Tag Archives: Abbie Jury

Grow it Yourself: Ugni molinae

It is a very undemanding little plant to tuck in to a sunny spot in the garden - Ugni molinae or the NZ cranberry

It is a very undemanding little plant to tuck in to a sunny spot in the garden - Ugni molinae or the NZ cranberry

I have to use the proper name for clarity because this plant has five names. The most useful name is the New Zealand cranberry (though it is neither a cranberry, nor a native) because that is what it has always been known as in this country. These days you may find it sold as the Chilean guava – its common name internationally though in New Zealand we mean an entirely different fruit when we refer to Chilean guava. In Australia it is the Tazzieberry. Oft-times, it is referred to by its former name of Myrtus ugni.

Whatever. Grow one, especially in families with children. It is a wonderful plant for browsing as one passes and the fruit is ripe right now. The highly aromatic fruit is small and red like a proper cranberry but only in looks. These are sweet little morsels. The plant stays small, about a metre high, and rangy if you don’t clip and shape it. It is an evergreen shrub that you plant at the end of a row in full sun in the vegetable garden. It roots easily from cutting or is cheap to buy. Sometimes you will see it recommended as a substitute for blighted buxus hedging but it isn’t really ideal. It doesn’t like shade, it can get attacked by thrips (especially when in the shade or clipped tightly) and it can develop bare patches. I have seen handsome trained lollipop specimens in a designer potager but they would take regular work to keep looking that good. We just have a longlived and productive plant that hangs about beside the rosemary bush being undemanding, scruffy but fruitful every year. The fruit is sure to be healthier for feeding small children than packet raisins.

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

Plant Collector: Clematis tangutica

The early autumn charm of Clematis tangutica

The early autumn charm of Clematis tangutica

We have been gently enjoying the bright yellow, hooded bell flowers of Clematis tangutica, one of the later flowering varieties for the season. There may be a mere four petals and some purple stamens in the centre and the flower is only 7cm across, but they are very charming. The silky seed heads are a particularly ornamental addition especially as we have both seed heads and flowers on the vine at the same time.

C. tangutica is one of the very best yellow coloured clematis. It hails from north western China into Mongolia which means it is completely cold hardy. It is a clematis type where all that is required is to cut it off about 20cm above the ground some time during winter when it is dormant and leafless. They don’t come much more easy care than that. It means you can grow it scrambling through other plants if you wish, and it shouldn’t smother them. Ours is growing up a trellis.

We have never noticed our plant seeding down but I see it comes with a warning to weed out seedlings so it must have that capacity. This means that it is highly unsuitable for planting near native bush and reserves and would probably no longer be allowed into the country. We don’t need another old man’s beard smothering our native forests. In a garden situation where we have had it for a decade or so, it has not displayed these wayward habits so we are happy to continue giving it garden space so it can charm us from late summer through to autumn.

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

Lower maintenance gardening

The raised beds are going - to be replaced by wider steps

The raised beds are going - to be replaced by wider steps

I have been forced to look at practical lower maintenance gardening this week. Most of the time, we are practitioners of relatively high maintenance gardening on a large scale. I think it was the late Christopher Lloyd (he of Great Dixter fame) who made a comment that the more experienced one is, the more one realises that a high maintenance garden is a great more interesting. But there are times when a low maintenance one is required, particularly with rental properties.

For our sins, we are landlords. Just the one rental house and it is one we used to live in ourselves. There was a certain irony when we bought the property many years ago. We were doing a little land amalgamation at the time and Mark had exchanged quite a few plants with a previous owner for some work with his handy little bob-cat. When we came to buy the property, the valuation mentioned the high quality plantings. We certainly paid dearly to get our own plants back.

While living in the house, we duly extended the gardens and plantings to the point where they were reasonably expansive. When it came to letting the house, we realised the scope of the lawns and gardens were beyond what most tenants would manage, so part of the successive tenancy agreements has been that we will mow the lawns and loosely maintain the gardens as required.

Mowing tenants’ lawns is not a bad thing. We mow pretty much every Friday and it gets you onto the property on a regular basis so you can keep a discreet eye on things. It operates as an early warning system, so to speak.

But gardens are another thing. Few tenants garden. A few scratch around from time to time, but none we have met take as good care as we did. It is a fact of life. In this hiatus between tenants, we are doing a major clean out and simplification in the garden. Once it has been reduced to bare bones, the onus will be on the incoming tenants to maintain the gardens at that standard. There will be nothing too demanding.

Simplification has been ongoing but reached its zenith this time. The only garden borders left are the two defined by concrete paths alongside the house. A previous property owner had put in a number of raised garden beds. The last two are going now. Out with garden beds. They just look messy if not maintained.

The designated vegetable garden needs clearing but is being retained

The designated vegetable garden needs clearing but is being retained

The designated and fenced vegetable garden is staying. In this day and age, it is probably an asset and it has good soil, is an appropriate size and is sheltered but in full sun. It will be ready for a tenant to plant. We just need to clear it first. Similarly, the citrus trees can stay. They are fine with total neglect.

The extensive perimeter plantings have matured to shrubbery and they are staying. If you want low maintenance, long term plantings, go for shrubberies. Over time, shrubs and small trees will gently mesh and knit together to provide a green and flowery undulating wall of foliage. Being relatively dense, few weeds grow beneath. The herbaceous plantings we had there have long gone but that is fine. All we have to do from time to time in the shrubberies is to go through with a pruning saw and trim anything that is getting too large. In return, the mixed plantings of camellias, rhododendrons, magnolias, maples, self sown pongas, feijoas and the rest provide a soft and pleasing backdrop to the property. They stop it from being too austere and bare.

Any plants that require regular attention have gone. The last of the roses are on the burning heap. The espaliered camellias have gone. The devastatingly rampant wisteria has gone. It put up a brave fight but truly, wisterias are unsuitable plants to leave in a situation where they are not actively managed. This beautiful Blue Sapphire had put out its runners a good 20 metres away.

I have replanted the remaining, tiny house borders. I couldn’t stop myself especially as I found spring bulbs. But I have gone for simple mass plantings. A shaded, dry border which is a pathetic 20cm wide (honestly, who would make a permanent border 20cm wide?) is now mass planted with green mondo grass and bedding begonias. Utility and easy to maintain by non gardeners. The one hot, dry border retained its existing vireya rhododendrons which have survived total neglect and fifteen years of tenants, underplanted en masse with a compact yellow sedum. That is it for herbaceous material. As the one who does the knapsack spraying, Mark approved the mondo grass and sedums as being largely resistant to glyphosate so he could spray amongst them if necessary.

When you are preparing a property for sale, it is often about good looks in the short term – as we have all learned from those property makeover programmes on TV. When you are preparing a rental, it is about easy care, easy living in the long term. It can be done.

The shrubbery is the lowest maintenance form of gardening I know

The shrubbery is the lowest maintenance form of gardening I know

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

Plant Collector: Norfolk Island Pine (Araucaria heterophylla)

The urge is to put a Christmas star on top - Araucaria heterophylla

The urge is to put a Christmas star on top - Araucaria heterophylla

I am very fond of Norfolk Island pines in the landscape though they should come with a warning not to ever, under any circumstances, plant them in a suburban setting. We once owned a house where the neighbour’s Norfolk Island Pine robbed us of several hours of sunshine a day.

These are not actually members of the pine tree family. They are araucarias and this one is A. heterophylla. That name is used synonymously with its earlier name of A. excelsa but heterophylla is the correct one these days. The best known araucaria is the monkey puzzle tree (A. araucana) and it hails from Chile. At least these are true to their name in that they come from Norfolk Island which gives a hint to ideal conditions – mild and coastal. Last time I was in Napier, I thought their seafront avenue specimens looked a bit scruffy but any tree that can survive and grow in the full blast of salt spray and wind is a bit of a wonder. The tough, tightly whorled leaves encircling the branches will have evolved to cope with salt spray. Even so, any tree is going to look lusher with a smidgeon more shelter or planted a little further back from the seashore than those Napier specimens.

It is that perfect, open pyramid shape that makes it such a fantastic landscape tree where space allows. You just want to put a Christmas star on top every time you look at one. Potentially they can grow huge, up to fifty or sixty metres over time and that is massive. This is not a tree that will look attractive if you try and top it to keep it lower. Its application is probably limited to public plantings and farms but viewed from afar, they make a great visual contribution.

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

Grow it Yourself Fruit and Nuts by Andrew Steen

There is a clear gap in the market for an authoritative modern reference book on growing fruits and nuts in this country, so does this new book fill the niche? Hmm. It is like the curate’s egg – good in parts. It is worth buying for the fertiliser chart on page 111 – the best representation of this information we have seen. The chart on common pesticides is also very good as is the attention to pest and disease management, giving different approaches and addressing the issues. At last we are not seeing everything dumbed down and made simple when it is not, based on the assumption that the average home gardener has a mental age of about eight. If you want to be successful at growing these plants, you do need to get to grips with some of the details regarding pests and diseases. The range of fruits covered is appropriate and the information on recommended varieties is up to date, appears to be comprehensive and very useful. The author is credible. You may know his name from the Weekend Gardener – he is a keen gardener, backed up with professional qualifications and experience.

So what lets it down? The photography is not good enough. Amateur photography is not a suitable replacement for good diagrams when it comes to pruning and shaping and too many of the photographs fail to tell any story at all, let alone save words. The text is too wordy and would have benefited from tighter editing. Magazine writing is different to books. It is much more transient by nature and a looser organisation of ideas is acceptable because it’s all in shorter pieces. Much of the information is here but it is a little too loose and wordy, ranging rather too freely at times without a clear sequence. A greater use of tables and charts would have helped reduce the verbiage. Peer review prior to publication might have plugged a few of the gaps where the author was beyond his own areas of expertise.

For all its faults, it is a better reference than other recent offerings on the topic.

Grow it Yourself Fruit and Nuts by Andrew Steen (David Bateman; ISBN: 978 1 86953 789 0) reviewed by Abbie Jury.

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