Plant Collector: Narcissus jonquilla and Narcissus bulbocodium

Dainty but with a strong perfume - N. jonquilla

Dainty but with a strong perfume – N. jonquilla

We have been taking a closer look at the narcissi this spring, picking out the ones which flower for longer periods and, latterly, the later flowering varieties. It would be good to have more flowering near the bluebells which are in full flight now. Most daffodils that you see around and buy as bulbs are hybrids. We are back to the original species this week with two which are flowering after most of the others have been, done and gone.

First up is the daintiest, tiniest and most fragrant jonquil species imaginable. It happens to be known as Narcissus jonquilla and is native to Spain and Portugal where it can be found in damp places. There can be up to five flowers per stem, each not much more than 2cm across.

Narcissus bulbocodium - one of the last to flower here

Narcissus bulbocodium – one of the last to flower here

Then there is Narcissus bulbocodium, also known as the hoop petticoat daffodil. It has no scent but if you have a good form of it, it flowers in abundance. It looks as if it only has the corona, which is what the trumpet is called, but it actually has a little frill of six tiny pointed petals making a star near its base. It too comes from the Iberian Peninsula but can be found as far south as Northern Africa. Despite that, it is hardy and sufficiently strong growing to naturalise. Both species have fine, grassy foliage.

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

Weeding – just like outdoor vaccum cleaning, really

Edging tools, push hoes and our well-used petrol powered line trimmer

Edging tools, push hoes and our well-used petrol powered line trimmer

Weeding. It’s the garden equivalent of vacuuming really. Tedious, repetitive and while the place looks great when you have finished, all too soon you need to start again. I guess you could ignore the weeding part (if not the vacuuming) but most of us prefer a garden that is pretty much free of weeds. In fact most of us place a high priority on this state.

There is a much higher tolerance for weeds in some other gardening countries, particularly in Britain. This may well have something to do with the fact that the vast majority of our weeds in this country are imports and a fair number are in fact native to Britain and Europe – plants like dandelion and blackberry, for example. We are probably more tolerant of our self seeding native plants too. I don’t refer to the scores of nikau palms we pull out and dig out as weeds. They are merely self seeded plants in the wrong place whereas the buttercup and campanulata cherry seedlings are indubitably weeds.

I have to admit we weed spray here though Mark is trying to reduce the amount he does. Glyphosate is pretty much all that stands between us and claiming organic status, but in a large garden, glyphosate is oft described as the equivalent of a labour unit. It is much faster to whip around with the knapsack sprayer than to hand weed. Mark has spent the last decade gently worrying that research will come up with definitive arguments against the use of glyphosate. It hasn’t happened yet, to his relief. But in this day of heightened sensibilities, he is rarely to be spotted by any garden visitor with the knapsack on his back. He hides, dear Reader. True.

The rusted Niwashi, implement for flat weeds and aptly branded Wonder Weeder

The rusted Niwashi, implement for flat weeds and aptly branded Wonder Weeder

We have a repertoire of weeding implements here and do a fair amount of hand weeding too. Others swear by the Niwashi weeder, to the extent that Mark bought one and it was relatively expensive as I recall. I asked him this week if he had ever used it because I never have. Neither has he, apparently, but somebody here must have because it made the trip right through the compost heaps emerging after about a year at the other end. Mark is a push hoe man and keeps his favourite two well sharpened. However push hoes come with a warning – refer to the quote of the day below! I have heard of one public garden which banned push hoes in the hands of volunteers because they caused so much damage. I favour the precision of close up work with the cheap and cheerful Wonder Weeder – so cheap that I have several and so sturdy that they can emerge from the compost heap pretty much unscathed. These implements work best in loose, friable soil. It is much harder work in compacted earth but a breeze where it is easy to scuff up the surface and hook out or sever weeds.

We also have edging tools – ones designed for both hard edges (where grass meets a solid surface like a path) and soft edges. And let’s not forget the petrol powered line trimmer but that is excessive unless you have a large section. These are because of a strongly held opinion on Mark’s part that little looks worse than sprayed edges. You know that dead brown line others have? Not here. The lawn weeder is also well used since we made the decision not to spray the lawns. Nothing works as well on flat weeds as this handy implement.

The bottom line of weeding is that vigilance and early intervention lessens the task. There is an old saying: “one year’s seeding, seven year’s weeding”. You can never completely eliminate weeding but if you can stop seeding, you certainly lessen the load considerably. We are lucky in that we took over this garden from Mark’s father who was a vigilant weeder. True, he leaned towards the chemical arsenal to carry this out as so many of that generation did. But at least we don’t have soils jampacked with weed seeds waiting to germinate. Where a patch may have got away from us and set seed heads, we usually have a bucket on hand to receive them. If you cut them off and leave them lying on the ground, the seeds can still ripen and live to germinate another day. For the same reason, gardening clothes with pockets can be handy.

Spitting cress

Spitting cress

Get ‘em when they are small and much easier to deal with. Soon after germinating is the best time, before they have well established root systems. They are far easier to hoick out of the ground and far more likely to die instantly at that tender stage. While the saying that a weed is merely a plant in the wrong place is repeated so often it has become a cliché, I can not think that the nasty spitting cress fits this kind interpretation. Every gardener knows it – the little flat weed which can go from first appearance to setting seed in a matter of days in full summer. As soon as you touch it, it jet propels its seeds around to ensure immortality. Vigilance – that is the single most important mantra. Target the worst offenders and maybe be a bit more relaxed about some of the others.

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

Garden lore

Don’t wait until January to batten down the hatches for summer. As you do the spring tidy and weed, follow up by laying mulch. This slows the soil from drying out over summer and suppresses many weeds from germinating. A loose layer of compost, bark chip, calf shed shavings or similar organic material needs to be about 6cm deep in order to be effective. For more information on garden mulches, check out Outdoor Classroom.

“Hoeing: a manual method of severing roots from stems of newly planted flowers and vegetables.”

Henry Beard (American humourist).

Yates Garden Problem Solver

This is a handy reference book for diagnosing many common problems in the garden, predominantly of the pest or disease variety. It is reasonably comprehensive though not encyclopaedic. Each ailment is given a brief description, usually with a clear illustration, and then advice for dealing with it or avoiding the problem happening again. I like the fact the illustrations are paintings, not photographs because it gives a much clearer picture. I also like the fact that not every recommended treatment involves buying a Yates product. So when spinach bolts to seed prematurely, the advice is that this can be caused by long days, summer temperatures, dry conditions and overcrowding. Sow summer spinach (well, ‘Summer Supreme’ actually – presumably one of Yates’ own). There is a fair amount of handy general information which is not commercially driven, though the organic section is pretty perfunctory. That said, we are talking an interventionist approach to gardening and where products are recommended, they are branded Yates products – it is their book after all. We double checked the ingredients of branded sprays and the in-house expert here gave the advice a general thumbs up for accuracy. I am a bit suspect about spraying cheap annuals like pansies and hollyhocks. I am more of the view that you rip out diseased plants and try a different strategy with replacements but if you are an older style gardener who reaches for the sprayer at the drop of a hat, at least you will have a diagnosis and know which spray to use.

The book is well laid out, easy to use and has a strong plastic cover which is a fair indication that it is designed for repeated reference. It is aimed at the average gardener, not the expert, and will be a handy book for many gardeners to keep within reach. You can of course use it to diagnose problems without having to follow the treatment advice if you are not happy with the use of fungicides and insecticides.

Yates Garden Problem Solver (Harper Collins; ISBN: 978 186950 981 1) Reviewed by Abbie Jury.

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

No problems with petrochem development in Taranaki????

Don't worry. No probs here in Taranaki. Apparently.

Don’t worry. No probs here in Taranaki. Apparently.

It has been an interesting week with the Petroleum Summit in Wellington. Lesser folk have conferences, but this was, apparently, a summit. Interesting snippets were reported. Alarming snippets, even.

1) Minister of Energy, Phil Heatley, was reported as saying of protesters at the summit: “They will have arrived in cars and buses like everyone else and they are extreme”. “They are not really New Zealand. They have concerns but they are not really middle-class New Zealand”. “Protesters are against everything so don’t worry about them too much.”

The subtext might well be: “Our government only represents the middle class voter. These people aren’t going to vote for us so who cares about them?” It is such a breathtakingly naive statement that it must reflect his thinking.

But oh, we do get so irritated by that old chestnut of a simplistic argument: “You drive a car so you are a hypocrite if you ever complain. Lie back and think of Mother England and let the companies do what they wish.” As my partner says, he owns a gun but that doesn’t mean he thinks war is a good thing. The Minister reinforces the view that you are either with the companies – ergo progressive – or you are The Enemy. There is middle ground. It is possible to be critical of some of the companies’ practices without being opposed to oil and gas extraction in its entirety.

2) Still with our man at the Beehive, Minister Heatley assured the petrochemical delegates: “We like you. National likes you and we like what you do and we very much like what you do in Taranaki for the last 100 years, pretty much under the radar, with really no problem.” Right-o then. No probs. (Both those quotes from the Taranaki Daily News, Sept 20).

3) Mr Heatley’s government minions appear to be taking the same line. One Nick Hallett (chief adviser in the resources policy unit of the business, innovation and employment ministry – no capital letters used in the Dom Post where this was reported on Sept 20) is reported as saying that a way of convincing the wider country might be “getting Taranaki to go and speak to other Councils”. Best take care, Mr Hallett, that you chose the Right People from Taranaki to carry out that particular task. I can recommend just the person to do that job – ref point 6. You certainly may not be wanting to send any of the concerned lawyers who appear to be alarmed at the changing nature of contracts.

4) The Stratford Press of September 12 had an interesting article. A meeting of eight Taranaki law firms was convened to discuss concerns at some of the contracts they were seeing their landowner clients signing. “Once the agreement is signed, it is signed,” Mr Philip Armistead from Thomson, O’Neil & Co is quoted as saying, sounding a warning that the potential impact of not understanding what is being signed could be huge. “I have seen agreements where, for laying pipelines, access is also granted to land other than where the pipeline is being laid; some clauses in access agreements provide consent for other associated activities forever; and some limits the companies’ liability should something go wrong.” It used to be that a Federated Farmers contract was used as the basis for access but now there is an escalating trend for oil and gas companies to push their own agreements which are written to favour the company.

5) Board member for NZ Oil and Gas, Paul Foley, has no doubts that there needs to be better public relations for the petrochem industry to counterbalance the increasing levels of scrutiny and protest and, if the Dom Post reported him correctly on September 20, he knows who should be responsible for that PR push – the Government! In other words, the taxpayer should pay for PR to make the public more sympathetic, to discredit any objections and to force locals to grin and bear it.

6) Arguably the most outrageous of all were the comments to the summit by the CEO of Taranaki Regional Council, Basil Chamberlain, as reported in the Taranaki Daily News on September 20. He heads the body that is tasked with monitoring the petrochemical activities in Taranaki. He was apparently a “popular” speaker. I am sure he was, if the reporting was even halfway accurate. “In his address, Mr Chamberlain said oil and gas had a 150-year history here but was still seen as a ‘visitor’ in contrast to agriculture which had ‘full citizenship status’. ‘This status needs to change,’ he said”.

“In short, putting greenhouse gas emissions arguably aside, at this regional scale, across land, fresh water, air or coastal resources, the industry has negligible adverse impacts,” Mr Chamberlain is reported as saying.

Where does one even start? Probably with the breathtaking inappropriateness of the CEO of the monitoring body taking on a role of strong advocate for and supporter of the very companies his organisation is meant to be monitoring. Surely, the Taranaki Regional Council should be seen to be neutral on the matter? This is not the first time Mr Chamberlain has spoken out in support of the industry in Taranaki.

It is of course wilfully brazen to compare major companies, many with a strong multinational holding, to the traditional activity of family farming. Chalk and cheese come to mind.

7) How wonderfully ironic that the very same paper that lead its front page with Mr Chamberlain’s comments also ran a story on page 3 that very same day. There is a bit of a problem with contaminated soil at a Kapuni well site which has had to be trucked out of the province for specialist disposal. “Cleanup of the long-standing contamination at Kapuni well sites started with soil containing hydrocarbons and metals from fluids produced from the KA2 well site,” the paper tells us. It appears that this is the first of four sites to be cleaned up with reasonable urgency. “In the past, fluids from well operations were intermittently released into pits …. (which were) unlined… common industry practice at the time.” These days steel tanks are used, but one wonders how much residue is sitting round on old sites. It is not a comforting thought. But Mr Chamberlain (ref point 6 above) has told the industry that adverse effects are negligible so obviously nobody needs to worry. And Mr Heatley, (ref point 2 above) says there is really no problem.

And still, the local residents get ignored. Taranaki Regional Council certainly doesn’t care about them, even though they are ratepayers. And this National Government doesn’t give a toss either, if Mr Heatley’s comments are any indication. We are just part of the “negligible adverse impacts”.

I can’t be middle class after all. Not according to Mr Heatley. Clearly I’m not really a New Zealander either. In fact I don’t count at all because I am not such a fan of what is happening around me.