April 18, 2008 Weekly Garden Guide

The heavy rain this week almost certainly heralded the end of our protracted Indian summer and the quick transition to full scale autumn. The drought is highly unlikely to return now. So while we may moan about the showers and greyness (are some of us never satisfied?) it does mean you can get back into the garden with a vengeance and start planting, dividing and moving.

  • Keep an eye on your favourite garden centres. They will be taking delivery of new season’s stock now and it pays to get in early because it is not always possible for them to re-order.
  • It is autumn clean up time in the ornamental garden, particularly with perennials. You may like to take note of what feeds the birds before you get too carried away with cutting back. Perennials really need to be lifted and divided every few years (few meaning three to four years) and if you can’t see yourself getting around to it, you can excavate some of the congested clump out as you cut back the top foliage. Top dress with some compost to keep things tidy and to add goodness to the soil.
  • Make the final cut to large plants you are wrenching in preparation for relocation and plan to get them moved over the next three weeks or so to give them time to re-establish roots before the cold and wet of winter strikes. For the same reason, early autumn is the best planting time for all trees and shrubs, especially in areas which are prone to dry summers.
  • Now is a suitable time for pruning and shaping most evergreen shrubs and trees but if you are giving them a haircut, you will be taking off the flower buds. Think of shaping now and haircutting later (after flowering). Shaping uses saws (a chainsaw even), loppers and secateurs. Haircutting uses hedge clippers.
  • Planting in the vegetable garden at this time is geared up for harvest in spring. If you are keen, you plant garlic and onions in May but prepare the ground now to give it time to settle. They grow better in ground which is a little more compacted than freshly dug fluff. Beds are often better raised a little for winter crops. Autumn is the traditional time for composting all gardens, especially the vegetable garden. If you are continually harvesting from the same area of garden, you have to keep adding humus to the soil or it will become poor and depleted. Synthetic fertilisers are a poor substitute for green crops and good compost. They add short term nutrients but not humus.
  • With the wet weather, keeping a copper spray on the tomatoes is even more important to extend the season if they have not already succumbed to blight.

If you have a surplus of cucumbers, The Curious Gardeners Almanac says that they were much cherished by the Ancient Egyptians who made a drink by cutting a hole in one end and stirring up the flesh with a stick. To us this just indicates a diet which is sadly lacking in greater delights such as fresh coconut, pineapple or even orange juice.

April 11, 2008 Weekly Garden Guide

  • Plant spring maturing cabbages, caulis, lettuce, spinach and broc. Strawberry runners can be also be planted out now. Plants need replacing often and you may well be able to harvest your own runners right now to save having to buy any.
  • Successful vegetable gardening involves good hygiene and tidy habits so a tidy up round removing spent foliage, getting rid of weeds and general housekeeping is always desirable but especially as you harvest autumn crops and prepare for winter.
  • Wrench trees and shrubs which you plan to move during winter. Wrenching involves cutting around the roots of the plant. It can force the tree into early hibernation but also encourages the plant to form fresh roots from the cut area. Plan to move as large a root ball as you can physically manage and the larger the top of the plant, the more roots you need to plan on keeping. After wrenching, leave the plant to rest for several weeks at least and don’t think about moving it until we get a great deal more rain.
  • With temperatures cooling down considerably, evaporation has slowed right down but do not forget to keep watering container plants as long as the promised rains fail to materialise. If your evergreen shrub in a container suddenly starts to drop its leaves, it is suffering extreme stress, probably from drought. Or it may be dead already.
  • Leaf fall appears to be starting early this year which is in part due to trees coping with the stress of the drought. Raking the leaves back under the plant or into a damp heap in the shade will encourage them to break down into lovely leaf litter which you can then rake back out as a friendly mulch.
  • Do not delay on the pre-winter tidy-up trim of the hedges.

    • The quote this week is from E.B.White (author of Charlotte’s Web) who wrote:

    Our vegetable garden is coming along well, with radishes and beans up and we are less worried about revolution than we used to be.

Gardens and Vineyards in Marlborough

There is a bit of the green-eyed monster in many of us who live in areas of the country where vineyards are rare or non existent. A visit to Marlborough had me thinking that the green-eyed monster may be wearing rose coloured spectacles with visions of the romance of Tuscany.

Vineyards in Marlborough are acre upon acre upon acre of green monoculture. And frankly there is not a lot that is aesthetically pleasing about endless expanses of tanalised posts, wires and alkathene piping. And while the vineyard cafes, for which many of us would also admit to feeling envy, are generally magnificent, architecturally designed buildings from the front, if you view them as a whole, the backs of the buildings are factories. Stainless steel vats are not great additions to the rural landscape.

Vast vineyards mean little bird life. Birds and grapes don’t go together and stringent efforts are made to kill or at least banish all birds. But worst must be the frost control in an area which has fairly frequent frosts. A local told me that there could be as many as 150 helicopters hovering in the air. I was a bit surprised that they could muster 150 helicopters but the vineyard acreage is huge now. I imagine Apocalypse Now has nothing on these areas and the prospect of long nights with the throbbing of helicopters ensuring the survival of the precious grape crop (while discharging vast quantities of exhaust fumes) would have me selling up and moving to somewhere less likely to be afflicted by deafening noise while I struggled to sleep.

So a recent weekend in Marlborough was a revelation in dispelling the myths of the glamour of living in a grape growing region. Good wine (and plenty of it), good food in vineyard cafes and lots of wealth but the environmental impact is not all great. And in Marlborough, which is dry as a bone, vineyards all need irrigation. With no ground water (so no springs, wells or bores) I was told it all derives from the one river. The current buzz word elsewhere of sustainability was not mentioned. Overall, I concluded, Tuscany it is not.

I was in the area for a weekend looking at gardens in the company of some of the country’s pre-eminent and up and coming gardeners. The first garden had me thinking about whether it was in fact a garden or a landscape but that is pedantic because it stands out as the most sensitive adaptation to the environment that I have seen. We were lucky to see it because it is not open to the public. The house was the initial unique feature – thick concrete poured in curves and completely nestled into a hillside so that it is nearly invisible. In fact, as we walked towards a windowed cupola which appeared to be a garden feature set on a grassy mound, it took a few moments to realise we were walking over the roof of the house. The glassed cupola was the light and ventilation shaft for the kitchen. Entering through a cutting in the hill flanked by ngaio trees, we walked into this curious, curved house where there was a wall of windows looking out to the landscape and the sea. It took your breath away. Living in a hobbit house which is half underground may not appeal to all but I have never seen such sensitive blending of architecture and landscape. It was all of a two minute stroll to the wild coastline and the environment is harsh and unforgiving but simply splendid. Gardening in a traditional style would be doomed to failure but the owner has maximised two view shafts while retaining some shelter from the existing dunes. Vegetation was entirely native and tough – including ngaios, cabbage trees, flaxes, tussocks and toetoe. It looked as if it was all a happy, natural occurrence and it wasn’t until I looked closely that I realised the owner had worked hard to achieve this impression. I figured the land had been re-contoured somewhat to achieve the view shafts (he confirmed that he had indeed bought a bob cat and owned diggers) and I could see where he was managing the native flora to keep a natural appearance without the scruffiness of the wild. But nothing looked contrived or artificial and it was simply remarkable.

Inland from Blenheim, we visited Barewood – Carolyn Ferraby’s garden which carries national significance ranking. Her place was very different with the prettiest garden in combinations of pastel perennials, annuals and shrubs surrounding a very old villa. A florist by profession, she has clearly shunned anything bright or garish and I certainly can’t recall seeing anything spiky. I think of it as an English-styled mixed border approach to gardening and it was the sort of place that my English mother (herself a very good gardener) set about creating in her many gardens but never stuck around long enough to see mature. Harmony is the key, and deceptive understatement. Nothing shouts look at me, look at me. Blending together to create a complete picture is the order of the day. The only mass plantings are the three avenues of matched trees which frame access ways but many of the border plants are repeated in different combinations. Considering we were viewing it at the very end of a dry summer when most gardens can look a little tired and stressed, the owner maintains a high standard with the help of irrigation. It was very pretty.

Southwards, near Kaikoura, we visited Winterhome, another Garden of National Significance. I have never been there before though I have seen it frequently on TV and in magazines where the rose gardens (massed planting of white Margaret Merrill in compartments surrounded by box hedging) and the canal garden feature heavily. Those simple forms photograph well but never inspired me so I was completely unprepared for the impact of this large and mature garden which went so far beyond those two areas. It is Italian in style with intersecting axis but on a fairly grand scale and a complexity of planting which goes beyond the modern formal style with its very limited palette of plants.

This is a garden light on ornamentation (thank goodness) but heavy on structure and form. Lots of walls, loggias, pillars and structural framing but all integrated with planting. It is a garden which has surprises and mystery and where some of the long axis (very long, some of them, stretching hundreds of metres) entice you down to see what is at the end. The structure, or hard landscaping, has aged gracefully so it is not intrusive but gives it all shape and coherence.

I was forced to review my cynicism about the Italian look (all structure and form with no plant interest and usually clichéd structure at that). While I may feel a little sense of NABBH (more of that in a later column – it stands for Not Another Bloody Buxus Hedge), it was great to see gardeners carry off a grand vision with flair and hard work, albeit probably backed up by quite a bit of money.

Barewood and Winterhome are both open to the public but you have to know the right people to get entree to the coastal house and garden.

Relish, Delicious Preserves for Modern Food

Author: Robyn Martin

Publisher: Chanel and Stylus, ($?)

I have an admission to make which is that this book went over to the neighbours who are Passionate Pickle Makers. I think it may have been returned somewhat reluctantly but they also kindly returned it with jars of Tomato Kasundi, Moroccan Peach Chutney, Onion Marmalade, Bread and Butter Pickles and Mexican Tomato Sauce. No you can not have these neighbours for yourself but you can go and buy this excellent recipe book.

The bottom line is that good home made preserves taste a great deal better than store bought versions and this New Zealand publication will whet your appetite to get into all manner of tasty preserves, both savoury and sweet. The recipes are straightforward and they work well (so I am told). I can vouch that they taste delicious.

The typeface is large; the photos by James Ensing-Trussell are mouth watering; the book opens flat which makes it easy to use. I felt mean taking back ownership of the review copy but there are options for all year round and I intend to try many more as time allows. Anyone for hot lime pickle, orange slices in star anise syrup, sticky date jam (soaked in hot tea and vanilla) or pickled pears? Some recipes are a delicious new take on old classics with interesting and appetising flavour combinations. Preserves are a great way to lift a plain meal or to make cheese and crackers more appealing. The seventy or so recipes in this book may be all you will need for the next decade. This book is worth owning and I will be buying another copy for my daughter.

April 4, 2008 Weekly Garden Guide

Rain glorious rain last Sunday and Monday was a welcome relief for gardeners as well as farmers.

While we have not yet had enough to bring moisture levels back to normal, it does at least herald the start of the new gardening cycle. It should be safe to sow lawns. You can be starting to divide perennials and clumping plants (but make sure you water them in well) and thinking about autumn planting of shrubs and trees.

  • If you are planning to divide or plant bluebells, do not delay. They will be moving soon. Our large daffodils are already in growth but the dwarf daffs are still able to be divided and moved.
  • If you have untidy looking hedges, now is the time to give them a trim in preparation for winter if you are in a fairly frost free or light frost area. Trimming them encourages fresh growth and you don’t want to delay or that growth will be very soft and tender just when Jack Frost pays his first visit. Leave the radical hair cut for springtime when the plants are in full growth. This is more a light maintenance trim.
  • The Curious Gardener’s Almanac quotes an old saying:

    if a shrub flowers before the middle of summer, prune it in the autumn; if afterwards, then wait till spring. There are exceptions to this but generally it holds true.

    We are still digesting this piece of advice. Certainly you will be trimming off flower buds on rhododendrons and camellias at least, but it may be appropriate for radical rejuvenation where you are willing to sacrifice the flowering for the next season. So if you are an inveterate hacker, you could take this piece of advice and head out to prune everything (except flowering cherries where you have missed the boat) which flowered before the end of January.

  • Keen vegetable gardeners will be preparing the ground in advance for later crops such as onions. Keep tomatoes sprayed with copper to extend their life span into autumn. Citrus trees will also benefit from a clean up copper and oil spray to combat botrytis and scabbing on the fruit. Botrytis will take the leaves off and rot the fruit.

The final thought for this week (also from the above mentioned almanac) is that worms are roughly 1000 times stronger than humans, relative to their size. We did not know that and it is likely that you did not either.