If everybody realised just how easy it is to strike succulents from cutting, nobody would buy these plants unless they were new or exciting. This Crassula ovata (Jade Plant or money plant – very good for feng shui, apparently) could easily generate 30 good sized plants or many more smaller ones.
The ground-hugging types which form rosettes are easy to lift and divide. As long as they are replanted in full sun with excellent drainage and light soils, each little rosette will form new roots when nestled into the soil. Tidy up the rosette first by removing dead leaves to avoid them holding moisture in the rotting foliage.
Even succulents with well defined branches will grow. This is Aloe plicatilis or the fan aloe. Unlike usual leafy cuttings, succulents can be struck from very large pieces and you can expect close to 100% success rate. Cut to a balanced shape. Place the cutting in an airy spot and leave it for a few days to dry out. This reduces the chance of rotting before it creates roots.
Stick the cutting into a pot filled with a free draining potting mix (we use granulated bark) It is better to use a mix which does not have much fertiliser in it but this is not critical. You can equally put them straight into the garden in a free draining, dry position. It may be necessary to stake the top if you have a heavy cutting so that it remains standing. Do not try and keep it firm by compacting the soil or potting mix because you want maximum drainage.
Make sure that the cutting does not get waterlogged while you wait for it to form roots, but it will need an occasional wetting. In a few months, most plants will have started producing roots but it will take time for a large or heavy cutting to develop enough of a root ball to keep it standing upright.
Most succulents, including the popular burgundy black aeonium whose name few can remember and even fewer can spell (Aeonium arboreum ‘Zwartkop’ or ‘Schwartzkopf’), sempervivens, aloes and many cacti can be increased this way. It is a good activity to share with children.
Garden Lore: May 23, 2014
“Momordica – Cucurbitaceae – The Squirting Cucumber. An annual gourd-like plant, with woolly leaves, and yellow flowers, the fruit of which resemble a small cucumber; and which, when ripe, bursts the moment it is touched, scattering its seeds, and the half liquid, pulpy matter in which they are contained, a considerable distance. This quality made it a favourite, in gardens, a century ago, when some people were yet in a state of sufficient barbarism to find amusements in the annoyance of others; but it has now deservedly fallen into disrepute, and is seldom grown.”
Jane Webb Loudon “The Ladies’ Companion to the Flower Garden” (1840)
Vegetable time bombs, we call them
Garden Lore: Magnolia Little Gem
I stopped to photograph this driveway in town because it is like a vegetable time bomb waiting to give its owners no end of problems. What you are looking at is a narrow driveway flanked on either side by avenues of Magnolia Little Gem. At this stage, it still looks quite attractive. Little Gem is a good looking plant with glossy, dark green leaves and brown felted indumentum beneath. In summer, it will sporadically produce attractive white flowers. The mistake often made is in thinking that the descriptor “little” in its name, means it will stay small. While it will not get as large as some of the other grandiflora magnolias, it is still going to be an 8 metre tree and have a spreading canopy. You can already see it spreading.
In narrow spaces, you need narrow, columnar trees (technically ‘fastigiate’) which can give height and structure, without width. If you are going to choose a plant which forms a canopy, you need to keep the branching above the height of vans and small trucks – probably 3 metres up. Clip and shape from the very start so that you don’t have to undertake radical work when the trees become a problem.
It takes a lot more effort and expense to remove established trees which have outgrown their allotted space than it takes to plant them in the first place. It is better to get the selection right at the start.
First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.
Singing the praises of blue flowers
I am firmly of the view that you can never have too much blue in the garden. While green is effectively colour neutral – every garden has green and usually in abundance – blue is the versatile colour that fits in with all others. The addition of a little blue can lift a pastel colour scheme, add complexity to a white garden, make orange zing or stand as an equal partner in a blue and yellow border. No matter what the dominant colour scheme is, blue will fit in.
Eryngium planum
Eryngium planum
This summer flowering perennial has beautiful blooms which look like steel blue teasels and last for many weeks. Plants form tidy rosettes of foliage at ground level and the slightly prickly flower spikes can reach a metre high. Unfortunately, the plants need support – either staking individually or growing through taller plants, although the form sold as ‘Blue Hobbit’ is reputed to be lower growing, thereby avoiding the need to stake. Full sun and good drainage are the rules for growing eryngiums. While often referred to as sea holly, that is more correctly applied to E. maritimum which can be seen growing wild on the coast of Cornwall.
Grown from seed, plants will flower in their second season. Both Kings and Egmont Seeds have eryngiums or you can try your local garden centre.
Nigella damascens
Nigella damascens
Love-in-a-mist, as this summer annual is oft referred, has an ethereal lightness which makes it appear to dance through the garden. The foliage is so fine that it can be described as lacy and it takes up next to no space in the sunny, summer garden, combining well with roses and perennials. It does come in pink, white and purple tones as well now, but nothing beats the more common, pure blues in my opinion. Once flowering has finished, even the seed pod is attractive – a bubble-like capsule not dissimilar to a swan plant. Seed is widely available and once you have established plants for the first season, leave one or two to go to seed and it will keep returning in subsequent summers.
Jacaranda mimosifolia
Jacaranda mimosifolia
There are not many blue flowering trees which may explain why large parts of the world have fallen in love with the summer jacaranda. It is native to Bolivia and Argentina and is fully deciduous. Unfortunately, this does not make it hardy and it is a tree for the warmer north or mild coastal areas of the mid north. It is usually regarded as subtropical but if you have excellent drainage and only the occasional light frost, you can extend its range. In return, it will reward you with a beautiful mass display of lilac-blue summer flowers and a carpet of blue petals below. Over time, it forms an open, airy tree reaching 8 to 10 metres in height.
If your local garden centre cannot find you a plant, Trees & More in Tauranga have it listed for sale.
Daphne genkwa
Daphne genkwa
A lilac-blue daphne? Yes indeed. D. genkwa is as spectacular as any shrub when flowering, though rather anonymous at other times of the year. Unlike most daphnes we grow in the garden, it is fully deciduous with willow-like leaves and arching growth. While it is lightly scented, it is grown predominantly for its early spring floral display. This is not a plant that likes to be moved or trimmed so give it a permanent location with plenty of space to grow – at least 2 metres in diameter. The back of a border with lower growing plants in front will allow it to star when in bloom and remain unobtrusive at other times.
Genkwa is not rare, but it is difficult to propagate because it has to be done from root cuttings so it is not widely available. Ask a good garden centre to see if they can source it from one of the few growers producing it in New Zealand.
That is a true blue verbascum. (Photo: Thompson and Morgan)
Verbascum Blue Lagoon
You will have to hold your breath for this one. As far as I know it is not yet available in New Zealand but we are waiting in hope that it may be imported some time in the near future. It was first released at the 2012 Chelsea Flower Show in London and is a remarkable colour breakthrough in large-flowered verbascums. It appears that it is a genuine pure blue and, according to the renowned seed company Thompson and Morgan, whose plant breeder is responsible for this selection, it is perennial, albeit probably a shortlived perennial. Many of the verbascums are biennial, flowering in their second year, setting seed and dying. Blue Lagoon offers the promise of spires of pure blue in the late spring garden without the problems of the fussier delphiniums.
Iris sibirica
Iris sibirica
This clumping iris is one of the easiest to grow, flowering from mid spring onwards with rich blue flower heads held above grassy or spear-like foliage. Generally the foliage is about 50cm high and the flowers reach 70cm. It originates from central Europe, Turkey through to Russia so it is hardy to cold winters. It grows best in sun to partial shade with heavier soils which don’t dry out. This is a plant which can be left undisturbed for several years while the clump gently expands. Plant it with large leaved perennials like bergenia ciliata or ligularias to keep an attractive contrast in summer foliage, long after the flowering season is over. It is a little untidy when the foliage dies off in winter but that is its only disadvantage. Iris sibirica is widely available from nurseries and garden centres.
Meconopsis or Himalayan blue poppy
Meconopsis or Himalayan blue poppy
Nothing matches the electric blue that is sometimes found in meconopsis though, as these are seed grown, the shade can vary. There is something about the simplicity of a simple poppy flower in pure blue – a mere four petals surrounding golden stamens – that is completely beguiling. Unfortunately, they can be very difficult to grow and are usually a waste of time for gardeners at the warmer end of the islands. They are alpine meadow plants so are going to perform better in conditions with cold, drier winters. Plants available in New Zealand are often listed as M. X Sheldonii which is a cross between betonicifolia (which is biennial, flowering in its second year) and grandis (which is meant to be more perennial). These are deciduous plants and too often they fail to return in the second year, as many gardeners will attest. But if you can find the right conditions, they will enchant you in late spring. If you buy a plant, remove the flower head in the first year to allow it to put its energies into getting established, rather than weakening itself by flowering and setting seed. Seed is best collected and sown in trays rather than left to fall in the hope that plants will naturalise themselves.
Seed of M. betonicifolia is available from a number of sources, including Egmont Seeds. Plants are sometimes offered from southern nurseries, including Wake Robin Nursery in Balclutha.
Cordyline stricta
Cordyline stricta
New Zealand does not have exclusive claim to cabbage trees. The lovely blue flowered C. stricta hails from coastal New South Wales up into Queensland but is surprisingly hardy. It will take light to moderate frosts and coastal winds and can grow in full sun to shade. One of the big advantages as a garden plant is that the caterpillar which attacks our native cordylines is also native and appears to shun foreigners, so C. stricta does not get that chewed, motheaten look of our own cabbage trees. Stricta is clump forming and individual stems can reach about 3 metres in height. In summer, many panicles of lilac blue flowers appear, lasting for several weeks. Unlike our native varieties, they lack any scent.
Stricta is a versatile plant that can be used as a specimen or combined with a tropical, succulent or even a shaded woodland look. It also makes a handsome large container plant.
Cordyline stricta will be available in some northern garden centres but also sometimes on Trade Me and from Russell Fransham Subtropicals in Matapouri Bay.
Moraea villosa or peacock iris
Moraea villosa
This South African plant is commonly known as the peacock iris as its three petalled flower resembles the eye of a peacock feather. While the colour is variable, the blue or blue and white forms are the most common. Individual flowers are short-lived but each stem produces a succession of blooms in early spring. Held up on wiry stems, they can appear to dance lightly above the garden. These plants grow from corms and will do best in free-draining or sandy soils in full sun. The foliage is long, fine and grassy but gets a little scruffy before it dies down in early summer. Once you have Moraea villosa, it multiplies readily both from seed and the corms but we have not found it to have weed potential.
While not rare, this is one of those odd bulbs that you are most likely to source through Trade Me rather than finding it offered for sale in garden centres.
First published in the New Zealand Gardener and reprinted here with their permission.
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Garden Lore
“It is unchristian to hedge from the sight of others the beauties of nature which it has been our good fortune to create or secure.”
Frank J Scott The Art of Beautifying Suburban Home Grounds (1870).
The brutality of the utility wooden fence
Wooden fences
I spent the weekend in Mount Eden in Auckland where walking the streets offers a study in hostile fencing. There is a bigger story in fencing, now that I am getting my eye in for it but I couldn’t help but notice how little it takes to turn a large wooden affair into something more pleasing than a utility, gang house-styled barricade. It seems quite remarkable that people who own a million dollar house see nothing wrong with a basic tanalised board construction of zero aesthetic merit. If you feel the need to erect a solid barrier between your home and the riff raff who pass by on the footpath, a little thought can make a big difference.
A little detailing can make a huge difference
Incorporating the vertical supports as part of the fence breaks up the expanse of wall into separate panels. Topping the verticals with a simple finial – or abacus to go to classic terms – adds little to the expense but a lot to the design. A horizontal baseboard is both practical and adds a little finishing detail. Narrow palings generally look classier than wide ones. An unobtrusive colour in charcoal or dark grey tones mutes the impact further. It is attention that detail that counts.
Simple base boards add a finishing touch
First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.
Plant Collector: Medlar (Mespilus germanica)
The medlar – probably better as an ornamental than for its harvest
It’s a medlar, and a damn fine specimen at that, which I found in its fruiting glory in the gardens at Wairere Nursery in Gordonton. Medlars are having something of an upsurge in popularity, in the media at least, though they are better seen as a curious ornamental than a fruiting tree for harvest. Medlars were brought to this country by the early settlers but there are good reasons why this fruit tree was quickly superseded by apples and pears. The small fruit are hard, high in tannin and mouth-puckeringly astringent until they are on the cusp of passing from ripe to rotten. Timing is everything, apparently, when it comes to harvesting the medlar crop. In cold climates, when the frosts start, a process called bletting changes the composition of the fruit, making it edible. In milder climates we are never cold enough to allow for bletting so it is a case of waiting until the fruit is soft and the inside flesh has turned brown.
The medlar tree hails from that area of the world where eastern Europe meets western Asia – Turkey, Iran and Bulgaria – and has been cultivated since Roman times. It is a large deciduous shrub, some might say a small, spreading tree and a member of the rosaceae group so a relative of apples, pears and quinces. As with most fruit trees, it will have pretty spring blossom and will even colour in autumn but it is the fruit crop that attracts attention. I wouldn’t bother with it in the orchard but it justifies its place in the ornamental garden.
First published in the Waikato Times and reproduced here with their permission.
Tikorangi The Jury Garden 