Flowering this week – Rodgersia aesculifolia

The scented cream plumes of Rodgersia aesculifolia

The rodgersias hail from temperate areas of Asia and are deciduous perennials. In other words, like hostas they drop all their leaves in autumn and disappear below ground, emerging afresh in the spring. Also like hostas, they are accepting of heavy soils and even boggy ground although they are less of a shade plant.

This form is Rodgersia aesculifolia – meaning the leaves look somewhat like an aesculus which is better known as a chestnut. They can get a bit of size to them. This plant has typical seven leaf clusters in a flattish circle which can measure up to 70cm across. The fine, feathery spires of cream flowers resemble an astilbe in appearance and are even sweetly scented. Rodgersia pinnata superba emerges with bronze growth and commonly has pink flower plumes.

Rodgersias are members of the saxifrage family and increase below ground with chunky, tuberous roots which can be lifted and divided in winter. Most of the saxifrages are dainty, delicate little things but the only delicate thing about the rodgersia is the dainty flower plume.

In the garden 11/12/2009

  • The advice on care for cut Christmas trees from the good folk at Cedar Lodge (they who know more on this topic than anybody else around) is that the critical issue is to re-cut the main stem of the tree when you get it home and plunge it immediately into a bucket of cold water. This fresh cut enables the plant to keep sucking up water which is what extends its life. You will need a hand saw of some description to carry this out. Keep topping up the water every few days but the advice that circulates from other quarters about sealing the cut in boiling water, adding sugar or aspirins is unnecessary and unlikely to add to the longevity of your cut tree. A tablespoon of bleach should stop the water from going stagnant.
  • Should you be hoping to impress the whanau or extended family who are gathering at your place for Christmas Day, start this weekend instead of expecting to do it all on Christmas Eve. If your lawns are looking long and tatty, mow them now so that they will just need light trimming before the day. This avoids having too much mown grass sitting turning brown and sticking to everybody’s shoes. Deal to weeds in pavers and concrete cracks (boiling water works a treat), give hedges a light trim and use the spade to cut a neat edge along garden beds. Even if you are not up to weeding, these few actions will make a big difference to making your outdoors look better cared for.
  • If you have the yellow Primula helodoxa planted alongside a waterway in your garden, deadheading it is the action of a responsible gardener. It can be a bit of a problem plant with its seeding ways.
  • Citrus trees will benefit from a spray of copper and summer strength oil at this time of the year. It can help prevent the fruit rotting and falling off the tree prematurely.
  • Pinch out the laterals on your tomatoes. These are the vigorous side growths which will make the plant too dense. If you can keep the plant open with good air movement, you stand a better chance of ripening the fruit and keeping fungal diseases at bay.
  • You can still plant tomatoes and cucumbers at this time for a late crop but you need to use plants, not seed, to get a jump start. However, corn, lettuce, leeks, carrots and green beans can all be direct sown into the garden by seed.

    • If you are into Christmas shopping from the computer screen, you may like to look at www.touchwoodbooks.co.nz for the best collection of garden and lifestyle books in the country (and a very efficient mail order service). Or www.italianseedspronto.co.nz are offering both interesting vegetable seed and the safe option of gift vouchers as on line purchases.

The case of the missing hedge clippers

I felt sure we had another pair of hedge clippers somewhere

I am not sure what it says about us here, that we hadn’t noticed that we were missing one set of hedge clippers. All I can say is that it was not the good pair. But when Mark went to give the Michelia yunnanensis (syn. Magnolia dianica) Honey Velvet its annual or biennial trim, lo and behold, there were the clippers providing a perfect platform for the nesting blackbird family. In vain does Mark protest that he has no idea how the birds got the hedge clippers up there. We know, and never again will he be able to deride me for my carelessness with secateurs and trowels which frequently lose themselves in the compost heap.

Flowering this week – meconopsis or Himalayan blue poppy

A little weather beaten after the rains, but a small gardening triumph in our conditions - the blue poppy

The blue poppy must be one of the simplest and bluest of any flower anywhere. It is such a shame that it is so difficult to keep alive in our conditions because you can never have too many simple blue flowers in a garden. The meconopsis has as few as four petals (and they look like slightly crumpled tissue paper) surrounding a boss of golden stamens and the central ovary, but the blue can be a startling electric blue. A clump of meconopsis is a sight to behold.

The blue poppies hail from the Himalayas and surrounding areas which gives a hint to their preferred growing conditions – alpine meadows. Without a winter chill here and with high winter rainfall, it is more likely that they will rot out below ground and they simply never get the signal that tells them winter has gone (they are probably still waiting for it to arrive here) and to break dormancy. So most gardeners struggle to keep them going and they tend to be one season wonders (annuals) and never seed down. The fact that we now have clumps of them well established in a cold border in our park area and that those clumps are getting bigger and return each year (so are perennial) is testimony to some years of persistence on Mark’s part. He has been selecting stronger growing clumps and good blue tones over time, hand pollinating to increase seed set, raising seed in the nursery and generally taking great care of these blue babies to get them to naturalise. Of course if you come from a colder, somewhat drier area, you may wonder what all the fuss is about because they can be relatively easy to grow there but they are very rare indeed in warmer climates.

For the record, these plants have been hand pollinated so frequently that Mark has lost track of the genetic proportions but they are basically downstream sheldonii back crosses which means that they have varying proportions of betonicifolia (both blue and white forms) and grandis.

In the garden 04/12/2009

  • The rains this week will give rise to all manner of fungal attacks (moisture and warmth, even relative, encourages fungal growth). Watch tomatoes, potatoes, courgettes and other vines including grapes carefully. You may need to get an urgent copper spray onto them if you want a harvest later.
  • Roses will be similarly afflicted. If you don’t spray your roses (we don’t), keep working at light summer pruning, deadheading and removing diseased leaves. Good hygiene and air movement will help reduce the impact of fungal and bacterial attack.
  • Wisterias need frequent restraint as their tendrils are ensnaring anything around them. You do not have to be too particular with the summer prune and a pass over with the hedge clippers is fine. If you have a plant near a building, be vigilant. The time from fine tendril to embedded woody stem which is capable of lifting weatherboards and splitting the spouting is less than a season.
  • Convolvulus is rocketing away and can become a major problem alarmingly quickly. If you are not organic, Woody Weedkiller is the way to go. If you are organic, you will probably have to start unravelling the vinous growths and trace them back to ground level where you dig the whole thing out, taking care to get all the roots because any left behind will grow again.
  • Don’t ignore Wandering Jew either and the recommended chemical assault on this is Shortcut (sold in larger quantities as Buster). It is a systemic spray (gets absorbed into the plant’s circulatory system) and has a very quick kill. You can increase the hit rate by raking off as much foliage as you can first (but put these rakings into black plastic bags to rot because they are quite capable of growing again – every bit of it) and then spraying. Follow up with a spot spray a month later. Apparently Wandering Jew can cause terrible skin irritation to dogs and cats which is another good reason to clear it off your property. If you don’t want to use chemicals, you will have to hand pull every bit of it (wear gloves) and keep returning to the patch as it re-grows. Eventually you can clear it but it takes perseverance.
  • The rains this week mean you can continue digging and dividing perennials and clumping plants a little longer.
  • Vegetable planting continues with corn, beans, peas, salad veg, carrots and the like but lay off the brassicas now unless you are prepared to spray or cover them.
  • We are running out of time for pruning. Try and get this finished as soon as possible.
  • The Christmas hint this week is to try making flavoured vinegars and oils for gifts, using herbs from the garden. Wash and dry herbs such as sprays of rosemary, French tarragon (I wish), bay leaves, lime leaves, even thin parings of lemon rind. Leafy herbs like parsley don’t work so well and tend to go off. The rule of thumb is to bring the vinegar to the boil before pouring it over the herbs in the bottle. White vinegar is a neutral base for flavouring. For flavoured oils, use a neutral oil such as grape seed or rice bran and warm it before pouring into the bottle. A word of warning: the flavoured oils and vinegars in shops will be sterilised and sealed whereas home efforts are not. The liquid needs to cover the flavouring herbs. To be really safe, strain off the liquid after a few weeks or store in the fridge. If you have decorative smaller bottles, one bottle of white vinegar or grape seed oil can go a long way and make attractive and thoughtful gifts.