing a gift of a splendid garden guide to the notable gardens of the Philadelphia region. The front cover shows a colourful mixed border including a cordyline, coloured flaxes and canna lilies, photographed in early summer I would guess. One of the visitors gardens at Chanticleer which takes pride in its tropical plantings of bananas, coleus, cannas and the like. Tropical? In Philadelphia? It gets so cold the ground freezes solid. Yes, he explained. The garden is not open all year and as soon it closes at the end of October, they lift the plants. Some get forced into dormancy and kept in cool, dry conditions (even the visitor toilets and facilities are utilized for plant storage). Others are brought into the glasshouses. Yes, they lift much of the garden every year (it is a mere 35 acres). Not even camellias will survive the big freezes. When the ground is frozen, it prevents any uptake of moisture and evergreen plants get dessicated by the dryness. In early spring, they replant each year in preparation for opening on April 1. Mark and I were stunned at the prospect. It certainly is not gardening as we know it.

It does explain to some extent how they achieve such splendid effects with herbaceous material (all those leafy, clumping plants which will give flowers from spring through to autumn). These types of plants like to go in to freshly cultivated soil and they need dividing and refurbishing often. Presumably the freeze kills weed seeds and soil afflictions too. It should be said, however, that the challenge of very hot and dry summers following on quickly from their springtime is another gardening hurdle we do not have to contemplate.

Lacking a small army of skilled gardeners, a suitable budget (no grandfather who owned a pharmaceutical empire here, alas) and large visitor numbers, we can not contemplate a style which is dependent on lifting much of a garden every season. Nor do we have long periods of dormancy to accommodate this activity. We did not enter into any discussion with these Philly visitors on the sustainability of this approach to gardening. In time, history may consign it to folklore – the latest example of gardening practice which can trace its roots back to Versailles in its heydays when a legion of lowly paid staff could change the entire colour scheme of the vast bedding plant displays overnight so the French king and queen could contemplate a different view if they looked out their bedroom window when they rose.

So it is still a matter for much discussion here as to how we can achieve a sustainable summer garden full of flowers. You can only go so far with utility but reliable hydrangeas and agapanthus. The lilies are coming in to flower and are wonderful but there are few other summer flowering bulbs. Clematis continue to put on a splendid display. The roses limp on but are past their peak. Our few d*hlias continue to perform well. If we want a summer garden, the bottom line is that we are going to have to turn to greater use of clumping herbaceous perennials.

Gardening would be dull if all one did was to maintain what is already in place. The challenge of achieving a sustainable summer garden will continue here for some years to come.

Demystifying compost and muck

The news that there may be a permanent ban on outdoor fires in Taranaki has had me thinking. At first I thought it must only apply to urban areas but there was no mention of that in the early statements from Regional Council. Letter writers to the editor, who applauded the proposal and commented that with the increasingly efficient kerbside recycling services this should not be a problem for people, clearly lived in the city. And I would hazard a guess that they don’t have large gardens.

This is not to say that I am opposed to the idea of discouraging the burning of organic waste, but I am not sure that a blanket ban is the way to go. In a large garden with many trees, we have constant debris. Anything that can be, is composted through our series of compost mounds. Tree branches larger than about 10cm are cut up for firewood but there is all the twiggy stuff in between which up until recently we have dumped on the burning heap in a paddock. Our latest acquisition here is a good solid mulcher bought second hand on Trade Me (and voted by the one who uses it here as his second most favourite piece of machinery). This should eliminate the need for our annual bonfire but, like the chainsaw, mulchers have a petrol powered carbon footprint and are noisy. And mulchers are not going to suit all home gardeners. Nor does the mulcher solve the problem of rose clippings which I still incinerate.

But we would all be foolish not to heed the rumblings. The times they are a-changing and we had better start to think around some of the practices which are becoming increasingly unacceptable.

At the most basic level, the only people I consider justified in putting food scraps out in the rubbish are those who live in apartments with no outside garden. There is not a lot of point in loading landfills with plastic wrapped food en masse when it is very easy to dispose of at home.

So herewith the compost guide for beginners. The very mention of compost arouses passions in some, believe it or not. There are entire books and websites devoted to the topic and they can go into extraordinary technical detail requiring adherence to recipes, a strict timetable of rotation and turning, along with the construction of aerated bins. If you already manage compost in this manner, you do not need to be reading further.

But for beginners, there is compost and there is rotting. Compost is dryish, light, full of air and does not smell. It has been naturally heat treated. Rotting is often pongy, sludgy and heavy. It has not generated heat.

Rotting is fine in some cases and easy to manage. Rather than (horror of horrors) raking up the autumn leaves and burning them, to the detriment of neighbours’ washing and the environment, you can rake them back under the bushes and let them break down naturally. After a few months, you have what is called leaf litter and it is inoffensive, fertile and fine for raking back over the garden beds as mulch.

Kitchen waste is often rotted, rather than composted. In fact the simplest method can be to start a trench in the vegetable garden and bury the scraps, covering them with the soil from the next part of the trench as you work your way along. The worms will then break down the food and it doesn’t take long before you can use the row for planting. The major disadvantage is dogs and you don’t want to be burying meat.

While we have a row of proper compost mounds, they are some distance from the kitchen so we use one of those useful black bins with no bottom in it for food scraps. It looks tidy in the vegetable garden and keeps the dogs out though rats can burrow beneath. We refer to it as the compost bin but in fact the contents are rotted, not composted. We avoid putting any weeds which are seeding in there or any diseased vegetable waste because rotting alone does not kill seeds and fungi. Leaf litter would be fine in one of these black bins if you like to keep the garden tidy. Mark rakes out the contents into the vegetable garden from time to time. Rotting does not have to be unhygienic and in fact you can encourage your own worm farm to do the breaking down for you.

Proper compost is something else entirely. In smaller gardens it is tidier to work on constructed compost bins so you start in one bin, fork it into the second bin (this is aerating it), adding nitrogen if required, and then into the third bin from where you use it for the garden after a few months. We have a large amount of green waste here and sufficient space to manage free form mounds which get turned by the front end loader on the tractor but in days gone by, (before the advent of our baby tractor) Mark used to fork it all over as required. If you are past forking compost, there are more expensive rotating bins on the market.

The whole principle of composting is to generate aerobic action and heat which is what purifies the compost. We all know about grass clippings heating up and steaming but without the addition of air, roughage and carbon you are actually creating something more akin to smelly, fermented ensilage.

Compost aficionados have recipes, not unlike cooking, but we have never felt the need to be so regimented. We pile all the waste into heap number one, grass clippings and all. When the heap is large enough, it gets turned and sprinkled with nitrogen in granular form. If you have chickens, this is the point at which you add chicken manure as a natural source of nitrogen. If you have a lot of grass clippings, they also provide natural nitrogen. Some people like to bring in seaweed or other animal manure at this time but we have quite enough of our own waste, thank you, without needing to gather it up from other sources. The nitrogen is important because that is what starts the aerobic action and the heat which is the all important part to kill the unwanted greeblies. It is now heap number two.

Ideally number two should be turned a second time a week later to keep the composting action in full swing. We turn each mix several times but twice is the minimum. We then cover it with black plastic and leave it for a couple of months before using it, mostly as a garden mulch but also to add goodness and a lighter texture when planting trees and shrubs. We favour a pretty dry mix here. Done properly, it is weed free and clean to handle.

Apparently around 40% of what goes to urban landfill is green waste. If you can deal with it in your own garden, you will certainly be reducing your carbon footprint. Separating out green waste for recycling may be one step better than throwing it in with the polystyrene, plastic and tin but it still requires energy input for it to be collected or delivered and composted at the landfill before you then drive your vehicle to go and buy compost (often in plastic bags) to return to your garden. If you are serious about saving the planet, cut out the middle man and start working out ways to deal with your own green waste at home.

Letter to Elton

Dear Elton,

We were very disappointed that your recent trip to New Plymouth was so fleeting that you did not have time to visit our garden. Maybe next time, you will manage more than an eight hour stopover which really only left time for your concert.

We know that you are keen on gardening. In fact we know quite a bit about your garden. So we left word with Somebody We Know in Town who was involved with hosting you, that should you have a bit of spare time, we would love to show you around our place. But it was not to be on this visit.

We know your tastes are quite particular. That there are various plants and flowers you hate. Gladiolus feature high on the hate list. That is fine. We don’t grow the Dame Edna type of gladdies. All we have are a few tasteful and understated species and only one of those is in flower at this time of the year. It could have been like a little test to see if you spotted it in the rockery. It is a curious beige colour with burgundy spotting so it may have attracted your attention, but unless you know gladiolus species you may not have picked what it is.

We agree with you that marigolds are common. Nor are we fans of carnations. When somebody gives you carnations, there is always the suspicion that they buy their flowers from the supermarket or the petrol station, don’t you think? Big blowsy dahlias are so vulgar and OTT really, without even the bonus of fragrance. At the risk of alienating every Dutch reader, I must admit that I am not a fan of tulips either. The weird colour mixes and frilly ones just don’t do it for me though a sea of pure perfection in a single colour is not so bad.

We would have been so tactful had you found the time to visit us. We would not have mentioned your major aberration in Good Taste. We refer to the ever so slightly tacky dinosaur that you have in your garden (a gift from George Harrison, we understand. How polite of you to keep it.) I don’t think you would have found any such lapses in decorum in our garden, at least not of that magnitude.

We know about your garden and your dinosaur because we watched Rosemary Verey walking around yours with your head gardener. Sure Mrs Verey died some years ago (maybe you have had second thoughts about Dino since that footage was shot?) but the Living Channel is not always up to the moment with its garden programmes.

Mrs Verey was such a quintessentially English gardener, wasn’t she? Highly skilled, clearly of good stock and well mannered but such a fine plantswoman. We did try growing her Lavatera Barnsley but it wasn’t quite the stop you in your tracks performer here that it is in the UK. In fact it staged a bit of a takeover bid here and while it flowered well, as it grew ever larger it tended to become increasingly scruffy and to fall apart. We cut it out after a season or two.

But we have a profound respect for Mrs Verey and what we saw of her garden and you must have too, as she was closely involved in the development of yours. It may even have been her who placed Dino in your garden after you had accepted him as a gift. Rather than making him a major focal point, Dino appeared to have been tucked discreetly amongst the undergrowth and the overgrowth. We watched her walking your garden and pausing by Dino, commenting that he seemed to have settled in rather well now. At the time we both burst out laughing because we interpreted that comment as a veiled reference to a hope that in another year or two the foliage around would have grown sufficiently to block out all sight of Dino, but we wouldn’t have told you that had you come to our place to visit.

And yes we do know that you call George’s gift Daisy, not Dino. But really, how can anyone take seriously a fibreglass tyrannosaurus rex of such magnitude that it requires a helicopter to move it and with glow in the dark red eyes, when it is called Daisy?

Nor would we mention the figure of Aphrodite inside a red British Telecom box residing in your woodland area. But we do notice that you lean towards tasteful terracotta pots rather than the garish glazed ones more popular here. Same with us, but alas the distance is rather too great for us to manage those charming Cretan olive oil jars which you have flanking your potager.

We would have been curious to hear why you replaced Mrs Verey’s pride and joy, the white garden (well, whitish really, when you read the list of plants ) which your bedroom overlooks. It sounded so lovely when she wrote about it, but apparently you have replaced it with an Italian garden. She seemed ever so slightly miffed that you chose to go with statuary and vistas instead. In the nicest possible way, she made it pretty clear that this seemed a very odd choice to complement your English regency residence and rococo garden.

To be honest, we are not really rococo here but we are deeply envious of your nineteen acre woodland, all maintained and underplanted in a woodland-y sort of way (as opposed to an herbaceous border sort of way). It makes our woodland gardens feel very small and paltry.

But a couple of weeks ago you would have caught the tail end of the nuttallii rhododendrons which are always some of the last to flower for us. I am sure you would have liked these, though I doubt you can grow them in the UK with your harsh winters. They are all class, the nuttalliis. Big, reasonably spectacular (in a refined sort of way) with divine fragrance in most of them. Long white trumpets and big, textured foliage. They can be a bit open in their growth but the peeling cinnamon bark is such a reward for the open habit. I think you would have been moderately impressed by them.

And a couple of weeks ago, we could have shown you our baby kereru which has now flown the nest and our little family of five moreporks which have since dispersed. A visit could have been such fun.

Do feel free to call if you are passing this way again.

Sincerely,

Abbie

Of owls, pigeons and glow in the dark piggies

After my tongue in cheek column about glow in the dark plants, scientist daughter has been emailing me information about the fluorescent protein. Bottom line is, dear Reader, the technology is here and is already routine in genetics. Not perhaps for a low tech plant breeder in Tikorangi, but the fluoro green pigs in Taiwan were pretty amazing. Green all through too, even to their internal organs. Zebra fish are now available overseas in genetically modified, iridescent pink, glow in the dark stripes. All from a gene isolated from jellyfish which converts to a protein and allows the development of a range of different colours. I mention this in case you don’t like green.

Before you throw your hands in the air in horror, the advantage of a fluoro green pig is in tracking the development of new cells (medical research of huge potential for many people) without having to resort to invasive techniques on live pigs. So there are pros and cons of glow in the dark piggies though I suspect a glow in the dark zebra fish is solely of novelty value, just as a glow plant would be.

But back to nature in our own garden. Some years ago, I landed the task of writing garden descriptions for nigh on seventy different gardens which stretched my vocabulary somewhat. Leaving aside the plethora of tranquil havens and peaceful retreats, a very large number of gardens wanted to highlight their birdsong. I recall having a discussion as to whose gardens in particular we would allow to include birdsong as a special feature, given that it did not seem to be unique at all. When Mark read of a garden proudly proclaiming over 30 different bird songs, he spent some time listing all the ones we have and came up well short, even when he cheated and included birds that do not sing.

But how many gardens have a family of resident moreporks? We have been delighted this week to have a family of five take up residence in one of our trees. Momma, poppa and the three young ones hang out together during the day in the castanospermum (commonly referred to as the Moreton Bay chestnut). While the parents sleep, the young ones are wide eyed and nervous, watching us watching them. Moreporks are as cute as any owl with their great big eyes giving them a perpetually startled appearance and their round, fluffy bodies. We are entranced. In the evening they fly around catching moths and if you watch a lighted window long enough, you may see the flash of wings as they swoop in to catch the fluttering prey. In the day they just hang about, their mere presence upsetting the tuis and other birds which fly under their roosting tree. You can hear their agitated chatter.

In our park, Mark is keeping a watchful eye on a nesting kereru. These clumsy big birds appear to have small brain power (dinosaurs of the ornithological world?) and are remarkably useless at building secure nests and raising young successfully. For years, Mark has been attempting to gently protect nesting wood pigeons and this year’s family is no exception. They have a flimsy nest built at eye level in a large holly bush and as it is highly likely that the baby will fall out and land on the ground sooner, rather than later, Mark has constructed a fence to protect it from predators. Festoons of bird netting a safe distance out, supported by poles and pegged to the ground will be sufficient, he hopes, to keep out rats, our lethargic ginger cat, wild cats and other predators for long enough to enable him to carry out a rescue should it be necessary.

This security netting took him the better part of half a day to install. As it is white bird netting, he came up feeling rather pleased that he had created something that reminded him a fairy castle. I went to have a look and it reminded me more of a shroud. Garden visitors assumed it was something to do with gathering the seed of the plant it surrounded. Baby kereru is now on the move. It can’t fly yet but it hops around the tree so is highly likely to end up on the ground soon. Maybe the combined efforts of its parents and Mark will keep it alive long enough to achieve independence.

We have yet to find where the quail are nesting but Mark is worried because they make nests on the ground and he envisages a distressing flurry of loose feathers should we get them with the weed eater. Commonly referred to as Californian quail, we have welcomed a resident pair into our garden. Not only are they endearingly attractive but their sounds of communication are gentle on the ear. We would be delighted if the population increased. We haven’t had resident quail in the garden for many years so the continued survival of this pair is a hopeful sign that the predator population is not too bad.

The rosellas may have signed their death warrants. Bright and attractive they may be with their jewel like plumage as they flash through the trees, but the news from a colleague that they ate every single bud of his Magnolia Vulcan this year did not endear them to us at all. New Zealand may rue the day that these Aussie imports were allowed to get well established in the wild here. And while their death warrants may be signed, how to carry out the executions is a different matter altogether. They are very quick birds.

While we would love to have a resident kaka, our friend and colleague at Oakura is rueing the presence of one in his garden. This particular visitor clearly disapproves of the introduction of exotic species. It has inflicted considerable damage ripping off large chunks of bark from rare conifers. We think we could forgive it, should it decide to move to our garden. These very rare birds have an amazing call but are seldom seen on the lowlands.

If you want to read a little more about the glow in the dark pigs, go to:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4605202.stm