Tag Archives: Abbie Jury

Plant Collector: Edgeworthia gardneri

The scented golden orb of Edgeworthia gardneri

The scented golden orb of Edgeworthia gardneri

This plant has a very curious flower head – fully rounded golden pompoms of tightly packed, almost waxy flowers. Sweetly scented too, which is not surprising because it is a close relative of the daphnes, but because it does not mass flower, it lacks the fragrant oomph of its cousins. Each flower head is only about 3cm across, not much larger than an old fashioned gobstopper. Gardneri is still newly introduced to the west – it comes from Nepal – not easy to propagate from cutting and rare. I tell you this because several years ago we did manage to get some plants successfully growing and offered them on the mailorder list we used to put out. At the same time a gardening magazine showed a photograph of the flower but gave no idea of the size. Somebody in Palmerston North tracked us down and ordered the plant. We shipped her down a splendid specimen but she was not happy. She was expecting a flower more akin, I suspect, to the size of a cricket ball rather than a pingpong ball. She sent back this rare and choice shrub. It cost her more in freight than the plant was worth, but clearly it was a matter of principle because she felt short-changed by the size of the flower.

There are only two, maybe three, species of edgeworthia. The more common Chinese form, papyrifera or chyrsantha, is deciduous but gardneri is fully evergreen and makes an open, airy bush with a graceful appeal. It is not particularly hardy and won’t thrive in areas with cold winters. It has good nectar for the tuis and we are planning to add another plant in full sun to feed our butterflies.

Plant Collector: Tulipa saxatilis

Plant Collector: Tulipa saxatilis

Plant Collector: Tulipa saxatilis

I am not a great fan of the common tulip and even less so of the novelty forms so prized in colder, northern European gardens. But get back to the original species, (how they occur naturally in the wild) and it is a different matter altogether. This very pretty tulip is a combination of soft lilac with a yellow throat which is not the world’s most obvious colour scheme but generally the colours of nature do not clash. It hails from the island of Crete (the home of Zorba the Greek) though apparently it is also found in Turkey. In their natural environment, these are wild flowers and if you have ever visited the Greek islands or the coast of Turkey, you will know that conditions are hard with poor stony or clay soils, very low fertility, drying winds and next to no rain for most of the year. These are not conditions that we can replicate in the garden here but Tulipa saxatilis is not too picky and has thrived in our rockery for many years. With open conditions and excellent drainage, it is genetically programmed to be a survivor.

This is an early spring bulb, so it starts to grow in winter (triggered by autumn rains) and flowers in early spring for a period of several weeks. Each bulb puts up a stem which flowers its way down in succession so you get several blooms per bulb. It is a good example of a bulb which will find the depth it is happiest at in the soil so it will often drag itself down quite deep and it is a rarity amongst the tulips because it runs below ground. Because the foliage doesn’t hang on very long, it lends itself to being co-planted with a summer perennial which is dormant when the tulip flowers. We have had a dwarf species oenothera, better known as Evening Primrose, interplanted with our main bed of Tulipa saxatilis for many years and it comes into its own as the tulip goes dormant.

Taking a second look at camellias as garden plants

Make your old camellia bushes work at more than one level as garden plants

Make your old camellia bushes work at more than one level as garden plants

The scourge of camellia petal blight continues unabated. This was one disease we could have done without in this country and the sad thing is that when it was first discovered in Wellington, it was limited to two or three locations. Had all the infected plants been incinerated immediately, this nasty fungal ailment may have been eradicated. So if you have been looking at your camellias, particularly the most common japonica types (which takes in most of the lovely formals and the really showy blooms), and thinking that their display ain’t what it used to be, you are right.

We have always had botrytis in this country which can turn blooms to a dark mush but is generally not devastating. Modern camellias have been bred to be self grooming – in other words they drop spent flowers rather than holding them onto the bush and giving that unattractive look of some of the very old varieties still around.The trouble with camellia petal blight is that it seems to glue the flower to the plant so it defeats the self grooming process.

The sad sight of camellia petal blight

The sad sight of camellia petal blight

If you are wondering whether you have camellia petal blight, I would be very surprised to hear that you haven’t. It is unstoppable and untreatable. Well, you can treat your plants but you will just get reinfected. Being a fungus, the blight is spread from spore and I recall reading of it being tracked 5km on the wind. So if anybody has a camellia bush within a 5km radius of you, you are in trouble. If you go out and look at your camellias, you will likely find beautiful blooms with a nasty brown stain starting across some of the petals. Within about 24 hours, that bloom will have turned to a light brown colour. If you pull off the flower, turn it over and pull off the calyx on the back (that is the little green hat that holds all the petals together in the middle), you will find the tell-tale ring of white powdery web. That is camellia petal blight. If it is blacky-grey and the spoiled bloom is a darker brown, it is botrytis.

Camellias used to be second only to roses for the volume sold in this country. The bottom has pretty much fallen out of the market now and the volume sold is a fraction of what it used to be. I married in to a leading camellia family. Les Jury, Mark’s uncle, is still remembered internationally, long after his death nearly 30 years ago, for his huge contribution to camellias including such classics as Jury’s Yellow, Anticipation, Ballet Queen, Elegant Beauty and so many more. In his day, Felix Jury was far better known for his beautiful camellias than his magnolias – Waterlily, Dreamboat, Mimosa Jury, Rose Bouquet, Itty Bit and many others. Mark carried the mantle, encouraged by both his uncle and his father, until the day he heard that petal blight was in this country. He ceased all work on breeding camellias immediately and it is only now, well over a decade later, that he is starting to see directions he can take.

All this is such a shame because the camellia remains an enormously useful plant. It is just that we have traditionally seen it primarily as a plant to grow for its flowers. With the huge hit on its flower power, we are tending to ignore the other possibilities and positive aspects.

  • Camellias are unrivalled as a source of nectar for our tui and bellbirds through the winter. Singles and semi doubles with visible stamens will bring the birds to your garden.
  • Camellias remain fantastic hedging. They will sprout again from bare wood and most will tolerate dreaded salt winds. They only need trimming twice a year for a formal hedge and almost never for an informal look or windbreak. For our money, they remain one of the very best hedging options.
  • Autumn flowering sasanqua camellias do not get hit by petal blight. Not at all, that we have ever seen or heard.
  • Red flowered camellias still get petal blight but it doesn’t show up anywhere near as badly. The showiest displays we have had this winter have mostly been from red flowered varieties.
  • Reticulata camellias are commonly in shades of red and have such big flowers that they have sufficient weight to drop cleanly. They continue to put on a splendid display.
  • The little miniatures and single flowered types have many more buds and flowers and, by their very nature, each bloom only lasts a few days so they are usually over before petal blight gets to be unsightly.
  • Camellias are an unsung hero for topiary and clipping. If you get away from the few with really grungy colour and a tendency to turn murky yellow, most camellias have terrific foliage.

Clipping and shaping has never featured large in this country. While we may say that this is because we prefer a more natural look, gardening by its very character is an exercise in controlling and manipulating nature. It is more likely that we lack the labour force to clip extensively and we lack the cultural context to create entire scenes from clipped plants in the traditions of England, Italy, France, China and Japan. While yew and buxus are common clipping candidates overseas, the ubiquitous camellias grow so very well here that they give us an unexpected option. They are evergreen and not generally fussy. They sprout from bare wood so you can cut them back hard and they are very forgiving if you get the cuts in the wrong place. Clipping encourages bushier growth. Many people have large, mature specimens in their gardens so there is an abundance of raw material out there. The flowers then become a bonus not the prime reason for growing the plant. You will still get lovely flowers, just not as many as you used to and they won’t last as long.

If you have gone off your camellias, try getting out there and clipping before you cut them out. Balls, pillars, obelisks, clouds, free form shapes – there are lots of options if peacocks, animals and other birds do not appeal. A camellia bush can continue to justify its place in the garden if you make it work at levels other than just being a pretty flowering shrub.

In the Garden this week: September 10, 2010

Daphne genkwa looked fantastic last year - but died when I pruned it after flowering

Daphne genkwa looked fantastic last year - but died when I pruned it after flowering

  • The common daphne is odora and does not appreciate hard pruning. Dainty Daphne x burkwoodii can also be touchy. Keep pruning to a light haircut each year rather than a major cut-back. The Himalayan Daphne bholua has a more robust constitution and can get rather large, scruffy and leggy if left to its own devices. This one you can cut back hard. Now is the time to prune those daphnes which are finishing their winter flowering. The beautiful blue Daphne genkwa will be coming into flower soon – don’t even prune this one. I killed a splendid, established specimen last year by cutting it back after flowering.
  • If you can reduce your number of slugs and snails now, you will be reducing the breeding population when they get frisky as spring temperatures warm up.
  • Keep an eye on emerging hostas because you can be sure that all slugs and snails are watching closely for this manna from the soil. Jenny Oakley from Manaia swears by the use of crushed eggshells sprinkled on the crown of the hosta before the leaves unfurl to deter early munchers though she also follows up with bait later. Ringing the plants in sand, coffee grounds, sawdust or anything gritty is said to discourage some slimy predators though Mark is sceptical of this claim. However, the bakers bran liberally sprinkled around plants under attack worked a treat and is an environmentally friendly technique – the birds eat the bloated slugs and snails.
  • It is the last chance to get a crop of late broad beans sown. If you leave it any later, it won’t be worth the effort and space. Get carrots sown soon. Don’t fertilise carrots but they need well cultivated soil to get their roots down. Fresh animal manure is a particular no-no for carrots and causes forking of the carrot and too much leafy top growth.
  • If you want to plant yams, you can be setting them to sprout in trays now. Yams are frost tender but need a long growing season (five to six months) so you want to get them started as soon as the danger of late frosts is over.
  • You can continue lifting and dividing perennials as they come into growth because they have the energy to overcome the havoc and destruction you wreak on their root systems and crowns. If you have many to do, prioritise the spring perennials and then follow up with summer ones like coreopsis, asters and chrysanthemums.

Countdown to Festival, September 10, 2010

  • Mary Vinnicombe is not alone, I am sure, in being heartily sick of the recent rains. While Mary and Barry’s town garden, Thorveton, has just enough change of level within it to add interest, it is located on a hill. In one of the recent downpours, Mary felt considerable chagrin to watch her topsoil, mulch and Bioboost washing down into the neighbour’s property and she wondered why she had bothered feeding all her garden beds. If only the next neighbour up the hill had been as dedicated, then the Vinnicombe’s garden would have maintained its status quo despite the water flow. The heavy rains we experience here, combined with our light volcanic soils, make gardening easier in many ways but also leach out valuable nutrients from the soil which is why continuing to add compost, humus and some sort of fertiliser is an important part of the gardening cycle.
  • Out at Gordon Dale Gardens on the Forgotten World Highway, Jan Worthington says there is a life beyond the garden. She went out to a golf meeting and then lunch with a friend, arriving home later in the day to find her daughter, Amy, had done the hanging baskets and planted out the flower seedlings in the garden. Jan is looking forward to seeing how a border of dwarf cinerarias combines with her roses, heucheras and aquilegias. Alas this wonderfully cooperative daughter is headed off overseas next week so the extra pair of hands is of very limited duration.
  • While on a golf theme, the appropriately named Manaia gardener, Margaret Putt, has been dividing her time between her twin loves of golf and gardening. She was in Dunedin with her junior golf team last week and, with hindsight, felt great relief that it was earlier on Saturday night when they transited Christchurch airport on the way home so the quake did not affect their travel. Margaret is well into her major first round on the garden, getting all the rough stuff out before she does the intensive final grooming circuit on her hands and knees. She was, however, complaining about the cold wind last Sunday afternoon when she was out weeding amongst the self seeded Livingston daisies around her letterbox.
  • Around the coast, Chris and Steak Goodin have netted in the wisteria. The Attack of the Sparrows last year was so bad that Chris’s wisteria had next to no flowers left. At the time she was thinking that a return of sparrow salmonella might not be a bad thing, even if they had to gather up the little corpses, but she is not leaving it to nature this year. Chris thinks that the white netting will be less noticeable than the black bird netting they have used previously. Steak has also affixed chains along the pergola which makes tying in the climbers much easier.
  • In at Festival HQ, Lisa Haskell is pleased with the strong interest coming from Australia this year. TAFT representatives have been at the Melbourne Flower Show promoting our festival for the last couple of years but it was a talkback radio garden host from Brisbane who interviewed Lisa about our event last week. It takes repeated efforts to get into new markets and Australia is a big one for us. Ironically, it is just as cheap for people to fly in from the east coast of Australia as from down south. In the interests of being their usual wonderful hosts, Festival gardeners are practicing leaving their Aussie jokes for the privacy of their own homes behind locked doors and closed curtains.