Category Archives: Tikorangi notes

Tikorangi Diary: March 30, 2012

The lovely autumn oxalis - O.eckloniana

The lovely autumn oxalis - O.eckloniana

Latest posts:

1) Lycoris aurea – the golden spider lily
2) I guess it was inevitable that the thoughts here would be directed to trees after the casualties of last week. We accord them a rather higher value than many New Zealanders who see them as a disposable commodity. Abbie’s column.
3) Grow it yourself: rocket. Merely a humble, quick growing brassica that has been elevated beyond its status in the lexicon of vegetables.
4) In the garden this fortnight and the talk is about sustainability and our guilt over the use of motorised equipment.

The clean up continues

The clean up continues

... and Oxalis massoniana

... and Oxalis massoniana

Tikorangi Diary

A magic week of weather has seen first Mark and then Lloyd out cleaning up the fallen totara and Picea omorika. It is done. I rather liked the piles of sawdust like a zebra crossing where the ramrod straight trunk of the picea was cut for firewood. While it looked wonderfully straight, the wood lacked heart and was pretty soft.

The pretty ornamental oxalis are all coming on stream. I used to pot some of each to sell but finally figured that too few people shared my pleasure in these autumn bulbs so it was a waste of time potting them. These days we just enjoy them ourselves. The nerines are starting but won’t peak for another week or two.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday March 23, 2012

A salutary lesson in why trees should never be allowed to fork close to the ground - half the totara split out

A salutary lesson in why trees should never be allowed to fork close to the ground - half the totara split out

Latest posts:

1) Ugni molinae or the New Zealand cranberry – a plant that every good family should grow. When it comes to encouraging children to venture out browsing in the garden, it ranks right up alongside fresh peas as a must. It is also easy care and a small shrub so once planted, it will last for years.

2) Clematis tangutica I was a little taken aback to discover that it is regarded as a weed menace in some areas. It has never been a problem here and instead is a source of pleasure in late summer with its lovely pure yellow flowers and silky, tasselled seed heads.

3) Lower maintenance gardening. I am unconvinced that there is any such thing as a low maintenance garden. There are certainly high maintenance gardens, moderate maintenance gardens and lower maintenance gardens but drop down below that and you end up with no garden at all. This week’s column focuses on lower maintenance options as befits a rental property.

4) The Easy Fruit Garden by Clare Matthews might make fruit gardening easy for gardeners in the UK but has little or no application here.

Tikorangi Notes:

At least the falling totara missed the garage

At least the falling totara missed the garage

The Picea omorika felled itself

The Picea omorika felled itself

Last week was all about Womad and the weather held for a magic weekend of world music in the beautiful venue of Pukekura Park. By Monday evening, the magic was all used up and a storm of reasonably impressive proportions hit. Even Spike the dog was unnerved when we heard the unmistakeable sounds of large branches cracking and breaking. In the morning, the damage was clear. A large gust had taken out half a totara tree which would be around fifty years old. The wind tunnel created then broke out part of a Picea omorika around the same age. In falling, the totara twisted a large amelanchier and some drastic remedial action will be needed to save any of it.

The clear lesson here is the need to keep trees to a single leader and a good shape from the start. Forked leaders create a point of weakness, even though it may take 50 years to reveal itself.

We escaped lightly. Friends around Oakura report greater damage. It is only a few weeks since Patea to the south bore the brunt of hurricane force winds. The mess here is largely superficial and with the very large trees we have here, we are relieved that it was not a great deal worse.

Damage to the multi forked Picea omorika several metres up

Damage to the multi forked Picea omorika several metres up

Tikorangi Diary: Friday March 16, 2012

What can I say? One of life's more unusual experiences this week. Anda Union.

What can I say? One of life's more unusual experiences this week. Anda Union.

Is that a Mongolian by my washing line? Why yes, actually, he is.

Is that a Mongolian by my washing line? Why yes, actually, he is.

Latest Posts:

1) Araucaria heterophylla commonly known as Norfolk Island Pine. All I want to do is to put a Christmas star on top each time I see one of these handsome landscape trees.

2) Grow it Yourself Fruit and Nuts by Andrew Steens – the latest offering in the New Zealand garden books market.

3) It’s a plant product so it must be natural and safe, right? Think again. Maybe natural, hardly safe Abbie’s column.

4) Onions. Are they worth the effort to grow?

Tikorangi Notes: Friday March 16, 2012

Each year at this time, New Plymouth hosts Womad, a remarkable event which brings a host of interesting world music performers and musicians to the area. This week we had the delight of hosting Anda Union in the garden giving a special performance for Tikorangi locals, including the two senior classes from the local primary school. These Mongolian performers keep the ancient music of their tribal homelands alive and this includes fascinating throat singing. It is like nothing else, really.

The whole experience was made more memorable because as soon as the musicians arrived, it was clear they wanted to see the garden. I took them on the short tour of the top garden (lunch, hosted by Todd Energy was awaiting them, to be followed by the performance). Their pleasure in seeing the garden was a delight, even if there were some language barriers.

The school children arrived a little early, while the adults were still eating. One of their teachers asked if they could also have a look in the garden so I headed off with them. They were entranced by the magical feel under the rimus (and some of the kids could even identify the trees). When we came to the path down to the park, these bright buttons of 8 to 10 year olds shrieked with delight and sprinted down the hill to play jumping games across the stream. We could have spent a great deal longer looking at different things. Glenys the Gecko was sunbathing on her tree and while it was possible to show her to a few children, pressures of time meant we had to head back to the marquee for Anda Union’s performance.

All this, and it was my birthday too. Mark, naturally, took credit for organising it all for my birthday, even down to the delicious lunch.

Anda Union - bringing the music of bygone Mongolia to Tikorangi.

Anda Union - bringing the music of bygone Mongolia to Tikorangi.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 9 March, 2012

Latest posts:

1) Big white, scented punctuation marks through the summer woodland – Crinum moorei variegated.

2) Lobelia lore, lest you are in search of a cure for syphilis. Or maybe good summer perennials are more to your taste. I adore blue flowers.

3) Personally, I am far from a fan of the traditional cabbage but should you be more enthusiastic, Grow It Yourself looks at the genre of cabbage this week (and yes, I did mean genre, not genus).

The low tech approach to flushing the stream bed

The low tech approach to flushing the stream bed

Tikorangi Notes

We have given up waiting for the summer which is clearly never going to arrive in full strength. At least the autumn bulbs bring some seasonal cheer. The exercise of cleaning out the stream continues in a very low tech manner. Mark has lifted the water level and channels it through a small opening in a purpose built corrugated iron barrier. The current generated is sufficient to flush the mud downstream as long as he stirs it up with the rake, to get the mud particles back in suspension mode. How far he can get it cleaned by this method remains to be seen – the ponds will represent a challenge to span with the barrier. A pontoon, he says he needs. I just can not quite visualise how he will manage a pontoon but all this saves the exercise of having to hire a sludge pump.

The disappointment this week is our yew tree which is looking alarmingly as if it is in decline. Fungal root disease is the verdict – a casualty of an unusually wet summer. As it is about 60 years old and a shapely, clipped feature defying the laws of gravity to lean on an angle, we would be sorry to lose it. We don’t spray much at all these days, but this tree warrants a dose of heavy duty fungicide to see if we can halt its rapid decline.

Felix the Kiwi, our clipped yew, may be succumbing

Felix the Kiwi, our clipped yew, may be succumbing

Tikorangi Notes: Friday March 2, 2012

Latest posts Friday March 2, 2012

1) Space limitations in the Waikato Times this week means there is only one new post from there at this time – Gardening with grasses. Shun the contrived use of dwarf grasses forced into an unnatural role as an edger but use them instead in mixed plantings with perennials with a debt to the prairie style of gardening.

2) Judging by the visitor statistics to my website this week, it seems unlikely that anyone has missed the piece on what looks mighty like plagiarism + Penguin + Sally Cameron + Tui garden guides Round Two – More bad Penguin. It resulted in an immediate recall of a second book in the series (Tui NZ Vegetable Garden). There seems to be a bit of debate about whether it is entirely the author’s fault or whether the publisher must also bear some of the blame. Frankly, I think Penguin has to take some of responsibility – at the very least for choosing such an ill equipped author in the first place. Too many corners cut in trying to get that series of books onto the market.

3) In the absence of other original posts all I can do is to recommend a YouTube clip which was the source of great delight to me this week. A lawnmower who learns to dream big. And in case you think that was computer generated trickery, we have the rather more mundane clip which shows it is … real. Remote controlled flying lawnmower.
We are not optimistic that our Walker mower has the capacity to fly.

Nerine filifolia

Nerine filifolia

Looking out the window this morning at the swimming pool, Mark commented that clearly the swimming season was over for the summer and at least I had had a swimming season whereas he had not even been in this year! The only consolation about the most disappointing summer we can ever recall is that we were not alone. Most of the country has been similarly afflicted and indeed, our daughters in Sydney and Canberra tell us the same thing! Shared disappointments are so much easier to cope with. And gardeners move on. Autumn is here. The autumn bulbs are starting – Haemanthus coccineus with its red paintbrush blooms, the lovely blue Moraea polystachya, cyclamen, Rhodophiala bifida and the first of the nerines. Nerine filifolia is evergreen with us and is simply the daintiest, most charming little rockery nerine you are likely to see. I potted some to sell a couple of years ago and not a soul wanted to buy them so these days we just keep them to delight ourselves.