Death to the Orangeberry Plant

My rubus pentalobus is under a death sentence. What, you may wonder, is rubus pentalobus. It has taken me some time to get a grip on its proper name and I may soon forget it again but most of us know it as the orangeberry plant. It is a ground cover plant, marketed widely in recent years with a key selling point of producing edible fruit.

I am guessing that in its native Taiwan it may produce more fruit but it has the reputation of being very reluctant in this country. I was optimistic with the second season and a solid mat of it in a hot, sunny position. It put up a good number of small white flowers in spring but these translated into precious few orange berries in summer. And berries might be slightly overstating the case. Certainly they were orange but at little larger than a glass pin head and held singly, berries seemed an unjustifiably generous descriptor. Indeed, Mark just looked incredulous when we spotted the first fruit. It is difficult to describe the taste. I think the entire crop was two each so the best I can say is fruity, in moderation.

But it is not the ever so slightly disappointing harvest that had me donning the black hat to pronounce the death sentence. No. What the rubus lacks in fruiting capacity, it more than makes up in vigour. Knowing that it could be a little rampant, I used it in a defined border where I wanted the unity of a single ground cover to set off a little collection of topiaried camellias. It was confined by concrete edging on three sides and a box hedge on the fourth. Not that the rubus was going to let that stop its inexorable advance. The moment I turned my back, it would leap the concrete edging and get its roots into both the lawn and the gravel paths. I could cope with that, but its inclination to weasel its way through the buxus and even climb started to ring alarm bells. Ground covers that can moonlight as climbers are a worry. Added to that, after only two years, the ground is such a mat of congested roots that it is near impenetrable and the rubus is even threatening to overpower my valued camellia specimens. Spending several hours every couple of months trying to thin and contain the plant does not seem worth the effort to me.

I will not be digging the rubus to pot up and sell. That seems altogether irresponsible. Though if anyone has a large clay cliff they wish to retain, a precipice perhaps, a landslip or maybe a large stretch of coastal erosion which they were thinking of retaining with concrete slabs, this plant may be just the ticket. I would guess that it has the potential to turn up on Regional Council’s banned list sooner rather than later. We will be resorting to gyphosate to carry out the death sentence. The tangled mass of rampant root makes digging it out difficult. You have been warned. Keep this plant controlled and under close supervision.

A bonsai camellia under threat from the thuggish rubus pentalobus.

A bonsai camellia under threat from the thuggish rubus pentalobus.

Like his father before him, Mark has a deep distrust of plants with weed potential. Maintaining a large garden is a delicate balancing act at the best of times without allowing rampant colonisers to escape. There are no annual forget-me-nots here. Charming they may be, but they did not earn their common name lightly. Let them into your garden and it takes years to stop them seeding everywhere. Rampant seeders, subversive clumpers, overpowering thugs – no matter how pretty, such plants are not welcome. We have tended to add violets into the category of invaders with their inclination to spread and their resilience. Indeed, despite my best efforts in several places in the garden, clumps of violets keep staging a come back. And down in the paddock is a clump which Mark refers to as Grandma’s violets. In fact I think they are a relic of his great grandmother’s garden from the late 1800s. Now we think the violets will make a more acceptable ground cover than the rubus. Their invasive tendencies are not too serious. In 120 years, the rubus would have colonised the better part of Tikorangi whereas Grandma’s violets have just gently survived all competition and kept going. Their flowers are prettier than the rubus, too. I think they have earned a recall.

April 9 In the Garden this Week

April 9, 2009 In the Garden

· As predicted, the autumn rains started just prior to Easter but before you relax, have a little delve down in your garden or lawn and see how far the water has penetrated. That said, it should be safe enough to sow new lawns this weekend and to over sow bare patches in existing lawns. If the worst comes to the worst and we get very dry again, you can give the new areas a water but it isn’t likely to be necessary.
· The autumn rains will bring an explosion of freshly germinating weeds. Be vigilant on these varmints. With leaf drop just starting, using fallen leaves as mulch will suppress weed germination and there is a surprising amount of goodness as well as useful humus in rotting leaf litter. Frankly it is no longer acceptable on this planet to burn fallen leaves. Compost them or disperse them through the garden.
· Hellebores (winter roses) will be coming into growth soon. Cutting all the old foliage off means you can see the charmingly understated nodding flowers of helleborus orientalis. Heavy aphid infestations in the spent flowers in spring are a good reason to deadhead these plants (so too is their habit of seeding promiscuously), but we have also found quite heavy aphid occupation on the old foliage this year, which is another reason to cut it off and cart it all away to the compost heap. If the foliage is clean, you can leave it lying as a mulch. If you don’t remove the old foliage, the flowers tend to hide beneath the big leaves. If you leave it any longer, you have to trim around each plant taking care to avoid the new shoots but done this early, you can slash and hack your way through with little precision. Some have even been alleged to use the motor mower (but not here). Hellebores are excellent bedding plants for open woodland conditions but orientalis does not like being lifted and divided (will sulk, sometimes for years) so if you want to build up numbers, do it from seedlings.
· In the vegetable garden, make the autumn clean up round a priority for Easter. Most gardens will have mildew and bug infested crops well past their best now. Don’t leave these to rot where they are. If you make hot compost, bury the diseased crops in the middle of the heap, or feed them to your worm farm. Good hygiene and tidy habits can reduce pest and disease infestations in the future.
· Peas prefer the cooler weather so you can be sowing them now. Inland gardeners may be wanting to sow their first crop of broad beans. While the yield on peas for the home gardener can be disappointingly meagre and the frozen product is actually very good and cheap, the opposite applies to broad beans which can crop extremely well and are infinitely better than the bought product.
· Get any bare areas of the veg garden sown down with a green crop as soon as possible. Oats, lupin, vetch, phaecelia, mustard or even plain rye grass are all options.
· If it rains incessantly over Easter, take heed of John Lubbock, aka Lord Avebury, who wrote: There is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.

Cyclamen hederifolium

Cyclamen with black mondo grass

Cyclamen with black mondo grass

How can you not fall in love with the exquisite gems of the species cyclamen? C.hederifolium is the first of the season to flower, opening up its dainty pink or white butterflies in late summer and continuing all through autumn, at which time it also puts out its decorative, heart-shaped, mottled dark green and silver leaves which will stay fresh until spring.

Technically, cyclamen are tubers though most gardeners will call their circular, flattish heart a bulb. The origins in Southern Europe through to Turkey and even North Africa give a clue to conditions – tolerant of both heat and cold, fine in poor stony conditions but not keen at all on wet conditions. Despite our high rainfall climate, we find they thrive in our elevated rockery and even tucked on the side of our gravel driveway.

If you can’t find them for sale, cadge fresh seed later in the season from somebody who has them. The distinctly overblown cyclamen widely sold as suitable gifts for mothers, aunts and invalids are grotesque parodies of the charming species from which they have descended.

April 3, 2009 In the garden this week

· It is countdown to the autumn rains. These will arrive soon; we are just not sure which day but some time around Easter would be a safe bet. As soon as the rains come, it is a sign that you can be out with the grass seed to sow new lawns or to over sow bare patches in existing lawns. In preparation for this, get out again with the push hoe once again to level any weeds on the site.

· Autumn is the better planting time for trees and shrubs than the more usual spring schedule, but you need to wait for the rain to penetrate the soil first and this will take a couple of days of steady precipitation. At this time of the year, you may well be planting last season’s stock and there is nothing wrong with this as long as you handle it properly. Plunge the whole plant, pot and all, into a bucket of water and weight it down. Leave it for several minutes at the very least, and longer if bubbles are still rising. If the plant is very rootbound, cut the pot or bag off and look at the roots. If they are coiled round and round, you need to make about three or four vertical cuts down the sides. If they are folded in like a parcel at the bottom, cut these back. We don’t recommend trying to tease out fine roots, or indeed any roots. You are more likely to cause damage. If the root system looks too small for the top, prune the top. Plant into well cultivated soil with plenty of compost, water and mulch. Plant once and plant well is the rule of thumb here.

· There is still a good month of warm growing weather in April, a little longer for those who live in mild, coastal areas so there is time to get winter vegetables into the garden. But don’t delay or you will get a disappointingly patchy harvest later. If you are a beginner, you are likely to have more success now with leafy greens and brassicas because it is late for slower growing root crops.

· Non gardeners may like to try sowing micro greens or mesclun into trays. You can be cutting salad greens in a matter of a few weeks. You need trays with drainage holes (we are still recycling polystyrene mushroom trays) and about 12cm of depth. Our preference is to use a layer of soil, then the main layer of compost with about 2cm of potting mix on top of the seeds. Or you may find buying seed raising mix is easier. Once planted, keep the trays in full sun, give them a light water each day and keep them up off the ground to escape slugs and snails, let alone cats who may think it is kitty litter. The barbecue table can be a good spot for the trays or a sunroom or conservatory.

· If you are saving your own vegetable or flower seed, save seed from the very best plants only. In the veg garden, this may mean sacrificing the best specimens of crops like carrots and beans so that they can set seed. Others, like tomatoes, melons and capsicums, can be gathered in the kitchen as you prepare the food. Spread the seed to dry on a piece of paper and store in old envelopes. It is only a matter of months before you will be sowing them.

· If your flower borders are looking a little worse for the wear, take heart from Sara Stein: “I appreciate the misunderstanding I have had with Nature over my perennial border. I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it is a meadow lacking grass, and tries to correct the error.”

Grow It Cook It

Grow It Cook It, by Sally Cameron, photography by Charlie Smith (Penguin, ISBN 978 0 14 301096 8)

There is no doubt that the author is keen on her home garden and her background is as a food writer and stylist both in the UK and now back in New Zealand. But this enthusiasm is not a sure-fire guarantee of success. Trying to cover all bases and be all things to all people (there are also sections entitled Cook’s Notes and Child’s Play) was perhaps a little ambitious.

There are listings for 30 different fruits, vegetables and herbs in a somewhat random selection. Each chapter starts with a page or so of information on how to grow the subject but this cultural information is patchy. Growing lemongrass was fine but the entry on feijoas was not. And if one is going to advocate eating geranium flowers, I think there needs to be a discussion on the difference between geraniums and pelagoniums. The author’s gardening experience seems to be primarily based in Auckland suburbia and while this may be adequate for dispensing some simple advice, really she is trying to punch above her weight in the area of gardening.

Ms Cameron is far more comfortable with the recipes and cooking side of things. There are 355 recipes so the book is more than generous. The food is a jaunt through the flavours of the world but at a user-friendly family kitchen level. Rosemary Shortbread, Broad Bean and Lemon Risotto, Fresh Orange Terrine – all tasty and reasonably simple. I would wish for more consistency in the use of measures by volume – the recipes lean to listing ingredients by weight even for such items as sultanas or flour when a cup measure is much easier to use and overall the measuring techniques are inconsistent. But the greatest flaw in this book is that the recipes are grouped in chapters determined by the vegetable, herb or fruit tree that is the starting point, even though it may be a minor ingredient only. So there is no logical sequence to the recipes, although it does at least have a decent index.

Overall, it is better on the food than on the gardening and you can find more comprehensive and user friendly gardening information from many other, more experienced sources. It has a nice enough presentation without getting too excited about it, soft cover and opens flat.