Tag Archives: Abbie Jury

The bulbs of October

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Bluebells in abundance but now all but passed over for another year

October opened with the bluebells, the pinkbells and the whitebells. I don’t want these in cultivated garden areas any longer but they are very pretty in wilder areas. In terms of a single colour sweep, blue is always best. White might as well be onion weed. Pink is a bit novelty-ish. When it comes to a colour mix, blue should still be in the highest proportion, as it is in the wild. At least that is the rule of Abbie if you are after a naturalistic, sweeping meadow effect.

This was as good as the Hippeastrum papilio got in the unusually prolonged spring rains
Looking happier in previous years – Hippeastrum papilio

Last month belonged to red Hippeastrum aulicum. This month opened with Hippeastrum papilio. It has taken a few years but we now have plenty of this bulb, able to be counted by the score rather than single figures. It is available for sale and it is expensive to start with – probably around $25 or $30 a bulb. But it is not difficult to grow and it multiplies at a reasonable rate if you quietly lift and divide it every year or two, replanting into well cultivated soil with some compost added. Its flowers are large and showy. Its season was somewhat shortened this year with The Rains. It feels as though it has rained most days this spring. The magnolias and michelias did not appreciate the very wet season and were particularly disappointing. H. papilio tried to bloom and did well enough for me to get this photo. Alas, when I looked a few days later, even with their heavy texture, the blooms had largely sogged out and given up.

The erythroniums in a previous year

The dogs tooth violets – Erythronium revolutum – are marginal with us at the best of times. Their very soft blooms can mush up in our spring rains so I had to reach into my file photos, given that there were a few brave blooms at best. The Fritillaria meleagris is equally marginal our climate and has also been and gone for the season. These are plants that are very charming but they will love your conditions more if you can give them more winter chill and less spring rain.

We have failed to get a species name for this striking, late-season lachenalia. Its pink, blue and pale colouring is almost luminous.

The lachenalias have proven more weather hardy for us. Now that the early ones have long gone, we are onto the late bloomers, particularly this rather striking pink and blue number and the white species L. contaminata.

Veltheimias – ‘Rosalba’ is prettier than the more common pink V. capensis

The veltheimias are another large bulb that has surprised us with its willingness to settle in and naturalise. It is a South African native, triggered into growth by autumn rainfall but otherwise happy in dry, conditions. We assumed it would want full sun but Mark’s efforts scattering seed through the woodland areas has seen it settle in without fuss and gently establish in shade as well as sun. Veltheimia capensis is the pink form and it is common enough and reasonably hardy; the prettier lemon and pink form is less common, probably less hardy and is Veltheimia capensis ‘Rosalba’.

Scadoxus puniceus

Our other stalwart this month and into early November is Scadoxus puniceus. Part of the family oft referred to as blood lilies, this species is not common. You will be lucky to find it offered for sale in New Zealand. The summer flowering Scadoxus katherinae (technically S. multiflorus ssp katherinae) is readily available, although certainly not cheap. We have both gently seeding down in woodland where they make big, bold statements with their presence. If you are a patient gardener, you can build these up from a single bulb, as we have. If your conditions are favourable, you may even get them to naturalise over time, as we have.

It may remain a spiloxene to us, although it seems it is now reclassified as a pauridia

I am not writing a comprehensive book so I am not doing a full listing of which bulbs flower this month. There are too many, from pretty Albuca canadensis through to Phaedranassa cinerea,  that sit on the choice, less common end of the bulb spectrum. There are families that we tend not to think of as ‘bulbs’ like alstromeria (we must have those blooming every month of the year) or the vast iris family. And there is that whole cluster of somewhat messy bulbs which often seem to overlap categories – babiana, sparaxis, ixia, vallota, tritelia, brodiaea, spiloxene syn  pauridia and more – many coming into flower now.  I say messy because a fair number of them come up with foliage that starts to die off as the flowers open. There are times I think greater separation between flowers opening and foliage browning off would be preferable.

Ornithogalum arabicum

I will mention Ornithogalum arabicum, sometimes referred to as black-eyed Susan but it shares that name with other plants too, which all goes to show that common names can be problematic. Arabian star flower or star of Bethlehem are perhaps preferable options. It is not that O. arabicum is particularly rare but it does exercise great mystique for me as a prime example of random reinforcement. Every few years it pops up flower spikes but it clearly does not wish to be taken for granted because it doesn’t do it every year. It makes it a fresh surprise and pleasure when it deigns to bloom.

Look at that set of bulb offshoots. Every one will grow, given half a chance.
Even more bulblets forming at the base of the flowers

Unfortunately, I am also dealing with An Incident – The Incursion of the Allium Bulbs. “Oh, that is the one Dad tried to get rid of,” Mark said as he passed. It is probably a species that was sold at some stage but, with over 1000 species of alliums now identified, I have no idea which it is. There are not too many of that thousand that I would accept these days, excepting onions and garlic, of course. Look at how many bulbs a single stem is creating. And not just at the base. If you look at the flowers, you can see a whole lot more babies forming at the base of each bloom. This is a scary rate of reproduction. I shall continue attempting to get rid of it here, even though total eradication does not seem possible. 

Do not be fooled by the pretty flower with the strong onion scent. Let this in at your peril and future generations of gardeners will rue your decision.

Three weeds in white

Is it Prunus serrulata? It is certainly a prunus, or flowering cherry and what we call ‘a garden escape’ in this country

Springtime is very flowery and all tends to be forgiven when plants flower. However, I couldn’t help but notice that three common roadside wildflowers in bloom right now are indubitably weeds. Not harmless weeds that qualify as ‘just plants growing in the wrong place’ but actual, invasive weeds.

You see it here, you see it there. On the road to town and there are a large number that I could have stopped to photograph along the way that are clearly garden escapes – as in, they are not planted in gardens but must have originated from one to start with.
But wait there are more. And more and more.

I have never noticed before just how many white flowering cherries there are all around the countryside but once I started looking, they were e v e r y w h e r e. There has been a lot of talk in this country about the evils of the-early flowering, carmine-red Prunus campanulata so favoured by our native tui. Some areas have gone so far as to completely ban it – around Nelson and in Northland, I understand. They are somewhat controversial to grow and most will seed around too freely. But I can’t find the same level of concern concerns expressed about white prunus  spreading itself far and wide in this area. There is a whole lot more of it around this neighbourhood, clearly self-seeded, than P. campanulata. I am no expert on cherries but looking up the pest plant lists, I figured it is quite possibly Prunus serrulata. There is a list of 13 different prunus species on the national plant pest accord, all identified as problematic and banned from commercial production and sale. P. serrulata seems the best match to what I see in bloom right now.  

Plenty of onion weed on roadsides and along fencelines on country roads.

Onion weed is in full flower and it, too, is widespread, mostly on roadsides. It is quite pretty in bloom but spreads way too enthusiastically and is difficult to eradicate. I haven’t dug one up but I would guess it is a typical weedy allium where a single bulb is capable of producing baby bulb offshoots by the score or more. The ability of weedy alliums to reproduce is frankly alarming.

Mark was sure that onion weed is what is sometimes referred to as wild garlic but I see he is not correct on that. What we call onion weed is Allium triquetrum. What is usually referred to as wild garlic is a different species, A. ursinum. Proper garlic is yet another allium species, A. sativum. I doubt there is any reason to avoid harvesting our common onion weed, should you be keen on gathering wild foods. It certainly smells onion-y, as all the alliums do. Indeed, a quick net search came up with one enthusiast on Substack sharing his recipe for charred onion weed with cashews, curry leaves & gochujang ripple labneh. Not all of his recipes are quite so complex and the author is clearly better placed to advise on foraging than I am.

Arum lilies growing wild. There is no colour enhancement or filter on this photo. That bright green of the paddock behind is the defining colour of this area, especially in spring.

Arum lilies are a great deal more highly prized in other countries than here. I quote Bay of Plenty regional council: “Zantedeschia aethiopica Originates from South Africa. Introduced to New Zealand as an ornamental garden plant and thought to have naturalised by 1870. All parts of the plant (are) poisonous and it is one of the National Poison Centre’s top ten poisonous plants; being consistently involved in unintentional or childhood poisonings.”

Like all zantedeschia, they make a good cut flower but their reputation here is so tarnished by their invasive weed status that few people value them in that category. It is a very difficult plant to eradicate too, and I can tell you that from experience after working to eliminate the form once sold here under the name of ‘Green Goddess’.

A mass of arums in a garden I visited two years ago. A brave landscaping decision, I thought.

I have only once in recent years seen it used as an ornamental garden plant. It is certainly striking and the blooms are long-lived and robust. I can’t quite get over my squeamishness about featuring plants that we know are noxious weeds. Pampas grass is striking, especially the fluffy pink form. Giant gunneras are striking but they are a really invasive problem here. Last time I looked, they were banned entirely in Taranaki – as in, illegal to have on your property – which is the highest level of control. I feel that arum lilies, like giant gunnera, are much more valued in other countries where they don’t pose the same environmental problem as here.

When all is said and done, should famine strike, we can eat onion weed and the wild cherry trees can provide good firewood but the arum lily has no such saving grace.

From 1993

Postscript: While thinking of weeds, I was amused to find this low-grade photo of the rockery, taken in 1993, so 32 years ago. The blue – you are looking at the blue which I tried to bring up with a filter and then highlighted. Most of that blue is the Geissorhiza – probably G. aspera, seen here at its worst. To this day, I am still digging out every tiny bulb that germinates and grows to the point where I can identify it. Mark’s father, who planted it and then deeply regretted it, took to painting it with weedkiller and an artist’s paintbrush. I have even dug out and replaced all the soil in some of the rockery pockets with the worst infestations. Continued vigilance is all that stands between a well-tended rockery and a repeat geissorhiza takeover.

Do not be fooled by its dainty appearance. The geissorhiza is not harmless.

Revisiting Le Clos du Peyronnet, but not in person

If I knew then what I know now, would my visit have felt different? When it comes to Le Clos du Peyronnet, the answer is probably yes. I have just finished reading ‘The Long Afternoon’ by Giles Waterfield. His late brother William and his even later Uncle Humphrey are credited with making the garden into a place of note.

I wrote about the garden after my visit in May last year in the second half of my post covering two English gardens on the French Riviera. I thoroughly enjoyed the visit. But now I would like to go back and experience it again, although that is extremely unlikely to happen. We were told a few historical facts but they were not of a compelling nature.

These were my only photos showing part of the villa, which I now know was built in 1896 by Annie Davidis, an Anglo-German artist.

We learned that the villa, purchased by the author’s grandparents in 1912, had now been divided into five apartments – but not that it was a move taken immediately after WW2 which was necessary to save both the villa and the garden. And we were told that one or more of the apartments’ occupants were hostile to William Waterfield’s widow continuing to accept and lead tour groups around the garden. Our movements around the garden were somewhat restricted and we descended from the top terrace and entirely missed the experience of the main entrance and the front of the villa. When I looked at an upper story window, I saw a figure standing there, possibly glaring. The vibes were bad, Reader. He seemed to radiate hostility so I averted my eyes and studiously avoided going close to the building, instinctively trying to minimise any further intrusion on that resident’s privacy. As a result, I have very little visual memory of the villa, just the garden

“You should read ‘The Long Afternoon’,” our Irish tour leader said to me. “It is Giles Waterfield’s account of his father and uncle growing up in the garden.” It was published in 2001 so I found a second hand copy which described it as a novel. It is sort of a novel but based on pretty accurate family history. The names have been changed. Barbara and Derick Waterfield became Helen and Henry Williamson, their sons Humphrey and Anthony became Charles and Francis. The name of the garden became Lou Paradou. The author has created the dialogue and placed his interpretations of events into various character’s minds. But the facts and events are real.

The view of Menton from the top terrace of the garden in 2025.

The garden and villa wrap around the plot, ever present – especially for me as I could visualise the garden and the setting and I have looked at that view of the Mediterranean and crossed the border to Italy to the Hanbury garden. The plot centres on the relationship between ‘Helen’ and ‘Henry’, leading lives of huge privilege in the sedate ex-pat community of British residents who had chosen to live in Menton in the first half of last century. New Zealanders may recall Menton as the place where Katherine Mansfield lived in her doomed quest to recover from tuberculosis. English people may know it as the place where Lawrence Johnston of Hidcote fame preferred to spend his time at his garden, Serre de la Madone. Both are of the same era as the Waterfields/Williamsons.

The structure and design is largely attributable to Humphrey Waterfield
William Waterfield was the first in the family to take up year-round, permanent residence (the earlier generations tended to split their time between there and England, preferring to spend summer in the cooler climate. William was a botanist and added the botanical detail to the garden, including an acclaimed bulb collection – all of which was over by the time I visited in late May.

Giles Waterfield is a good writer. Much of the book is a long, intricately drawn picture of co-dependence evolving over time between Helen and Henry, set against a backdrop of ennui and lassitude that comes with lives rich in privilege but lacking in purpose. No wonder she had plenty of time to supervise the gardeners.

There is a sharp change in writing style and tone as the inevitability of WW2 looms large, disturbing their tranquil way of life. Menton is right on the border with Italy and the fascists were already in control of that country. Life as it had been started disintegrating at a terrifying speed.

Spoiler alert: in the unlikely event that you are currently reading the book or plan to read it very soon, you may wish to skip the next three paragraphs.

I describe it as an explosive ending. In a suicide pact, they chose to end their lives together, by gunshot. A Luger, no less.  In June 1940. They were only in their early sixties. The war was too much for Helen – too inconvenient, too much unknown, too much to fear and too much potential chaos. Fourteen months of retreat to Pau (still in France but near the Spanish border rather than the Italian one) was all she could cope with.  The tone of the book makes it very clear that it was Helen’s decision and Henry acquiesced. Again. “She wants us to end our lives, and I still love her enough to do as she wants.” I am guessing the excerpt of the letter written to their sons which ends the book is likely the actual text from Derick Waterfield to his sons.

After the precision of an organised life that leads up to the end, those last four pages were shocking. I am with the reviewer who said of the book, ‘I can’t get it out of my head’. I had to start searching to see if the ending was true. It was. Then I became fascinated by the author whom, I suspect, took after his Uncle Humphrey (Charles, in the book). The empathy is clear.

That is the backdrop to Le Clos du Peyronnet. The garden as it is admired today, is credited to Humphrey who returned to it as soon as he could when the war ended and then to William. Humphrey was in the shadow of the war and the suicide of his parents, William was raised in a family where the deaths were not discussed at all (according to his brother Giles, in a lecture delivered to the Garden Museum Literary Festival in 2014. I told you I became fascinated.)

It was a grey and drizzly morning so it is not clear but the space around the conifer is the Mediterranean Sea. The famed ‘water staircase’ of five descending pools culminates in the borrowed view of the Med being the sixth pool, the design work of Humphrey Waterfield. That conifer may need to be removed soon.
I now know that the ‘Anduz jars’ came from Lawrence Johnston’s garden nearby but what I don’t know is whether they are the urns or the glass jars. Or both. There seems to an absence of Anduz jars in this country so my education is lacking on this matter.

Knowing what I know now, I would be staring at that villa, locating the upstairs balcony that featured so often. I now know who built the grotto that William loved, who designed and constructed the cascading pools and so much more. It is a garden conceived, created and continued in an unbroken chain of ex-pat Brits on the Riviera, which is a very particular garden genre. It seems that the grandparents provided the canvas and showed the potential (the blue irises are woven through the family history), Humphrey lifted the design and layout to a new level and William was the plantsman who set about enhancing the garden with detail. Alas, there are no more Waterfields. The garden has been accorded historic monument status by the French Ministry of Culture but what that means in the mid to longer term, I do not know.  

Would it have enriched my experience to know all this when I visited? For me, yes I think it would. Private gardens are about more than pretty scenes, interesting plant combinations or good management. Their very existence is tied to their individual owners and their social context. Their stories are part of the garden’s being.

Note to self: do more research in advance of visiting gardens, especially overseas gardens that I may only get to see once.

Curiously, William Waterfield once commented in an interview that this was his favourite part of the garden – a small grotto utilising a natural spring and one of the few original parts of the garden as created by Annie Davidis, who built the villa. The silver agave was added by William.

The graveyard incident

Truly I have a terrible story for you this week. Well, maybe not terrible in the greater scheme of things but fairly astonishing. Despite its location, it does not involve death.

Does the world really divide in two groups of people? There are those who understand instinctively that pretty, seasonal floral displays in public places are there to bring pleasure to all.

And then there is the other lot. Those who think that the same pretty flowers are in fact their personal picking garden and it is their right to pick bouquets with no thought at all that they might be depriving others of pleasure. First in first served and all that.

Magnolia Athene

The Te Henui cemetery in New Plymouth is known to many, not just locals but also from further afield. The repository of the dead going back well over a century, it is also a popular dog-walking route. But, for many of us, it is a place to visit to see the flowers.

Magnolia Milky Way

Part of that is the designation of the cemetery which allowed for recreational use (hence the urban dog-walkers) but also the planting of trees which are less common in graveyards on account of their root systems breaking up all that concrete. But most of the credit for the current floweriness all through the year must go to a small group of dedicated volunteers who spend a large part of every week tending the detailed plantings on and around the graves.

Theft is always an issue, especially with plantings in public places. The volunteers at the cemetery have learned to deal with it but it doesn’t stop their frustration and disappointment.

Last week, one entitled woman took it to new heights. She was seen helping herself to tulips and daffodils. When challenged about her actions, she became angry. How dare anybody rain on her parade? Most of us would be embarrassed but not her. She phoned the police and claimed she was being intimidated. Two officers turned up with remarkable promptness. She was waiting for them, holding just one daffodil (having dropped the others along the way to the exit, you understand), claiming she was being harassed for picking a single flower.

No further action was taken but it is hard to believe that this woman has learned her lesson. Volunteer gardener, Susan, made sure to retrace her steps and retrieve the flowers she had thrown away, showing them to the police after the woman had left. While this woman is by no means the only person picking flowers, she is the only one who had the nerve to call the police in retaliation for being challenged.

The poor tulips, being taken before they have even opened.
Evidence!

Susan tells me: “We have lost 17 tulips from the grave opposite the tomb and 8 from the grave on the eastern side – so far. It doesn’t sound many but the season is not over yet and the tulips are expensive and don’t reliably re-flower in subsequent years. So tulip losses in particular are very aggravating. We pay for the tulip bulbs.

We deliberately plant the tulips by the road so that the rest home vans can drive past with residents and the residents can view them from the van (most have mobility issues).”

The moral is clear. Don’t steal flowers (or indeed plants). Especially don’t think it is okay to raid them from public places where they are tended by volunteers. Also, the police have better things to do than to be used as a back-up for some entitled, selfish person.

What is wrong with some people?

Magnolia Atlas

On a more positive note, the magnolias in the cemetery are looking splendid this week.

Magnolia Apollo
I took this photo as an illustration of a recurring theme – narcissi where the flowers are too large and heavy to hold up straight. Excellent cut flowers – but not if you are helping yourself to them in a public space – but not so good as garden plants.

Our very own mountain daisy, the celmisia

The three species crosses resulted in broader leaves and silver colour all year round

Celmisias are our very own mountain daisies. They have never been a common garden plant because they aren’t easy in nursery production and rarely thrive in the average home garden. It is likely that their greatest fans are trampers and botanists but that should not blind us to their charm. Many people just don’t know of them. And I suppose, when you think about it, quite a lot of our native plants have white daisy flowers.

I was surprised when I looked them up and found a far greater number of species than I ever knew existed. Some dedicated botanists have clearly spent a lot of time unravelling this genus.

When Mark’s father, Felix, was still alive, he became very interested in seeing whether he could hybridise different species to get plants that would thrive in our lowland, humid conditions. Most celmisias are subalpine to alpine plants. I remember Felix and Mark heading up our maunga, Mount Taranaki, in search of the form which grows there naturally – Celmisia major var. brevis – and being thrilled to find some flower variations into pink. This was about 40 years ago, you understand, when people didn’t feel so bad about collecting plant material in a national park. They collected some plants, including a few of the pinks which they only saw growing in one area.

The first season after their relocation. I have moved them again because the grasses were overhanging them and these plants do not appreciate having to compete for space and light.

Felix set about crossing three species – C. coriacea which comes from Fiordland, C. hookeri  from the Otago area and the aforementioned C. major, in various combinations. Forty years on, we still have some of those hybrids growing and flowering in the garden here. It is the three way cross which gave us the broader leaves in distinctive silver all year round. Over the decades, we lost many of them, including all the pink ones, and have, at times, run close to losing the lot but for a bit of quick intervention. They have never seeded down for us; we have to increase them by division. They do set seed which we could gather and sow in seed trays but, in a busy gardening life, we don’t seem to get around to it. These are plants that need to be lifted and divided every few years or they rot out and fade away so we can never claim that they have naturalised here.

The area we refer to as ‘the grasslands’ when I first planted it in 2022 – one of the few celmisias to the right

When I planted my tawny brown area of two native carex grasses, C buchananii which is specific to our maunga and C. comans, I envisioned a simple breathing area of just those two plants. Mark looked at it and wanted more detail and colour. He suggested moving some of the celmisias which we were in danger of losing, into the newly cultivated area. So I did. There weren’t many left to play with. In the first year, I probably only had half a dozen divisions.  That was in 2022. It was like they breathed a sigh of relief and set about growing with renewed vigour. Last year I divided a few clumps that were large. This year, I divided most of them and I lost count around 58 or 60 plants. Some are small but they are surviving and I have done my best to give them optimal growing conditions. It was enormously satisfying. There aren’t many perennials I am willing to lavish such frequent and individualised care upon but the rewards feel worth it with the celmisias.

The same area in 2025 but now with the addition of 58, or it may be 60, celmisia plants

It is mighty hard to be original in a garden. Pretty much everything has been done before, some time, some place. I always scoff silently to myself when I hear the occasional gardener declare that somebody ‘stole their ideas’ or copied them. “But who influenced you in the first place?” I want to ask (but never do). However, I doubt that the celmisia and carex combination will be replicated soon, at least not locally. It is a successful subalpine planting in coastal, subtropical conditions and I am moderately chuffed by its unexpected nature in that context.

Te maunga, our mountain, Mount Taranaki, as I drove to town on Wednesday. The snow cover is abnormally light for mid-winter. There may be no more skiing days this season.