An award!

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I was going to head this “We Won!”. That would, of course, have been using “we” in the royal sense for I had nothing to do with developing this new cultivar, Daphne Perfume Princess – all credit belongs to Mark. But yes, the Australians do like it and it has been given the Plant of the Year Award from the Nursery and Garden Industry. It is easy to be self-deprecating, cynical even. But awards and recognition are pretty hard won and it was gratifying to receive this trophy.

We arrived home from China on March 4 to find the first buds opening on Perfume Princess in the garden. We know from previous experience that it will also have the latest season blooms of any daphne we grow. Mark is a cautious man but he is quietly confident about this plant.

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IMG_8116While on trophies, how can I not share the Dali camellia medal we brought home from the International Camellia Congress? There is no personal recognition attached to this medal. All overseas attendees were given one. This meant, of course, that we had two. As they are relatively substantial and heavy, we re-homed the second one and only carried one back.

IMG_8117Bear with, bear with on the slow reveal.

IMG_8118It is quite remarkable. And quite large.

From China – the wheelbarrow

IMG_7823“The invention of the wheelbarrow is usually traced to China’s Chuko Liang, and adviser to the Shu-Han Dynasty from AD 197 to 234, who had it developed as a means of transport for military supplies. The first evidence of wheelbarrows being used in Europe is found in illustrations in the thirteenth century.”

Niall Edworthy, The Curious Gardener’s Almanac (2006).
IMG_7822Remembering that odd piece of information from earlier use, I had to photograph a garden barrow when I came across it in Kunming Botanic Gardens in China last month. In fact these Chinese barrows are more like carts and they must be pulled, not pushed. If your definition of a wheelbarrow is that it be a single-wheeled cart, then these would not qualify, even though they are to be found in the original habitat.

Dai village (21)Double wheeled barrows are, however, clearly more stable than our garden barrows, capable of holding a greater volume and decidedly versatile. We came across this building site in a small village in the south of China where it is a receptacle for winching bricks up to the second storey. There did not appear to be a New Zealand Workplace Safety Officer on site.
Dai village (20)And then winched down again to be refilled.

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It is said that the earliest barrows had a large, single wheel centrally located beneath the load. It does seem  likely that as a means of transporting military supplies, the barrow would have been designed to have one person pulling from the front and one pushing from behind. Presumably the need for greater stability has led to design modifications over the subsequent centuries but the only huge, technological advance has been the development of the pneumatic tyre.

 

Our worst weeds

After advocating for wildflowers on our road verges in January, it is perhaps ironic that I follow up with the worst weeds in our garden. All are ornamental garden escapes and none should be liberated to roadsides.

Cape Pond Weed

Cape Pond Weed

There are times Mark has wanted to line up and shoot the former neighbour upstream from us who deliberately planted Cape Pond Weed – also known as water hawthorn, botanically Aponogetum distachyum. Pretty it may be in bloom, but we have been waging war on it for well over a decade. Floods scoured it out upstream but it has made itself right at home in our slow moving sections. We spend countless hours raking it out each summer because it we don’t, it will only take one full season before it covers the entire water surface. Miss one piece and it grows away again at an alarming speed.

Prunus campanulata filled with tui

Prunus campanulata filled with tui

Prunus campanulata ranks amongst our two worst weeds. We are constantly pulling seedlings out, or digging if they have snuck through to a second season. Any older than that, and they require poisoning. Yes I know some folk think we should get rid of all of these but the tui! The tui! And please do not tell me to plant kowhai for the tui instead because they don’t flower at the same time and even our largest kowhai trees cannot sustain the scores of tui that frequent our early blooming Taiwanese cherries. So we continue to deal to the unwanted seedlings on an ongoing basis.

There is hope. Mark has been turning his attention to the sterile campanulatas we have here, because it is the seed that is the problem. His father bred sterile campanulata hybrids – ‘Pink Clouds’, ‘Mimosa’ and ‘Petite Pink’. The last variety is probably not commercially available now which is a pity because it is a true dwarf tree. The problem with all three varieties is that they are candy pink, not the sought after carmine red. But we have a few sterile reds with some possible options which give flower power and nectar for the tui without the curse of seed.

About the bangalow palm's seeding ways...

About the bangalow palm’s seeding ways…

The other shocker – maybe I had better whisper this, given its popularity – is the bangalow palm (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana). Yes it is handsome and reliable but this Aussie import is far too keen to make itself at home. It took a long time for our specimens to start flowering but boy, are they a problem now. Mark tries to cut the seed off as soon as it is visible, but this requires the extension ladder and a pole saw. There is probably not a square metre left in our garden where we have yet to find a germinating bangalow. What is particularly concerning is that in the early stages, they are very difficult to pick apart from seedling nikaus. If you are anywhere near native bush or reserve, this is one plant that you should question having in your garden. Based on our personal experience, we recommend the Queen Palm (Syagrus romanzoffiana) as an alternative.

Mark adds in Cornus capitata, the weedy dogwood. It was favoured by his father who planted it all along one of the road frontages and Mark has been battling it ever since. At least it makes good fire wood.

Fuchsia boliviana performs TOO enthusiastically in our climate

Fuchsia boliviana performs TOO enthusiastically in our climate

We have reviewed pretty Fuchsia boliviana. We acquired it before it appeared on the National Plant Pest Accord but never moved it into the garden. Thank goodness. In the wilds of the “plant out” area, where some specimens can languish for years while waiting for the right spot to be found, it grew far too vigorously and the carpet of seedlings rang loud alarm bells. It is another of those plants where a sterile form would be advantageous because it flowers for months on end, is showy and has attractive foliage.

Dare I mention the wonderfully fragrant Himalayan Daphne bholua? It is not in the same league as the previous plants but it has certainly seeded down all round the place here. Not all the seedlings flower, either, which is not to their credit. It is another example of a plant which is highly prized internationally but can become a significant weed in our benign climate.

It can be a mighty fine line between a desirable self-seeder and a weed. Most of the plants mentioned produce berry-like seeds which are then distributed by the birds, particularly the kereru. Plants which only seed down close to the parent are manageable but once our feathered friends are on the loose, it becomes a different matter altogether.

First published in the March issue of NZ Gardener and reprinted here with their permission. 

A trip to Baotai Mount

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We returned from China last week, but alas brought with us a bad dose of Chinese flu which has kept us laid low ever since. Very low, in fact, but we are inching our way back to the Land of the Living.

Baotai (14)The International Camellia Congress in China was certainly an extraordinary experience.

We travelled around in matched purple coaches – seven or eight of them in total – headed by a police car, with another police vehicle and ambulance bringing up the rear. And as we made sedate progress (often travelling at about 40k/hour) with police on hand at every intersection to stop traffic that we might have unimpeded progress, all I could think was that we resembled the stately galleon from the old Joyce Grenfell song (“Stately as a galleon, I sail across the floor…”). Either that, or a ponderous, purple mechanical dragon.
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On the day we headed off to Baotai Mount, in Yongping County, we transferred to small coaches for the mountain roads – a fleet of somewhere near 20 of them sailing through the countryside under police escort and all with hazard lights flashing. You know you are part of something unusual when villagers come out in numbers to line the roads to see what is happening!

Baotai (3)The day promised a four hour journey to Baotai Mount, the unveiling of The Stone Monument, tour of primitive camellia forests, mountain azalea, red lotus flowers and more in the natural landscape. The unveiling happened at lightning quick speed as most of us strolled up to the vibrant welcome. With a huge turnout of locals, it began to dawn on some of us that maybe WE were the exhibits, the sight to see on this occasion. China is a country driven by huge domestic tourism where foreigners still have novelty value.
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Do not smile at the sight of the medical support team. While it is true that such events as the International Camellia Congress attract an older demographic who may well be prone to the occasional heart attack, there were also altitude issues on Baotai Mount. There seemed to be some debate as to whether we were at 4000 or 6000 metres, but given that NZ’s tallest mountain, Aoraki Mount Cook, is less than 4000 metres, we were a fair way up and some folk were certainly suffering, needing oxygen.

Baotai (34)Baotai (36)After lunch, we wandered in the woods of ancient reticulata camellias – primarily Lindl. Most of the wander was on a four metre wide paved walkway, but it is different in a country with a massive population. There wouldn’t be much nature reserve left if thousands, hundreds of thousands or more feet were able to trample root systems in the wild.

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There was a Magnolia campbellii in full bloom at the visitor’s centre which was such a delight that we will only whisper that it wasn’t a particularly good form of that species.

Baotai (47)We never did see mountain azalea and red lotus flowers though Mark was pleased to see a little Daphne bholua growing in the wild. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow and embrace the unexpected. Botanical variety may have bypassed us on this occasion, but I will never forget the unexpected sight of four soldiers (Red Army?) marching through the ancient camellia woods on Baotai Mount. You don’t see that sort of thing back home in Tikorangi.
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And then we drove the four hours back to Dali for dinner.

Tikorangi notes: Off to China!

A random tui nest found yesterday

A random tui nest found yesterday

We leave for China tomorrow. Well, a small part of China – the south eastern area. Foshan (near Guangzhou), Dali Old Town, Jinghong and Kunmimg. The draw card is the International Camellia Congress which will make travelling much easier than doing it on our own.

Many of the plants we grow originate from these areas of China. We are hoping to see the yellow camellias in flower. Five years on from when I wrote about C. chrysantha, the other yellow species we have here still have not bloomed. But we may also catch some of the deciduous magnolias, wild azaleas and michelias in bloom. With our closed borders in New Zealand, the new species of michelias that have been discovered in the wild are not in the country and may never be admitted so it will be interesting to see what we are missing.

Being old enough to remember when China was closed to most of the world, I am not totally surprised to find that they still have in place the electronic equivalent of the Great Wall or the more recent Berlin Wall. I may only be taking my tablet as a back-up for photos because I see my most-used sites are all blocked – Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and Google. It is likely that there will be on-line silence until we return at the end of the first week in March.

While on the subject of China, I checked back for the piece I wrote in 2010 about Rewi Alley. It gave me cause to ponder how quickly our modern print and electronic media both moved away from longer-form writing to snappy short pieces with photos. I can’t imagine a NZ newspaper publishing a piece of that length any longer. But there are some interesting quotes from a personal letter from Alley to my late mother-in-law.
IMG_7068The photos today are the start of a little exercise in colour combinations, which we have spent some time discussing as we plan our new summer garden plantings. I am a big fan of blue and yellow in interior colour schemes (our dining and TV rooms are indeed soft yellow and French blue). I have long wanted to try a blue and yellow border in the garden, but now think it will look too contrived for what we want.
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Yellow can be a difficult colour so I gathered a separate selection of cerise, magenta and orange blooms. Mark keeps pointing out to me the problems of adding yellow to this sort of colour mix – bright yellow at least. It is the one that can upset the apple cart of harmonious colour combinations. We may be quarantining our yellows to one area or at least using with extreme restraint.

Finally, as I was montying in the rockery, I was pondering how much modern gardening expectation has been shaped by two factors – the motor mower and glyphosate. Back in the days when grass was scythed and weeding was all done by hand, the current standards of the perfect lawn and the weed-free garden would have been inconceivable. It seems… unfortunate, shall I say… that the commonly held measuring stick for judging gardens today is predicated on two inventions, both of which are really bad for the environment.
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