Tag Archives: Abbie Jury

January bulbs for mid summer

Regular readers will know that we are very keen on bulbs here. As I surveyed the January ones, I figured that most bulbs are stars on their day. I guess because they are both seasonal and transient, they have to wow in their short time in the spotlight. A bulb in bloom can make you look in admiration, despite even the most unattractive location. We would not be without them.

The prized worsleya

The prized worsleya

Indubitably, the star this week is the unusual Empress of Brazil (Worsleya procera syn. rayneri) which does indeed hail from Brazil. It is an exotic showstopper. But the reason it is hardly ever seen is because it is rare in cultivation and requires a patient gardener. This particular specimen took 13 years from planting to bloom. There aren’t many gardeners willing to wait over a decade for a flower.

Scadoxus multiflorus ssp katherinae

Scadoxus multiflorus ssp katherinae

The Scadoxus multiflorus ssp katherinae are also big and showy but much easier to source, being very popular with Auckland landscapers. We have reached the point where they seed down and are naturalising themselves beneath trees where they have become a real feature in the summer shade garden. Some of those blooms are getting close to the size of human heads. We have South Africa and Zimbabwe to thank for these beauties.

Auratum lilies

Auratum lilies

In sunnier spots and on the margins, it is the lilies that astound. I wrote about the aurelians two weeks ago but it is now the time for the auratums (sometimes known as the golden-rayed lily of Japan). These can be sourced from garden centres in winter. Just make sure you never let the bulbs dry out, even when they appear dormant. If you give them lots of TLC for the first few years, you can increase numbers from the small offshoots as well as raising seed.

Gloriosa superba

Gloriosa superba

Gloriosa superba are often called climbing lilies, though they are only distant relatives at best. These are great plants for hot, dry conditions – the sort of spot many of us have under house eaves facing north. They flower for a long time in high summer and require absolutely no care at all beyond giving them something to cling to so they can climb rather than tumble.

Gladiolus

Gladiolus

Gladioli! Dahlias! We often take both families for granted but summer gardens would be poorer for their absence. We don’t have many of the Dame Edna hybrid gladdies. While there is a certain charm in their exuberant vulgarity, we are less enamoured of the rust that afflicts the foliage, making them unattractive plants. This white gladiolus is not a species, as far as we know, but it is somewhat further back up the breeding chain from the modern hybrids. Dahlias I tend to lump in with perennials though technically they are tubers, so within the bulb group.

Crinum moorei

Crinum moorei

The crinums are coming into flower and C. moorei is another shade garden option though it needs to be in a position where its rather large foliage can be ignored during the times when it is scruffy. These plants stand chest height, the fragrant flowers close to nose level so there is nothing small and dainty about them.

Add in the crocosmia featured last week, the tigridias in Plant Collector today, summer flowering ornithogalum, the yellow zephyranthes (‘rain lilies’), even the early Cyclamen hederafolium coming into flower. While January is not in any way peak bulb season, those in bloom add a great deal to the summer garden.

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

Plant Collector: Tigridia pavonia

Tigridia pavonia - missing the scarlet red one we have which had no flowers open on the day

Tigridia pavonia – missing the scarlet red one we have which had no flowers open on the day

There is nothing rare, choice or difficult about these bulbs which can border on garden weeds, they are so easy. But in the right situation, they are a delight in the summer melee. Tigridias are from southern Mexico but probably on the road to naturalising anywhere hospitable. They set prodigious amounts of seed and can reach flowering size from seed in two years. Their common name is jockey caps and they belong to Iridaceae (iris) family. The flowers are relatively large – up to 15cm across – with 3 large outer petals and 3 inner small ones, but short-lived. Each bloom only lasts one day, opening in the morning and wilting away to oblivion by evening. However, each stem produces multiple blooms in succession. The pleated leaves are attractive in themselves and both flower and foliage sit around 60cm high. In case you are worried about weed potential, be reassured that they are easy to pull out if they pop up in the wrong place and you can control them by removing seed pods.

Tigridias want full sun and good drainage but also some summer rain when in growth. We find they combine well with larger growing summer plants like dahlias and lychnis in less formal areas of the garden.

Mark’s very late Uncle Les (he who bred such camellia classics as Jury’s Yellow, Anticipation and Debbie) spent some time trying to breed the freckles out of tigridias which always seemed a rather odd track to take, though the freckle-less blooms perhaps have a finer charm of some sort.

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

Garden Lore

“It is a greater act of faith to plant a bulb than to plant a tree.”

Clare Leighton, Four Hedges (1935)

Do we really believe that cabbage whites have large enough brains to be duped?

Do we really believe that cabbage whites have large enough brains to be duped?

Garden Lore: Cabbage whites and brassicas
Brassicas are like ambrosia to the cabbage white butterfly. Or maybe heroin. For this reason, we prefer not to grow brassicas during the summer months when the cabbage whites are at their most active. I am a reluctant consumer of cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower at the best of times. The latter two are passable in a winter soup flavoured with cheese (blue cheese is the classic, but any cheese helps). However, many of the increasingly popular Chinese greens also belong to the brassica family, and these are acceptable to me at any time of the year.

You can net the vegetables, but the netting needs to be raised clear so that the winged parent cannot land and lay eggs through the netting. If you want to spray, talk to your local garden centre about BT (which is a bacterial based treatment) or pyrethrum-based options. Pyrethrum is the active ingredient in flyspray and was originally extracted from a daisy. These days it is more likely to be synthetic but it remains a pretty safe control. Vigilant digital control (squashing with the fingers on a daily basis) can work in the early stages. We think it is a myth that egg shells on sticks will confuse the butterfly and they will fly away. White butterflies show no territorial instincts at all, that we have ever seen.

If you don’t like added protein to your cooked vegetables (while Mark does not mind the odd cooked caterpillar, most people find them very offputting), you can sprinkle lots of salt over the florets or leaves as you prepare them, then cover them with cold water for a few minutes while the caterpillars die. Rinse them thoroughly, inspect closely and cook with no added salt.

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

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.