Tag Archives: Abbie Jury

Plant Collector: Crocosmia “Lucifer”

Red Crocosmia 'Lucifer' with yellow anigozanthus

Red Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ with yellow anigozanthus

When they are roadside weeds, these bulbs are often referred to as montbretia. Treading on thin ice, I admit that we have orange-red ones growing amongst agapanthus on our roadside. At least it is better than the dreaded bristle grass that is the scourge in our area. “Lucifer” is a superior form, a hybrid with bigger flowers and stronger colour, making it popular as a garden plant. It is strong growing and both the pleated leaves and the flower spikes can get above waist height and it is almost indestructible. I like to keep it confined but it makes an attractive display beneath the apple trees and also alongside an equally strong growing yellow anigozanthus (kangaroo paw) which we have at the front of the rockery.

The bulbs are not unlike gladiolus corms and form chains below ground. It is the ability to grow when the chains are separated that makes these both easy and verging on weedy in some situations. We have a much larger flowered golden orange form which may be “Star of the East”. I say we have it, but we are waiting to see if indeed it is still here because it has been nowhere near as vigorous as “Lucifer” and each year we worry we have lost it.

Crocosmias are a small group of South African bulbs belonging to the iridaceae family. They are winter dormant, but their one drawback as a garden plant is that it takes a long time for the foliage to die down and they can be unattractive in autumn. That said, they are such toughies that I often trim the foliage off early to tidy them up.

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

Garden Lore

“Once it has a toehold, incongruity has a way of advancing systematically through the garden like quackgrass.”

Des Kennedy, Crazy About Gardening (1994)

A wonderful blue but don't trust this commelina in NZ

A wonderful blue but don’t trust this commelina in NZ

Garden Lore – weed plants

We bought a packet of seed of this pretty Commelina coelstris ‘Sleeping Beauty’ a few years ago and we have been working on eradicating it ever since. Mark decided it was dangerous as soon as he saw the seed set, even before we found that if you fail to remove all the tuberous roots, it can stage a comeback. It has such a pretty blue flower and we are fans of blue. Mind you, it is not as if it flowers in abundance like the common lobelias that seed down here and do no harm at all. I checked an American website and opinion was divided on the invasiveness of this plant but its ability to grow across a huge range of climatic zones, in every soil possible and in both sun and shade is a good indicator of weed potential in the hospitable conditions we have in this country. Pretty wildflowers in harsher climates can be an environmental curse here.

We haven’t complained to the seed company selling the commelina. Last time we mentioned to them about the weediness of a line they were selling (it was so-called strawberry spinach), the response we got was a dismissive: “Nobody else has had a problem with it”. The sub text to this might be: ‘we have no intention of stopping selling this plant and clearly you have no idea what you are talking about’. Since then, we have noticed others complaining about strawberry spinach. It took us years to eradicate it. It wasn’t even particularly appetising. Buy this, or the commelina at your peril. Campanulas are a better option for easy-care blue flowers.

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

Garden Lore

“I always think of my sins when I weed. They grow apace in the same way and are harder still to get rid of.”

Helena Rutherford Ely “A Woman’s Hardy Garden” (1903)

Sago!

Sago!

Garden Lore: Friday 10 January, 2014

Most of us above a certain age grew up with milk puddings. Semolina, sago and tapioca were the most common thickening agents. Until recently, I had vaguely assumed that they basically derived from the same source of starch and the difference was in the grade of grain. Not at all. Semolina is usually durum wheat-based. After the outside husks and wheat germ have been removed, what remains is the inner part, or middlings. This is what gets ground into flour but before that stage, basically it is semolina. It can also be obtained from rice and maize crops – the latter becomes the dish known in USA as “grits”. Modern times have seen old fashioned semolina give way to the trendier North African couscous, which is essentially very similar in makeup but sold as a quick-cooking product having been steamed and then dehydrated. Israeli couscous (which resembles tapioca or frogs’ eyes) is simply further processed to this larger form.

Sago, on the other hand, is a starch that comes from the pith in the trunks of various palms but particularly Metroxylon sagu and is largely a product from New Guinea and South East Asia. Tapioca has an entirely different origin, being from cassava (Manihot esculenta) which grows as a tuberous root and is a tropical plant which originated in South America but is now a staple food in the Pacific and Asia as well.

These days, I only have sago in the kitchen cupboard. That is because I sometimes use a recipe idea which is vintage Alison Holst. When stewing rhubarb, add sago with the diced fruit (1/4 cup to 4 cups of fruit). It takes a little longer to cook, but the result is somewhat jellied and the acidity of the rhubarb has gone. It is very palatable, even for non-rhubarb fans.

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

Plant Collector: Justicia carnea alba

The white candles of Justicia carnea alba

The white candles of Justicia carnea alba

Christmas candles? Reminiscent of the tufting of old fashioned candlewick bedspread? It has also the unromantic name overseas of shrimp plant, a reference to the shape of the flowers. The white justicia has been bringing me a great deal of pleasure in recent weeks. We have always had the pink and yellow forms but I thought we had lost the white until I found it looking a little ragged and squashed by surrounding plants. I moved it and it hasn’t looked back. It can be a bit of a straggler so I constructed a discreet little bamboo frame to hold the plant together.

There are over 400 different justicia species, mostly from tropical to warm temperate Central and South America (think Brazil, amongst others) but J. carnea appears to be one of the showiest and is the most common in cultivation in this country. It has a very long flowering season across the summer months. This plant is only a metre tall at this stage but left to its own devices, I expect over time it will reach the 2.5 metres of the pink and yellow ones we have.

There aren’t many plants which will flower profusely in heavy shade. Most plants need sun to bloom. So it makes an ideal larger woodland plant with one proviso. The information online says it will not take below 7 °C. I don’t think it is that sensitive. We can get colder than that here and it has never shown damage but clearly it is quite cold sensitive and is regarded as a glasshouse plant in many areas of the world.

Justicias belong to the acanthaceae family.

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

Garden Lore

“It takes a while to grasp that not all failures are self-imposed, the result of ignorance, carelessness or inexperience. It takes a while to grasp that a garden isn’t a testing ground for character and to stop asking, what did I do wrong? Maybe nothing.”

Eleanor Perenyi, Green Thoughts (1981).

Japanese black trifele tomatoes

Japanese black trifele tomatoes

Heirloom and heritage seed varieties

I see Kings Seeds define “heirloom” seed varieties as being selected strains dating back to pre-1960s. Anything grown from seed will be a selected cultivar from the original species over time and may be very different from wild forms. While, by definition, heirloom varieties are open pollinated (by insects or wind), so too is the vast majority of seed we grow. I tried to work out whether there is an agreed difference between “heirloom” and “heritage” but generally the terms seem to be used loosely and interchangeably.

A number of people and organisations have been working for years to preserve our heirloom varieties in this country but none more so than the Koanga Institute and Kay Baxter in particular. Why does it matter? It is really important to keep genetic diversity in a world where commercial production is driven by other imperatives – particularly high productivity. The kiwifruit industry is a clear example of the perils of depending on a single cultivar of yellow fruit. If disease (PSA, in that case) takes it out, the impact is devastating.

Heirloom is not a synonym for high health. Some will be, some won’t and some will not perform well outside their original area. While most of us like to think it is synonymous with better flavour, that is not always true, either. It has nothing to do with being organic although many organic gardeners will favour heirloom varieties. Essentially, all “heirloom seed” means is that a particular seed strain has shown sufficient merit in some area of performance for people to keep it going for over fifty years. And long may we continue to preserve these different strains of seed.

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