Tag Archives: Abbie Jury

All About Roses by Diana Sargeant

d68458bf-8598-4fc7-9e33-200637668d7c - CopyI approached this book with a little trepidation because it seemed to be part of the trend to release Australian publications in this country, assuming that they will be equally relevant here with no significant difference in conditions and plant varieties. In this case it works. This is a charming and helpful book written by somebody who combines vast experience with a genuine love for the topic. The author ran a rose nursery for 25 years where they chose to go to organic production well before many others came to realise that our growing of roses had become bad practice environmentally. There is no doubt it would be easier in Australia to grow good roses without chemical intervention because of their dry climate, but her experience is invaluable. I am not sure how readily available some of her alternatives are in this country yet – but they are stocked even by Bunnings in Australia so if the demand is here, I am sure we will see them soon. That is eco-fungicide, eco-oil, eco-neem and eco-amingro.

There is a wealth of information and ideas in this book in a deceptively simple presentation. She gives a very clear explanation of the different types and, surprisingly, the genetic breeding lines. Recommendations are given on good varieties – thornless ones, pillar roses, scented varieties, cut flowers. As far as I know most of the varieties are available in this country. Growing information is down to earth and practical.

For once, the photos are not just an endless array of close-ups of a single bloom but they also include clear practical photos as well as some lovely mood images.

It is a book for the amateur enthusiast, not the experienced and knowledgeable expert. My one gripe has to do with the publisher, not the author. Where is the index? It needed one and its absence is a glaring omission.

All About Roses by Diana Sargeant. (New Holland; ISBN: 978 1 92151 732 7).

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

For those in need of a little support

Climbing plants give height to a garden but there is often the problem that they need something to climb up.
old wooden ladders1) The old wooden ladders, one vertical and one secured horizontally across the top, are the effort of a creative gardener down the road. The clematis appears to be a strong growing variety which will cover pretty much the entire shed wall in relatively quick time. If you can find old ladders cheaply, it is a quick solution but I do not think that old aluminium ladders would be so pleasing visually.

simple bamboo grid2) Where you have masonry or brick surfaces, separate framing can avoid the need to drill holes. Here we have constructed a simple bamboo grid, tied together with twine, to give a light weight frame for the seasonal climber, Tropaeleum tricolourm. Gridded wire used to reinforce concrete can also make a handy and economical frame for climbers which can be cut to the required size.

bamboo obelisks003 insert - Copy3) We make our own bamboo obelisks specifically to hold clematis. They last for several seasons you need access to fresh giant bamboo to use as the raw material. That is grape vine pruning holding the verticals apart. You can improvise something similar with wooden or cane teepees. If you want step by step instructions for the bamboo, click here.

pipe framespipe frames4) I had these pipe frames built to hold my tall weeping roses, though I am now using two of them for wisterias. They were not cheap at the time, but they have proven their worth over more than 15 years. They need to be driven a long way into the ground – around 40cm at least – to keep them rock solid but they are capable of supporting a weighty mass of foliage at the top. Top heavy plants can readily snap off when only the stem has been staked.

Tanalised timber posts and old maritime rope5) Tanalised timber posts and old maritime rope have been used to construct this frame which gives a simple garden structure as well as a support for climbing plants. It should last for many years and the only stumbling block I can see is sourcing the rope. The aesthetics rest entirely on having heavy, old rope. Modern, coloured nylon rope with a thinner girth just will not cut the mustard.

photographed in a Yorkshire garden6) From the cheap and cheerful, to the mid priced permanent, to this handsome splendour – which I photographed in a Yorkshire garden. The owner deprecatingly refers to this modern recreation as a “plant carrier”. It is there solely to support climbing plants and to provide an attractive structure within the garden. It is all concrete but using the ground-up local stone added to the concrete mix gives it a weathered stone appearance and colouring that fits the local environment.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

Garden Lore

“Hollyhocks are very aspiring Flowers.”
The Flower Garden by John Lawrence (1726)

Clivia seeds and blooms

Clivia seeds and blooms

In the world of wonderfully random bits of gardening information, I thought I would demonstrate to you that red and orange clivias have red seeds while yellow clivias produce yellow seeds. Is that not an interesting fact? These seed are from last year’s blooms. They take a long time to mature. While you can, as we often do, leave them to seed down naturally where they are, picking them and sowing them in trays in more controlled conditions will usually give you a higher percentage.

The reason why clivia plants are often expensive has nothing to do with their being difficult to grow or propagate. It has to do with the time it takes for them to grow and reach flowering size. In this age of instant gratification, people want to buy big plants which will fill a space now and flower beautifully but all for $15, thank you. That is fine if it only takes three months to produce the plant but when it may be four years, you have to be prepared to either pay more or to buy small and be patient. If you have access to an established clump, these are not difficult plants to dig and divide.

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

Plant Collector: Doronicum orientale

Doronicum orientale, not as was fixed in my mind, a geronicum

Doronicum orientale, not as was fixed in my mind, a geronicum

Who knew that the daisy family – or asteraceae – is one of the largest extended plant families in nature? Rivalling even the massive orchid group, in fact, with somewhere over 23 000 different daisy species. But really, it is the apparently simple charm of the daisy form, as with the poppy, that makes many of us smile. The sunny yellow doronicum has been lighting up the garden these past few weeks. To my embarrassment, I thought it was a geronicum but no, somewhere it had bedded into my memory under the wrong name. It is in fact Doronicum orientale, widely referred to in the UK by its common name of leopard’s bane. It is one of the earliest daisies of the season. The almost flat rosette of leaves grow from a small tuber below the ground and the root system is generally small and shallow. The flower stem can push upwards to about 50cm high and sets multiple blooms in succession. When it has finished, it gently fades back down and goes into a state of semi or total dormancy by late summer. This doronicum is native to southern Europe and the Middle East which may explain the timing of its dormancy period.

Botanically speaking, daisy flowers are not so simple after all. What we call petals are often individual ray flowers, with the fertile disk flowers being clustered in the centre (the bit that looks like a pincushion).

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First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

The Romantic Garden (part 1)

Good bones help but the contrast of plants and the simplicity of the daisies would work even without the hall in the background.

Good bones help but the contrast of plants and the simplicity of the daisies would work even without the hall in the background.

We have been talking about romantic gardens here. Not that commercially packaged ‘romantic’ imagery of twilight, candles, a bottle of wine and two glasses. No, we are looking back to the European Romantic period from the late 18th century onwards blended with what is often called naturalistic and gardenesque styles of gardening, but in the 21st century.

The gentle, at times sentimental soft focus of ‘The Secret Garden’ by Frances Hodgson Burnett has stayed with many of us all our lives. It was something of an anticlimax to me when I finally discovered that the history of those walled gardens in Britain has rather more to do with growing fruit and vegetables than roses. So too have I never forgotten the image of Elnora Comstock in ‘A Girl of the Limberlost’ though I admit I mentally had her in an arbour, not beneath a willow tree*.

Gresgarth offered many small pictures of subtle detail.

Gresgarth offered many small pictures of subtle detail.

How does this translate to gardening? Forget the twee, the naff, the contrived sentimentality. That is romantic gardening in the hands of the wannabe. It started to fall into place for us when we visited Arabella Lennox Boyd’s garden called Gresgarth in Lancashire, north west England. The pictures today tell the story. It was wildly romantic though not, I would guess as a deliberate contrivance. Lady Lennox Boyd is renowned as both a highly skilled garden designer and a plantswoman. This is her private garden and a reflection of her personal tastes. Unfortunately she was away the day we visited. We would have liked to have met her because we loved her garden.

It was not a show garden designed to impress. We have seen enough of those to pick them instantly. This was a garden with soul, underpinned by a very deft hand and eye. There were many detailed little pictures as well as the grand views, a marriage of formality and informality with areas of gentle abandon. It was a garden which served multiple purposes including supplying the house with produce and replenishing the soul. It wasn’t perfect. There were a few areas which were certainly not above criticism. In short, it was a garden to be lived in.

It wasn’t until later that we came to the conclusion that the best descriptor was “romantic”. This was despite the coach load of visitors and others who were there at the same time. I can tell you that garden coach loads do not vary a great deal whether they are in New Zealand or overseas. There is a certain herd tendency to tour groups. But even their intrusive presence did not detract from our enjoyment.

I think it was the gardener’s cottage in days gone by, located in the walled garden.

I think it was the gardener’s cottage in days gone by, located in the walled garden.

Gresgarth gave us a reference point as a romantic garden. Even if the handsome residence and the old stone and brickwork were stripped out, it would still retain that sense of romance because it lay in the garden, not primarily in the wider architectural or landscape context. Though it certainly makes life easier if you start with some good bones, as they say.

Romantic gardening is pretty much at the far end of the spectrum from hard-edged contemporary garden design with shiny stainless steel, matt black and sharp white structures and plants selected solely as soft furnishings. It is also well away from austere, classically derived formality although it may have some formal elements.

It wasn’t all pastel and white at Gresgarth.

It wasn’t all pastel and white at Gresgarth.

What else defines it other than that distinctly nebulous and subjective description of having ‘soul’? We are still unravelling this here but romantic gardening brings together a number of threads we have been discussing in recent years – sustainability, support for natural ecosystems, better environmental practices in gardening, a respect for nature which involves a cooperative relationship, some level of prettiness, often a celebration of simplicity rather than grandeur. None of this is a surprise when you consider that the Romantic era originated as a reaction against the Industrial Revolution and the elevation of science and reason above nature.

Maybe it is time for Neo-Romanticism or maybe the Romantic Revival as a response to the elevation of economics and self interest above nature and community? Only time will tell.

* “One afternoon early in July, Ammon came across the fields. He inquired for Elnora at the back door and was told she was reading under the willow. He went around the west end of the cabin to her. She sat on a rustic bench they had made and placed beneath a drooping branch. Ammon had not seen her before in the dress she was wearing. It was clinging mull of pale green trimmed with narrow ruffles and touched with knots of black velvet; a simple dress but vastly becoming.”

A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter (1909)

First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.