A glut. Yes, a glut of avocados.

I mentioned the superb crop of avocados in an earlier post. I can report the avocado crop continues to astound and Dudley Dog is getting ever plumper. Though he is not responsible for all the chomped fruit in this tray. That represents a day or two of windfalls. It is hot competition out there between the dog, possums, birds, rats and humans.

We only have three trees but this year’s crop is all from the one specimen. The Fuerte comes in first but is a rather watery and insignificant taste compared to the ever reliable Hass. We start harvesting soon after Christmas and this year it is still going strong as we near the end of October. Basically, the one tree has kept about four households going in avocado this year, with enough left to give supermarket bags full to other friends, the postie and random visitors. We have to enjoy them because there is NO crop at all for next year. Avocados are often alternate croppers and we are growing them in marginal conditions this far south and 5km inland from the coast.

The third tree is also a Hass but it is looking poorly. Root problems. Avocados are terribly sensitive in their roots, being prone to phytopthera when drainage is anything less than perfect. We can but wait and see if the tree recovers.

It takes about 18 months for an avocado fruit to mature on the tree. Although it reaches full size straight away, it takes time for the oil levels to build up in the tissue of the fruit. If you have been deeply disappointed in the quality of fruit you have bought in the shops, it is likely that they have been harvested too early and the oil levels have not developed. Shun fruit where the skin is starting to darken but has a coppery sheen to it. In our experience, that is a sure sign of a fruit picked too early. Very small fruit which is often packaged in multiples and specialled off cheaply is low grade, reject fruit which will be inferior. If you lack friends like us with a well producing tree, it is probably worth paying top price for good fruit to avoid disappointment.

Mark heard or read somewhere that it is possible to mash ripe avocado and freeze it, using it later to make guacamole. He is trying this, thinking that if it does not come out of the freezer in a state that is palatable to humans, he can at least supplement the dogs’ food with it. It will be interesting to see, though as we are currently eating avocado every day, either in salads or as guacamole, we are not going to need the frozen stuff any time soon.

Plump, avocado eating Dudley and the much lighter Spike – our two rescue dogs

Exotica in the shade

Shade gardens we have a-plenty

Glory be, but I do love spring. This month subtropical bulbs and orchids shout out to be noticed.

We have extensive shade gardens. It is an inevitable result of a large, mature garden with many evergreen trees dating back as far as 1870. We do a lot of what we call lifting and limbing – taking off lower branches and keeping areas open to the light, for there are not a lot of plant options when it comes to deep, dark shade. Beneath the mighty tree canopy, it is dry but frost-free with dappled light. Over the decades there has been much trial and error to find what will thrive in these conditions and the plantings have become increasingly complex.

Dendrobium Bardo Rose

By this time in spring, we are over peak season for cymbidium orchids but the Australian dendrobiums are a delight. These are much smaller and more mounded or clumping in appearance and they take care of themselves. We have found the Bardo Rose group to be particularly obliging and free-flowering in woodland conditions. Ours all came from the local Orchid Society, an organisation that we have found combines generosity with superior technical knowledge.

Pleione orchids in the woodland

Pleione orchids do not last as long in bloom as many of the other orchids. Their flowers are soft rather than waxy but oh my, they make such a pretty carpet. It is easy for them to get swamped so we try and keep the area around them open but beyond lifting and dividing every few years, we just leave them alone. In our experience, the lovely yellow varieties do better in a climate where they get more winter chill. I think all our yellows have died out now but we have plenty in shades of lilac, purple and pure white. Most of our successful varieties came from the late George Fuller, orchid expert and former curator of Pukekura Park, and seem to have formosana in their parentage. If you want to build them up, a single bulb will usually set 2 offsets each season so you can double them every year.

Calanthe orchid - Copy The calanthes are ground orchids and we have big clumps now because these obliging plants can just be left to quietly increase in size. These are fully evergreen and somewhat frost tender but they are a delightful sight through spring and they combine very well with clivias, ferns and even hostas.

Hippeastrums are a plant family that has been much hybridised but I am not entirely convinced that has been to their advantage. It is two species that we rely on, both South American. It was by chance we found they settled happily into woodland conditions. In full sun, they were ravaged by narcissi fly but in high shade they are fine. Apparently nazi flies, as they are often called, don’t like shade. H. aulicum is one of our early to mid spring mainstays, flowering consistently year in and year out while multiplying most satisfyingly. To me, they look like beautiful Jacobean lilies in the woodland.

Hippeastrum aulicum, one of our woodland mainstays

Hippeastrum papilio has been a more recent acquisition for us and it is certainly spectacular, looking more like an orchid than the butterfly for which it was named. It is offered for sale but be prepared to pay a lot for a single bulb – maybe $30 if it is flowering size – because it takes several years to get to that point. I can’t think that we would have started with more than just one or two bulbs at that price. I see with a bit of dividing and replanting we now have about sixty but not all are flowering size yet. Mark has done some hybrids of aulicum x papilio to increase numbers and get some variety, but they have yet to bloom.

Hippeastrum papilio

I will have to leave the arisaemas, trilliums and the Paris polyphylla for another time but will finish with Scadoxus puniceus from South Africa. Many readers will be familiar with the summer flowering red S. multiflorus ssp. katherinae, especially in the Auckland area because it was, and maybe still is, much beloved by landscapers. It is a mainstay of our summer woodland, but in spring it is the lesser known S. puniceus that is the showstopper. Growing from large bulbs which are slow to increase, the foliage is lush and the large blooms are curious rather than beautiful. S. puniceus is not widely available, but if you can find somebody with it, it is easy enough to raise from fresh seed as long as you are willing to wait quite a few years to reach flowering size.

The rewards are there for patient gardeners.

The lesser known Scadoxus puniceus

Text first published in the October issue of NZ Gardener and reprinted here with their permission

Tikorangi notes: THAT yucca, wretched geissorhiza and the close of magnolia season.

Yucca whipplei finally flowered after maybe 20 years

The state of our Yucca whipplei is such an ongoing saga here it even has its own folder in my photo files. I wrote about its impending move back in early 2013 when we had cut the concrete paving in preparation for its move. But it was still in situ this time last year when, after a period of getting on for 20 years, it actually flowered. We were thrilled. As the flower spike edged past the first story of the house, it was a well-documented blooming.

But other needs were always more urgent so the moving of the yucca had not taken place. Nor had the windows to what is our TV room been cleaned for many years. But yesterday the day came, forced by the arrival of the glaziers to install retro-fitted double glazing in our wooden window sashes. It was not an easy task. Mark had thought he could probably chainsaw the top off but the fibrous nature of the spent foliage merely jammed the chainsaw. At this point it is in two pieces. The top will be replanted on the sunny bank in the north garden where it will likely recover. The base, with a new rosette well-formed already, will be dug out and also relocated. It will, I tell you it will. I like the garden view out of the windows which is now visible again and while cleaning windows is not my favourite activity, I do like to be able to do it when necessary.

As far as we know, this is Yucca whipplei, also known as Hesperoyucca whipplei, chaparral yucca, Our Lord’s candle, Spanish bayonet, Quixote yucca or foothill yucca. So Wikipedia tells me. Apparently the most common name is Our Lord’s candle. It being native to southern America from California through to Mexico, it clearly felt right at home in the bone dry conditions of the house border beneath the eves. In the meantime, Our Lord’s candle is no long alight at our place.

Pretty it may be in bloom, but I have spent countless hours trying to eradicate this plant, as Felix Jury did before me

I have been forced to extreme remedial action in the rockery in the Battle of the Geissorhiza. Such a pretty weed and so dreadfully invasive. Each bulb is surrounded by many little baby bulbs that peel off as soon as you look at them, ready to grow into the future. In the worst affected pockets of rockery, I am lifting everything and washing the roots to make sure no dreaded geissorhiza bulbs are lurking in there hiding. Then I dig out all the soil and replace it with clean soil. I was surprised that one pocket generates almost a full barrow of soil. The contaminated soil is being dumped in the deepest, darkest shade where I hope nothing will germinate and if it does, as a last resort it can be sprayed. This somewhat extreme and labour intensive treatment should, I hope, get me closer to victory and the extermination of this pretty but hideously invasive bulb.

Shun Geissorhiza aspera. It belongs to the same group as highly invasive oxalis or allium-type of Pesky Weeds Masquerading as Pretty Plants. You have been warned.

Magnolia Serene

Magnolia Serene is opening. This always heralds the end of the deciduous magnolia season for us as it is the last of the major magnolias here to bloom. Alas, a magnolia season that was progressing magnificently was dealt a near death blow two weeks ago when we had a huge wind which lasted more than 24 hours. We are used to wind here – it is the west coast of the Windy Isles after all (New Zealand being marooned in expanses of vast ocean all round means that we are a windy country) but this was more than an ordinary wind. Reminiscent, in fact, of the worst winds we can remember which came as Cyclone Bola 27 years ago. Fortunately the damage was minor though the debris was great. And the later flowering magnolias were something of a casualty. Because Serene was still in bud, it came through unscathed but the rest of the plants in bloom had their season cut short.

The industrial chic garden

I visited a most interesting private garden in Auckland earlier this month. Industrial, urban chic, I would call it.

I wrote about hedging ideas after my visit to the Kelliher Estate on Puketutu Island but I didn’t name the gardener at the time because I hadn’t asked him if he wanted to be identified. It is Grahame Dawson, and as I walked around the Kelliher garden, I asked my companion what Grahame’s own garden was like. What made me curious was that his approach to gardening at the Kelliher showed a flair that is unusual in a public garden (or a trust garden) and I felt sure that I was looking at somebody who had large garden instincts. My companion took me in to meet Grahame in his home garden.

It was very different to the Kelliher Estate garden and I loved it. It is not that I want to emulate it myself. I just thought it was very different, quirky, characterful, self-indulgent even, but not naff and goodness, that is a fine line to tread.

I loved the hanging curtain of tillandsia growing through weighted chains (top photo) and the disco ball echoes of the rounded mounds (threaded through hanging baskets suspended upside down). Yes there was a lot of tillandsia – three main types in the hanging mode, I think Grahame said. Tillandsias, or air plants as they are often referred to, have a huge a family of well over 700 different species and are in the bromeliad group. These ones contributed to the curious phenomenon of a predominantly grey garden. I was viewing it on a grey, cool spring day and I didn’t find it in the least bit dreary, in case you are wondering.

I liked the bold juxtaposition of the almost stark seating area to one side, with the plantings opposite on the site.

The undercover display of specialist orchids were arrayed in the manner of an auricula theatre and that is natural light casting an ethereal glow in the mid afternoon light.

The pool resembled a shrine to my eyes. The little figure, Grahame told me, is Narcissus.

For those who want ideas, Grahame has a natural flair for managing multiple pots without looking messy or cottage-y. The simplest of terracotta pots painted grey made the row a feature with or without the orchid selection they house.

Back at the Kelliher Garden, I had photographed the pots along the front terrace. Alternating square and round pots, he had filled them all with Aloe plicatilis. The very simplicity gave it a formality while softening the scene with thoroughly practical foliage.

People visit gardens for many reasons and goodness knows, with two decades of opening our own garden behind us, we have heard many of those reasons over the years. Too often, a garden is judged – and I use the word ‘judged’ deliberately – on whether the visitor can imagine themselves owning the garden. I didn’t want to own Grahame’s garden – industrial chic is not my style – but it is rare to come across a place that I would describe as genuinely original, combining both wit and skill. This was one.

Plant collector: the curious native Muehlenbeckia astonii

An unusual clipped specimen, M. astonii

The proper name of this plant is not easy to spell – Muehlenbeckia astonii – but I have never even heard it referred to by its alleged common names of ‘shrubby tororaro’ or ‘wiggy-wig bush’. Not that common, apparently. The plantings in a prominent position at Auckland Botanic Gardens have caught my eye before. I am guessing they are planning to extend the clipping up another layer. In this interim phase. Mark chuckled and suggested they resemble Kim Jong-Un. The hair, dear Reader, the hair.

This is another of our native plants now threatened by loss of habitat. These days it is limited to the eastern coastal lowlands, stretching from Wairarapa to Banks Peninsula but it may have been more widespread in the days before extensive land development. Fortunately, it makes a good garden specimen and it is the ability to integrate into gardens that has saved critically endangered plants like Tecomanthe speciosa, Pennantia baylisiana and the kakabeak (clianthus).

Divaricating plants are not unusual in this country – divaricating being that tight criss crossing of the branches, often combined with tiny leaves. The ever-handy internet advances two botanical theories for the prevalence of divaricating plants here. I like the first theory which is that plants evolved this way to protect themselves from moa grazing on them. The second theory is that the plants have adapted to withstand harsh climatic conditions, particularly wind and dryness found in exposed coastal conditions and maybe hard frosts.
Muehlenbeckia astonii (7)
M. astonii will be deciduous in hard conditions but retains some of its tiny leaves in Auckland. The orange and red tones in the wiry zigzag branches add interest. It clips well and is apparently not difficult to strike from cutting or raise from fresh seed. We don’t have M. astonii in our garden but we do grow a comparable tiny-leafed divaricating coprosma which has a natural form of mounding layers that is often described as cloud form.

Muehlenbeckia astonii, featuring prominently at Auckland Botanic Gardens

Tikorangi The Jury Garden

Mark and Abbie Jury

A glut. Yes, a glut of avocados.

Exotica in the shade

Tikorangi notes: THAT yucca, wretched geissorhiza and the close of magnolia season.

The industrial chic garden

Plant collector: the curious native Muehlenbeckia astonii

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