But where are the hollyhocks?

Bragging rights on the home grown pineapple

Bragging rights on the home grown pineapple

“But where are the hollyhocks? I can’t find any hollyhocks,” the garden visitor said last weekend. I can honestly say that that is a first here. Nobody has ever commented on the absence of hollyhocks before. But it is true. We have none. I haven’t tried growing hollyhocks since the children were young and school gardens were still a part of the gardening calendar. The problem with hollyhocks is that they are very prone to rust in our climate which spoils the look.

There are, of course, many other plants we don’t grow. I can’t think that we have any petunias and gerberas are notable for their absence. Sweet peas we lack. Ditto tuberous begonias and we are distinctly light on fuchsias. Some plants we do not grow because we don’t like them, others because they don’t like us. Some are not worth the effort and presumably at least some are because we have never even thought of growing them.

The cold border in the park with meconopsis and Inshriach primulas

The cold border in the park with meconopsis and Inshriach primulas

The challenge for many a keen gardener is to grow plants which are either very difficult or are well out of their natural zone. We certainly identify with this group. It is enormously satisfying to grow something which is not known in your local area. To this end, we are always trying to stretch the climatic boundaries and we do have options in a big garden. Mark put his cold border onto a south facing slope where temperatures are noticeably cooler and he has managed to get some of the plants which want a colder winter settled in. The blue poppies (meconopsis) from the Himalayas, less common but colourful Inshriach primulas from Scotland, the Chatham Island forget-me-nots and the deep coloured burgundy hellebores are all much happier in cooler conditions.

On the ridge above, the Marlborough rock daisy (Pachystegia insignis) and trickier forms of astelias perch in exposed conditions  compensating for our high humidity and mild temperatures. A different north facing slope gives us hotter conditions for the aloes and yucca plants that will rot out elsewhere.

Some highly desirable plants defeat us entirely. We’d certainly grow herbaceous paeonies if we could but they want low humidity, hot, dry summers and dry, cold winters to do well. There is no way we can simulate those conditions. Having had a Dunedin childhood, I loved the Bleeding Heart plant (now named Lamprocapnos spectabilis but formerly and widely known as Dicentra spectabilis). I bought several over a few years to try in different parts of the garden but they never returned for a second season. There was a little lesson there for me – just because garden centres sell a lovely looking plant in full flower does not mean that it is suitable for the local area. Oftimes they are shipped in from places where they do grow well. That is a lesson many others have learned, I am sure.

Where we draw the line is when it comes to having to spray in order to grow plants out of their normal climatic zone. We are not prepared to festoon sensitive plants in frost cloth either but that is because we can’t be bothered and we don’t want that ghostly presence of draped shapes in the garden. Chemical intervention is a step too far altogether.

I have never gotten over my shock when a very experienced gardener told me she kept her alpines alive in our conditions by drenching them in fungicide once a week. I can no longer look at her alpine area as an example of good gardening. Fungicides are not that good for the environment and in my opinion, good practice dictates they should only be used when absolutely necessary and not as a routine application. So no hollyhocks here – we are not going to spray to keep them healthy and we don’t want diseased plants sitting around festering.

If you are not a gardener who relishes the challenge of pushing climatic boundaries, then keeping to plants which are happy in your conditions is going to make life a whole lot easier. This does tend to mean you can’t have a sub tropical garden in Hamilton because winters get cold and frosty. Second daughter attended Waikato University a decade ago and she commented on the gardens she walked past which had clearly been “landscaped” in summer on a tropical theme. Come winter, the plants were blackened, looking very sad and often dead. If you are a novice gardener, take up walking. You can see much more on foot than you will ever see from a car window and noting what is growing well and is being repeated in gardens around your area is a good guide. It may also be an indication of what plants are available for sale.

For those of us who like a challenge, there is nothing quite like the bragging rights that come with… a pineapple! Yes, this was grown and harvested from our very own pineapple patch set against a warm brick wall. Not as sweet as a Dole one but not exactly a run of the mill crop for our area.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

Plant Collector: Gesneria cardinalis

Gesneria cardinalis, or maybe Sinningia cardinalis

Gesneria cardinalis, or maybe Sinningia cardinalis

The tuber in growth. I have cut chunks from it to grow new plants.

The tuber in growth. I have cut chunks from it to grow new plants.

Gesneria or sinningia? We have always known it as a gesneria but it appears that Sinningia cardinalis is equally valid as a name. Whatever, this is a comparatively rare plant which comes from the same family as both African violets and gloxinias – the family having the near unpronounceable name of Gesneriaceae. Most hail from South America and cardinalis is from Brazil.

Unlike most members of the family (and there are somewhere over 40 of them), cardinalis grows from a tuber which pushes itself above the ground. We have described it in the past as developing a football-like tuber, but with the passage of time, ours are getting closer to exercise ball in size. The leaves are soft and somewhat hairy while the tubular red bells sit above the foliage and flower over a long season in late spring. Come autumn, all the leaves will fall off. This is a plant for dry shade but needs to be frost free.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

Garden lore

Garden radishes are in wantoness by the gentry eaten as a sallad, but they breed but scurvy humours in the stomach, and corrupt the blood, and then send for a physician as fast as you can.

The Compleat Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper (1653).

Spring planting – NOW

If you have not planted out your summer garden, now is the time to panic. An unseasonably cool spring may have led many to delay, but delay no longer because the official start of summer is a mere two weeks away. Top priority needs to be given to the plants which require the longest growing season. This includes capsicums, aubergines, both rock and water melons, kumara and even tomatoes. Starting with plants now, rather than seed, is advisable to get a jump start this late in the season. Other techniques are to plant in black plastic (which heats up the soil faster) and to use a cloche for the early stages because this heats up the air around the plant to encourage growth.

Ayrlies, by Beverley McConnell

The subtitle of this book is “My story, my garden” and that pretty much captures the flavour. These are Bev McConnell’s memoirs and as both the author and her garden reach maturity, the timing seems entirely appropriate. Her garden, Ayrlies, is located at Whitford, south east of Auckland and over the past 40 years, both the garden and the gardener have earned a leading position. This is a book about a garden, not a gardening book as such. The author writes about her own experiences and while there is wisdom and advice contained in the text, it is not a manual or a reference book.

I have not read anything written by Bev McConnell before, so it was a pleasant discovery to find that she has an easy and very readable style. She is disarmingly frank, almost alarmingly so at times. Given that this substantial and beautifully presented hardback extends to 270 pages, it is just as well the text is engaging. The many photos cover from her early family life in Wairoa (a wonderful photo of her standing on her tricycle seat as a little dot around 3 or 4), through the stages of her adult family life and the development of a bare patch of dirt into the large and handsome garden that is now known as Ayrlies.

In the New Zealand garden scene, Ayrlies is unusual in that it has had skilled labour employed from the start while the owner has kept complete control of the design, the planting and the management and has been an active participant at all stages. It is more common in this country for the major private gardens to have been established on the smell of an oily rag without any permanent staff at all, or, in more recent times for a wealthy owner to have handed over the whole project to a landscaper and crew. Bev McConnell has as much dirt beneath her finger nails as any of the staff she has employed over the years, but she has been able to realise her visions with extra input. It is an enviable position to which she has responded by taking an active role in encouraging others to lift their own standards of gardening. Her own garden is as much about interesting plants and good combinations as it is about design. She has kept her focus on the beguiling complexities of good planting, demonstrated so ably by Beth Chatto in England whom she acknowledges as a major inspiration.

The chapter on her huge wetlands project is particularly interesting and it may be that this will prove to be one of her great legacies over the coming decades.

Ayrlies, by Beverley McConnell (Published by Ayrlies Gardens and Wetlands Trust; ISBN: 978 0 473 21451 7)

First published by Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

The generosity of some gardeners and the vandalism by non gardeners

I smile each time I pass a property down our road. The frontage is a froth of flowers for much of the year. There is nothing choice. Most of them are common enough daisy bushes and pelargoniums which balloon out onto the road verge. It is just a delightful picture for the passing motorist – it being in a position where there is no foot traffic. What makes it a little bit special, to my mind, is that the sole reason for this planting is to bring pleasure to passersby. From my vantage point on the road verge, it looks as if the property owner would not really see this particular planting from their house windows or indeed from inside their garden. That shows a generous gardening spirit, in my opinion.

The contrast to the bleak hillside on the edge of my local town could not be more extreme. Until about two years ago, this hillside was fully planted in mixed trees and shrubs, many of which were flowering varieties. I am guessing the property was sold and that it was the previous owners who had planted it up two decades ago. We always enjoyed the roadside view, particularly because at the bottom, it had a well established specimen of our Magnolia Vulcan which the owners must have planted in a prominent position not long after we released it on the market. Being in town, the air temperature tends to be a degree or two warmer so this Vulcan would come into bloom every spring just ahead of the time it opens in our own garden. It was such a feature and was on the way to becoming a mature specimen.

Cleared entirely and left to weeds and erosion

Cleared entirely and left to weeds and erosion

The hillside is too steep to garden intensively or indeed to mow or graze, and it lacks sufficient space to be terraced so there is very little that can be done with it beyond establishing permanent plantings. It took a lot of plants to cover the area but over twenty years, they had grown to give an attractive cover which had knitted together in a patchwork of colour, foliage and flowers. It would have stopped most of the weed growth below, prevented the risk of slipping in rain and given an attractive drive in to reach the house at the top. It would also have required very little maintenance yet it brought a great deal of pleasure to passersby who stood to benefit the most. The house, perched on the top, looked over the plantings.

It must be two years ago now that I drove past as the hillside was being stripped. By stripped, I mean every tree and shrub was removed, even the Magnolia Vulcan at the base of the hill. My heart sank but I thought they must have plans to develop the property differently. Not so. After two years, all that remains are weeds, rank grass growth and clay. But wait – a billboard has appeared, advertising loans at 11.9% to people who cannot afford them to buy new cars. It’s a destructive travesty.

My guess is that new owners moved in and found the shrubs at the top of the slope were starting to block their soaring views across the town and maybe distant views of the river and sea. You have to understand that these are soaring views of a former freezing works town which is not noted for the beauty of its architecture. Rather than seeking advice as to how to frame views, to establish view shafts and to thin or selectively remove problem plants near the top of the slope, they went in and cleared the lot from top to bottom. Believe me, the house will have unimpeded views (and wind) at the top and the owners may never realise how much pleasure people used to receive because of the generous gardening spirit of the previous owners.

Fortunately, this planting facing State Highway 3 still grows and blooms

Fortunately, this planting facing State Highway 3 still grows and blooms

Fortunately a similar planting alongside the state highway survives. A different owner with another difficult slope of some area, she planted it around the same time. Many rhododendrons, camellias and flowering cherries grace this hillside along with a large specimen of Magnolia grandiflora at the base of the slope. Very little of it will be visible from the house and again it is relatively steep. It too has billboards but in this case they are faded old ones promoting the activity of golf, rather than the town’s newest finance company. Every day thousands of motorists pass the boundary and for three months in spring, many of them will notice seasonal blooms and maybe it will bring a smile to their day.

To me, that sets a standard for generous gardening, way beyond the sharing of cuttings and divisions. With no expectation of admiration or appreciation, these good folk create beautiful plantings in areas where they can see little from their own homes or outdoor living spaces. They are there to be enjoyed by passing strangers.