Category Archives: Tikorangi notes

Tikorangi Notes: Monday 6 June, 2011

Latest Posts:
1) What does your lawn say about you? (Subtitled: a plea for sustainability in lawn management). Abbie’s column.

2) Plants that Delight – a reprint of an article featuring my seven favourite plants in the latest Weekend Gardener – although a cynic might suggest that this is in part the seven plants for which I had good photos. When Mark is asked what is his favourite plant/magnolia/michelia/camellia/rhododendron, he is inclined to reply: “Whichever is in flower this week.”

3) Tikorangi Diary No. 2. What we have been doing in the garden last week, including praise for our big walnut, Freshford Gem, and a lament for what has happened to the garden pages in our local paper. My ruggedly independent advice for garden tasks for the week has been replaced by garden tasks as recommended by a local garden centre: you need three different fertilisers when planting your roses. I have not heard of chitting garlic prior to planting before and you are meant to get out and spray all your deciduous plants with copper now to hasten leaf drop. We blenched at the prospect in a garden our size. Besides, I rather thought deciduous plants dropped their leaves when they were ready to. My beloved Plant Collector has been replaced by a shopping reporter. My columns and Outdoor Classroom have been replaced by low grade stories about people who have gardens of some description but no particular skills and no interesting insights. Sigh. Serves me right for having an argument with the deputy editor.

Luculia pinceana Fragrant Cloud

Luculia pinceana Fragrant Cloud

Tikorangi Notes: Sunday 5 June, 2011

How lovely is the luculia? Well relatively lovely if it is the garish little, candy pink Luculia gratissima Early Dawn and particularly lovely if it is the wonderful Luculia pinceana Early Dawn or Fragrant Pearl.  These somewhat tender Asian shrubs are a feature of our early winter garden.

Alas Mark found the first instance of camellia petal blight today – in a japonica. It seems to appear earlier every year. We have never seen it in sasanquas and I was a little surprised this week to hear of claims that in warmer climates, sasanqua camellias are susceptible. We would really like to hear confirmation from anybody who has actually seen it in sasanquas (as opposed to having heard reports of it). We had thought that these Japanese camellias were resistant. Blight has certainly never shown in ours and we are reasonably eagle-eyed on the matter.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 27 May, 2011

Vireya rhododendron Buttermaid, flowering with great enthusiasm

Vireya rhododendron Buttermaid, flowering with great enthusiasm

Tikorangi Notes: Friday, 27 May, 2011

As autumn closes into winter here, the days are shorter and we are getting plenty of rain but it is hardly cold yet – daytime temperatures are still in the late teens. The beauty of vireya rhododendrons is their ability to flower randomly throughout the year, even at times when there is not a great deal else in bloom. Buttermaid is one of Felix Jury’s early hybrids (aurigeranum x macgregoriae). In a world of big, fragrant, luscious blooms and heavy felted foliage, Buttermaid is destined forever to be the bridesmaid at best. However those showy big-bloomed types rarely, if ever, put on a mass display like the unpretentious Buttermaid. After decades of growing and experimenting with vireyas, we are increasingly of the view that healthy characteristics and flower power matter more than fragrance and individual flower size.

Says it all, really, though the joke of the setting will only be understood by New Zealanders

Says it all, really, though the joke of the setting will only be understood by New Zealanders

Latest Posts:

1) The end of an era.
2) Hollywood, Wellywood, Tikowood – a visual joke that will bypass those not in New Zealand this week.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 20 May, 2011

The lovely tree dahlias - not a plant for places which get early frosts

The lovely tree dahlias - not a plant for places which get early frosts

A favourite late autumn and winter scene here - the Queen Palm and silver birch set against the blue sky

A favourite late autumn and winter scene here - the Queen Palm and silver birch set against the blue sky

Latest posts:

1) The second edition of the Tui NZ Fruit Garden – is it an improvement on the first version which was withdrawn from sale with indecent haste this time last year? (Subtitled: why cooks should keep to writing recipe books and not over reach themselves with garden books.)

2) Podocarpus henkelii – a handsome, slow growing, evergreen tree from South Africa in Plant Collector this week.

3) Garden tasks for the week as autumn
slowly morphs into winter.

Tikorangi Notes: Sunday 15 May, 2011

LATEST POSTS: Friday 13 May, 2011

1) As autumn closes in, the rewarding sasanqua camellias come into their own and none I know are lovelier than Early Pearly.

2) Battening down the hatches in preparation for winter which will arrive soon – tasks for the garden this week including a message from the Chief Weed Controller here. In the garden this week.

3) Outdoor Classroom this week is in a new format on our website (which is just as well given the hash made of the photographs in the newspaper on Friday where readers would not, alas, have been able to see what to do) – looking at rejuvenating tired perennial patches. Outdoor Classroom.

If only they were coffee beans - excessive seed set on Michelia maudiae hybrids in particular
If only they were coffee beans – excessive seed set on Michelia maudiae hybrids in particular

TIKORANGI NOTES: Sunday 15 May, 2011

We have an extensive breeding programme running here on michelias (now reclassified as magnolias but most people still know them by their former name). The first of Mark’s cultivars is already on the market under the name of Fairy Magnolia Blush and attracting a gratifying amount of positive attention in Australia. The next two selections are being built up for release and subsequent ones are still at the trialling stage. This whole process requires the growing on of pretty large numbers of different crosses and Mark is frankly alarmed at the seed set on some plants – particularly those with M. maudiae in their parentage. If only they were coffee plants, we could be self sufficient in beans but alas the tendency to set prolific bunches of seed is not a desirable feature at all in michelias. The weed potential of some of these crosses is huge. Added to that, too much seed set means the plant is not putting its energies into producing further flowers and foliage. It is not enough to select a plant on a pretty flower alone – michelia selections need to be sterile or close to it to make them worthwhile taking to the next stage of trialling. These seed setters are destined for firewood here.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 6 May, 201

Latest Posts: Friday 6 May, 2011
1) Breaking the mould of the modern New Zealand garden – the dreams at Paloma. I admit I only worked out after writing this piece just why the two arboretums are named the Matchless Arboretum and the Norton Arboretum or I would have included reference to them by name.
2) The autumn colour on Taxodium ascendans “Nutans” in Plant Collector this week.
3) Garden tasks for the week as we descend into a somewhat wet and dreary spell but at least it is still mild enough to want to garden.

Taxodium ascendans "Nutans" in our park

Taxodium ascendans "Nutans" in our park

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 6 May, 2011
Driven indoors by yet another passing shower, I commented to Mark that the little corner garden by the garage that I was renovating was taking some time. “Ah,” he pontificated. “Regular maintenance and periodic overhauls – that is what it is all about.” I was slightly startled by this tripping off his tongue so readily but he admitted that he had just read that phrase in the paper. However it does sum up the nature of maintaining a large garden like ours, however pompous it may sound.