The Magic of Monet’s Garden

Author: Derek Fell

Publisher: David Bateman Ltd $49.99

While Monet is best known as one of the foremost Impressionist artists around the turn of last century, he was also a serious gardener and his Giverny garden, an hour northwest from Paris, has been restored and is open to the public. While traditionally French gardening was marked by formal design, parterres and mass bedding plants, Monet married formal design with billowing plantings achieved with flowers and colour.

In this lavish book (it is positively cheap for a well presented hardback full of 200 photographs), Derek Fell sets out to present the garden in all its glory and to decode the secrets of colour and plant management which Monet worked hard to achieve. As an Impressionist, Monet is renowned for his fascination with light and it is the incorporation of light and colour theory which sets this garden apart. You need to read the book to get to grips with shimmer and back lighting in the garden setting.

While the author’s interpretation of colour theory may not satisfy artists (after all, artists know black and white are not colours) and is at times a little attenuated, he does a very good job of presenting it for gardeners. It is pleasing to see a garden book which is strongly focussed on plants and colour and where the formal design elements of gardening are acknowledged but only as a background for the dynamic plantings.

This is not only an attractive book to have, it will give the keen gardener a good understanding of colour theory and planting combinations for those who like gardens full of plants and flowers and managed through different seasons.

Where to Watch Birds in New Zealand

Author: Kathy Ombler

Publisher: New Holland, $34.99

I have no idea how many dedicated bird watchers there are in this country but presumably the number is sufficiently large to warrant this charming book. It is subtitled “More than 30 of the country’s best birding locations” (Taranaki, apparently, is not one of them because it is not mentioned) although the author makes it clear that it is not a definitive guide to the entire country.

At one level, this book is a clearly written guide for those who plan their holidays around birding (location, how to get there and how to find your way around once you are there, birds of the area, accommodation, useful contacts, additional reading etc). There are many subheadings, boxes and maps which presents the information clearly but few photos so one clearly needs to carry other books to identify the birds. But at another level, it is one of those quirky, highly specialised books which is nice to have in the bookcase even if you are not an ardent birder. It is full of interesting little bits of information about the areas and about conservation in general in our country.

It is certainly worth having if you holiday around the country or if you host overseas visitors who are interested in nature generally. I won’t be giving my copy away.

September 28, 2007 Weekly Garden Guide

Start forcing kumaras by giving them a bit of bottom heat or by putting them in a box with moist straw or sawdust in a warm place to get an accelerated start when you plant them out in a few weeks time.

  • Dwarf beans can have their first sowing of the season now.
  • Garden centres are full of young tomato plants and in warm areas you can plant them out now in a warm, sunny, sheltered spot.
  • Stake broad beans as they will grow very quickly now. The same goes for clematis.
  • Roses are all in full growth now so you can fertilise them and mulch them. Those who keep their roses beautiful by applying regular sprays will want to keep a close eye on any signs of black spot, aphids and the multitude of other greeblies and nasties that most roses are susceptible to.
  • Mowing the lawn with a mulcher mower improves lawn health, rather than constantly removing the clippings. Farmers know you can not repeatedly cut hay without heavy fertilising and the same principle applies to lawns.
  • Give deciduous fruit trees a copper spray as they burst into growth. This is the most important spray of the year for them.

Of Moss and Things

I had an interesting garden visitor at the weekend. While he called in at our place to enjoy the garden and is entranced by magnolias, he is even more besotted by mosses. Possibly he doesn’t find many people whose eyes light up at the sight of different mosses because as we talked, he kept producing various mosses to give to us for planting.

I know next to nothing about mosses and indeed to most gardeners, they are a sign of compacted soil and neglected lawn. But they can be really exciting, in an understated sort of way. I can not see myself getting so inspired that I need to become an expert on them. They must rank alongside orchids as one of the most complicated and extensive plant genus. In fact I read that there are over 10 000 different known mosses and yes, we do have forms indigenous to New Zealand.

In case some of this sounds familiar to readers, the garden visitor was Allan Paterson who is featured in the September issue of The Gardener with his shared business sustainably harvesting mosses. Sphagnum moss is the best known harvest and is widely used in hanging baskets and with potted orchids. There are large reserves of it on the West Coast. But Allan and his partner also harvest various other mosses and lichens for sale to florists. It was when I said that Mark fancied planting some mosses in his developing bog garden area that Allan whipped out a couple of display boxes of samples to give me. They are a wonderfully tactile product and we keep patting them as we walk past the boxes.

The Japanese have a long tradition of revering moss and indeed there are famous gardens there which are essentially moss gardens. I don’t think we see ourselves attempting to re-create the Goblin Forest on Mount Taranaki’s slopes (so-called, I think, because the plants are festooned in mosses and lichens). While we could probably manage the general effect without having to resort to too much misting and watering over summer, your average New Zealand garden visitor is perhaps less impressed by swathes of mosses covering trees and ground than your average Japanese visitor. We might just keep to the mossy bog.

A moss garden needs shelter, shade and cover along with reasonable levels of moisture. Mark is still pondering how he is going to achieve these optimum conditions for the unexpected gift of assorted mosses.

That said, moss gardens are not synonymous with mossy gardens. I have just spent the better part of three days going through our rockery rubbing much of the moss off the rocks. A bit of moss is perfectly natural and picturesque. And lichen is a sign of clean air (it is one of the first organisms to disappear when the atmosphere is polluted). But lots of moss and lichen can make a rockery look neglected and you start to lose the shapes of the rocks under the green carpet. And we all know about the problems of moss on paths. It is, by the way, the reason why picturesque brick pathways are better in very dry climates. In our humid and moist conditions, they fast become picturesque but dangerous brick and moss skating strips.

I keep noticing the extended television advertisement for the product which you spray on your paths to get rid of moss. I think it is named something like “Thirty Seconds”. That, I assume, is the time it takes you to spray a square metre or so. Presumably it is not the time it takes to kill the moss because in small print, it states “May take up to two months in some conditions”!

Mossy lawns are often a source of concern to gardeners. Mosses will colonise in shady areas or where soil is compacted, damp and hungry. While you can spray out the moss if it bothers you, you also need to change the conditions or it will just return. I think I prefer the Alan Titchmarsh approach. I can not find my copy of his early publication, “The Avant Gardener” so with apologies to the author, I will have to paraphrase the words of this great English gardener and broadcaster from modern times.

Lawns, he said, belong to council houses where there are rows of alternating coloured marigolds and salvias staked up straight. Avant gardeners don’t have lawns. They have grass, and the more the grass the invaded by daisies and moss the prettier it is.

* * * *

On another topic, keen gardeners and garden readers might be interested in a new quarterly publication scheduled for its first release in a few months’ time. “The Gardener’s Journal” is closely modelled on the English publication “The Garden” with extended articles on a wide range of topics of interest to New Zealand gardeners. The first edition promises around 120 pages with minimal advertising. The leading article will be by extremely famous English gardener, Beth Chatto (I didn’t know she was still alive…) along with contributions on various gardens and gardening people in this country, “Adventures with Paeonia Mlokoswitschii”, “Return of the Native”, “A Late Autumn Treasury” and lots more. It promises to be a meatier diet than current publications in the market.

If you want to know more, or better, to order the first copy or take out a year’s subscription, contact the editor, Margaret Long on margaretlong@xtra.co.nz, 139 Old Tai Tapu Rd, Halswell, Christchurch.

21 September, 2007 Weekly Garden Guide

  • Sow seeds under cover for summer annuals and summer vegetables such as tomatoes, cucumber and courgettes. The aim is to have them in top condition for planting into the garden around Labour Weekend which will be upon us before you expect.
  • Feijoa bushes can be thinned and opened up to encourage them to produce larger fruit next season. Give them a feed at the same time.
  • Keep pinching out the flowers on strawberry plants while the clumps build up size and strength, before you let them fruit.
  • Dwarf beans can be started in pots now but it is a little early to plant them in the garden yet unless you have a really prime spot.
  • Pruning out any dead wood from shrubs such as rhododendrons improves their appearance considerably and pruning tends to be more fun than weeding.
  • You can still lift and divide hostas but time is running out as they are in growth. This also means that every slug and snail in the vicinity will be packing their bags and moving in to munch them. Laying a ring of sawdust, sand or grit can act like a barrier and discourage them from sliming across to reach the delectable shoots.
  • It is a good time to give your spring bulbs a feed of blood and bone as they finish flowering. This growth period is critical for them to build strength in the bulb for next year’s flowering. If your daffodils have not set flower buds it is either because they are too shaded or they are too congested and need to be divided up for next spring.
  • Readers who enjoyed Vicki’s piece on peacocks last week may like to have a look for photos of Isola Madre, the island villa and garden in Lake Maggiore, Northern Italy. They specialize in pure white peacocks (presumably rare albinos) and as they pose on all the substantial stonework, they make possibly the most elegant picture imaginable. Notwithstanding that, sadly peacocks and gardening do not go together at all. Birds of that size do a substantial amount of damage.