Category Archives: Tikorangi notes

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 29 April, 2011

A somewhat over the top performance from just one Cyclamen hederafolium tuber, albeit a large and well established one

A somewhat over the top performance from just one Cyclamen hederafolium tuber, albeit a large and well established one

Latest posts: Friday April 29, 2011.
1) The voluptuous splendour of Vireya rhododendron Rio Rita in Plant Collector this week.
2) Garden tasks for the week including autumn pruning and getting garlic in early.
3) Outdoor Classroom this week looks at hard pruning large, scruffy camellia bushes.

Tikorangi Notes: Sunday, May 1, 2011
Another weather bomb last week (as we seem to call extreme weather events these days) had people drawing comparisons to the infamous Cyclone Bola of 23 years ago (I can date Bola because it coincided with the birth of our son) but it was not of that magnitude here. Still, tearing winds for two days blew over pretty well every plant in the nursery, snapped a large branch off a prunus which blocked half the road (surprising how long it took for anybody to tell us that our vegetation was a traffic hazard!), snapped a large branch from one of our old man pine trees and generally dislodged anything that was loose. A friend down the coast tells me it wrecked about 20 trees in his garden so we are guessing it was worse elsewhere. Now we are into clean up mode but calm, clear weather has returned. There is not a lot of autumn colour remaining after the winds, but the Cyclamen hederafolium continue to flower. This particular tuber is undeniably large but its production of blooms is so excessive that we have been making jokes about it being on steroids. There is no human intervention, however. It is just hellbent on outdoing every other cyclamen in the garden.

Tikorangi Notes: Monday April 25, 2011

Tree hydrangea of uncertain classification

Tree hydrangea of uncertain classification


This wonderful tree hydrangea is a sight to behold down our avenue gardens this week. I say tree because the plant is now about five metres high. The flowers are enormous – fully 45cm across each individual head but most things about this plant lean to the large. It is an unknown species (though currently classified in the aspera group, despite bearing little resemblance to most asperas) and fully evergreen. In NZ, it is commonly referred to as the Monkey Bridge hydrangea, collected in China. It is brittle, tender and very large – not suited to all gardens – but what an unusual delight in flower.

Tikorangi Notes: Saturday 23 April, 2011

Our identified woodland mushroom in a fairy path

Our identified woodland mushroom in a fairy path

Latest posts:

1) Paradise Found in New South Wales– or our attempts to find gardens to visit around Sydney from bats at the Bot Gardens to Bob Cherry’s dreams in Kulnura.

2) Plant Collector this week looks at two tidy, compact evergreen shrubs with berries: Ilex cornuta “Burfoodii” and Raphiolepsis indica “Enchantress”.

3) Garden tasks for the week as autumn marches on inexorably. Still, we have only had one really cold day so far.

Tikorangi Notes: Saturday 23 April, 2011 When it comes to wild fungi in New Zealand, we are terribly conservative. Generally it is only the field mushroom that is harvested for eating, although the magic mushroom used to attract experimental youth in search of a free hallucinogenic experience. Possibly it still does, but there are a host of other wild mushrooms that go untouched. I have bought the up to date publications on fungi found here, but it appears that nobody has done the work on which forms are edible. I am not so keen on doing the experimental taste test. Apparently the basket fungi, puffballs and elephant ear fungi are all perfectly safe to eat, but I want a definitive tome to tell me which are safe and delicious before I get adventurous. With death caps also common, the gap between fatal and edible seems a little too small to me. And we can’t even get an identification on this woodland fungi from our books. Cascading down through our tawa bush, these mushrooms are currently abundant and growing, not so much in a fairy ring, but more akin to a fairy path.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 15 April, 2010

Latest posts: Friday 15 April, 2010:

1) Plant Collector this week is about Rhopalostylis sapida, better known to New Zealanders as the nikau palm – in this case the Pitt Island version of same. The Pitts are one of our more remote islands and the nikau is the world’s southernmost palm tree – and one of great beauty.

2) Garden tasks for the week with particular reference to autumn treatment for hellebores and a note about kang kong (which is an Asian green veg as opposed to a misprint of a giant ape).

3) Outdoor Classroom this week is the second instalment on garden mulches. We look at options which are usually available free but what you save in dollars across the counter, you will likely spend on your time assembling these options.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 15 April, 2010
Our magic run of autumn weather continues. Dead calm days (always appreciated in a windy climate), mild daytime temperatures in the early 20s (Celsius) and cool nights. Rain is forecast, which is good because all my recent efforts on dividing perennials and relocating shrubs need watering in. Our avenue gardens consist of five parallel borders around 50m in length (each). I have finished three borders plus the one across the end. Just two to go so, realistically, I may have finished in another fortnight. In the meantime, the rockery continues to please. Nerines have a good long flowering season and they continue to look splendid. While we grow some of the species, it is the sarniensis hybrids which are the showstoppers. I will forgive them their foliage which hangs on until late spring, looking ever tattier. Our autumn flowering would be so much the poorer without them.

The rockery in autumn

The rockery in autumn

Tikorangi Notes:

Decidedly rampant, extremely spiny but quite spectacular - the bougainvillea

The Battle of the Bougainvillea

Latest posts: Friday 8 April, 2011

1) One of the very best ornamental oxalis (or wood sorrel, if you prefer euphemisms) – purpurea alba in Plant Collector this week. And it is not in the least bit invasive so comes with our recommendation as garden safe.
2) Nostalgia rules, but it takes time. Relearning the old ways while getting to grips with new technology (aka freezing tomatoes and making grape jelly while learning about power points) – Abbie’s column.
3) Garden tasks for this week – from gathering swan plants and walnuts to sowing green crops.

Tikorangi Notes: Saturday 9 April, 2011

Dealing with the mountains of debris

Dealing with the mountains of debris

Ours is a typical large New Zealand garden in that we maintain a fair area with a minimum number of people. In our case it is about 25 acres or 10 hectares, although only 7 acres of that is intensively maintained garden but we do that with only three of us. Inevitably there are areas that we maintain but do not intensively garden. By that I mean we tidy, prune and groom, keep the area weed free, mulch it and refill large gaps but we do not spend large amounts of time actually beavering away gardening it in detail. But as we plan relatively large new gardens (these ideas can be slow in the gestation phase), I feel the need to make sure we can manage the area we already have. For the past sixteen months, this has meant a major reworking of well established areas. I am now well on the way in the Avenue Gardens which is a bit like the last major frontier. It never ceases to amaze me how much we can prune, saw, rake, trim and haul out from the borders to be cleared away without it being obvious at all what has gone. That, of course, is precisely the result we are aiming for. The gap between woodland garden and impenetrable forest is only a few years. Today has been the Battle of the Bougainvillea and those who have never grown one of these plants may not realise that they are armed with extremely sharp spikes all over. Allied to ambitions for world domination. The pruning is done. Now I am just deeply grateful that our Lloyd will be back at work on Monday. He is a whizz when it comes to dealing with garden rubbish – abracadabra and soon there is nothing remaining.