Category Archives: Abbie’s column

Abbie’s newspaper columns

Of magnolias, mood lighting and more on Cold Water Surf

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Just another unnamed seedling

I feel that we are becoming increasingly reclusive in this new world we are facing in 2020 but there are many worse places to become reclusive than here. It is magnolia season.

Magnolia × soulangeana ‘Alexandrina’

It is time for my annual reminders on magnolias.

  • If your magnolia opens with two separate coloured blooms (white first and with deep red just opening in the email enquiring about this phenomenon this morning), you have a case of escaped root stock. The root stock is generally stronger growing and will overwhelm the grafted variety over time, if you don’t remove it. This is not a case where you can have two for the price for one.
  • Ripped petals are usually being eaten by kereru, sometimes rosellas in northern parts of the country. Kereru are a protected species, rosellas are a gaudy Australia export so not.
  • Buds which fail to open or only produce distorted, misshapen blooms have almost certainly been eaten out in the bud stage by possums or rats who like to nip out the centre. Mark carries out extensive trapping and shooting to keep these pest numbers low here.
  • If you are into spraying your lawn in spring, do it now. If you delay, the faintest whiff of spray drift as magnolias start to open their leaf buds can cause significant damage to the new foliage which will be unsightly until the leaves drop next autumn and, over time, can weaken the tree.
  • It might be true in the UK that you can’t move magnolias – or it may be a factoid – but here in NZ we can move magnolias and we have done it many times. Just make sure you get as big a root system as you can manage and if the root system is small, prune the tree hard.

Lanarth at the top, Mark’s purple below

We have been hesitating about whether we can fairly describe Mark’s selection (as yet unnamed) as purple. Magnolia campbelli var. mollicomata ‘Lanarth’ is widely seen as setting the standard for purple magnolias. I finally got around to lining up petals of Mark’s purple and Lanarth petals to compare. Magnolias are variable so I picked up the darkest petals of Lanarth I could find and it seems that the colour of Mark’s measures up.

Top to bottom: Lanarth, Mark’s purple, Vulcan and Burgundy Star

Just out of interest, I added in Vulcan petals. Vulcan was the first of the new generation magnolias 30 years ago that moved into red tones, rather than purple. The few at the bottom are of Burgundy Star, the next generation of reds bred from Vulcan. Mark is getting to cleaner reds.

More on Cold Water Surf (or any other washing powder) and moss. You can, and I have, use it on moss in the lawn. We accept moss but preferably the fine forms. I am not a fan of liverwort and some of the coarse mosses and Surf works on them.

Hard surfaces? Hmmm. It works. It kills the moss. If all you want to do is to get rid of slippery growth, it may be fine to sprinkle it generously, wait for rain and then use a stiff brush a few days later. I want these pavers back to their soft gold so I tackled these with a wire brush but it is going to be a lot of hard work to restore the whole area. I think I will resort to the water blaster (jet washer).

Finally, a few mood shots from this week. We do not generally get mist or fog so this morning mist gathering in a lower area seemed appropriately mystical to me.

On a grey morning, a few shafts of rising sun broke through to illuminate the magnolia in the distance. It was a somewhat startling sight.

Fairy Magnolia White

More often, this clarity of light is the norm for us, even in winter. That is Mark’s Fairy Magnolia White which really does have an exceptionally long flowering season.

It is August – time for magnolias, laying paths and killing moss

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Magnolia campbellii ssp mollicomata ‘Lanarth’

Lanarth down by the water in our park

As August arrives, there is so much happening in the garden. Every day sees something else in bloom and now I get anxious that if I forget to look for a few days, I might miss something. I tell you, spring can be stressful.

Mark’s yellow Lachenalia reflexa hybrid

But our thoughts go out to overseas readers whose lives continue to be disrupted, discombobulated and sometimes turned upside down by Covid-19. Never has New Zealand felt so comfortably remote and self-contained, a small cluster of islands holding the unpredictable forces of chaos at bay, so far. May you stay safe and well, wherever in the world you are.

We are inching ever closer to finishing the new summer gardens, or at least to completing this stage of development. There are just the path surfaces to be laid and that has to wait until the man I hope can deliver the materials and arrange a bob-cat returns from holiday next week. We solved the problem at one end where the steps down to the garden were at a lower level than the camellia and michelia hedge that forms the backdrop. It was always going to involve some means of separating the levels. We priced steel edging because I really like that au naturelle, unobtrusive, thin look of gently rusted steel. Buying the branded product specifically designed for garden edging was very expensive indeed and that was without factoring in freight. Ever-handy Lloyd priced buying the steel locally, cut to suitable size, and it came in at about a third of the price but still somewhere over $1000. It was not going to bring me enough pleasure to warrant spending that amount of money.

Compromising with a stained timber edging

Much and all as I dislike tanalised timber in the garden, I compromised and said that would be okay as long as we stained all bits that will be visible to charcoal black. It was a solution that cost $103 (to buy six metre lengths of timber) and once the paths are laid, I do not think it will be obvious at all. The paths will be built up by about eight centimetres so there will not be a whole lot left visible.

A handy bobcat back when we started work on these gardens

Because it is going to take up to 30 cubic metres to lay all the paths, our plan – subject to the advice from the man currently on holiday – is to lay a base core of pit metal compacted to about 3 or 4cm deep and then lay the crushed, creamy yellow limestone on top of that to another 4cm. We think the pit metal will be much cheaper than limestone. We need to hire a bobcat and operator because none of us want to be carting 30 cubic metres of anything and the bobcat will be able to do a lot of the compacting that is necessary. If you have never seen a bobcat operating, believe me they are fast, manoeuvrable and quite mesmerising to watch.

On another practical level, a packet of Cold Water Surf washing powder entered my life. I had forgotten about its existence. It is vile, over-scented stuff that I would never use in the laundry but others may not mind that overpowering scent of chemical fragrance. We use unscented washing powder in this household of sensitive skins. But damn, that Cold Water Surf is a whizz on killing moss.

People in drier climates will not relate to the issues of excessive moss and lichen growth that we get here. There is nothing wrong with some, but we can get way too much. Sometimes we water blast (jet wash) the paths but that also takes off the surface of the concrete and flushes out any filling between pavers. It is just as fast for me to scrape off the top layer of moss, sprinkle Cold Water Surf to kill what remains and then use a stiff broom to sweep the residue off.

And it can kill very fast. This rather deep-rooted moss browned off within hours and died soon after.

I am no chemist so I struggle to get a grip on the difference between carbonate, bicarbonate and percarbonate. But as far as I can see, the active ingredients in many of the expensive, branded moss killers are often sodium carbonate (washing soda or soda ash), or sometimes sodium percarbonate (which is washing soda and hydrogen peroxide – a common ingredient in eco-friendly bleaches and other cleaning products).

You can buy both sodium carbonate and sodium percarbonate in powder form and I have done so but it worked out relatively expensive to use in the garden when cheap Cold Water Surf works just as well. Logically, this must mean that I was spreading the pure product too thickly when it can be extended by adding some sort of neutral carrier (Mark suggested sand). At a practical level, the products were fine powder and the coarser texture of the laundry powder makes it easier to spread evenly. Also, logically, any proprietary laundry powder should work unless some have a higher percentage of washing soda than others and that I do not know.

I am wondering whether it will work on our sandy coloured pavers in our front entrance courtyard. I water blasted these a few years ago. It was my first ever go on the water blaster and it took a lot longer than I thought it would. It was also wet and messy and blew out the sand between the pavers which Lloyd than had to refill. But they looked like new when done. Now they are blackened and discoloured again. I know there are branded products that attach to the hose that will also work and are quicker to use, albeit expensive. If laundry powder will do it, that appeals to my economical nature and avoids buying another product sold in a hard plastic container. I shall experiment and report further.

Narcissus Peeping Tom

Spring is in the air ♫ ♫ ♫

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Mount Taranaki is an active volcano but the dark above its crater is cloud not smoke

I was prophetic. Just two weeks ago I commented that bringing in a film crew from outside the area to capture our view of Magnolia campbellii and Mount Taranaki was fraught with problems, that we could go ten days without being able to see it. In fact it was fourteen days this time – a period of cloud and intermittent rain which kept te mounga shrouded. Yesterday was fine and sunny and the cloud over the peak cleared in the afternoon. Is there a lovelier sight?

As I walked around the garden with my camera, it was clear that, midwinter or not, the plants are telling us that spring is here. Is it earlier this year than usual? We are reserving judgement; these things tend to even out over time though this winter has been relatively mild There have only been a handful of days when it has been too bad to be outside for at least a few hours.

Magnolia Vulcan – the ragged flowers to the right will have been chewed by kereru

Magnolia season is probably our showiest with the grandeur and vibrancy of blooms against the sky, complemented by drifts of snowdrops and dwarf narcissi below. Vulcan has opened its first blooms, showing the colour intensity we get here in the garden of the breeder (Felix Jury) which is rarely matched in colder climes in the northern hemisphere where it can be smaller and more of a murky purple.

Magnolia Felix Jury

So too Magnolia Felix Jury (bred by Mark) which opens red for us. It, too, tends to colour bleach in colder climates so is more a rich pink but with its magnificent size and flower form, it doesn’t seem to matter. Nobody complains about it to us and we only get rave reviews from around the world.

Hybrid cyclaminues narcissi with their swept back petals making them look perpetually astonished

With the rush of spring, comes a rising sense of urgency. This anxiety has yet to afflict Mark but I am feeling it. Opening the garden at the end of October takes planning. I have no idea what preparing a small garden for opening is like but I know a lot about preparing a large one. Timing is everything. Unlike routinely maintaining a garden – and we routinely maintain ours to a level that makes us happy – opening for a festival means having it all ready at the same time.

Major work includes laying a path surface in the new areas. Mark’s Fairy Magnolia White with Camellia yuhsienensis in front. The pink at the back is Prunus campanulata.

My plan is to have all major work and the first round of the entire garden completed by the end of August. That leaves about seven weeks to do the second round which is more about titivating and detail. The final week is then about cleaning public areas and doing the last-minute presentation stuff (including, believe it not, cleaning the house windows). I think we are on track but it feels like there is a lot to do. Well, there is a lot to do.

The big-leafed rhododendrons flower now, not at the beginning of November. This is Rhododendron protistum var. giganteum.

We have never targeted our plantings to the annual garden festival. I think that is more a small garden approach. Back in the days when we used to retail plants (and that is a long time ago now – over a decade) most locals who opened their gardens for the festival would only buy plants that we could assure them would flower in the prescribed ten days. They actually geared their entire garden to peak over that ten day period. Each to their own. We garden primarily to please ourselves and we like flowers and seasonal interest all year round. So there is always something of interest in bloom but also plants that have ‘passed over’, as we say, and plants that ‘yet to come’.

We are currently at peak snowdrop

There is a lot ‘coming’ right now and that brings us great pleasure, even if sharing it is done vicariously. It will look different when we open for festival – not better, not worse, just different. Probably tidier, though.

A school of chocolate fish

Finally, in my occasional series on reinterpreting New Zealand confectionary in flowers, I give you the chocolate fish. I was a bit disappointed when I cut into the fish. I am pretty sure that the marshmallow interior used to be a richer pink shade – raspberry-ish even, but I have taken some floral licence.

Cyclamen coum, schlumbergera, azaleas and camellias on a bed of Acer griseum bark

Festival a-go-go

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It is official. We are reopening our garden for the ten days of Taranaki Garden Festival – and only for those ten days from October 30 to November 8. In fact, we are garden number one in the programme. We attended the launch on Thursday evening and there were asparagus rolls. I only mention this because the asparagus roll shares a special position of nostalgia in NZ catering history on a par with Maggi onion dip and slightly less controversial than the Otago and Southland cheese roll. But I digress.

Some of us braved a cold winter evening for the launch

but there were refreshments, including retro asparagus rolls to the top right

In honour of this occasion, I have spent quite a bit of time updating the garden information on this site. It took me more hours than I anticipated, that I would be grateful if you could check it out and make me feel that the time spent was worthwhile. Click on The Garden tab at the top of this page.

The printed programme is now out and the information is all on line here. You can request a free festival programme. If you plan to attend, it is worth getting a hard copy of the programme for the map. You can not rely on mobile phone reception throughout Taranaki and I say this as somebody who lives in one of the black spots.

There will be no plant sales. We left all that behind us years ago, much to our relief. Expect a terse response if you ask us.

However, there will be garden tours at no additional charge (Friday 30 October, Wednesday 4 November and Friday 6 November at 11am). Taking large groups around gardens is often described as an exercise in herding kittens. Mark professes himself to be in awe of my ability to head off around the garden with a large number of people and then emerge an hour later with almost the same number. I hasten to assure readers that I do not achieve this by publicly shaming any who wish to drop off the end. As far as I know, they stay voluntarily.

Mark and I are also offering two workshops. There is an additional charge for these and you must pre-book because numbers are strictly limited. You will have Mark’s and my undivided attention along with morning tea. I shall bake cakes for these occasions and the chances of proper coffee rather than instant are high.

New Directions with Sunny Perennials

For over a decade, we have been looking closely at modern trends in perennial gardening, particularly in England. Variously called the Dutch New Wave, New Perennials and the New Naturalism, we have analysed and experimented with these ideas in the very different conditions of coastal Taranaki, culminating in the planting of an acre of new summer gardens.

Join us for morning tea and a talk on key points we have distilled from visiting over 90 gardens in England, France and Italy, tracking the work of six key contemporary designers and how we have applied this in their own garden.

Numbers strictly limited. Bookings essential. $25 includes garden entry fee.

Monday 2 November 10.15am Book here.

(I have never kept a list of all the gardens we have visited but I did a quick tally of those in England, France and Italy and I really-o truly-o did get past 90. That is not an exaggeration.)

Meadow Theory 101

While charmed by what are often called ‘wildflower meadows’, we knew that they would soon become a weedy mess in our conditions so set about looking at different meadow styles, the underlying theories and management techniques that apply in our conditions with verdant year-round growth. We have now established bulb hillsides, changed the formerly mown park into an actively managed meadow and, most recently, adapted a neglected area of the garden to a perennial meadow.

Join us for morning tea as we share what they have learned and the fine balance needed in managing a sustainable meadow with environmental benefits while avoiding an out of control, weedy wilderness.

Numbers strictly limited. Bookings essential. $25 includes garden entry fee.

Sunday 1 November 10.15am Book here.

Our sunken garden

There are 40 gardens open with related events but there is a whole lot more to the festival this year. There is also the Sustainable Backyards Trail with its focus on food production and creative approaches to sustainability and self-sufficiency.  And the Taranaki Arts Trail which had to be postponed from earlier in the year because of Covid restrictions – 85 artists around the province opening their studios to visitors.  Both of these trails are included in the garden festival programme.

Then there is Feast Festival Taranaki – Garden to Plate – for those who like to feed the inner person on good food, mostly in the evenings. That is local restaurants using local produce to create special menus and related events. I am not sure that their website is up and running yet but you can capture the flavour, so to speak, on their Facebook page. Finally, starting on November 5, a new theatre-based festival will start. Called RESET 2020, it is a re-set after Covid forced the cancellation of other planned events and overseas performers. The programme, featuring NZ performers, will be announced in a few weeks.

As I explained all this to Mark, he described it as a ten out of ten on the befuddlement scale and that comment alone illustrates why I am still married to this man. Suffice to say, you can visit our garden and there is plenty more to entertain you in the wider area.

With the big upsurge in domestic tourism at this time, it may pay to make plans early if you are visiting from outside the region. Postscript for overseas readers: sorry, this is all of no relevance to you. Even if you wanted to, you can not come. Flights to NZ remain few and far between and you have to be a NZ citizen or permanent resident to get in (bar a few essential workers). Even then, all incoming passengers have to go into government quarantine for 14 days and it seems to be the luck of the draw as to whether you get confined in a five star hotel or one that is more modest. But we are now free of Covid, bar the quarantine cases at the border, and have been for over ten weeks. Life here is back to normal – no masks, no PPE, no physical distancing required, no restrictions bar those at the border. This situation has been hard-won and there aren’t many New Zealanders willing to risk the alternatives as we look at the grim situations around the world.  It seems there is a long way to go in this pandemic yet. May those of you overseas stay safe and well.

A story of the magnolia, the mountain and air freshener

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Thursday July 9 at 8.40am

The first photo opportunity of the year to capture our Magnolia campbellii and Mount Taranaki came this week and it reminded me of a funny story. Well, I think it is funny.

It was only last year, I think, that a creative from a Sydney advertising agency contacted me. She had found a photo of mine on the internet of this very scene and she was enquiring whether we would agree to let a film crew visit to film it for a product – unspecified. She wanted permission and to negotiate a fee so she could pitch the concept to the client.

I briefly thought it might be fun. But only briefly, until I worked out the logistics of the exercise. That is a very specific view shaft and a scene that is visible for just a few days each year. I imagined the crew flying in, some from Sydney and maybe the film crew from Auckland and me feeling personally responsible for the weather. That is a mountain. In midwinter, it is  more often shrouded in cloud than in clear view. I can go out at 8am and it may be fine and sunny here but 40km away, on that mountain peak, the cloud is moving in and by 8.03 there is nothing left to see.  We can go a week, maybe ten days, without a clear view of the peak. With a film crew hanging around waiting for the moment? I think not.

Magnolia campbellii var campbellii

Then I shuddered at the thought of the crew capturing that view and then asking me where they could get other angles on the scene. They can’t. There is only one, highly specific view shaft and that image is taken right on the limits of my camera zoom function.

I said no. Undeterred, she asked me if I recommend other locations. I pointed out that they do grow magnolias in Australia, very well in fact in the Dandenong area outside Melbourne. I have seen them there. No, she replied. She wanted a setting that looked like Chinese countryside. Reader, I cringed. Our maunga can, at a pinch, pass for Mount Fuji in Japan – and has done in the movie ‘The Last Samurai’. The magnolia actually comes from Darjeeling, which is in northern India. I have been to China and seen a bit of their countryside. I do not think she had.

I suggested Auckland Regional Botanic Gardens and there our correspondence ended.

I did not think any more of the matter until my Canberra daughter emailed me saying: “Is this the advert you missed out on providing the pics for?”  I am guessing so. It fits the brief. Air freshener? That is not a product I ever buy. We have plenty of the natural product here. Besides, as those blooms on our Magnolia campbellii are about eight to ten metres up in the air, I have no idea at all whether they are even scented.

Postscript: Mark tells me that he is pretty sure M. campbellii has no scent. Perhaps they were thinking of the Yulan magnolia, M. denudata, he hypothesized. We don’t have it in the garden so I looked it up and yes, it is renowned for its lemon fragrance. That is not the magnolia used in the advertisement. It seems botanical accuracy matters more to us than it does to air freshener manufacturers and Sydney creatives.

A perfect, cloudless morning – Friday 10 July at 8.40am