Tikorangi Diary: Friday 8 July, 2011

Footprint in the frost

Footprint in the frost

Today feels like the first blast of real winter. As it is now the second week of July, I guess we can hardly complain. Spring starts here in August. A visible frost earlier in the week had me out with the camera which is an indicator that they are not common events here. As Lloyd and I tramped across the lawn and I photographed the footprints, I did briefly ponder the advice not to walk on frosted grass. Sure enough, the footprints had turned black the next day.

The bananas are partially tucked up for winter, just in time

The bananas are partially tucked up for winter, just in time

Fortunately, Mark had covered his bananas a few days earlier. This is one fruit which we have to nurse through the winter, though we did scoff a little at the advice in the local paper last week to cover your citrus in frost cloth. We have never worried about the citrus and it has never been a problem.

Lloyd does build a nice stone pillar when required

Lloyd does build a nice stone pillar when required

Lloyd finally finished the repairs to one of the stone walls – he does build a nice stone pillar when needed, does our Lloyd. This one was started from scratch. Since then, poor man, he has been out lifting the last of the open ground magnolia crops. We still have to sell some plants here to pay for the garden so the call of the nursery has taken him away from the garden. So too for Mark, who has been spent most of his time putting in cuttings (mostly michelias from his breeding programme as he conducts propagation trials). It is getting close to the end of the cuttings season now, though we only put in a shadow of what we used to when the nursery was in full production.

Mark is out and about most evenings after dark with the dogs in search of troublesome possums who may be developing a taste for magnolia buds. Every year without fail, we get asked about magnolia trees which are opening badly deformed flowers. In our experience, the culprit is always a possum, and usually only one. Magnolias are not possum magnets as the oranges or fresh growth on roses are, but one single minded critter can take out most of the buds on a single tree over a matter of nights. Because they chew down into the centre of the bud, the damage is not obvious until the tree tries to open the flower. Mark usually does autopsies on the possums he shoots (which is to say, he analyses the contents of their stomachs to see what they have been feeding on) and upon occasion he will find one chock-a-block with magnolia buds.

Besides doing a little fiddly-faddly potting of plants to sell during our annual garden festival at the end of October (a very important time for us), I have abandoned my efforts on the rose garden (I just don’t enjoy working in that area and I have not worked out yet what is wrong with it). I will have to return to it to finish, but it has been much more fun to work in an under-used area of the woodland. I have been planting drifts of bulbs – big bulbs like Scadoxus puniceus (given that we can sell each big bulb for about $25 because it is rare here, it felt wonderfully indulgent to plant a drift of about 30 of them), Scadoxus katherinae, Haemanthus albifloss and Haemanthus conccineus. I find bulbs much more rewarding than those wretched roses and I can live with their scruffy foliage when they start to go dormant – though H. albifloss is evergreen and the others have quite short dormancy periods. I am only just getting to grips with the fact that large clumps of bulbs need more regular lifting and dividing to stop them from falling apart when in full growth. We did the auratum lilies this time last year and most of them held themselves up in summer, without needing staking. Every three to four years seems to be about right for these types of large bulbs.

For a change from grubbing in the dirt, I have been pruning rhododendrons. These are a backbone plant in our garden and winter is the ideal time for hard pruning. They do look better when dead wood and wayward branches have been removed. A few get subjected to a really hard prune back to bare stems though this sacrifices this year’s floral display for a better long term outcome.

I was going to dig some of the huge clumps of yellow clivias today, replant the largest sections and pot some of the smaller divisions for sale but it was too cold for me to want to garden. It can wait. Clivias are tough, forgiving plants and the timing of lifting and dividing is not critical at all. In fact, they won’t turn a hair, as long as they are treated properly, no matter when it is done. It shouldn’t stay this cold for long. I even caught myself with the camera, starting a photo shoot on how to divide clivias for an Outdoor Classroom – old habits die hard.

The magnolias are coming into flower. At this stage, just M. campbelli and Vulcan but the buds are swelling fast and starting to show glimpses of colour on many others. It makes this time of year one of the most exciting for us.

Magnolia Vulcan is coming in to flower

Magnolia Vulcan is coming in to flower

Growing garlic

Sown in late autumn, the garlic is well into growth here - seen with an unusually heavy frost which had me out with the camera this morning

Sown in late autumn, the garlic is well into growth here - seen with an unusually heavy frost which had me out with the camera this morning

We have been talking about garlic.This is because of the repeated advice from a local garden centre that it is not too late to plant garlic but you must start it off in trays and transplant in several weeks time when the bulbs have made good growth. It is an approach that will work (though individual pots cause less root disturbance at the time of transplant rather than trays) but it is a lot of work that we are not convinced is necessary.

Garlic can be planted directly into the ground. It is not difficult to get it growing. Within a few days of planting, it should be showing fresh root. But it is getting late in the planting season and should be done immediately. Increasingly, we are of the opinion that it is an unhelpful old wives’ tale that it should be planted on the shortest day and harvested on the longest day. These days, Mark plants it in autumn, a practice which is becoming increasingly common in this country. Autumn planting means the cloves are already growing well before the ground becomes cold and sodden.

The single biggest issue with garlic is that you need to know where they come from because you want NZ garlic. Cheap imported garlic may look fine and clean but it is usually from China, so from the wrong hemisphere and therefore on an opposite seasonal sequence. Added to that, imported garlic is reputed to be troubled by garlic virus which you do not need to unleash.

Other growing tips:

• Break the garlic bulb into single cloves and only plant the big ones. It is a waste of time planting small cloves.

• Plant at about 10cm spacings into ground which has been dug over well and is friable and fluffy.

• Put the cloves in so they are about 2cm deep to the top of the clove. Press them down firmly because they can push themselves out of the ground as they start to grow.

• Pile on the compost on top of the soil. Garlic is a hungry plant. Real enthusiasts will liquid feed regularly and keep the fertiliser up to them and it is likely to result in a bigger and better harvest. We are busy here with a big garden so Mark just plants well, keeps the area weedfree and that is pretty much it until harvest time.

• If we get a very dry spell in spring, that can be a problem. Check the crop. You may have to water them if we get several weeks without rain.

• Harvest around mid summer when the bulbs have reached maturity. You do not have to wait for the tops to die off. Dry the garlic before storing (plaited is the traditional approach) – hanging in an airy situation helps it to last longer.

And, basically, that is about it. Keep the vampires at bay.

Ornithological bickering and squabbling

Three paradise ducks but spot the shag

Three paradise ducks but spot the shag


The paradise ducks were not at all thrilled by the shag in their old pine tree (you can just see the silhouette of the shag amongst the pine needles but it is about 20 metres up the tree) and were attempting to move it on by verbal abuse. The bellbirds don’t like the tui (one tui, two tui – we have many tui but they don’t have an s to make them plural). Everybody hates poor old Hedwhig the Morepork and the tui will persist in lording it over pretty much every other feathered inhabitant of the garden, including each other. Clearly these birds do not believe in peaceful co-existence.

Tikorangi Notes: Sunday 26 June, 2011

Latest Posts:

1) Growing citrus in the Taranaki garden – the first part of a random series drawing on our experience of growing fruit trees in the home garden here. With the abundance of tui in our garden, I did briefly ponder calling it the Tui Tikorangi Fruit Garden as a nod and a wink to the somewhat infamous publication from Penguin. Given that we also have a surprising and gratifying number of bellbirds or korimako in residence at the moment, Mark was of the opinion that I could instead draw on the common name for these songbirds – mockers. So, perhaps, The Mockers Tikorangi Fruit Garden. At least our advice is based on practical experience underpinned by some horticultural experience….

2) Meet Hedwhig the Morepork (our native owl, also called a ruru).

3) Tikorangi Diary – aka what we have been up to in the garden this week from pruning roses and wisteria to planting broad beans and peas with a bit more inbetween.

The lovely flowers of the early season michelias

The lovely flowers of the early season michelias

Tikorangi Diary: June 26, 2011

We New Zealanders have a love affair with white flowers. I was told that Rose Flower Carpet White is easily the biggest selling colour in this country but not internationally. My informant put this down to the fact that snow never settles here for long (except in alpine ski villages) and, indeed, most of the country never even sees snow. Winter white is a colour from a clothing catalogue, not the view from our windows. Which is by way of introducing two very different white flowered plants in bloom this week – the charming snowdrops (no snow, but growing here happily with cyclamen and lachenalias) and the white perfection of one of our early flowering michelias. One of the attributes of gardening in a soft climate such as ours is that we can have flowers for twelve months of the year in the garden. We tend to take it for granted until we see people gardening in much harsher climates. The corollary is that weeds and grass also keep growing all the time, but that is a small price to pay when mid-winter can still be brightened by the loveliest of blooms.

No snow, but we have plenty of snowdrops coming in to flower

No snow, but we have plenty of snowdrops coming in to flower

Tikorangi Diary: Sunday June 25, 2011

The wisteria festooned bridge in spring

The wisteria festooned bridge in spring

I have pruned the wisterias. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with wisterias which seem to make a leap for freedom the moment my back is turned, but they certainly add to the spring display. The blue (sinensis Blue Sapphire) and white (floribunda Snow Showers) which festoon one of our bridges in the park look terribly romantic in flower, but they are inclined to try and join hands across the middle. And I am worried that some of their thicker branches are threatening the bridge timbers. We don’t worry about the borer attacks. Wisteria are not shy and backward plants which need nurturing so I just cut out badly affected branches as need be. Mark’s mother had a lovely blue wisteria up the wall of the house outside her bedroom window but Felix took it out. I can’t recall now whether he waited til after she died (when the climbing roses went west) but I can remember being a little sad at his actions. These days I know exactly why he removed it. I have had the spouting cracked outside my office window. The last thing we need is a rampant wisteria lifting the concrete roof tiles on the house and cracking our vintage spouting there.

I am also pruning the roses and my relationship with these leans more to hate than love. Yes they have beautiful flowers and fresh foliage in spring. Because we don’t spray, come summer they have some beautiful flowers but cruddy foliage. In winter, all they do is try and ensnare me as I work around the areas where they are planted. I do not feel the need to plant more roses until breeders start to offer us more options in beautifully full, fragrant blooms (of the David Austen type) on bushes that repeat flower and don’t get diseased, preferably without thorns. By far and away, the best performers here are Rose Flower Carpet white and coral, the rugosas and one called, I think, Golden Celebration which has fearsome thorns but very good habits otherwise. But none of these give me the soft and subtle flowers of the lovely Austens.

I had a matched pair of standard Mary Roses of which I was very fond. Note the past tense. Today I dug out the one that is all but dead and which has for a long time persisted in putting out strong shoots from the root stock. And therein lies a demonstration of the problem of matched, formal plantings. What do you do when one dies or ails badly? It is much easier to get the formal look with inanimate objects. I could probably source a replacement standard but I am not going to. I do not think anyone but me will notice that there is one half of a pair missing. It is a garden which, at its best, is full of froth and flower within a formal setting. I think the setting is enough – I will not worry about trying to repeat the formality in framework planting.

Repairing the stone wall (a pine tree fell on this section some years ago)

Repairing the stone wall (a pine tree fell on this section some years ago)

Shamed by a current shortage of greens, Mark is out planting a large quantity of broad beans and peas. I could tell he is going for overkill when he wanted to discuss whether broad beans would freeze well if picked young. The deep freeze is currently full of his frozen corn which, he pointed out to me, we need to be eating at the rate of one packet every 72 hours if we are to get through it before the next crop comes in. The garlic is long planted and is well into growth. These days, he takes Kay Baxter’s advice (from Koanga Institute) and aims to get it planted in autumn so it gets away before sodden winter conditions set in. He is also trying her recommended approach to plant it in a metre grid on a 10 x 10 arrangement (so at 10cm spacing) which is a great deal more economical in space than the usual rows. Keeping it to a metre square means it is easy enough to reach into the middle to weed. I am hoping Lloyd is going to remember that he said he would smoke me some garlic while we still have plenty of last summer’s crop hanging in good condition. Lloyd is the one who owns a smoker here. Smoked garlic is particularly delicious when raw garlic is called for in recipes such as aioli.

When not fluffing around with his vegetable garden, Mark has been giving his attention to his michelia propagation trials. With the flowering season just starting, the hybridist’s hat is back on his head and we face many months where the first call on his time will be his plant breeding. It is easy to underestimate just how much time and energy goes into a controlled plant breeding programme as opposed to people who just pick out chance seedlings (or worse: copy what other breeders have already done successfully. Expect to hear more on this topic, which is a sore point here).

Lloyd is continuing with repairs to our stone wall. I did say last week that these activities are best measured in terms of results, not costs….

And while the winter/early spring bulb season is just starting (Narcissus bulbocodium, galanthus, leucojums and the early lachenalias), it is the bromeliads which are the unsung hero for winter colour this week. If you can grow broms, they sure are eye-catching in bloom.

Bromeliads for winter colour. This one is a Bilbergia.

Bromeliads for winter colour. This one is a Bilbergia.