Tag Archives: Abbie Jury

In the garden this fortnight: April 26, 2012

A fortnightly series first published in the Weekend Gardener and reproduced here with their permission.

The pretty Moraea polystachya has a long flowering season

The pretty Moraea polystachya has a long flowering season

We are not noted for autumn colour here. I can’t think that anybody has ever said: “Oh but you simply must go to Taranaki to see the autumn display.” The trigger to deciduous plants to turn is temperature related and we drift so imperceptibly from summer through autumn to early winter, that even plants renowned for their capacity to blaze with colour are usually a disappointment. Besides, we are so verdant and green and our native plants are all so resolutely green that all we can do is to admire the occasional single deciduous specimen. Generally it is inland areas with drier climates and much sharper variation in seasonal temperatures which put on the big displays.

However, our autumn is marked by much smaller, pretty pictures of autumn bulbs. We garden extensively with bulbs. In a large garden with some huge trees, it is the dainty, often ephemeral pictures which give the charm and detail. Autumn flowering bulbs are harder to find for sale because most people don’t think beyond the more common spring bulbs.

Cyclamen hederafolium - the easiest of the species in our climate

Cyclamen hederafolium - the easiest of the species in our climate

At the moment, it is the pink and white Cyclamen hederafolium, blue Moraea polystachya (autumn peacock iris), a rainbow of colours in the ornamental oxalis, bold lilac colchicums (often incorrectly referred to as autumn crocus), the real autumn crocus and the beautiful hybrid sarniensis nerines which are carrying the season in the rockery. Out on the roadside, the belladonna lilies are in bloom. Some, like the colchicums, do not flower for long but are very showy. Moraea polystachya is a gem of a bulb. It flowers down the stem so it has an exceptionally long season stretching into months rather than weeks. It can seed down but is easy enough to thin out if necessary.

Cyclamen hederafolium (formerly known as neapolitanum) is the easiest and most reliable of the species cyclamen. It too has a long flowering season, followed by attractive, heart shaped leaves with white markings. It combines very well with black mondo grass and in places we have English snowdrops (galanthus) to come through in late winter, extending the seasonal interest amongst the cyclamen foliage.

Top tasks:
1) Cut off all last season’s leaves on the Helleborus orientalis and remove them to the compost heap. We have done this for many years now, following the advice from Terry Hatch at Joy Plants. It removes any build up of aphids and it means that the flowers are highly visible as they come through with just delicate new leaf growth. As the season progresses, the new foliage takes over and fills the whole patch. Timing is important – if you leave it too late, you have to trim carefully around all the emerging flower stems.
2) After raking off the hellebore foliage, I will weed out the rash of germinating seedlings and then cover the whole bed with a mulch of compost to a depth of about 3cm. This feeds the soil and discourages weeds. Hellebores are one perennial that is best left undisturbed. It is better to raise seed than to try and divide existing clumps. They can sulk for years before recovering.

The Nerine sarniensis hybrids are a real autumn feature in the rockery

The Nerine sarniensis hybrids are a real autumn feature in the rockery

Grow it yourself: feijoas

The ubiquitous feijoa

The ubiquitous feijoa

There are a number of plants we have embraced with such gusto in this country that we have all but made them our own – Pinus radiata, yams, kumara, kiwifruit… and feijoas from South America. Every family should have at least one feijoa tree. They are wonderfully easy to grow, requiring no special care at all once established. Find a position in full sun and preferably not in the full blast of the prevailing wind for best cropping.

It is usual to harvest feijoas as windfalls

When it comes to buying a feijoa, choose a named cultivar (“Unique” is probably the most widely available). If you buy a range of different varieties, you can extend the fruiting season and solve pollination issues. “Unique” is self fertile but most others need a pollinator, though feijoas are so widely grown that often a neighbour’s tree will do the job. Don’t fall for cheap seedlings, even for hedging. They may never fruit well, or indeed at all. Breeding and selection has given much larger fruit and better cropping. If you are going to give garden space, you might as well grow a good variety. The other important thing to know is that the advice sometimes given that you can use feijoa as a clipped hedge plant (I have even seen it suggested as a replacement for buxus) is particularly ill-informed if you want a harvest. You are likely to cut off most fruiting shoots. When it comes to pruning, it is better to thin the canopy, cutting branches off right back at the trunk, rather than trying to clip all over. Generally, a feijoa does not need pruning but allow for them to reach about four metres in height. Keep the ground beneath clear if possible, to allow for easy collection of fruit as it falls.

Feijoas are not particularly easy to strike from cutting but if you have a home propagation unit, it is worth a try. Use new season’s growth which has hardened off – in other words, the branch tips.

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

Outdoor Classroom: digging out large, clumping plants.

1) Huge, clumping plants which have outgrown their space can be a challenge because it is not always easy to know where to start and they have to be dug out, as opposed to cutting off woody plants. This is an unusual plant called Curculigo recurvata which has grown enormous but many home gardeners may have large clumps of flax or astelia. (The dog is Zephyr.)

2) A reasonably fit and strong person is necessary, armed with a sharp spade. Don’t try it with a blunt spade because it requires a combination of cutting and digging. Sometimes an axe is helpful to cut through big masses of crown. (The suitably strong person is our Lloyd.)

3) Sort out if you have any underground wires or pipes before you start. We didn’t this time. Fortunately the pipe supplying water to our house was alkathene so it was easy to repair.

4) Clear a space around the plant. You need room to move so lift anything precious close by. Starting from the outside perimeter of the clump, take off the sections piece by piece. Don’t try and dig the whole plant at once.

5) Taking it off in sections makes the process manageable. Because this is a relatively rare plant, we will be using some divisions elsewhere in the garden and potting some for sale.

6) We left three small clumps to grow again in the original position. If you are removing the entire plant, the critical part is to get all the foliage and the growth shoots from the base of the clump cut off and removed. It doesn’t usually matter if some of the fibrous roots remain because few plants will grow away again from severed roots. Leaves such as flax or astelia take a very long time to rot down and don’t compost well so we chew them up in the mulcher. You may need to take them for green waste recycling or put them in a discreet place to rot down over the next few years.

Plant Collector: Sasanqua camellia Crimson King

Crimson King - harbinger of autumn

Crimson King - harbinger of autumn


Crimson King forms a graceful, open shrub when mature

Crimson King forms a graceful, open shrub when mature

Crimson King heralds the arrival of autumn. It is a sasanqua, one of the autumn flowering camellia family from Japan. Too many people seem to think that sasanqua is synonymous with Setsugekka (how clichéd is the Setsugekka screen planting?) and only comes in white. In fact there are a relatively large number of family members, including Crimson King. It has the usual sasanqua attributes of finer foliage and a graceful, open habit of growth as it matures. In addition to that, the exceptionally long flowering season means it will last well in winter.

Single flowers have just one row of petals and exposed yellow stamens in the centre. The birds and the bees, and indeed the butterflies, need these stamens exposed to be able to feed from the flower. Big full forms or sterile formal flowers are not a source of pollen and nectar. Most sasanquas lack the highly refined flower forms so prized in japonica camellias but single flowers like this shatter and dissipate without ever leaving a sludgy mess below. There is also a simple charm in such a simple flower.

Sasanquas are renowned for being one of the most sun and wind tolerant types of camellias. They also flower early enough in the season to avoid the dreaded camellia petal blight. Overseas reports say that they can suffer from this dreaded fungal ailment but we have never seen it in our sasanquas here. Crimson King has a pleasant scent if you stick your nose right in the flower but I think that the faint waft of fragrance in camellias is rather over-hyped.

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

Tikorangi Notes: Friday April 13, 2012.

The Cyclamen hederafolium are a delight

The Cyclamen hederafolium are a delight

Latest Posts:

1) Those who shun all of the vast oxalis family because of the abominable habits of a few miss out on the autumn delights like Oxalis massoniana.

2) Raised beds and to dig or not to dig – that is the question. It seems these days that the rage is for raised beds, irrespective of whether they are needed.

3) GIY broad beans – we are very partial to this crop in our household.

4) Common wisdom is that you should only grow plants well suited to your area and conditions but Real Gardeners know this is a fallacy. It is wonderfully rewarding to succeed with marginal plants. My latest garden diary from Weekend Gardener magazine.

5) Secrets of a Lazy French Cook – nothing whatever to do with gardening, this one. But one of my other activities is book reviewing – mostly recipe books and children’s books (in addition to the gardening ones I receive.) This one is an entertaining read and a handy starting point for classic French dishes.

There has not been a whole lot of gardening going on here in the last week or two – too much energy and time required to renovate our one and only rental house on our property across the road. I think the role of property owner and landlord is much over-rated. But I did finally get to visit New Plymouth’s much loved and awarded new bridge on its coastal walkway. And it is a sensation, evoking the rolling waves so close by. It is wonderful to see a bridge that goes way beyond utilitarian and is dedicated entirely to pedestrians and cyclists. On a gloriously sunny and calm autumn day, it was a magical scene which left me in awe at the beauty of the district where we live.