- Festival gardeners have not been slacking inside during winter. Much of the preparation work is carried out while others huddle by the fire. In Waitara, Alathea Armstrong has finished her structural alterations – widening borders and altering shapes, much aided, she says, by a mild winter. Currently she is keeping track of her emerging delphiniums after the Attack of the Slugs last year. It would be a brave slug that ventured near the plants now. She has been planting a new bed using the two roses Lavender Dream and Mum in a Million and she is most enthusiastic about the Mum rose which she grew last year and describes as being absolutely gorgeous.
- Down the road, Margaret Goble says she is back on track with garden preparation after a rather bad garden accident in February took her out for some time. Family and friends rallied around, much to Margaret’s gratitude because hers is a large and detailed garden to manage singlehandedly. Rose pruning has been completed (an enormous task with her huge rose collection which is meticulously maintained) and lime and BioBoost have been added to the soil. Her window boxes and handsome hanging baskets are planted and she is eyeing up the concrete which has turned green over winter.
- Up the hill a little from Stratford, at Mountside Betty Brunton has joined the league of Gardeners on Crutches after recent surgery and is trying to work out how she can get around her garden with the spray unit while only semi mobile so that she can get Vapourguard onto her recently pruned hydrangeas, fuchsias and roses. She wants to protect the fattening buds from getting frosted. Her hellebores are looking fantastic and evoke memories of the late Jill Kuriger who was a fine plantswoman, a Festival stalwart for many years and a wonderful gardening identity. Betty says her trilliums are just pushing through the ground and she is hoping that my Mark will hurry up and have some plants of the related paris ready to share soon.
- Still in the Stratford area but across the other side, Bruce and Lorri Ellis at Te Popo had their garden routines disrupted when recent high winds swept through taking out two trunks of a triple trunked Montezuma Pine. As the tree was around 100 feet tall (or over 30 metres), this type of damage is not for the faint hearted. One trunk catapulted to earth landing with force in Lorri’s pink garden where it caused huge damage but at least that was better than the second trunk which became wedged half way down in a 50 foot (15 metres) claret ash. The surviving trunk also had to removed because it was now unstable and a threat to nearby buildings so specialist arborist services were required. Something unforeseen like that can really blow the budget and take up time. Here at Tikorangi it was one of our tawa trees we lost about the same time but at least it fell cleanly and didn’t do too much damage to the big leafed rhododendrons below.
- In New Plymouth, Alan and Cath Morris at Pukemara describe their garden activities as fine-tuning in preparation for their first Festival experience. They have finished the pruning round somewhat earlier than usual because they are having some time out in August. Alan has constructed a park bench out of marcrocarpa and sited it in their Gully Garden so that visitors will be able to have a rest and admire the outlook. They have also relocated a bed of azaleas which had been getting too shaded by adjacent rhododendrons. In fact they are quite pleased with how the garden is looking even though it is wearing its winter cloak and plan to keep it that way up until opening time at the end of October. At this stage, there does not appear to be any garden angst or panic in the Morris household.
- Also in New Plymouth at Nikau Grove, Elise Lind says her current challenge is learning to garden in shade. As all their plantings have grown, the character of the place has changed and where once there was sun, now there is overhead canopy. This is exactly what they wanted, especially on the waterfall bank but there is an ongoing process of having to find under planting suited to the changing conditions. At least, Elsie notes, there is the indubitable bonus that weeds tend to be sun lovers so they are far less of a problem these days.
Category Archives: Countdown to festival
Countdown to Festival, July 9, 2010
At Paradiso in town, creative veg gardener, Denise Wood, thinks this may be her last year opening for Festival so is determined to make the most of it. She is preparing the ground now for sowing and planting as early as possible and her baskets in varied colours are coming along well. The new theme in her garden this year is pink flamingos but I don’t think we are talking real ones here. Denise donates all proceeds from her open garden to animal rescue.
I recall crowning Havenview’s Maree Rowe as the compost queen last year. She reports this week that she feels her life is compost, compost, compost, moving endless barrow loads of it around her fruit and vegetable plants. I think you can be pretty confident that she makes her own compost and it does not come in a heavy duty plastic bag from any garden retailer. She has just moved her chooks out of the second hot house where they had been happily scratching around, ridding it of bugs and pests while enriching it with their own contributions – she prides herself on good natural controls. Maree has now put in a layer of silage and compost and the house is ready for planting. She is also busy planting riparian plants along the areas of waterway on the farm and wishing the rain would stop for longer.
Around the coast, Vandys’ Maria van der Poel is highly motivated and out with her spade moving plants around. In fact, some have several rides in the wheelbarrow before she feels she has it right but the many clivias her sister in law gave her found a home immediately and filled a shaded area. They are such a convenient shade plant, are clivias, as long as you don’t have severe frosts. Maria is delighted at her new garden and storage shed, which freed her instantly from competition for space in the woodshed, and she is revelling in her new-found orderly storage. Next she is hoping that her new hot house is going to eventuate and make wintering over cuttings and germinating seed much easier. However, she is sad to see her favourite garden centre, The Girlz, closing down and says she will miss being able to pop in there on her way home down the coast.
At La Rosaleda, Coleen Peri is one of the first gardeners who are serious about their roses to report that she has completed the annual prune. In her own words: “… a fine day!!! Was out there and finished the rose pruning, such relief. This is always the time of year I question my sanity with having over 300 roses – I am battered, scratched and bruised, but satisfied! I tend to clear the bases of the roses and get rid of weeds in the immediate vicinity at the same time as pruning…. The larger roses are always the hardest – Sally Holmes is my nemesis this time of year, with 23 of them all along the pool fence, right at the back of the borders – I have to fight my way through the roses in front just to get to them, then manoeuvre myself amongst the very closely planted thugs – definitely not a task for the faint hearted. I used to really give them a good hard prune, but they have won the battle and now I prune fairly lightly just to keep them in check (size wise and to a nice shape), and to get rid of any significant dead wood. Oh well, come summer all will be forgiven!”
In Central Taranaki, Merleswood’s Erica Jago is feeling cheerful at the sight of spring bulbs appearing (her daffodil lawns are a feature) and with the shortest day now past, spring seems to be waiting in the wings. She spent a goodly part of June tackling her seventy metre hedge of the rugosa rose “Scabrosa”, pruning it and taking out all the dead wood. This was a much heavier prune and clean up than usual and she is delighted with the effect of freshening up the front garden and allowing views through to the mature rhododendrons behind. She comments that her snake bark maple, Acer Esk Flamingo is only now dropping the last of its autumn leaves and it has provided a spectacular autumn finale. This is a good example of how much better autumn colour is inland where the change in temperature is sharper. The Acer Esk Flamingo I can see out of my window is very pretty in spring but its autumn colour is non-existent in our milder, coastal conditions.
Here at Tikorangi, we have been enjoying a superior class of morning tea. Our neighbours, Chris and Lloyd, are doing food for our garden visitors during Festival weekends and Chris has been refining her recipe choices and trying them out on us. She is accomplished at baking and we think quite capable of holding her own in those ghastly TV competitions. The pumpkin and prune cake was particularly delicious though I also nurse fond memories of her Greek lemon cake which was a tour de force. I, alas, am not a good baker but at least we are an appreciative tasting panel.
Countdown to Festival – June update
In Stratford, June and Colin Lees at Cairnhill Garden have battened down the hatches for winter. Given the severity of inland frosts, they have moved their stoneware birds in under cover. Last winter one of the herons suffered a severe head injury, literally splitting in two. Fortunately potter and fellow garden opener, Joyce Young, put it back together in time for Festival. June is learning how to handle the blue Himalayan poppies. She bought a couple of plants a few years ago from a Wanaka grower and one has achieved perennial status (even the Lingholm strain can be short-lived) impressing garden visitors and setting prolific amounts of seed. There are few garden plants to equal the pure blue of these poppies so June is determined to nurture the many seedlings to flowering size.
Havenview vegetable gardener supreme, Maree Rowe on Kent Road has all her garlic planted and fed with copious amounts of compost to keep this gross feeding crop happy. She reports that her Queensland Blue pumpkin harvest this year was huge and weighty after growing them in one of the compost bins. She has completed the annual review to maintain her certification as a member of Organic Farm NZ, a process which is both rigorous yet supportive and encouraging. And Maree claims that her building skills are improving and she gained some practice extending the chook pens and runs for her new chicken additions. Now she is waiting in anticipation of plenty of fresh eggs being laid every day in spring.
In Kakaramea, Jacq Dwyer at Te Rata has been planting more fruit trees in the orchard, including a damson plum to encourage sister Michelle’s efforts making her Dam Fine Damson Gin. Michelle brought back a bottle of sloe gin (sloes are a small bitter fruit, actually a member of the prunus family, often found in hedgerows) from the UK but her efforts with damsons eclipse that liquor. With a six week turnaround, her recipe is considerably faster than the minimum twelve months required by the recipe I have tried. Jacq has also been lifting big clumps of native grasses, grooming out the dead strands and replanting divisions.
On Heta Road at Thorveton, Mary and Barry Vinnicomb are delighted with their new family member – a little silver blue kitten. Mary felt she deserved a special name such as Penelope, but really she is named as much for the memory of the honesty seed heads referred to as silver pennies in Mary’s childhood. Alas Mary is struggling to keep her roadside beautification efforts going in the face of drunken vandals. It is just a little garden around a concrete power pole with a colourful pelargonium and orange Californian poppies but even that proved too tempting to late night revellers who had to destroy it, along with smashing a pair of pots from inside the Vinnicomb. driveway. However, they tangle with Mary at their peril. Not one to give up easily, she now plans to plant the power pole in the prickliest rugosa rose she can find. Rugosas are known for being both high health and incredibly prickly.
Also in town, Coleen Peri of La Rosaleda complains that she is dying to get onto her rose pruning (an enormous task in her garden where she grows a large number of them) but by the time she kits up to go outside, the rain has started again. It was with triumph that she managed the feat of getting her new 170kg statue of Diana the Huntress and a concrete bench seat of similar weight into position in the garden. She did have to hire in some brawn, grease a hand or two and supply a couple of bottles of wine to carry out the task. It is likely that Diana has found her permanent home amongst the trees..
At Festival HQ, work on this year’s programme is well down the track and it will be available at the official launch which takes place at the TSB Showplace on July 8. The inimitable Ruud Kleinpaste will be the guest at the launch. While he is best known as the Bugman, we can vouch for the fact that he is no slug when it comes to gardening either.
Countdown to Festival: May 21 ,2010
Fan-shaped leaf rakes to the right, not to be confused with a traditional garden rake
• In the south at Patea, Rudi Milesi has been out raking up autumn leaves to make compost to return to the garden. He uses a leaf rake which is the fan-shaped implement, not the traditional rake whose prongs dig in rather than grabbing and sweeping. He is also determinedly staying on top of the autumn weeds and has been busy pruning. In a densely planted small garden, he needs to avoid overgrowth and competition between plants by keeping them under control. With the calm weather this autumn, Rudi says he is really pleased with how refreshed the garden is looking.
• Also southwards but near Manaia, Jenny Oakley can’t wait to get back into her garden after a forced period of inaction. She finally got off her crutches this week following a hip replacement and is feeling very liberated to be able to walk unaided. She says she is but one of three garden openers who has had to undergo this operation this year. Other gardeners are hoping this is coincidence and not an indication of a hitherto unsuspected occupational hazard.
• In Stratford, Erica Jago is back in the festival with her pretty garden, Merleswood after a break of a year. Her pond proved such a challenge recently that she had to enlist some male help as it required greater brute strength than she has. The common ornamental grass, acorus, had staged a complete takeover and wound itself around and through all the rocks, achieving menacing proportions. With a reasonably large garden to maintain on her own these days, Erica has been strategising ways of streamlining the garden for easier management. The recent replacement of the gate to her pond area meant much easier access with the lawnmower and proved to her that relatively small alterations can make a big difference to the convenience of maintaining the garden.
• Not far inland from Merleswood is Gordon Dale Gardens where Jan and Graeme Worthington are excited at their upcoming UK trip where they will exchange seven weeks of inland Stratford winter for an English summer – a trade many of us would enjoy. Jan is keen to fit in some gardens to their tour and is gathering recommendations on the must-see options. As always, travelling in a group of four, there needs to be some negotiation on differing interests and the trip will not be wall to wall garden visits. I recommended Hidcote near Stratford on Avon as the single best garden we saw last year and we went there on Glyn Church’s recommendation, it being one of his absolute favourites.
• Back in the Festival after a break of a decade are the inimitable Josephine and Quinton Reeves in New Plymouth. Josephine feels the garden has come a long way in ten years, assisted by Quinton in his self appointed role as garden boy. Though clearly the garden boy did not know his place when he took to ribbing his wife about a recent trip out to a plant sale when she returned with her little car so jam packed that there was no side or rear visibility. But the plants were so cheap, was her justification.
• The first garden openers’ meeting of the year was held in Stratford earlier this week where details of a full programme of workshops and speakers was revealed along with a dramatic take on the landscape installation this year. Watch for further details. Morale is high amongst garden openers after an across the board 25% increase in visitor numbers last year. All are hoping for a repeat of the magic spell of spring weather at the end of October this year.
Countdown to Festival, April 2010
The Taranaki Rhododendron and Garden Festival is in its 23rd year now and will run from October 29 to November 7 this year.
The late Buffa, on guard here at Tikorangi last year
While it is still six months out from the Rhododendron and Garden Festival, dedicated gardeners around the province are hard at work already. The days when a quick spruce-up a week out from the event could suffice are long gone. The open gardens these days maintain much higher standards which in part explains the longevity of the festival and the high visitor satisfaction rankings.
• At La Rosaleda in New Plymouth, Coleen Peri is one of the younger garden openers (possibly the youngest) and is highly motivated by her large visitor numbers in her first year of opening in 2009. She has been much preoccupied by irises of late, having bought a large range from a mailorder bearded iris business that was closing down. These are all planted out and growing away well at a different location to her garden and she is hoping to have some available for sale during Festival. At home, she is impatiently awaiting the arrival of this year’s rose order in late May or early June so she can start planting out her newest area. While she has other plants awaiting in pots, she likes to place her roses first and build out from there. An avid follower of mailorder catalogues, she is pleased to have sourced at least four different varieties of large headed alliums – yes alliums are the onion family but there are some spectacular ornamental varieties with big, round flower heads usually in purple. We saw these used extensively in English gardens and covet them ourselves.
• At Te Popo, near Stratford, Bruce and Lorri Ellis were delighted to find themselves featured in a six page spread in the January edition of a French magazine, My Garden My House (or, more correctly, Mon Jardin Ma Maison). The cover even included an inset photo of Lorri. There was a slight problem in the Ellis household in that neither of them have any French so what was actually written was a frustrating mystery as they tracked down a translator but it all looked good. Whether this leads to a massive increase in French visitors remains to be seen, but it is certainly good promotion for our festival and gratifying for Bruce and Lorri.
• Festival stalwarts, John Sole and Tony Barnes at Ngamamaku in Oakura are taking a year off. Tony says they weren’t foundation openers but he thinks they have opened without fail for around 19 years. In a garden where they have used box hedging extensively to define areas, they have been hit hard by buxus blight. Indeed, they have already incinerated extensive metreage of affected hedging. It has forced them to review the structure of their garden and it seemed a good time to take a year off while they redevelop.
• In Kakaramea, Jacq Dwyer has been thinking ahead and striking cuttings of her robust lavender. She has a bed of lavender planted under the verandah where it thrives a little too much – the plants are getting trunks which are too large for the situation but she doesn’t want to do anything drastic until she has good sized plants ready as replacements. Jacq also comments that her Boston ivy is the most amazing red now that autumn has come. This is a deciduous ivy and somewhat easier to control than many others but it is the astounding red autumn colour which is its main feature.
• In town, Mary Vinnicomb has been dealing with losses in her small but perfectly formed city garden. Her pachystegia folded its leaves and died, a termination that Mary attributes to the very wet period we had in late November and December. The pachystegia is also referred to as the Marlborough rock daisy where it clings to crevices on coastal cliffs. Its big grey leaves are almost like cardboard with white velvet below and it has white daisies in summer, making it highly prized as a garden plant though not the easiest candidate to keep alive and well. The loss also of a key plant in Clematis montana Freida was overshadowed by the death of the Vinnicomb’s much loved little black 17 year old cat, Misty. Mary comments that many visitors have been enchanted over the years to be greeted at the entry archway to their garden by Misty. Her long life belied an inauspicious arrival as a tiny scrap to be delivered by caesarian and not expected to survive. She defied the odds after being hand reared and is now permanently in the garden, marked by a Chamaecyparis obtusa Lenny’s Star.
• Here at Tikorangi, we too are mourning the loss of characterful cat who has been a part of our daily lives for over a decade. However, we could not pretend that our Buffa waited to delight garden visitors. With her, it was more a case of us having to issue a health and safety warning lest visitors be misled by Buffa’s benign appearance and lulled into thinking she was a nice cat who would welcome their attention.
Tikorangi The Jury Garden 