Category Archives: Tikorangi notes

Tikorangi Notes: July 18, 2010

Magnolia Black Tulip is just starting to open

Magnolia Black Tulip is just starting to open

Latest posts:

1) Clean and green in New Zealand? Not as much as we claim and, alas, not at all if you look at the common treatment of our rural road verges.

2) Digging and dividing clivias – one in the Outdoor Classroom series of step by step guides.

3) Mid winter photos – on our new Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/thejurygarden I have to admit, however, that I have not been out with the camera on the rain sodden days when we threaten to wash away and there have been rather a lot of those lately. We had a massive 237ml in June alone (or about 9½ inches for those still on imperial measurements) and we won’t be far off that in the first half of this month. Our winters can be wet. But the snowdrops don’t mind and it has only been the two hailstorms that have damaged the early magnolia blooms.

4) Nothing whatever to do with gardening (but I am guessing some readers also have other interests), I have just launched a separate website devoted to book reviews of a non gardening nature: www.runningfurs.com For some years, I have reviewed books, firstly for the Taranaki Daily News but these days for the Waikato Times. I have always had a particular interest in children’s books and in New Zealand fiction. I went back to the children’s books a few years ago because I thought we might be lucky enough to receive the gift of a grandchild at some time in our lives and our book collection could do with updating. There is no sign of any grandchildren any time soon, but I keep the best books and pass on the others. These reviews, along with a few on books for adults, did not sit with the gardening websites so I have not done anything with them before. But the advent of The Naughty Corner by Colin Thompson made me want to table these reviews for others – it is quite the funniest picture book I have read in a long time.

Tikorangi Notes: Sunday 10 July, 2011

Latest posts: Sunday 10 July, 2011

1) Prole drift (further comment on trends in NZ gardening)

2) Tikorangi Diary Friday July 8 (subtitled: what we have been up to with a smattering of garden hints which may be useful)

3) Growing garlic based on Mark’s experience. I was going to say our experience but that would be the royal we. Growing garlic and indeed all fruit and veg is entirely Mark’s domain, as writing is mine.

It is persimmons set against the winter sky this week, instead of Magnolia Vulcan

It is persimmons set against the winter sky this week, instead of Magnolia Vulcan


Tikorangi Notes: Sunday 10 July, 2011

Winter in our neck of the woods tends to be wet but comparatively mild. This year has been particularly mild with the warmest May on record and a warm June to follow. But wet. We can continue to garden in all the fine spells and because we have such free draining soils, the ground rarely gets too sodden to work. And light is our other defining feature – we keep the same astonishing clarity of light all year here. Most New Zealanders take our blue as blue skies and bright sunlight for granted and it is not until you visit countries with very low winter light levels that you realise our winter light is quite extraordinary. It is what makes the magnolias so wonderful here and despite July being our coldest month, more magnolias and michelias are opening blooms. We usually have a wonderful display of the early red magnolias towards the end of July and then flower through to mid September (longer for the michelias).

In the rainy, sodden times, I have been getting to grips with social media – as in Twitter and Facebook. This is a challenge for me (and one which entirely bypasses Mark who does not even know where the on switch to the computer is located). I enjoy the brevity and simplicity of Twitter but Facebook has been a bigger challenge. However, we reached our magic number of 30 “likes”, as one says in Facebook parlance, so we now have our own designated url: facebook.com/thejurygarden It takes a certain amount of mental energy and time to manage all these on line connections but it does appear to be the way of the present and maybe the future. Facebook seems to offer a good platform for current pretty pictures. If you feel inclined to visit our new facebook page and tick the like box, it apparently helps in establishing a profile beyond just our standard webpages.

Tikorangi Notes: Sunday 26 June, 2011

Latest Posts:

1) Growing citrus in the Taranaki garden – the first part of a random series drawing on our experience of growing fruit trees in the home garden here. With the abundance of tui in our garden, I did briefly ponder calling it the Tui Tikorangi Fruit Garden as a nod and a wink to the somewhat infamous publication from Penguin. Given that we also have a surprising and gratifying number of bellbirds or korimako in residence at the moment, Mark was of the opinion that I could instead draw on the common name for these songbirds – mockers. So, perhaps, The Mockers Tikorangi Fruit Garden. At least our advice is based on practical experience underpinned by some horticultural experience….

2) Meet Hedwhig the Morepork (our native owl, also called a ruru).

3) Tikorangi Diary – aka what we have been up to in the garden this week from pruning roses and wisteria to planting broad beans and peas with a bit more inbetween.

The lovely flowers of the early season michelias

The lovely flowers of the early season michelias

Tikorangi Diary: June 26, 2011

We New Zealanders have a love affair with white flowers. I was told that Rose Flower Carpet White is easily the biggest selling colour in this country but not internationally. My informant put this down to the fact that snow never settles here for long (except in alpine ski villages) and, indeed, most of the country never even sees snow. Winter white is a colour from a clothing catalogue, not the view from our windows. Which is by way of introducing two very different white flowered plants in bloom this week – the charming snowdrops (no snow, but growing here happily with cyclamen and lachenalias) and the white perfection of one of our early flowering michelias. One of the attributes of gardening in a soft climate such as ours is that we can have flowers for twelve months of the year in the garden. We tend to take it for granted until we see people gardening in much harsher climates. The corollary is that weeds and grass also keep growing all the time, but that is a small price to pay when mid-winter can still be brightened by the loveliest of blooms.

No snow, but we have plenty of snowdrops coming in to flower

No snow, but we have plenty of snowdrops coming in to flower

Tikorangi Notes: June 19, 2011

Spring Festival is one of the prettiest in flower this week though spring is still a way off here

Spring Festival is one of the prettiest in flower this week though spring is still a way off here

Tikorangi Notes: Sunday June 19, 2011

Our mild autumn continues though technically we are now well into winter. It may be wet but it is not generally cold. The ski fields inland and south seem to be getting nervous (and I am wondering whether the Christmas gift of a season lift pass to our snowboarding son was badly timed for the one season in a decade when the snows will be patchy and unpredictable) but it does mean that we are enjoying great gardening conditions. Except for last Friday which was cold (calm but cloudy and cold), daytime temperatures remain in the late teens and night temperatures are not dropping much below 10 degrees Celsius.

Lachenalia bulbifera, naturalised beneath a large pine tree

Lachenalia bulbifera, naturalised beneath a large pine tree

Magnolia Vulcan is opening its first blooms on the various plants we have around the property. Mid June is early. We usually expect peak flowering later in July. A hail storm last night damaged those early buds and blooms but there are plenty more to come which will be undamaged. The early lachenalias are open – red L. bulbifera, the yellow of Mark’s L. reflexa hybrids and the common L. aloides. The first of the snowdrops are in flower. We never get snow here but Galanthus S Arnott is wonderfully successful on our climate and there are few plants as pretty as the simple snowdrops. The sasanqua camellias are passing over and the japonicas and hybrids are taking over. Spring Festival is particularly pretty this week. With petal blight already hitting before many varieties have even opened, it is probably time to be a little more meticulous in recording which varieties show less damage and still put on a good show. Petal blight is probably here to stay. It will take breeding and selection to find a way past the ravages.

Just one new post this week – our Tikorangi Diary which records Mark’s unsuccessful efforts so far to extract olive oil with a zero carbon footprint and plans for our designated Citrus Grove.

We have been discussing our citrus trees here – somewhere around 20 different specimens which are very well established (as in some are probably around 50 years old now) and I have plans for a series of posts on growing fruit trees and the aim for self sufficiency and variety and how realistic this is in our climate.

The first blooms on Magnolia Vulcan were hit by hailstones last night

The first blooms on Magnolia Vulcan were hit by hailstones last night

Tikorangi Notes: Sunday 12 June, 2011

Latest posts:

1) Introducing Roma Red, our first new camellia release for a decade.

2) Tikorangi Garden Diary – what we have been up to in the last week (including a few hints on timing for pruning of rhododendrons and camellias and why you should never try mulching your hydrangea prunings).

The first blooms on Magnolia campbellii - a new season starts

The first blooms on Magnolia campbellii - a new season starts

A little battered by the rains, but the first of the michelias has opened

A little battered by the rains, but the first of the michelias has opened

Tikorangi Notes: Sunday 12 June, 2011
We measure our years by the start of magnolia flowering heralding a new season. This week, just the second week of June and winter chill yet to bite, Magnolia campbellii has opened its first two flowers. The leaves are still falling but the promise of a new season is already upon us. So too with the earliest michelia – the first of the fragrant maudiae hybrid series has quite a few blooms open already. The heavy rains of the past week have not been great for the flowers but we know they will just go from strength to strength over the next months.

The rains hit (again) this week – already over 120mm since last weekend. As our rain falls in torrents over a short space of time rather than in prolonged showers, that adds up to some very heavy downpours. It is all right outside – we are well used to rain and have free draining soils. But Mark has to patrol the roof and ceiling when the rains get too heavy. We once went to a slide lecture by the current owner of Villandry in France. The style of gardening bears no resemblance at all to what we do here but we were particularly amused by the charming Frenchman who is the current owner saying that whenever it rains heavily, he has to frequent the attics in search of leaks. Admittedly, he has a chateau on a grand scale whereas we merely have a house with ageing concrete tiles but there is some remote bonding in a shared task.