- Heed the news story in our local paper last Saturday. Despite the fact that most of us feel that winter is wet here in Taranaki, we are in fact well below normal rainfall levels and entering some reasonably serious moisture deficit territory. For gardeners in areas which dry out quickly, this means getting a good layer of mulch onto your ornamental gardens before the soils dry out. The mulch will help conserve existing moisture.
- When planting trees and shrubs, spread a layer of mulch on top of the soil but keep the area around the trunk or stem clear to avoid collar rot.
- If you are new to vegetable gardening, stockpile leaf litter and get compost bins underway. You can not mulch vegetable gardens once in late winter and leave them for the rest of the summer as you can with some ornamental beds. You need a constant supply of mulch to use in the vegetable garden.
- We are strong advocates of mulching with compost which adds natural nutrients and allows the build-up of beneficial microbes, insects and bacteria while it enriches the soil. It is also pleasing to the eye, or at least to our eyes. If you don’t have plenty of compost, organic materials such as leaf litter, pine needles, bark chip, wood shavings or, at a pinch, sawdust (if not tanalised) can all add a layer on top to conserve moisture, nourish the soils and to suppress weeds. You need a maximum depth of about 5cm. More is not better.
- If you are doing a feeding round, spread the fertiliser and then put the mulch on top. It may discourage the dog from ferreting out the blood and bone, stop powdery fertiliser from blowing away, suppress the aroma of the Bioboost and it does get the fertiliser closer to the roots which is where it is needed.
- Those die-hard lawn fanatics who are still of a mind to use hormone sprays on the grass (and we don’t expect any of you to own up to us), get onto to it now to minimise the potential damage to fresh spring growth on trees and shrubs. No matter how careful you are, the slightest drift will cause considerable distortion and damage to new leaves, particularly on magnolias so get in before such plants break into leaf. Hormone sprays are used to take out flat weeds and broad leaves.
- The clock is starting to tick on the pruning of deciduous plants. Don’t delay any longer on these.
- You won’t achieve much by rushing into planting out vegetables and annuals too early. Despite the glorious spring weather last weekend, we will have more cold snaps and early plantings will just sit in the ground awaiting the right temperatures. You are better to start these plants early in pots and trays and keep them in a protected spot for a few more weeks before planting out. However you can keep sowing hardy winter vegetables such as peas, brassicas, carrots and onions.
- Stay on top of freshly germinating weeds and on terminating the spring crop of slugs and snails.
A step-by-step guide in creative camellias with Abbie Jury
A step by step guide by Abbie and Mark Jury first published in the Taranaki Daily News and reproduced here with permission as a PDF.
New Outdoor Classrooms are uploaded fortnightly.
Magnolia Diary number 3, 13 August 2009
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Black Tulip opening now
At this time of the season, it is all the dark magnolias coming into flower. The only other colours we have are the soft pink campbellii and one early pink and white seedling which has been left in situ because it provides a contrast to the wine red, purple and deep rosy colours coming out all around the property.
Black Tulip is opening more flowers every day. This one has caught us by surprise with its instant popularity in the market place. Mark named it because the flower, while not large, had such a lovely tulip form and very heavy, dark petals which gave it good weather hardiness. And it is never going to become an enormous tree. The original plant never throws a pale flower so we were disconcerted to see that pale flowers can appear on trees in other locations. While we accept the occurrence of both dark and light flowers on Lanarth, modern hybrids are expected to be uniform.
If you line up a Black Tulip flower beside a good Vulcan flower, there is not much difference in colour. What makes Black Tulip appear so dark on the tree is that the petals (or, more correctly, tepals) are so thick that no light can shine through.
Black Tulip
We usually advise people to plant Black Tulip in locations where it is to be viewed close up. In the landscape, the flowers can be so dark and relatively small that they tend to meld into the environment whereas viewed close up, it has certainly captured the imagination of the public. It is being trialled as a street tree in New Zealand and we recommend it for driveways, lawn specimens or back of the flower border in home gardens. On a very recent visit, we were gratified to see it as a flagship plant for John Woods Nursery in the UK and to hear that it is performing better than Vulcan. It appears that the British public are as charmed by the perfect flowers as the New Zealand public and can see it fitting into smaller, modern gardens.
But on a larger property, our personal tastes lean to something more over the top and flamboyant which has maximum wow in the landscape – Felix Jury is opening its flowers.
Magnolia Diary number 2, 11 August 2009
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Leonard Messel, just opening
Our magic early spring weather continues (and believe me, we never take the absence of both wind and rain for granted here) and more magnolias open every day. Leonard Messel is showing his first flowers. Leonard is sold as a small growing magnolia in this country, to be planted perhaps where something shrubby rather than a tree is required. So we were amused to pace out our plant which is only about 20 years old at the most and to find that its footprint is not a lot smaller than many of our substantial magnolia trees. It is just shorter in stature so it looks smaller but it still measures nigh on nine metres across. Leonard Messel looks splendid on its day when in full flower, but the petals and form lack much substance and in a windy climate such soft characteristics mean it can start to look rather raggy.
One of the early flowering Snow Flurry series
Michelias have been the subject of an intensive breeding programme here for some time now and the early whites are all coming into flower. Botanically michelias have been reclassified as magnolias, but we admit that for clarity and understanding, we lean towards calling them michelias in conversation. We refer to these early whites as the Snow Flurry series and while we can not post a photo of the one we have selected for probable release, we have shelter belts full of the also rans, or rejects. Indeed we have so many that Mark now calls them his sustainable woodlot as he chainsaws off branches to feed our small (very small in number but increasingly large of size) herd of beef cattle to get them through the shortage of late winter feed. Coppiced michelias – these may be a first.
Mark's sustainable woodlot of reject michelia seedlings
Besides Lanarth and campbellii, it is the also rans in the deciduous magnolias which are the most spectacular today. Too good to chainsaw out but not quite good enough to put into commercial release, we have a run of what Mark calls his instant campbelliis flowering around the boundaries. Instant because they flower on very young plants (it can take many years for campbellii itself to flower), but this strain of magnolias bloom too early in the season and the trees grow too fast and too large for modern gardens. It is likely that they will remain forever in our shelter belts and on our boundaries where they can look splendid for us.
Rejected campbellii type hybrids
Magnolia diary the first, 9 August 2009
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On August 9, 2009, it would be fair to say that we are a week or two late starting a magnolia diary. M.campbellii is already in full flower down in our park. Our tree dates back to the mid 1950s and is one of the oldest magnolias we have here. It is set in front of distant Mount Taranaki, our near perfect iconic volcanic cone and the reason why the movie, The Last Samurai, was filmed locally. It is cheaper to film here than in Japan and our mountain is a reasonable ring-in for Mount Fuji (I have even encountered a film crew shooting a Japanese car commercial down our road!) In New Zealand, campbellii is the first to flower and at times it can be a close run thing to see if the leaves fall before the flowers open.
M.campbellii with Mount Taranaki beyond at Tikorangi The Jury Garden, Taranaki New Zealand.
Magnolia Vulcan is opening its flowers. The tree in our carpark has maybe a dozen early flowers open but it is clearly warmer down the driveway where a Vulcan tree has many more flowers. The original tree, bred by Felix Jury, is in the neighbour’s property (formerly the Jury farm) and we no longer have access to monitor it. Vulcan was a true colour break in its day and opens remarkable wine coloured flowers in NZ and in Australia. However it is patchy at best in Europe and inclined to be disappointing in the UK. We rate it as a small tree here. The first flowers are always the deepest colour and the largest in size.
Early season flowers on Vulcan
The original Lanarth in our park is a week into opening though not quite at its peak yet. It shows blooms in that beautiful, intense stained glass purple but also pale flowers at the same time. This tree dates back to the mid fifties and it took three attempts to import and successfully establish the genuine article. One of the early attempts, however, yielded up the Lanarth seedling subsequently named Mark Jury, which became the secret weapon in the early magnolia breeding programme here. Mark is not yet showing colour.
Lanarth
Magnolia Black Tulip in warmer positions on our property has opened its first flowers but the original tree has yet to show colour. We have the very first flower on Felix Jury opening. Along with M. campbellii, our reds are the earliest of the season.
Our winter this year has been colder than usual (visible frost on a number of occasions although we rarely drop below zero degrees celsius at night), drier than usual, not very windy but with our usual high winter light levels.
Tikorangi The Jury Garden 