In the garden this week: September 3, 2010

Magnolia Iolanthe is opening her flowers

Magnolia Iolanthe is opening her flowers

• Spring is here. The magnolias are fantastic right at the moment so take the time to get out to parks and gardens to admire them.

• If you use annuals for spring display, you will need to buy plants now and get them out to the garden. It is too late to do seeds for spring but you can start your summer annuals in trays or pots for planting out later. If you are planting baby plants, pinch out the flowers and any long growths to encourage bushiness. If your plant gets stressed soon after planting out, it will try to ensure its survival by skipping most of the flowering step and going straight to seed. You can discourage this by disbudding it because this forces more growth.

• Now is the time to prune luculias which can get very leggy if left entirely to their own devices. Try and find two leaf buds down the stems and prune back to these. As the plant flushes with spring growth, it leads to a bushier shape.

• Get around all your rhododendrons and vireyas as soon as possible to get dead out wood and to carry out any pruning required. This is one plant you prune now, not after flowering. You want to make the most of the plant’s spring flush. If you prune them after that growth flush, you will weaken the plant and make it more difficult for it recover from heavy pruning. Follow up with a feed and some mulch – rhododendrons are surface rooting so they can easily fry in dry conditions.

• Time is running out for planting onions if you want a decent crop. Get your seed in this weekend.

• The advice on using washing powder as a moss killer has certainly caught the attention of many readers. I am suspecting that the cheap budget powder I have tried is not as effective as Cold Water Surf. But more interesting was the gentleman who emailed to say that he bought straight washing soda (sodium carbonate or Na2CO3 ) in bulk from Bin Inn and he tried applying it both lightly as one broadcasts lawn seed and more heavily so it was visible. Within two days, the moss was dead. It also killed the pesky liverwort. For those who care about the environment, washing soda is arguably a purer option, lacking all the extra additions of washing powder and it appears that you don’t need to be heavy handed to get a good result. You are, by the way, using these in powder form.

Countdown to Festival, September 3

• Down in Kakaramea, the self-styled Angelina Jolies of the chicken world (that is Jacq and Mich Dwyer of Te Rata) are pleased that their now pampered chickies are starting to lay again. These are 10 rescue birds – hence the Angelina reference – poor featherless things when adopted, who now live in the lap of luxury and fortunately know how to show their appreciation. Jacq reports that Mich has planted three types of potatoes so far. She splits the bags with neighbour Emma who reciprocates later in the season when they plant the next crop. Jacq has enclosed her rose garden in an electric fence as a temporary measure to keep out the marauding possums which are capable of taking off every new shoot overnight.

• Te Popo gardeners, Lorri and Bruce Ellis have been making paths safe. First up, the attractive but dangerously slippery brick path from the back door had to be lifted. Lorri says the gravel may not look quite as pleasing aesthetically but it is at least safe. In a damp climate, anything that becomes slippery when moss grows is a hazard – Lorri notes that they have also learned that large river stone steps are very treacherous. With a very steep section linking the bottom of their dell to a bridge constructed from wharf piles, Bruce has had to use a plastic product recommended for cattle races and also recently installed on the track from the car park at Dawson Falls to Wilkes Pool. The material is laid down, secured and then the cavities are filled with fine stones and gravel. Lorri is pleased with the result. She says it is hardly visible but your feet feel very secure and it stops the surface from scouring out when it rains.

• At Havenview Vegetable Garden, Maree Rowe is fed up with the rain but at least she has managed to get her Jerusalem artichokes and yacon dug up and the best tubers replanted. I had to look up yacon – a starchy root vegetable prized in the Andes. I had mentally placed it as Japanese but that of course is the daikon which is something radish-y, not to be confused with a brand of heat pump. The yacon sounds more interesting. Maree’s garden is to be featured in the Weekend Gardener soon as part of the lead-in to this year’s festival. She just wishes her potager had more to show but it is at least weed-free and tidy and by the time the actual event arrives, the seeds should be sprouting in abundance.

• In Hawera at Puketarata, Jennifer Horner has been worried about her lawns and about getting the timing right for doing work on them so they look improved by the end of October. She was disconcerted to see the tops of her pohutakawas down the driveway get tickled up by frost this year but they will be flushing with new growth shortly. Apparently Hawera received a doozy of a frost this year which more northerly gardeners escaped entirely.

• At La Rosaleda in New Plymouth, Collen Peri is a great deal more relaxed about opening this year now that she knows what to expect. She has done her first round of fertilising – mostly blood and bone and Bioboost, following up with a mulch of Grunt. None of her plants should feel hard done by after that lot. She says she is a novice when it comes to her little vegetable patch but she does like to grow strawberries and cherry tomatoes for her little fellow Will to pick and her Moneymaker tomatoes astonished her last year with their ability to thrive and crop despite complete neglect. This spring will be an exciting one for Coleen at her iris patch which is located away from her garden. She bought a large (very large, actually) collection of bearded irises from a mail order nursery closing down and this spring, she will get to see the whole range in flower.

Outdoor Classroom: Moving large plants, a step-by-step guide

???????????????????????????????1) This tree aloe (Aloe thraskii) is in the wrong place and has been for at least fifteen years. Large plants can be moved, but this involves taking a large enough root ball to support the top. It is best carried out between late autumn and early spring so that the plant has a chance to settle in and put out new roots before summer.

??????????????????????2) A large trench needs to be dug out, wide enough for you to stand in. This trench is around 60cm deep. Dig it with straight sides to start with. It allows you to look at the plant’s roots and to get access right underneath the plant. Keep it well out from the plant because you can make the root ball smaller but you can’t make it larger again.
???????????????????????????????3) Standing inside the trench, start digging to excavate right underneath the plant. We wanted to keep the root ball relatively whole to act as an anchor because this plant is very top heavy. Gradually reduce the size of the clump, removing excess dirt, keeping a close eye on the root system. If it has a huge root system, you don’t want to be cutting into it too much. If it has a smaller root system, you can reduce it to a size that is more easily managed. We were surprised at how small the root system was on this plant and they were mainly on the surface.
???????????????????????????????4) Get some heavy plastic, sacking or old weedmat underneath the plant. Do this by rocking the plant to one side and getting the wrapping right underneath it. This usually requires more than one person. Do not let the roots dry out at any stage. With very big plants, the plant can be raised out of the hole by tilting it to one side and backfilling that side. Then rock the plant back and put dirt in on the other side. Repeat the process until you have raised the plant to the level where you can lever it out of the hole more easily. We moved this plant on the front bucket of our baby tractor. You may need to do it by trailer.
???????????????????????????????5) In this process, we had an accident and the heavy top was knocked out so we were forced to cut the the poor aloe back but there is no reason why it should not recover. Get the planting level as close as possible to where was. Measure the depth of the root ball and the depth of the hole before planting by placing a board across the hole and measuring from that. Put the stake or stakes in before the plant so that you do not cause more damage to the roots by driving the stakes through them later. We have gone for one very strong stake and a flexible tie.
???????????????????????????????6) Two years later and the plant is recovering well although the foliage has yet to reach its former spread. It should now be safe to remove the stake.

Camellia Diary 5, August 29, 2010

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Dainty little camellia species minutiflora

Dainty little camellia species minutiflora

The reticulatas, in this case Glowing Embers, are good value in the garden, despite the ravages of petal blight

The reticulatas, in this case Glowing Embers, are good value in the garden, despite the ravages of petal blight

In years gone by (that is, in days pre-dating rampant camellia petal blight), now would be the time when we would be enjoying mass flowering in the japonica camellias. That has gone. But the reticulata camellias have come into their own. Because most are red, petal blight does not show up as badly and with such huge blooms, the spoiled flowers fall cleanly to the ground. And they still mass flower for us, even if we measure their flowering season in weeks, not months. Reticulatas have become hard to source these days. Few grow on their own roots so they have to be grafted and in this day and age, that is a skill which has all but died out. Most buyers can’t tell the difference between a grafted plant and one which can be mass produced with little skill and great ease so they don’t understand why the former plant should be so much more expensive than the latter. It is a good argument for home gardeners learning the more advanced skills needed to produce these plants at home for themselves. Most of the retics in our garden were grafted by Mark’s father Felix, back in the 1950s and 60s – now they are small trees.

Spring Festival - pretty as a picture

Spring Festival - pretty as a picture

The other group of plants which continue to last the distance in the garden are the miniature flowered varieties, both hybrids and species. Any miniature flowered variety worth its salt should have masses of buds and flowers so it doesn’t matter if petal blight attacks after two or three days because there are so many fresh buds opening and individual blooms rarely last longer than a couple of days. Spring Festival is an American hybrid registered 35 years ago but I wish it had been one of ours because it is as pretty as a picture – a particularly pretty shade of pink with an attractive flower form, plenty of flowers, good pillar growth and a pleasing glaucous cast to the leaf colour. Camellias are a bit like roses – far too many are named and registered and don’t stand the test of time but a few last the distance.
It is also clear that in terms of garden appearance, red camellias are a better bet than pale ones when it comes to petal blight. The reds do not look anywhere near as unsightly in the early stages when the blooms are showing speckles of brown.
Camellia minutiflora is just starting to open. It is a gem of a species with very dark foliage and dainty flowers. We have put a hold on most of the plants in the nursery as we ponder its suitability for formal hedging.

Latest posts, Friday August 27, 2010:

1) The pristine purity of a pure white flower, and sweetly scented too: Rhododendron veitchianum.
2) Britain’s very own Expert on Everything and traditional country crafts of England – Abbie’s column.
3) Is it fair to describe bonsai as the bondage and discipline sector of the plant world? A bonsai demonstration (not by us) and other tasks in the garden this week.
4) Our annual garden festival draws closer by the week – counting down around the province.
5) The hardiest vireya we know – the saxafragoides hybrids of Jiminy Cricket, Saxon Glow and Saxon Blush – tried and true plants.
6) Sometimes optimistically referred to as the money plant, or the jade plant, Crassula ovata a tried and true option here.