The silver fern

IMG_3735IMG_3738 - CopyAll New Zealanders know the silver fern, but usually as the logo or motif, not the real thing. Sure it is closely associated with our national rugby and netball teams, but how many realise it is a ponga? A native tree fern.

Botanically it is Cyathea dealbata. New Zealand doesn’t have a world monopoly on tree ferns but we do have some special ones which are native only to our lands and the silver fern is one. It has a wide distribution through the North Island and in the north and east of the South Island. We have it seeding down in our garden in that wonderfully casual way that pongas do. It can reach as high as 10 metres but it takes a while to get there, at which point it may also measure a huge 8 metres across.

It is only silver – or white, really – on the underside of the leaf and it takes about two years for that white colouring to develop. Maori were reputed to use the white undersides to mark tracks for travelling at night although they also stand out during the day and bush walkers often know this trick.

It was TV gardening host and now National Government minister, Maggie Barry, who presented a little piece many years ago on the silver fern which falls into the “once seen, never forgotten” category. Surrounding herself with a circle of cut fronds placed pale side up, she advised us that if you are ever lost in the wild then using this technique makes you easy to spot from the air. So there you have it – a survival strategy from Maggie.

Maggie Barry's tip, my gardening shoes

Maggie Barry’s tip, my gardening shoes

The Magnolia and the Maunga (or Mountain)

August 9, 5.07August 9 at 5.00pm as the sun is going down.
August 10, 12.38August 10, just after midday.
August 12, 9.45amAugust 12, at 9.45am.

Magnolia campbellii and Mount Taranaki, photographed from our garden.

IMG_3678At the risk of destroying the perception, this is the reality. In the bottom right hand corner, you can see the mountain which is at least 35km away from us. We do not have an alpine climate here – far from it, given that we grow oranges and avocados – but a zoom on my new camera is very good.

All the reds

Magnolia 'Felix Jury'

Magnolia ‘Felix Jury’

August belongs to the red magnolias here. They start flowering in July for us but peak this month with September leaning more to the pinks, whites and yellows. While others may delight in one or two red magnolias, we get them en masse. For every named variety, there are many sister seedlings that will never be released but keep on growing and flowering each year. Magnolia trees just get bigger and better as the years go by so the annual display keeps on getting more spectacular.

Magnolia liliiflora 'Nigra'

Magnolia liliiflora ‘Nigra’

When Felix Jury, transferred the pollen of Magnolia ‘Lanarth’ onto Magnolia liliiflora ‘Nigra’ in the early 1960s, I doubt very much that he contemplated a significant breakthrough in the international world of magnolias which would bring fame – though not fortune. He just wanted to see if he could get to large red flowers. Lanarth (technically M. campbellii var. mollicomata ‘Lanarth’) has lovely flower form and at its best is a magnificent purple on a handsome tree. M. liliiflora ‘Nigra’ can have good red colour but with small flowers on a shrubby, spreading plant, it is not showy.

Magnolia 'Vulcan'

Magnolia ‘Vulcan’

The best of the progeny he named Magnolia ‘Vulcan’ and for the next decades, it stood proudly on its own as a major step along the way to red magnolias. Sure, it is not a pure red and the later season flowers fade out to a somewhat murky purple. There is always room for improvement but Felix laid the foundations for what is following now and he showed that a determined, self-taught, hobby plantsman at the bottom of the world could make a major contribution to the international magnolia scene.

Magnolia 'Black Tulip'

Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’

Magnolia 'Burgundy Star'

Magnolia ‘Burgundy Star’

It is perhaps not widely recognised in this country that New Zealand has led the way with red magnolias Our spring display is arguably the best in the world. For reasons yet to be determined, we get deeper and stronger colours here, certainly than in the UK and Europe. There, they are accustomed to white, pink and now yellow magnolias, but the impact of the red types that are now relatively common here never fails to stun international visitors who come in spring. Felix Jury paved the way with Vulcan. His youngest son, Mark – the man to whom I have been married for more decades than we like to tally – continued building on this foundation, as has fellow Taranaki magnolia breeder, Vance Hooper.

Mark’s quest is a pure red magnolia, losing the purple tones that dog the earlier hybrids. He is getting very close – not quite there yet, but close enough to think that it is achievable. Like his father before him, Mark prefers large flowers with solid colour both inside and outside the petals (technically tepals).

Magnolia 'Genie'

Magnolia ‘Genie’

Vance Hooper is going down a slightly different track and shows a liking for bicoloured flowers. In magnolias this often means a paler inner petal. He is also actively selecting for smaller growing trees which are floriferous over a long period of time, often with smaller flowers. His best known red cultivar to date is Magnolia Genie but he too has a whole range of red seedlings under observation and a number of other named varieties already released.

Felix named one purple – Apollo – and one into the red tones, Vulcan. Mark has named only three reds so far – Black Tulip, Burgundy Star and Felix Jury. Of these, Burgundy Star is arguably the reddest but it is the one he named for his father that brings us greatest pleasure. As a juvenile plant, it started off with OTT giant pink blooms but as it matured, the colour deepened and we now get enormous red flowers – though I admit they fade out to pink. This magnolia represents what Felix himself was trying to get to – a rich coloured, very large bloom of the Iolanthe-type.

It is a source of quiet satisfaction to us that Felix lived long enough to see his son achieve this outcome and it was for this reason that Mark named it for his father. We were most gratified to learn that it has been given an Award of Garden Merit by Britain’s Royal Horticultural Society.

I have never forgotten the customer who came in to buy a magnolia some years ago. She didn’t want a red one, was sick of seeing them – too common, she declared. No, she wanted a white one. I think I remained steadfastly polite but as our forest of colour blooms each August, I rememer her blissful ignorance.

First published in the August issue of New Zealand Gardener.

'Lanarth" is in full flower and looking particularly fine this week

‘Lanarth” is in full flower and looking particularly fine this week

Tui, kereru and korimako

Tui in the cherry tree

Tui in the cherry tree

It is the time of the year when I spend a great deal of time trying to get the perfect images of the scores of tui we have feeding in the Prunus campanulata. Because we have a number of trees, the birds migrate between them but never sit still long enough for us to count.
Too many to count. All the black shadows are tui.

Too many to count. All the black shadows are tui.

These early flowering cherry trees from Taiwan get a mixed reception in New Zealand. There is no doubt that our native birds find them hugely appealing. In an environment filled with food sources, it is the campanulatas to which they head en masse. But, and it is a huge but, most campanulatas set prodigious amounts of seed and because these form as little cherries, tasty to our fruit-eating native birds, they are spread far and wide. Indeed, seedling cherries are one of the worst weeds we have in our own garden and it takes constant management to stop the spread. So bad is it that the councils further north have banned seeding campanulata varieties and some folk would like to see total eradication across the country.

Shy korimako in Prunus Pink Clouds. It was soon banished by the bullying tui

Shy korimako in Prunus Pink Clouds. It was soon banished by the bullying tui

We would be very sorry to see all campanulatas banned but certainly the future lies in sterile selections. Sterility means that they don’t set seed so they won’t spread but we get to keep the mass blooming and the tui – and indeed korimako, our shy bellbirds – get to keep their favourite food source. Pink Clouds and Mimosa are both sterile varieties which date back to the work Felix Jury did on them, but the sugar pink colour is often less favoured to the cerises and reds. Unfortunately, the good compact growing, dark flowered variety named for Felix by Duncan and Davies – Prunus Felix Jury – is not sterile.

Acrobatic tui in a campanulata that is sterile but much too large for most gardens

Acrobatic tui in a campanulata that is sterile but much too large for most gardens

We have a sterile cerise red which is a great performer but at over 12 metres tall and 10 metres wide, it is far too large for domestic gardens. But there is hope. Mark has identified one which is sterile, has good colour and does not look as if it will get anywhere near as large.

Kereru feasting on Magnolia Vulcan buds

Kereru feasting on Magnolia Vulcan buds

“Now look ‘ere, Mr and Mrs Kereru, we need to have words about this latest taste treat you have found. This just won’t do at all. There is plenty of other food here for you but magnolia buds are off limits, especially the first flowers opening on Magnolia Vulcan.”

Poor kereru died after flying into a window

Poor kereru died after flying into a window

I would make jokes about Mr and Mrs Kereru dicing with death on this latest escapade, but some sensitive soul would take me seriously. Kereru are our large native wood pigeon and were a valued food source for Maori in times past. But they are very slow breeders and are suffering from habitat loss so are now totally protected. 056There has been a bit of a scandal recently about kereru being served as part of a traditional feast – did the Parliamentarians know they were eating kereru? – so it is poor form to even make jokes about eating them. Besides, even when a beautiful plump specimen died before my eyes after flying into one of our house windows, we could not bring ourselves to try cooking it. Instead we bought window decals from Bird Rescue to try and prevent such a thing happening again.

Apparently Vulcan scores highly on the kereru taste test

Apparently Vulcan scores highly on the kereru taste test

Tikorangi Notes: August 4, 2015. Spring flowers, Franchi seeds, a new spade and the Magnolia and the Cross

Narcissus Peeping Tom in golden light

Narcissus Peeping Tom in golden light

With heavy rain forecast over the next few days, I picked some of the spring bulbs. The light was fading as I brought them indoors,  but I like the stainless steel backdrop of the splashback to our stove and I had fun photographing the flowers both in the general background light of the kitchen and in the shafts of golden light, which, believe or not, emanate from the spotlights on the range hood above. If you are on Facebook, there is a fuller album of them on our Facebook garden page. 

Galanthus S Arnott in silver light

Galanthus S Arnott in silver light

033The new Franchi seeds catalogue arrived in the mail last week. If you haven’t met this brand before, you can find them on line at http://www.italianseedspronto.co.nz/ (that is the address for New Zealand mail order only). There is an interesting range of heirloom and traditional Italian varieties. They are expensive when compared to some other brands on the market, but you get a hugely generous amount of seed per packet. Given the sparse number of seeds in the packets of some other brands, this is something of a surprise. Mark is a particular fan of the packets of mixed lettuce varieties which he sows in succession to keep supply going, so he is more than happy to get a generous quantity of seed. There is a good variety of different lettuces in these mixed packets too, which mature at different rates and add interest to salads now that we have moved on from just Iceberg or Buttercrunch.

001 (2)I was positively excited to buy my very own spade recently, and what a lovely spade. It is a Joseph Bentley border spade with a handsome oak handle so it must be imported from the UK. A border spade is both smaller and narrower than a conventional spade and I find the lighter weight makes it easier to use – a pleasure, even. There are cheaper spades around – I think I paid somewhere between $70 and $80 for this one at Palmers Garden Centre – but I have not found a spade I like more. I expect it to last as long as I do. Mark kindly oiled the handle again before use, using linseed oil. And he sharpened it for me. I sometimes wonder whether the current fashion for no-dig gardening and the desire by some to avoid the effort of digging is related to blunt spades. A sharp spade makes digging so much easier but I can’t recall seeing the advice offered widely that you need to sharpen your new spade before use and then to keep an edge on it from time to time. If you are wondering how to do this, I see I published a little article on this very topic some time ago.

The Magnolia and the Cross

The Magnolia and the Cross

Having referenced the Magnolia and the Maunga and the Magnolia and the Wellsite  recently, I now offer you the Magnolia and the Cross. This is M. campbellii again, but in the grounds of St John’s Church in Waitara where I spotted it when we attended a funeral recently. Even if one is not of a religious persuasion, the cross is a very strong symbol.