Tikorangi notes: Friday 18 February, 2011

LATEST POSTS: Friday 18 February, 2011

1) Not, apparently, Worsleya rayneri but Worsleya procera, the Empress of Brazil, in full flower as a garden plant.

2) An update on our prized resident gecko whose photograph gave rise to much interest amongst local herpetologists, we are told.

3) Garden tasks for the week with an acknowledgement that autumn is just around the corner.

4) Step by step instructions on dealing to wasp nests safely – Outdoor Classroom.

5) The ignominious end of the carefully crafted Christmas tree – now resembling a dead sheep in the wild garden.

The swimming pool garden

The swimming pool garden


TIKORANGI NOTES: Friday 18 February, 2011
Summer is a time for intensive gardening around here, though not much planting which needs to wait until autumn and winter. We have big plans for substantial new gardens where the nursery has stood in recent decades – good flat areas in full sun. However, before we embark on bringing in yet more garden area, I want to make sure that we can manage the areas we already have to the standard we want. Like most New Zealand gardens, we maintain a large area with a skeleton crew (Mark, me and our ever helpful staffer, Lloyd along with one friend of the garden). The swimming pool garden is not a prominent area and only tends to be noticed during the summer season but as I floated around in the water earlier last month, I realized I could no longer ignore it. We had tackled the massive Curculigo recurvata last winter, but the Cordyline stricta and the Ligularia reniformis were staging takeover bids. Next, it has been on to the subtropical gardens beneath our avenue of enormous rimu trees. Predominantly planted in bromeliads, this means a prickly task which more or less shredded my arms above the elbows where the protective gloves stopped, let alone the legs between ankle and knee. But the garden is looking hugely better for a major thinning effort. Gardens grow but the change can be so gradual that it can escape one’s notice just how much it has changed over time.
A pleasantly shaded garden to work in during summer

A pleasantly shaded garden to work in during summer

Plant Collector: Worsleya procera

Worsleya procera (syn. W. rayneri)

Worsleya procera (syn. W. rayneri)

The most special plants flowering in our garden this week are the Worsleya procera (syn. W. rayneri) and they are not only special because they have the wonderful common name of Empress of Brazil (which tells you where they come from). They are also extremely rare in cultivation, a very beautiful lilac-blue in colour and generally regarded as almost impossible to grow as garden plants. We have two growing in different positions in the garden where they are just left to their own devices with no special treatment at all. When we had an international tour of clivia enthusiasts through, a number were also bulb aficionados and they were genuinely impressed that we could grow and flower this choice bulb in the garden. They are usually grown as really pernickety container plants. True, our flower spikes do not match the 150cm in height that they are reputed to reach, but the flowers are large and a most unusual colour in the bulb world.

There is only one species of worsleya but if you go back a step to the extended family, they are related to hippeastrums, crinums and amaryllis. Apparently in Brazil, they grow on steep granite cliffs beside waterfalls (where it is hard to imagine a flower spike of 150cm) but our garden conditions in no way resemble the natural habitat. The foliage is really interesting, arching in a semi circular, sickle fashion. These bulbs are not for the impatient gardener. Mark was standing looking at one of ours with Auckland plantsman, Terry Hatch, who originally supplied it to us. They agreed that was a long time ago, maybe as much as eight years. Mark found the label and it was in fact fifteen years. It had taken thirteen years to flower the first time. Time flies, apparently, when you are a gardener. Sadly, both ours are the same clone (one was an offset) and you need two different clones to get viable seed. Pukekura Park’s worsleya in the Fernery is not going to flower this year so if any local readers happen to have one in flower, we would love to swap pollen.

Gecko update

gecko-009A kind reader from the herpetological society (www.reptiles.org.nz) rang to tell us that our gecko is most likely a heavily pregnant Hoplodactylus pacificus. This is good because it must mean that we have at least two resident gecko but it did necessitate a name change. Geck, or Gok was quickly renamed Glenys (Mark’s choice). She has been out sunbathing most days but apparently when she gives birth to her live young (probably two of them), we will no longer see her because she is largely nocturnal by nature, though we may catch sight of her babies which will apparently resemble matchsticks with legs. Alas, the babies are vulnerable to every predator you can think of, including other geckos, but we have our fingers crossed that this may indicate a hitherto unsuspected resident gecko population.

The flocking kereru have now increased to more than twenty and we are none the wiser as to why they are congregating here but we are pleased to have them around. They arrive in pairs or threes. Mark’s theory is that they are either introducing their young to their uncles and aunts or they are swapping slaves, or maybe troublesome adolescents.

In the Garden: February 18, 2010

Rather too high a ratio of barely edible pumpkin to seed yield

Rather too high a ratio of barely edible pumpkin to seed yield


· Do not delay on summer pruning cherry trees as time is running out.

· Get on to planting the winter vegetables too. They need the rest of summer and all of autumn to grow because once the winter cold comes, they stop growing though they will hold in the garden so you can harvest fresh each day. Fresh veg are usually much more expensive to buy in winter and spring rather than the bountiful summer and autumn so it makes economic sense to grow your own, even aside from the pleasure and satisfaction of gathering your own produce. So get the parsnips, carrots, peas, Florence fennel, beetroot and brassicas in. The turnip family too, if you regard them as suitable food for humans.

· We have been trying out growing pumpkin for seed this year – a variety that has no hulls so needs no separation. It is an oil-seed variety. Certainly the fresh pumpkin seed is delicious but based on the first gathering, it appears that you would need a very large area to attain self sufficiency in pumpkin seeds. And alas, the pumpkin flesh itself is of no merit. If you were starving, it might be okay to eat but it is nearly as bland as marrow.

· We have been a little slow on the uptake revisiting beetroot here but, as many others have discovered, when picked young and tender (about golf ball size), they are delicious cooked in a variety of ways but especially roasted. Beetroot can be sown from seed pretty much all year.

· Rocket and mesclun bolt to seed in summer but with cooler weather just around the corner, it is fine to return to sowing these crops from seed.

· If you have been intending to spray your rhododendrons for thrips (the cause of irrevocably silver leaves and a weaker plant), now is the time. You need to use a systemic insecticide so the plant sucks it into its system. Contact insecticide only kills where it touches and as the offenders are on the undersides of the leaf, you can’t get total coverage. The alternative is bands of old carpet or similar soaked in neem oil and secured around the main trunk. This approach seems to be getting good reports though we have yet to get around to trying it ourselves. Soaking a band in Confidor or similar insecticide will also work but wear gloves when handling it.

A handy implement for dealing to lawn weeds

A handy implement for dealing to lawn weeds

· Autumn is an optimum time for sowing or over sowing grass so if your lawn is looking very sad, you can start preparing it now for resowing in a few weeks time. Getting out the flat weeds is a good start. You can either dig them out (I have a very handy tool for this), sprinkle them with sulphate of ammonia or use a designated lawn spray. Don’t feed your lawn at this time. We are too dry and it is more likely to kill the remaining grass instead.

Destroying wasp nests – step-by-step

1) Wasp nests need to be killed off or they can build up to a dangerous size and over-winter. If you see a few wasps, follow them to see where the nest is. These can be in holes in the ground, in dense vegetation, in holes in walls and, on occasion, in your house roof. It is probably best to call the professionals for any inside your house, but garden nests can be dealt to safely and easily.

2) We use a very small quantity of Lorsban (available to approved handlers only) but any powdered insecticide will work. Carbaryl is widely used. The critical detail is that it needs to be in powder form because you are relying on the wasps unwittingly transferring the powder into the nest. Use gloves whenever handling insecticide as a safety precaution.

3) Mark has a measuring spoon wired to a pole about two metres long. You need a steady hand but this means he never has to get near the nest and he has never been stung using this approach. It takes under half a teaspoon to kill most nests, depending on the accuracy of your placement.

4) Morning is the best time. The wasps are a little dozy because they have not yet warmed up and most are out foraging. As they return they will take the powder in. We do not recommend evening or dusk. You are far more vulnerable to attack when they are all in residence. Move lightly and quietly to sprinkle the poison around the entrance, ideally on the inward side. Heavy footed stomping or noise will put the wasps on alert. It only takes a matter of an hour or two to kill the nest out if you get your placement of the insecticide right.

5) If you want to avoid using insecticide, you can kill them with petrol fumes but you have to get closer and the risk of being stung is higher. Partially fill a small bottle with about 200ml of petrol and plug the top of it into the hole so the fumes and liquid flow in and it blocks the exit. The biggest drawback here is that you need to do this on dusk or at night when all the wasps are in residence. It is the fumes that kill them. Do not set fire to it. Move very quietly and lightly. Generally nests have guard wasps which will fly straight at you. For this reason, Mark strongly favours the insecticide in the morning.