Tag Archives: Abbie Jury

Where to start? Childhood success in gardening

Lobelia and pansies - two choices among many quick maturing annuals

Lobelia and pansies – two choices among many quick maturing annuals

I was chatting to a Waikato reader this week and we got on to the subject of encouraging children to garden. It’s not rocket science. Setting up your child for success will breed enthusiasm and confidence.

Our three progeny are well and truly adult now (and gardening adults at that) but they were whizzes at school garden competitions, sand saucers, miniature gardens and floral art. In self defence, I have to say they never won any of the calf rearing cups and ribbons (their experience was at rural schools) and success in the lamb-related sections was rare. But at anything to do with gardening and flowers, they were winners. We set them up for success.

Back in the days when rural schools here promoted competitive school gardens, I was once asked to judge the winners. These were little plots at home where the children grew flowers, herbs or vegetables. Goodness me, they were all raised from seed in those days, organised at a subsidised rate by the schools.

I still remember that judging round as I visited maybe 20 different garden plots. The saddest sight was that of a sole child of older parents. They had a lovely house and garden and poor daughter had been banished to a hidden, shaded spot out the back so as not to spoil the overall appearance of the property. She was doomed to failure.

Children’s gardens need to be in the best possible position where they are in full view and walked past all the time, not hidden away. Think of it like the wretched trampoline that dogs so many parents. If that is hidden away from view, it is not used anywhere near as much as if it is in prime position. As every parent knows, the years of childhood seem long at the time but in retrospect they have flashed past. Tramps, sandpits, paddling pools, plastic toys and their ilk don’t combine with the beautiful house and garden but they are transient. Children’s gardens are in the same class. Celebrate them. Don’t hide them away. Put them in a prominent spot by a main access path in full sun.

Rural families may have a damaged farm trough to recycle as a child's garden but move it to a sunny, prominent spot

Rural families may have a damaged farm trough to recycle as a child’s garden but move it to a sunny, prominent spot

Children like a defined space that is their own. A raised garden bed may be just the ticket but is not necessary. Defining an area with stones or bricks may suffice. Our youngest had a successful garden in a cracked farm trough which had been recycled as a sandpit and then had a third life as his vege garden. I mention this for rural readers who may have suitable farm trough lying around which they can move to the right position.

Keep the size manageable. Generally a metre square is all a small child needs, maybe two square metres for one who is a little older. Getting too large can become daunting, especially when it comes to weeding.

Guarantee success by preparing the soil. Digging it over, making sure it is friable without huge clods and adding compost or sheep pellets means that most plants will grow as required. It is too much to expect young children to be able to dig a garden. That ability comes with experience. If time allows, letting the first flush or two of weeds germinate and push hoeing them off saves an awful lot of weeding later on. Odds on, however, most children will be too keen to get planting and not want to wait for that process but at least rake the surface level for them.

If you are starting on a patch of lawn, make sure you remove all the turf first rather then digging it in.

The purist in me says that children should be encouraged to learn how to grow plants from seed. The realist says that times have changed and for a first experience, it gives a quicker result to start with punnets of small plants. The middle ground is to do a mix of purchased seedlings and seed that can be direct sown into the ground. Just avoid seeds that need to be started in individual pots or seed trays.

Let your child choose what they want to grow. Herbs often appeal to older children. Oreganum, marjoram, thyme, chives and parsley are good options. Coriander can be direct sown. If flowers are the choice, guide them to quick maturing annuals. Pansies, lobelia, nigella, petunias, alyssum, ageratum – the list is long. Let your child choose maybe five different ones. Most children I have seen like to plant in patterns.

Quick maturing vegetables are the way to go with children

Quick maturing vegetables are the way to go with children

When it comes to vegetables, quick maturing is the way to go. Lettuces or Asian greens are good options. Radishes are the classic choice but few children like eating them. Peas and dwarf beans can be direct sown from seed. A Sweet 100 tomato is a good choice, but keep it to just one strong plant. By mid to late summer, it will probably take up the entire patch but by then, many of the other crops will have finished and interest may have waned.

Success breeds enthusiasm. Set your child up for success from the start even if it involves some work behind the scenes.

First published by Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.

Plant Collector: Staghorn fern or Platycerium

Our giant staghorn fern or platycerium

Our giant staghorn fern or platycerium

In some parts of the world, these are all referred to as elkhorn ferns. I guess we are more familiar with stags than elks in this neck of the woods. The leaves are generally seen as resembling antlers. The general wisdom in NZ is that there are only two varieties – the staghorn and the elkhorn but in fact there appear to be nearer 20 different ones, hailing from the tropics and subtropics in a band around the globe, central to and south of the equator. Best guess is that this one is P. bifurcatum which is native to Java, New Guinea and the east coast of Australia. This tells you that it is frost tender.

The platyceriums are all ephiphytic and are widely grown as houseplants. This particular plant, after decades in our woodland area, measures about a metre across and a metre deep, holding the rather slender host tree in an all-round embrace. It draws all the nutrition and moisture it needs from the air. We give it no attention at all beyond an annual tidy up when I remove the dislodged foliage that has fallen from the trees above. Staghorns are sold from time to time and often grown as house plants in chillier areas. Just wire it to a support of some assortment. Grown as a houseplant, it will need more attention because it won’t be receiving the nutrition and moisture but there are plenty of references on how to care for them in a controlled environment.

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

The Essential Plant Guide

???????????????????????????????The subtitle of this large book is “Every plant you need for your garden” and the cover, presumably generated specifically for the NZ market by the publisher and the NZ distributor, New Holland, boldly states “For New Zealand Gardeners”. It isn’t. The authors are Australian and American and the text has not been adapted for NZ conditions which are very different. Including plants like meconopsis (which will seed down and naturalise, don’t you know?) and trilliums as great garden plant options is problematic. There are reasons why you don’t see many crepe myrtles (lagerstroemia) growing in this country (they need hot, dry summers) and cornus are not great in the mild north and mid north. Arisaemas – we know quite a bit about arisaemas here. A. sikokianum is incredibly difficult to keep going as a garden plant but that is at least better than the recommendations for some which we think aren’t even in this country. Recommended camellia and rhododendron varieties are often (mostly?) ones more popular in the authors’ home countries and are not the NZ market choices. I would not be sure that they have all been imported to NZ, let alone in production.

It is a nice looking book which runs to over 800 pages. There is a double page spread on most genus, cheapened by the ubiquitous “Top Tips” which sometimes aren’t. The organisation into sections (trees, shrubs, fruit trees, cacti and succulents, orchids etc) makes it a little clumsy to use. Ferns are lumped with palms and cycads.

The bottom line is that a book for NZ conditions would take into account what performs here and what is available here. This is just a generic plant reference book with no specific application to gardening in this country.

The Essential Plant Guide by Tony Rodd and Kate Bryant (Global Book Publishing; ISBN: 978 1 74048 035 2).

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

“There is a dangerous doctrine – dangerous because it precludes endless gardening pleasures – that every plant in the garden should be disease-free, bug-free, hardy to cold, resistant to heat and drought, cheap to buy and available at any garden center.”

Henry Mitchell Henry Mitchell on Gardening (1998)

073
The gardening basket

As we feel the intense pressure of getting our garden all groomed for the busiest 10 days of the garden visiting year here, I was thinking how very useful is my gardening basket. Not for me the style of a pretty willow or cane basket or the tradition of the wooden trug – the former is not going to like getting wet while the latter is heavier. I am afraid mine is utility Warehouse plastic, but invaluable nonetheless. I can almost always find my trowel, secateurs, pruning saw, Wonder Weeder, lawn weeder, kneeling pad, garden gloves and other accoutrements because I just toss them into the garden basket and cart it around with me. When I have finished for the day, I put the basket in the barrow and wheel it into the carport ready for the morrow. Being plastic means I can hose it out when it gets grungy. The only drawback is that this means the two men in my gardening life can also find my gardening tools any time they want to borrow something. One returns them, the other does not always return them to the same place.

A gardening basket may be a thoughful gift for children to give a gardening grandparent or mother.

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

Plant Collector: Ranunculus cortusifolius

Not the ordinary field buttercup, Ranunculus cortusifolius

Not the ordinary field buttercup, Ranunculus cortusifolius

I am guessing that some readers may look at the photo and sniff about common old buttercups. Yes this is a buttercup, but not the nasty, weedy one even if the flowers may look similar. There are hundreds of different ranunculus (or should that be ranunculae?) and quite a few of those are what we call buttercups. This species is highly prized as a garden plant, as long as you aren’t offended by the extremely bright yellow flowers. It hails from the Azores and Canary Islands, sitting in the ocean between North Africa and Western Europe. The online references talk about it being perennial. We would describe it more as biennial, similar to a foxglove. It seeds down gently and in the second year it flowers. The plants are fully deciduous, going dormant and dying off in early summer and returning into growth by early winter. This is usually the pattern of plants triggered into growth by autumn rains.

The foliage is soft and not dissimilar to cineraria, though oft described as maple-like in shape. And yes, you can play the game from childhood of “do you like butter?”

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