Tikorangi notes: April 23, 2010

Latest posts.
1) Nerines, mostly sarniensis hybrids, are a mainstay of our autumn rockery.
2) Instead of thinking buxus hedges, think instead about lines and definition in the garden. There are other ways to achieve a similar outcome without the blighted buxus hedge – Abbie’s column.
3) Our mild and dry autumn continues – weekly garden tasks and hints.
4) It may be six months until our annual Garden and Rhododendron Festival here in Taranaki, but dedicated garden openers are hard at work and counting down already.

Autumn in the rockery at Tikorangi

Our rockery has two main periods when it is at its fullest and most colourful – in the early spring when dwarf daffodils, snowdrops and many other tiny treasures bloom and right now in autumn when the nerines and cyclamen hederafolium are at their best. My summer mission taking apart every pocket in the rockery has borne fruit with renewed vigour apparent throughout. Some may think the nerines on the garish side but we love their autumn display. We have a whole range of colours now from nearly apricot through coral, orange, reds, pastel pinks to highlighter pink and deeper, smoky colours bordering on purple. Felix Jury worked with the nerines, mainly sarniensis hybrids and he acquired some of the Exbury hybids over 40 years ago. Most of the cultivars in our garden are unnamed hybrids from that time although Mark has also had a play in his turn and did name one, Coral Star, which we have sold in the past. Felix’s preference leaned towards the smoky plum colours and he named two: Smoky Queen and Nelson’s Blood.

From near apricot to near purple with plenty of oranges, reds and pinks between

Flowering this week: Nerine sarniensis hybrids

Years of work have made the sarniensis nerines a real autumn feature in our rockery

The nerines are looking wonderful in the rockery. These autumn flowering South African bulbs are members of the amaryllis family and are a mainstay of our April garden. There are a number of different species (about 30, apparently) but it is the large flowered, showy sarniensis hybrids which we feature. Felix Jury imported some bulbs and did quite a bit of work to extend the colour range here. He particularly favoured the smoky burgundy colours but we also have a shocking pink which is near iridescent, along with a whole range of different reds, oranges, pinks and corals from pastel to verging on purple and even apricot. They are grown as a cut flower commercially but we prefer them in the garden setting. These are large bulbs which are planted to half depth only with their necks exposed and they are happy with summer baking. Their strappy leaves come after the flowers and hang on until spring.

Nerines are sometimes called the Guernsey lily or the Spider Lily. Some of the other species have much finer, more spidery flowers than the sarniensis types, but lilies they are not. Neither do they originate in Guernsey though that island became renowned for its cut flower production and the bulbs have since naturalised there. Nerines were named after Nereis, a mythological Green sea nymph.

There is life beyond buxus hedging

It is more about the lines and shapes, not the materials used.

Last week in Outdoor Classroom, I looked at some of the alternatives to buxus and came to the conclusion that there is nothing that really fits the bill when it comes to low growing hedges. And it is the low and slow Buxus suffruticosa that is the worst hit by the dreaded buxus blight and the hardest for which to find a suitable substitute. Sempervirens is the common buxus and it will make a large shrub or even small tree if you don’t clip it. Handy little suffruticosa is a dwarf form of sempervirens and the option that is commonly used when you want a little hedge around 30cm high.

Clipped hedges are essentially walls, usually green walls. Sometimes they are low walls, sometimes they are high walls but what they do is give some shape in a garden. The low, clipped box hedge is not about wind protection. It is largely about definition, formal lines and tidiness. The advent of buxus blight and the lack of an easy and cheap alternative to buxus may be a signal that it is time to look at alternative means of getting that definition. Maybe it is time to review the whole concept of tidy edgings and that is no bad thing where buxus hedging has become over-used and clichéd.

Tarting up the vegetable garden and turning it into a potager was all the rage coming up to twenty years ago and I, too, fell into the fashion trap. It took a lecture by garden historian, Helen Leach, to wake me up. She pointed out in no uncertain terms that it was completely impractical to vegetable garden surrounding by little buxus hedges. Vegetable gardens rely on constant cultivation of the ground and invading buxus roots make that impossible. Besides, the hedge provides nice, sheltered conditions for snails and slugs to set up residence and she is not wrong there. I got rid of the hedging I had inflicted on Mark and Felix and would suggest that gardeners worrying about the buxus hedging in their vegetable patch (potagers are so passé these days; the least you can do is refer to it as the kitchen garden) just rip it out and pretty up the area in other ways. Pavers, possibly used as stepping stones, are a great deal more practical to get defined lines. Raised beds can be used to define space if you want to go down that path. A spot of clipped topiary or matched vertical accents, even a pair of urns can give definition without compromising the prime purpose of the productive garden.

In the ornamental garden, it is a little different. Though after battling congested root systems to renovate mixed borders, I wouldn’t be wanting to use hedging as an edge- line for any gardens where I grow perennials or annuals which prefer not to compete for root space. Our preference is for more permanent materials which serve the same purpose without the maintenance and the problem of roots – in other words, low brick or stone walls about the height of a little buxus suffriticosa hedge, around 20 to 30cm. They take a bit to put in with poured footings and a mowing strip where laid beside lawn, but they are pleasingly permanent and they give the lineal definition that a low hedge also gives. Personally I prefer stone to brick, especially when it is a narrow, faced stone wall. I think it weathers better and looks wonderfully timeless without the slight garish aspect that even recycled brick can give but it is also the most expensive option in terms of time and requires a much higher level of skill to construct.
We have been laying a low brick edging this week to formalise a previously casual, rather wayward area. It is a situation where it would have been common for many to go in with a low buxus hedge but it all serves the same purpose – to channel the eye straight down to a longer view, to give definition and form to that particular border and to stop the birds from dispersing the soil and mulch as they scratch around. When we lay any concrete here, be it path or mowing strip, we tint it so that it does not dry out that stark white in the initial stages. Sometimes we will go to exposed aggregate also so the new area looks instantly weathered.

Concrete blocks laid and then plastered will serve the same function as brick or stone edging in getting the sharpest definition of line. If you are thinking to yourself that you like the softer effect of a hedge, that is what you achieve in the garden inside the edging where you can allow plants to froth over and blur the rigidity.

In less formal areas, edgings can be done with natural wood. At Te Popo Gardens near Stratford, Lorri Ellis has used the device of stacking narrow lengths of branch not much thicker than 10cm in diameter, all cut to the same length and laid with the cut end visible, modelled on a tidy wood pile. It creates a visual barrier in the same way as a hedge and Lorri has planted against it to soften the view. Even ponga logs can define an edge and last for years, ageing gracefully.

At Wisley in the United Kingdom, the long borders of classic herbaceous plantings are not edged in hedging to contain them. Instead big square pavers have been used. These guide the eye down the length of these parallel borders and protect the lawn because the exuberant plants just froth and flop on the pavers. If you are going to try the paver approach, experiment with different sizes. I suspect bigger is better unless your space is narrow.

You can edge with rows of some clumping perennial. Grasses are often used, though it is not to my personal taste. I think it looks a bit suburban in mondo grass or lirope but if we all liked the same thing, our gardens would all be very much the same.

In the end, it is not your buxus hedging that makes your garden look sharp and smart. It is the lines drawn with the hedging. So if buxus blight is forcing a re-think on you, maybe you don’t need another hedge at all. Having commented previously about the suffering from DEBBO (that is Death by Bloody Buxus Overload), I would welcome seeing some more creative and individual solutions to creating formal shapes and design in New Zealand gardens.

As a postscript to last week’s Outdoor Classroom, I would reiterate what I have said before about other forms of buxus. Overseas research says that while suffruticosa is the worst hit by buxus blight, followed by the other forms of sempervirens (which is very evident now in Taranaki), no buxus variety is resistant. So while anecdotally there are reports locally that the Japanese and Korean forms (microphylla, microphylla var. koreana and sinica) are not affected, this may be more related to individual conditions. I certainly would not be recommending spending much time or money on replacing affected hedges with Japanese or Korean buxus. The picture will be clearer in five years time but at the moment it appears you run the risk of replacing one infected hedge with another which will become infected in due course.

In the garden this week: April 23, 2010

• We are dry. If you dig down a little, you will probably find that even if you have watered, the soil is very dry. Rain will come, we know that. But in the meantime if you have been busy planting, you will need to water until we get some consistent rain. Keep an eye on container plants too. They can get stressed by drought even at this time of the year. If you have laid new lawn or oversown bare patches, it will probably need regular watering.
• It is time to cut back the old Helleborus orientalis foliage and any seed heads that you have left on them. This is optional as an activity but does greatly improve the visibility of the winter flower display. It may also reduce the infestations of aphids in your garden. I have found some heavily infested plants. While you are about it, pull out germinating seedlings to avoid overcrowding. Hellebores are one plant which is less than grateful to be lifted and divided. Raise fresh plants from seed, rather than splitting up established clumps. They can last for years in quite heavily compacted soil. We like to lay a blanket of compost after cutting off the old foliage.
• For cheap winter colour, pansies, primulas and polyanthus can be very cheering. Existing polyanthus plants need dividing often and can be done right now. Proper English primroses are delightful but prefer a cool climate – here we tend to get mostly foliage and little flower. Sadly the auricula branch of the primula family also likes it much colder. Inland gardeners may manage them but in coastal areas, they are more likely to be a waste of effort.
• If you haven’t trimmed your formal hedges, don’t delay.
• If you like silver beet, it is one of the most reliable stand-by plants for the home gardener because you can just keep harvesting off the same plant all season and it will keep growing. Spinach, on the other hand, which some of us much prefer, is picked once and that is generally it. Both can be still be planted.
• Planting in the veg garden continues to be focussed on brassicas but not Brussels (it is a bit late for those now unless you have large plants ready to go in), broad beans, peas and leafy greens. You may enjoy trying some of the quick maturing Asian and oriental greens of the pak choy and mizuna types. Kings Seeds have a superb range of these less common crops available by mailorder but we have also noticed local garden centres extending the range they stock. There are a host of alternatives to silver beet, spinach and Buttercrunch or Iceberg lettuce.

Countdown to Festival, April 2010

The Taranaki Rhododendron and Garden Festival is in its 23rd year now and will run from October 29 to November 7 this year.

The late Buffa, on guard here at Tikorangi last year

The late Buffa, on guard here at Tikorangi last year

While it is still six months out from the Rhododendron and Garden Festival, dedicated gardeners around the province are hard at work already. The days when a quick spruce-up a week out from the event could suffice are long gone. The open gardens these days maintain much higher standards which in part explains the longevity of the festival and the high visitor satisfaction rankings.

• At La Rosaleda in New Plymouth, Coleen Peri is one of the younger garden openers (possibly the youngest) and is highly motivated by her large visitor numbers in her first year of opening in 2009. She has been much preoccupied by irises of late, having bought a large range from a mailorder bearded iris business that was closing down. These are all planted out and growing away well at a different location to her garden and she is hoping to have some available for sale during Festival. At home, she is impatiently awaiting the arrival of this year’s rose order in late May or early June so she can start planting out her newest area. While she has other plants awaiting in pots, she likes to place her roses first and build out from there. An avid follower of mailorder catalogues, she is pleased to have sourced at least four different varieties of large headed alliums – yes alliums are the onion family but there are some spectacular ornamental varieties with big, round flower heads usually in purple. We saw these used extensively in English gardens and covet them ourselves.

• At Te Popo, near Stratford, Bruce and Lorri Ellis were delighted to find themselves featured in a six page spread in the January edition of a French magazine, My Garden My House (or, more correctly, Mon Jardin Ma Maison). The cover even included an inset photo of Lorri. There was a slight problem in the Ellis household in that neither of them have any French so what was actually written was a frustrating mystery as they tracked down a translator but it all looked good. Whether this leads to a massive increase in French visitors remains to be seen, but it is certainly good promotion for our festival and gratifying for Bruce and Lorri.

• Festival stalwarts, John Sole and Tony Barnes at Ngamamaku in Oakura are taking a year off. Tony says they weren’t foundation openers but he thinks they have opened without fail for around 19 years. In a garden where they have used box hedging extensively to define areas, they have been hit hard by buxus blight. Indeed, they have already incinerated extensive metreage of affected hedging. It has forced them to review the structure of their garden and it seemed a good time to take a year off while they redevelop.

• In Kakaramea, Jacq Dwyer has been thinking ahead and striking cuttings of her robust lavender. She has a bed of lavender planted under the verandah where it thrives a little too much – the plants are getting trunks which are too large for the situation but she doesn’t want to do anything drastic until she has good sized plants ready as replacements. Jacq also comments that her Boston ivy is the most amazing red now that autumn has come. This is a deciduous ivy and somewhat easier to control than many others but it is the astounding red autumn colour which is its main feature.

• In town, Mary Vinnicomb has been dealing with losses in her small but perfectly formed city garden. Her pachystegia folded its leaves and died, a termination that Mary attributes to the very wet period we had in late November and December. The pachystegia is also referred to as the Marlborough rock daisy where it clings to crevices on coastal cliffs. Its big grey leaves are almost like cardboard with white velvet below and it has white daisies in summer, making it highly prized as a garden plant though not the easiest candidate to keep alive and well. The loss also of a key plant in Clematis montana Freida was overshadowed by the death of the Vinnicomb’s much loved little black 17 year old cat, Misty. Mary comments that many visitors have been enchanted over the years to be greeted at the entry archway to their garden by Misty. Her long life belied an inauspicious arrival as a tiny scrap to be delivered by caesarian and not expected to survive. She defied the odds after being hand reared and is now permanently in the garden, marked by a Chamaecyparis obtusa Lenny’s Star.

• Here at Tikorangi, we too are mourning the loss of characterful cat who has been a part of our daily lives for over a decade. However, we could not pretend that our Buffa waited to delight garden visitors. With her, it was more a case of us having to issue a health and safety warning lest visitors be misled by Buffa’s benign appearance and lulled into thinking she was a nice  cat who would welcome their attention.