Category Archives: Abbie’s column

The bulbs of November

Arguably, rhodohypoxis could be the provincial flower of Taranaki. Like clockwork, they bloom on cue for the garden festivals which take place here at the start of November and there wouldn’t be too many gardens that don’t have rhodohypoxis growing either in garden soil or, more commonly, in shallow pots. They may hail from southern Africa, but we have made them our own.

For all our years opening the garden and when we had the nursery, we would pot up what seemed like an inordinately large number of these little rhizomes in shades of pink, white and deep carmine. I wondered if we would reach saturation point when every local gardener and any return gardeners from out of the region already had them, but we never did. It seems the market for these charmers – referred to as ‘roxypoxies’ by more than one customer – is endless in the month of November.

Also standing out are the orange tritonias. There is nothing subtle about these easy bulbs, also from South Africa. They need to be managed and used thoughtfully or they just look a bit… vulgar really. They pull their weight in vibrant meadows, set against deep blue flowers or in predominantly green situations.

I am pretty sure those are pastel tritonias at the front of the borders at Riverlea Garden

I am pretty sure the muted pink clumps repeated down the front of the borders at Riverlea Garden are also tritonias, or a close relative. They were very pretty and maybe easier to place in the garden than the orange.

White ixias in the front left. And of course those red and yellow alstromerias on the other side are also rated as bulbs. And I would assume that the Iris sibirica ‘Blue Moon’ can be included in the bulb fraternity with its underground rhizomes.

Also in the ‘easy’ bulbs class are ixias – African corn lilies. Not that all ixias are equal. I had a brief look at the ixia family and it seems there are somewhere around 100 different species and there seems to be quite a strong correlation between different colours and different species. Our form of Ixia viridiflora – the best known and unusual coloured one in strong blue-green – is a poor form. Despite my best efforts, it never flowers well and I have seen photos of way better performing selections. It is the pure white ixia that delights me this week, both in the Wild North meadow and in conjunction with the blue Iris sibirica in the borders. We also have ixias in various shades of pink from pastel to cyclamen pink, in lilac and in yellow.

Romuleas can be a bit too enthusiastic on the reproduction stakes but both R. rosea (in brightest pink) and R. candidissima (in pure white) are earning their keep this week. Mark tells me that the best romulea is R. sabulosa but it is also the most difficult to grow and we lost it.

It has taken us a long time to get to the name of this – Herbertia lahue or prairie nymph

Crossing the ocean to the central and southern Americas, we get Herbertia lahue with the charming common name of Prairie Nymph. Neither Mark nor I have known what this was until now, although Mark gave his assessment that it ‘looks dangerous’. He is right that the visible evidence of seed development is scary, but in all the years we have had it, it has not become an invasive problem.

I have brodiaea firmly embedded in my brain so I may struggle if in fact it is now a tritelia

Then there are the multitudinous but welcome plants of Brodiaea laxa ‘Queen Fabiola’. Or is it definitively reclassified as a tritelia these days? This I do not know. It has built up most satisfyingly here without becoming a problem. In a climate where the giant blue alliums are not a starter for us – or indeed for many people in this land, given the whopping price per bulb let alone sparse availability – I see my brodiaeas as the poor man’s alternative to swathes of late spring blue. True, it falls over in the rain but it stands up again when the rains stop.

Flattened by the rain this week but what I think of it as the poor man (or woman)’s blue allium replacement

It has taken a few years (read: quite a few, possibly many years) to build up Albuca flaccida (incorrectly named and sold in this country as A. canadensis, including by us) in sufficient numbers to put on a show but we are finally there. In the class of graceful, hooded, hanging bells in yellow with green stripes, this South African bulb is a winner and even more charming when in a clump of many. The bigger growing white and green albucas are only just opening and we will get to them next month.

I will struggle with remembering Sinningia instead of gesneria but the cardinalis remains the same

Sinningia cardinalis (alternatively known as Gesneria cardinalis) is one of our curiosities here, built up over decades to be standout clumps of foliage and flowers that attract attention. I am not aware that it has a common name but it belongs to the same family as African violets, streptocarpus and some gloxinias. You don’t see it around much because it doesn’t appear to reproduce easily from seed and its large tuber doesn’t set offshoots so propagating it requires a bit more skill than most bulbs.

Pretty sure it is one of the gladiolus species but we don’t know which one. These often seemed to be loosely grouped into G. carneus but that may not be right

Our interest in bulbs largely begins and ends with what we can grow as garden plants. We have enough garden without having to faff around with pots. Some bulbs are easier to manage in pots, particularly those that are being grown outside their climatic and geographic areas. It is easier to manage water and growing medium requirements in pots, as well as controlling temperature and day length. It is also easy to take your eye off pots and find the contents withered away to nothing in high summer, eaten out by hungry mice in winter, or sprouting with unwelcome seed from invasive neighbours. Ideally, potted bulbs should be replanted in fresh mix every year. We prefer to keep them to the garden once we have enough to plant out.

But wait there is more! I had forgotten entirely about the arisaemas, which is quite a big oversight on my part. This oddity is A, dahaiense.

‘No longer in the garden’

7 Replies

There is always an element of sadness when marking a death. But it seems that Shirley Greenhill’s time had come and she managed an appropriate ending – dying at home yesterday, mere days after she had her garden open for her final time in the annual Taranaki Garden Festival.

I bought the last copy of Shirley’s self-published book a few years ago, less because I wanted to read it than because I wanted a little bit of Shirley to live on in my bookcase. Not only was Shirley an excellent gardener for more decades than many of us would like to count, she was a marvellous woman – pragmatic, down to earth, warm, characterful and empathetic.

For many years, she and her good mate, Jill Kuriger would bowl into our nursery. Both were knowledgeable about plants, extremely capable gardeners, genuinely interested in what Mark and Felix were doing in the garden here, lighting up our day with their good humour and no-nonsense approach. Many people will remember both Shirley’s big garden in Fenton Street, Stratford and Jill’s country garden on the lower slopes of our maunga, Mount Taranaki, and then their smaller town gardens as they scaled back their gardening efforts in recognition of passing years – but they never scaled back as far as tiny retirement projects.

Shirley’s ‘retirement’ garden was largely flat but hardly small.

Stratford had a reputation for producing gardeners. I think Shirley might have been the last of her generation – Jill Kuriger, Russ and Biddy Barrett, Jim and Molly Hopkirk, Gwyn Masters, Erica Jago, Les Taylor and there may have been more.

Shirley, you gardened right up until you died and you made it to 90, creating beauty, bringing pleasure to countless garden visitors and delighting many of us with your warmth and practical humanity. RIP. You have earned a peaceful rest.

The bulbs of October

2 Replies

Bluebells in abundance but now all but passed over for another year

October opened with the bluebells, the pinkbells and the whitebells. I don’t want these in cultivated garden areas any longer but they are very pretty in wilder areas. In terms of a single colour sweep, blue is always best. White might as well be onion weed. Pink is a bit novelty-ish. When it comes to a colour mix, blue should still be in the highest proportion, as it is in the wild. At least that is the rule of Abbie if you are after a naturalistic, sweeping meadow effect.

This was as good as the Hippeastrum papilio got in the unusually prolonged spring rains

Looking happier in previous years – Hippeastrum papilio

Last month belonged to red Hippeastrum aulicum. This month opened with Hippeastrum papilio. It has taken a few years but we now have plenty of this bulb, able to be counted by the score rather than single figures. It is available for sale and it is expensive to start with – probably around $25 or $30 a bulb. But it is not difficult to grow and it multiplies at a reasonable rate if you quietly lift and divide it every year or two, replanting into well cultivated soil with some compost added. Its flowers are large and showy. Its season was somewhat shortened this year with The Rains. It feels as though it has rained most days this spring. The magnolias and michelias did not appreciate the very wet season and were particularly disappointing. H. papilio tried to bloom and did well enough for me to get this photo. Alas, when I looked a few days later, even with their heavy texture, the blooms had largely sogged out and given up.

The dogs tooth violets – Erythronium revolutum – are marginal with us at the best of times. Their very soft blooms can mush up in our spring rains so I had to reach into my file photos, given that there were a few brave blooms at best. The Fritillaria meleagris is equally marginal our climate and has also been and gone for the season. These are plants that are very charming but they will love your conditions more if you can give them more winter chill and less spring rain.

We have failed to get a species name for this striking, late-season lachenalia. Its pink, blue and pale colouring is almost luminous.

The lachenalias have proven more weather hardy for us. Now that the early ones have long gone, we are onto the late bloomers, particularly this rather striking pink and blue number and the white species L. contaminata.

Veltheimias – ‘Rosalba’ is prettier than the more common pink V. capensis

The veltheimias are another large bulb that has surprised us with its willingness to settle in and naturalise. It is a South African native, triggered into growth by autumn rainfall but otherwise happy in dry, conditions. We assumed it would want full sun but Mark’s efforts scattering seed through the woodland areas has seen it settle in without fuss and gently establish in shade as well as sun. Veltheimia capensis is the pink form and it is common enough and reasonably hardy; the prettier lemon and pink form is less common, probably less hardy and is Veltheimia capensis ‘Rosalba’.

Our other stalwart this month and into early November is Scadoxus puniceus. Part of the family oft referred to as blood lilies, this species is not common. You will be lucky to find it offered for sale in New Zealand. The summer flowering Scadoxus katherinae (technically S. multiflorus ssp katherinae) is readily available, although certainly not cheap. We have both gently seeding down in woodland where they make big, bold statements with their presence. If you are a patient gardener, you can build these up from a single bulb, as we have. If your conditions are favourable, you may even get them to naturalise over time, as we have.

It may remain a spiloxene to us, although it seems it is now reclassified as a pauridia

I am not writing a comprehensive book so I am not doing a full listing of which bulbs flower this month. There are too many, from pretty Albuca canadensis through to Phaedranassa cinerea, that sit on the choice, less common end of the bulb spectrum. There are families that we tend not to think of as ‘bulbs’ like alstromeria (we must have those blooming every month of the year) or the vast iris family. And there is that whole cluster of somewhat messy bulbs which often seem to overlap categories – babiana, sparaxis, ixia, vallota, tritelia, brodiaea, spiloxene syn pauridia and more – many coming into flower now. I say messy because a fair number of them come up with foliage that starts to die off as the flowers open. There are times I think greater separation between flowers opening and foliage browning off would be preferable.

I will mention Ornithogalum arabicum, sometimes referred to as black-eyed Susan but it shares that name with other plants too, which all goes to show that common names can be problematic. Arabian star flower or star of Bethlehem are perhaps preferable options. It is not that O. arabicum is particularly rare but it does exercise great mystique for me as a prime example of random reinforcement. Every few years it pops up flower spikes but it clearly does not wish to be taken for granted because it doesn’t do it every year. It makes it a fresh surprise and pleasure when it deigns to bloom.

Look at that set of bulb offshoots. Every one will grow, given half a chance.

Even more bulblets forming at the base of the flowers

Unfortunately, I am also dealing with An Incident – The Incursion of the Allium Bulbs. “Oh, that is the one Dad tried to get rid of,” Mark said as he passed. It is probably a species that was sold at some stage but, with over 1000 species of alliums now identified, I have no idea which it is. There are not too many of that thousand that I would accept these days, excepting onions and garlic, of course. Look at how many bulbs a single stem is creating. And not just at the base. If you look at the flowers, you can see a whole lot more babies forming at the base of each bloom. This is a scary rate of reproduction. I shall continue attempting to get rid of it here, even though total eradication does not seem possible.

Do not be fooled by the pretty flower with the strong onion scent. Let this in at your peril and future generations of gardeners will rue your decision.

Three weeds in white

3 Replies

Is it Prunus serrulata? It is certainly a prunus, or flowering cherry and what we call ‘a garden escape’ in this country

Springtime is very flowery and all tends to be forgiven when plants flower. However, I couldn’t help but notice that three common roadside wildflowers in bloom right now are indubitably weeds. Not harmless weeds that qualify as ‘just plants growing in the wrong place’ but actual, invasive weeds.

You see it here, you see it there. On the road to town and there are a large number that I could have stopped to photograph along the way that are clearly garden escapes – as in, they are not planted in gardens but must have originated from one to start with.

But wait there are more. And more and more.

I have never noticed before just how many white flowering cherries there are all around the countryside but once I started looking, they were e v e r y w h e r e. There has been a lot of talk in this country about the evils of the-early flowering, carmine-red Prunus campanulata so favoured by our native tui. Some areas have gone so far as to completely ban it – around Nelson and in Northland, I understand. They are somewhat controversial to grow and most will seed around too freely. But I can’t find the same level of concern concerns expressed about white prunus spreading itself far and wide in this area. There is a whole lot more of it around this neighbourhood, clearly self-seeded, than P. campanulata. I am no expert on cherries but looking up the pest plant lists, I figured it is quite possibly Prunus serrulata. There is a list of 13 different prunus species on the national plant pest accord, all identified as problematic and banned from commercial production and sale. P. serrulata seems the best match to what I see in bloom right now.

Plenty of onion weed on roadsides and along fencelines on country roads.

Onion weed is in full flower and it, too, is widespread, mostly on roadsides. It is quite pretty in bloom but spreads way too enthusiastically and is difficult to eradicate. I haven’t dug one up but I would guess it is a typical weedy allium where a single bulb is capable of producing baby bulb offshoots by the score or more. The ability of weedy alliums to reproduce is frankly alarming.

Mark was sure that onion weed is what is sometimes referred to as wild garlic but I see he is not correct on that. What we call onion weed is Allium triquetrum. What is usually referred to as wild garlic is a different species, A. ursinum. Proper garlic is yet another allium species, A. sativum. I doubt there is any reason to avoid harvesting our common onion weed, should you be keen on gathering wild foods. It certainly smells onion-y, as all the alliums do. Indeed, a quick net search came up with one enthusiast on Substack sharing his recipe for charred onion weed with cashews, curry leaves & gochujang ripple labneh. Not all of his recipes are quite so complex and the author is clearly better placed to advise on foraging than I am.

Arum lilies growing wild. There is no colour enhancement or filter on this photo. That bright green of the paddock behind is the defining colour of this area, especially in spring.

Arum lilies are a great deal more highly prized in other countries than here. I quote Bay of Plenty regional council: “Zantedeschia aethiopica Originates from South Africa. Introduced to New Zealand as an ornamental garden plant and thought to have naturalised by 1870. All parts of the plant (are) poisonous and it is one of the National Poison Centre’s top ten poisonous plants; being consistently involved in unintentional or childhood poisonings.”

Like all zantedeschia, they make a good cut flower but their reputation here is so tarnished by their invasive weed status that few people value them in that category. It is a very difficult plant to eradicate too, and I can tell you that from experience after working to eliminate the form once sold here under the name of ‘Green Goddess’.

A mass of arums in a garden I visited two years ago. A brave landscaping decision, I thought.

I have only once in recent years seen it used as an ornamental garden plant. It is certainly striking and the blooms are long-lived and robust. I can’t quite get over my squeamishness about featuring plants that we know are noxious weeds. Pampas grass is striking, especially the fluffy pink form. Giant gunneras are striking but they are a really invasive problem here. Last time I looked, they were banned entirely in Taranaki – as in, illegal to have on your property – which is the highest level of control. I feel that arum lilies, like giant gunnera, are much more valued in other countries where they don’t pose the same environmental problem as here.

When all is said and done, should famine strike, we can eat onion weed and the wild cherry trees can provide good firewood but the arum lily has no such saving grace.

Postscript: While thinking of weeds, I was amused to find this low-grade photo of the rockery, taken in 1993, so 32 years ago. The blue – you are looking at the blue which I tried to bring up with a filter and then highlighted. Most of that blue is the Geissorhiza – probably G. aspera, seen here at its worst. To this day, I am still digging out every tiny bulb that germinates and grows to the point where I can identify it. Mark’s father, who planted it and then deeply regretted it, took to painting it with weedkiller and an artist’s paintbrush. I have even dug out and replaced all the soil in some of the rockery pockets with the worst infestations. Continued vigilance is all that stands between a well-tended rockery and a repeat geissorhiza takeover.

Do not be fooled by its dainty appearance. The geissorhiza is not harmless.

Bulbs of September

Hippeastrum aulicum – we plant it in semi shade to shaded areas because it will still flower and the dreaded narcissi fly only attack plants in sunny spots

Maybe I will do a monthly post on the bulbs in flower here during each month, I thought in August. I am pretty sure that we have bulbs, corms and tubers of one sort or another flowering twelve months of the year. But August came and went and here we are, well into September and peak spring.

Ah well, there is always some crossover. The narcissi and the Hippeastrum aulicum both started in August and are still in full bloom. The aulicums bring us great pleasure and are a significant feature as winter breaks to spring in our garden but are probably beyond the reach of most people. It is not that they are difficult to grow but they are not widely available and, purchased individually, they will be expensive. Mark’s dad probably started from one or maybe three bulbs, as was his and now our way, and the results here have been achieved over about seventy years of quietly lifting, dividing and planting around the garden, now with many hundreds of bulbs in various locations. Not every gardener has the time, patience and willingness to achieve this, let alone the longevity of stay in one garden location.

The narcissi are more achievable and will give a quicker result. We grow as many different types as we can, bar the modern hybrids (the King Alfred types) that are most commonly sold. They are better as cut flowers (the weight of the bloom often bends them over in the garden) and are better in places that don’t have issues with narcissi fly. We favour the earlier flowering dwarf narcissi. Growing a range of different species, named hybrids and seedlings raised here on site extends the season into many weeks from early August right through September.

Narcissus cyclamineus seedlings growing on one of our bulb hillsides

We use narcissi everywhere really, the major consideration of sites being that they won’t get swamped by larger growing plants and that they will star as rays of sunshine in their time each year.

The lachenalias also star through spring. It is the boldest and the brightest that bloom first. Lachenalia aloides is the common form that is widely grown. Cheap and cheerful, might be the best description. Placement is everything when it comes to this bulb. I don’t like it as a garden plant but I think it is great on the margins and in wilder areas.

I am officially giving up on trying to understand the plant classification and nomenclature of lachenalias. Last time I looked, these were all forms of the species L. aloides. I even staged a photo to support my comment that a single species can be very variable. So we have straight aloides, quadricolor (already passing over – it is even earlier), tricolor, vanzyliae and glaucina which was barely opening a week ago. Now I look and I see they have been split. Glaucina is back with L. orchiodes, while quadricolor and vanzyliae seem to have been elevated to the status of being in species classes of their own and I have no idea where tricolor sits. They can remain a mystery for me.

From a garden perspective, I always notice that it is the orange, yellow and red lachenalias that flower first (the yellow being Mark’s reflexa hybrid, the red we have is bulbifera). The most desirable so-called blues come later. I say so-called blues because that casual grouping takes in those with the faintest blue genes that are really shades of cream, pink and lilac as much as pure blue. We have gathered every one we could find over the years and by far the most reliable is the aforementioned L. glaucina.

And without writing a book on topic, I can only continue by listing bulbs that I spotted on a perfunctory wander around the rockery and areas where we have done informal swathes of different bulbs. We find the bulbs add depth and detail which we value highly.

A touch of grape hyacinth is enough. Seen here with Narcissus Tete a Tete.

We are not too snooty about the common bulbs. While the snowdrops finished last month, the undervalued snowflakes (Leucojum vernum) flower on. We are thinning out both the grape hyacinths (muscari – foliage to flower ratio too high in our climate and spreads a bit too much) and bluebells (way too invasive) but not aiming for total eradication.

Once was dipidax, then onixotis but now, apparently a wurmbea

The blue anemones seed down and have quietly naturalised in the rockery without being a problem. I once planted a couple of bags of anemones and ranunculus and they all flowered the first year. From then on the ranunculus, the double anemones and all colours except blue quietly faded away but I like the simple blue and I like even more that they are self-maintaining. The Wurmbea stricta which we used to know as an onixotis and before that was a dipidax is another common bulb but one without a widely-used common name so most often greeted with words to the effect of “Is that what it’s called? My mother used to grow that – I never knew its name.” Dutch iris are another early spring option. I like my blue ones but I am not a particular fan of the family generally.

The blue moraea villosa are the most desirable but the white with blue eye are the most common

There is a large group of somewhat messy bulbs that are terrific in flower but their seasonal foliage is often dying, either just before they bloom or while they are in flower. So they are not nice, tidy, neat bulbs but they are generally showy. The Moraea villosa float like ethereal eyes of the peacock feather, moving in the breeze and they are a delight, even though I may feel irritation at their messy foliage in a few weeks’ time. The freesias (plain cream ones here), sparaxis, valotta, tritonia, Gladiolus tristis and babianas all fall into the same category and are flowering now. We grow them all, but more in the rockery for choicer ones and in meadow plantings for vigorous ones. Their foliage issues are less intrusive than in a tidy border planting.

Unlike the Dutch hybrids, Tulipa saxatilis just keeps quietly increasing and returning to bloom every year

Tulips – we don’t grow the Dutch hybrids but we are enamoured with the Cretan species Tulipa saxatilis. And we have a dainty yellow species that may be a form of T. sylvestris, or it may not. Amongst Mark’s parents’ slides, there was a photo of it in the newly constructed rockery so around 1952 or so. Amusingly, seventy years on, we still have it but only in similar quantity to that in the early photo. It is clearly not going to naturalise and reproduce much here.

We know this is a very early photo because the rocks have not a skerrick of moss or lichen on them.

Then there is the Ferraria crispa, the starfish iris which is only worth the space if you are fascinated by oddities and freaks. Erythroniums, dog’s tooth violets which prefer colder, drier winters, are a seven to ten day wonder with us but charming and dainty for that time and no bother for the rest of the year. Veltheimias in pink and in cream are a mainstay for us in both sun and shade, the pleione orchids are coming into flower and Hippeastrum papilio has opened its first blooms – I could go on.

Why did I start with the month that is probably the busiest of the year in the varied world of bulbs? There will be more that I have missed. If I end up having to retire to a very small town garden, there will be no roses, lavenders or easy-care mondo grass. I am pretty sure I will be growing bulbs.

Tikorangi The Jury Garden

Mark and Abbie Jury

Category Archives: Abbie’s column

The bulbs of November

‘No longer in the garden’

The bulbs of October

Three weeds in white

Bulbs of September

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: