Tikorangi Notes: June 11, 2010

Latest posts:
1) In the depths of winter, it tends to sap the motivation to get out to the garden but in our hints this week, we discuss why we have never included planting celery in our garden diary and we admire our visiting kereru.
2) Flowering this week is the delightfully scented and somewhat understated Camellia lutchuensis.
3) Outdoor Classroom this week is on pruning raspberries. Our new resident pigeons (of the homing pigeon variety, not the native pigeon) were not overly impressed by the intrusion into their quarters which they are currently sharing with the raspberries.

The gentle ring neck doves are altogether too trusting

Tikorangi Notes
One of the gentle sounds of England for us is the soft cooing of the pigeons. No matter that they may be described as rats on wings, that sound is so completely evocative, that I can pick it immediately, even on television. Our native wood pigeon , the kereru, is a very large bird, cumbersome even, of small brain but highly prized as a garden visitor and completely protected by legislation because of dwindling numbers. But it doesn’t coo like the English ones. We tried ring neck doves which coo beautifully and are pretty little birds. Alas they are completely trusting and spend much time on the ground so are vulnerable to predators. The late Buffy took out quite a few and we have to keep the surviving two in the raspberry coop at night for their own protection. It does not look as if we will ever manage a big flock of ring neck doves, though we would like to.

Mark

In his Jack Duckworth moments, Mark is very fond of his pigeons (I think they are the homing pigeon variety) which we can have flying free. He had to go to the bird show recently and buy another half dozen because even this resilient, quick breeding type fell to the ravages of our rare, endangered and totally protected falcon. We seem to have one falcon which has been around for years and clearly outlived his natural lifespan, possibly because of the raiding parties he makes regularly on Mark’s pigeons. Our dog, Zephyr, actually recognises the silhouette of the falcon circling above and barks a warning, which is a pretty impressive party trick for a dog.

In the garden this week: June 11, 2010

Our kereru in the apple tree

  • Tuesday’s bitter cold,  coming as it did after a cold and rainy Queen’s Birthday, was a reminder of why really keen gardeners like to have both a good, weather-proof shed and a glasshouse. A glasshouse makes raising micro veg, mesclun mix and rocket in trays over winter a great deal easier. It also enables you to plan ahead, sow seed and have plants in little pots ready to go out to the garden as soon as conditions are right.
  • Sitting around of a winter’s morning drinking coffee and discussing celery (as we do here), I realised that we have never even mentioned celery in these weekly hints. That is because it can be a very difficult crop to grow well and in the combined experience of growing vegetables here, totalling about 60 years between Mark and Lloyd, both agreed that it is hardly worth the effort for the stringy green stems that result. And if you try blanching the stems to reduce the greening which makes it strongly flavoured and tough, it tends to create a lovely home for slugs. Then leaf diseases defoliate the plants.  We have long figured that it is easier to buy the clean stems from the supermarket when required even if they are hardly organic.
  • If you want the taste and texture of celery at home, celeriac gives the flavour and is a great deal easier to grow successfully.  And Florence fennel or finnochio is a reasonable substitute for the texture (and actually more delicious in our opinion). Both celeriac and fennel also hold very well in the garden, giving a longer season. You can sow celeriac and fennel seed from late August onwards, earlier if in pots under cover. If you want to try celery, you can start it at the same time for summer harvest and follow up with a sowing around Christmas for winter harvest. Treat all three crops as gross feeding, green leafy crops not root vegetables.
  • Plant garlic, shallots, broad beans and the unfussy brassicas.
  • We have a kereru (wood pigeon) which comes in repeatedly to feed from the remnant apple leaves still on our espaliered apple trees outside the kitchen window. There are always tui visible, currently feeding from the early camellias (they need to be simple, single flowers with visible stamens to feed the birds), monarch butterflies are cold but still here and ladybirds are creeping in our wooden joinery to hibernate in the folds of the curtains. We have to take care not to vacuum the ladybirds up when they fall. One of the pleasures of having a garden is the chain of nature it can encourage.
  • Keep an eye on your favourite garden centres to see what new stock they are taking delivery of at this time. It should include fruit trees, new season’s roses, strawberries, all the deciduous crops such as magnolias and cherry trees along with a range of shrubs – all suitable for immediate planting.

Flowering this week: Camellia lutchuensis

Camellia lutchuensis - a triumph of refinement and style rather than bold statement

In the crowded class of camellia species with small, white, single flowers, Camellia lutchuensis has a special property which sets it apart – it has the sweetest scent of any camellia. In fact, lutchuensis is the parent of  the scented cultivars (some of which are better scented than others but few are as good as their parent). While not quite into the heady fragrance of daphnes, lutchuensis has a lovely scent which can be detected as you walk past the bush.

There is nothing blowsy or showy about this little camellia but some of us like the simple charm of the creamy white cups which, at only a couple of centimetres across, are never going to shout look at me, look at me. The buds are also very pretty. It is best viewed in close-up as opposed to a landscape statement. Added to that, the foliage (which is smaller than more common japonica camellias) goes a bit yellow in high light levels, so this is a plant for semi shade or open woodland. It is definitely for those of more refined tastes – but what would you expect from a species native to Japan, that country which reveres simplicity in nature and gardening? It also occurs naturally in Taiwan which is another island that has given us some really interesting plants across a range of genus.

Flowering this week: Luculia pinceana Fragrant Pearl

The sweet fragrance of Luculia Fragrant Pearl through autumn and winter

The sweet fragrance of Luculia Fragrant Pearl through autumn and winter

Fragrant Pearl was a breakthrough in a world of winter pink luculias. The summer flowering white luculia is grandiflora (a different species), the hard candy pink form in flower now is gratissima. The most common form of pinceana is Fragrant Cloud which reaches for the clouds but has beautiful late flowers in soft almond pink with a white eye. Fragrant Pearl is white, very fragrant, has very large individual flowers and if you have a good plant, it will flower from the end of March to the end of June. It does get some size to it if you don’t keep it pruned and pinched out – as in 3m x 3m. Luculias have a wide distribution throughout Asia, including parts of China and northern India but basically they won’t tolerate hard frost and very cold temperatures, they don’t like too much heat but they are happy in moist and friable soils – which is pretty much describes the conditions in much of Taranaki.

We have our colleague, Glyn Church, to thank for introducing the white pinceana luculias here. Some years ago he brought in seed and Fragrant Pearl is a selection which we purchased from him as part of that seed raised batch. It was so good that we started propagating it from cuttings (to keep it true and avoid seedling variation) and put a cultivar name on it. It roots easily from cuttings taken in late spring or early summer and grows rapidly so if you can find a plant in a friend’s garden, you can grow your own.

Tikorangi Notes – June 4, 2010

Latest posts:
1) Friday June 4, 2010 The sweet fragrance of Luculia Fragrant Pearl – a white pinceana form, no less.
2) Friday June 4, 2010 It may be Arbor Day tomorrow but we don’t have a proud history in this country of valuing our trees in the landscape – Abbie’s column.
3) Friday June 4, 2010 Garden hints for this week as we enter winter.

The Theatre of the Banana

Tikorangi Notes
June 1 heralds the official first day of winter here but as a general rule, the worst of the weather doesn’t come until after the shortest day later in the month. July is the worst month, by August we are warming up again. So either it has been bad this week or we are just getting older because it has felt cold, bleak and miserable. Fortunately Mark has his bananas tucked up for winter in an edifice that I style as his Theatre of the Banana.

We can report that the dried michelia wood we are burning in our fire, cut down last year from what Mark has taken to calling his sustainable woodlot (aka reject seedlings from his breeding programme) is proving excellent. It neither splits nor splinters which is an interesting characteristic. Mark is now wondering if it has a future in cricket bats.