May 23, 2008 Weekly Garden Guide

The early spring bulbs are pushing through the soil now. Keep an eye on them for slug and snail attack and keep their area weed free. Most bulbs need sun and light to grow well, along with excellent drainage. Check to make sure that neighbouring plants are not shading out the bulbs or you may find that they don’t set flowers and can die out. Be careful if you spray for weeds because they are very vulnerable as they come through the ground.

  • You can still get a strawberry bed in but do not delay. If you grew strawberries last year, you can either use runners (the stems which leap to freedom out the side) or if you have one of the modern varieties which doesn’t put out runners, you can divide the crown. Strawberries are best redone entirely every year though you can get away doing it every two years. If you are leaving an established bed for another year, clean it up. Cut off all the old leaves, thin the clumps (limit the number of shoots to each clump), fertilise and mulch.
  • Brassicas planted now will be ready in late spring.
  • The autumn copper spray on citrus trees is the most important one of the year so if you haven’t done it yet, do not delay. Coastal areas of Taranaki can grow oranges and mandarins well so you don’t have to confine yourself to the ubiquitous lemon tree. We pick oranges twelve months of the year from our trees although the mandarins have a much shorter season.
  • The camellias in flower at the moment are almost all early flowering sasanqua types which are more tolerant of sun and wind than many others.
  • Readers who open their gardens and have access to the Living Channel on Sky may like to tune in to the repeat series entitled “Open Gardens” at 4.30pm on Sundays. It is a really interesting look at how the British manage their National Garden Scheme (the famed Yellow Book) and how they carry out rigorous garden assessments while keeping most people happy.

The recent edition of the new publication, The Gardener’s Journal, has a wonderfully provocative piece by Christchurch writer, Barbara Lea Taylor. Headed “Free the Grasses”, she starts:

If I see any more grasses trapped in suburbia, I’ll scream…. They should never be plonked … in low maintenance beds because they happen to be fashionable. Even worse, they should never be popped in among flowering plants “to add a bit of contrast”. They will inevitably look out of place, like wild birds tamed and caged.

It is worth subscribing to the journal to read this opinion piece alone.

In Praise of Trees

Autumn is a time to look at trees even if we can’t compete with the seemingly endless blazing colour of countries like Canada. A friend from Te Popo Garden, inland from Stratford, commented in passing that it didn’t get much better than last weekend with the sun streaming through the autumn leaves on the trees. We have had remarkably little wind recently and a sharp drop in temperatures from the Indian summer straight into winter chill, so it is shaping up to be a splendid display.

It should not be necessary to point out that you only get spectacular autumn colour on deciduous trees which shed all their leaves each year. I thought everybody knew that, just as I thought that everybody knew that our native flora is pretty well all evergreen. Ergo, we do not get autumn colour from our native plants. This did not stop an enquiry a couple of months ago about whether we have places noted for autumn colour in Taranaki and (wait for it) were any of these native trees, for example a grove of kauris. I could accept that the enquirer did not know that kauris do not occur naturally this far south, but I did wonder what had happened to general knowledge that nobody in the chain of this particular organisation had picked up on the fact that our native plants do not colour up in the way that some deciduous plants do. There are subtle seasonal colour changes at best in our native flora but for the golden leaves or the fiery reds and oranges of autumn, you must look to imported deciduous trees and shrubs such as maples, poplars, parrotias, gleditsias and cornus.

It is the sharp drop in temperatures which triggers the plant to stop feeding its leaves and let them die and drop. Inland areas are colder at night so they get significantly more impressive autumn colour than those of us closer to the coast who just gradually drift from one season into another. And coastal points northwards (Auckland and Northland) get even less autumn colour. Travellers in the tropics will know that you don’t get autumn colour at all in hot climates.

That said, Prunus Awanui has been a vision of golden leaf this past week. The wisterias and rugosa roses always surprise me with their autumn colour and the grape vine which covers the large verandah out from my office is a delight every year. It looks as if the sun is shining on even the greyest of autumn days.

But while admiring the trees in autumn, gardeners may also like to do some critical analysis on the merits of the different trees in their garden. We have been talking recently about the failure to differentiate between short term nurse trees and long term trees.

In our windy country, we need nurse trees. They are a quick and cheap option to grow in order to provide some protection so that longer term, quality trees (which by their very nature tend to be slow growing) can get established. And because nurse trees grow quickly, they can give height and impact in a garden in a surprisingly short space of time. But few nurse trees in our climate age gracefully and there comes a time when decisions need to made about which are worth keeping and which have frankly passed their use-by date. Not all trees are equal and not all trees improve with age.

Many gardeners make one of two mistakes. They either overplant badly and then fail to discriminate a few years down the track as to which are the good long term trees worth looking after, even if it means cutting out the filler trees. Or they plant specimen trees out in exposed areas in solitary confinement.
In using nurse trees, you are learning from nature. When bush regenerates, the nurse plants are the first to get established and to create some cover. In that protected environment, the longer term trees come through and are forced up in search of light. In due course they supersede those nurse plants. Without the protection and microclimate of nurse trees, they can be too exposed, stunted and often multi trunked because they do not need to shoot up in search of light.

Trees are going to become a great deal more important in the immediate future. The talk about carbon footprints, climate change and sustainability is not just a fad which will fade away in a few months. We are in a time of radical change and long term trees will be part of our future and quite possibly part of the survival of our planet. The day may not be far away when we are shamed by our outdoor furniture made from Indonesian hardwoods.

While tiny town sections are not going to accommodate forest giants, neither is an espaliered apple tree going to save the planet (though it might help feed the family and taste better than cool store apples). But gardeners with a bit of space (or non gardeners for that matter) could and should be thinking about planting long term trees and treasuring existing trees which have the potential to outlive most of us. By long term trees, I mean those with a lifespan which will be fifty years at least, maybe a hundred and some have the potential to live many hundreds of years if they are planted in the right position. In New Zealand we have a tendency to think in terms of ten or twenty years and far too few trees are allowed to ever reach maturity.

So by all means plant pretty flowering cherries, albizzias (though I think I have seen those on a banned list somewhere), gleditsias, paulownias and birches. But see these for what they are, which are short term trees and look to using them as cover to get some good trees of potential longevity established. It doesn’t have to be a mighty kauri, rimu or totara though goodness knows, we plant too few of our majestic native trees. There are some magnificent members of the conifer family which are not native – the sciadopitys or Japanese umbrella pine is a gem and the somewhat maligned Norfolk Island pine is a great statement of form on the landscape. Magnolias can live a very long time and are unparalleled for splendour in flower. Liriodendrons give brilliant autumn colour, as do scarlet oaks, ginkgo biloba and even plane trees. All get more impressive with age.

If you are unsure what you are doing, seek out advice and never plant any tree anywhere near power lines. It will come off second best in a tangle with the lines companies. The challenge is to make sure that you plant some good, long term trees in your lifetime. What better legacy to leave?

Spice Market

Author: Jane Lawson

Publisher: Murdoch Books (RRP $54.99)

ISBN: 978 1 74196 038 9

I waved this very large book (think something the size of a small concrete block) under the nose of my chef friend who is around at the moment and his response was rather dismissive. “It’s a book of recipes which use spices,” he said and took no further interest.

It is an Australian publication and gives 275 recipes, grouped rather unusually by the plant origin of the spice which is often but a minor addition to the recipe. So the chapter on seeds and pods covers recipes using spices from ajowan and aniseed through to vanilla. The chapter on berries and flowers covers allspice to surnac and wolfberry. Then there are chapters on seeds that come from roots and bark and on spice pastes and spice mixes. So the recipes are not grouped in a convenient manner, given that few of us start a meal by thinking we will cook with cinnamon tonight, or maybe liquorice root. The actual recipes are straightforward and cover an eclectic mix of anything and everything from around the world.

There is some handy background information on each of the 40 or so spices included, though I hoped for some growing information on varieties that could be produced by the self sufficient gardener in temperate and mild climates. There isn’t. Clearly you buy them.

It is a nicely presented soft cover book with the usual wonderful photographs though not that many of the recipes are illustrated. This is a book to browse before you buy.

May 16, 2008 Weekly Garden Guide

Now is the time to go through plantings of Helleborus orientalis (winter roses) and cut off the tatty and tired old foliage.

That way you will get the full effect of the fresh flowers in winter. Otherwise they tend to be hidden under the old leaves. Thin out seedlings too, to prevent future congestion. The leaves can be left to lie on the garden beds and putting on a layer of mulch will tidy the appearance as well as smother fresh weeds and seeds which will germinate throught the winter. Auckland hellebore expert, Terry Hatch, is alleged to run his lawnmower through his hellebore patches but you need to get your timing spot on for this.

  • Divide clumps of polyanthus and they will romp away when they have more space and freshly dug soil. Polyanthus are very rewarding in a low key sort of way, with flowers for many months. Lovers of English primroses will find that they are nowhere near as rewarding in coastal Taranaki as in cold, inland areas. They can put on too much foliage and too few flowers in warmer climates.
  • Continue the autumn clean up in both the ornamental and vegetable gardens.
  • Garlic can be planted from any time now onwards until mid winter. Shun imported garlic totally. Potentially it harbours viruses which could destroy our local garlic crops and because it is from the northern hemisphere, it is out of its natural seasonal cycle so yields will be very poor in quantity and quality.
  • If you feel you must spray your lawns (though we are hoping that the perfect green sward achievable only by the frequent and heavy use of chemical sprays is on track to become as unacceptable as SUVs), get onto them now. It is safer to use hormone sprays now than in spring when they can wreak havoc on neighbouring plants in full growth. Sulphate of ammonia can also be used to suppress broad leafed weeds.
  • If you have not harvested all your potatoes, do not delay any longer because disease and insects will attack the tubers.

From the real estate pages, we are delighted by the description of a property with good shelterbelting. We feel shelterbelting or beltingshelter may become the latest rage for rural dwellers. Could save on petrol driving to the gym.

May 9, 2008 Weekly Garden Guide

Just last week we were talking about autumn and continuing mild temperatures. We were a bit taken aback by the sudden descent into winter temperatures (forget three dog nights, it has been two full on fires here each night).

While temperatures should rally somewhat, it is timely to remind gardeners not to delay on battening down for winter. If you grow frost tender material, be prepared for an early frost. It only takes one unexpected frost to do a large amount of damage.

  • Cold weather saps the motivation of all but the most determined gardener, so grab any mild days to progress the autumn clean up round. Only inland gardeners in cold conditions will put their gardens to bed for winter. The rest of us have year round growth to some extent but a clean up round does make the place look much more loved. Mark hostas or other deciduous perennials now that you plan to divide when dormant. It makes finding them a great deal easier when they have gone underground.
  • Leaf drop will happen quickly now that temperatures have dropped so markedly. Obviously paths, driveways and sealed areas need to be kept clear of fallen leaves or they can become slippery (we still love our blower vac for this task but if you lack one of these, leaf rakes are much easier to use than garden rakes). Autumn leaves should be seen as part of nature’s bounty, not a nuisance or, horrors, something to be burned. Raked into a moist heap, they rot down really quickly to give wonderful leaf mulch.
  • It is definitely time to get broad beans sown. These are a real treat when harvested fresh and young.
  • As you complete autumn harvest of pumpkins, corn, potatoes, tomatoes etc, clear the beds and sow down green crops. Lupin is ideal at this time of the year and has wonderful nitrogen fixing properties.
  • Make weeding and mulching a priority. Reducing the weeds at this time of the year will greatly reduce their impact in spring and summer coming.
  • Pick up walnuts for drying. You need to beat the rats to them. If you are promising yourself to buy a walnut tree, look for grafted ones. Seedling grown walnuts are extremely unreliable and you may waste many years only to find that yours will never fruit properly.

    • Two hundred years ago, Samuel Butler wrote:

    Youth is like spring, an over-praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.

    Were he from Taranaki, this could be interpreted as advice not to forget to pick up your feijoas.