• I read in Monday’s paper that the average Brit spends six months of his or life discussing the weather. I wonder if that could be doubled for gardeners everywhere? Last weekend’s rain and fresh coating of snow on our mountain is a timely reminder that the chill of winter is just around the corner. Make the most of the milder autumn weather still lingering on.
• If your dahlia plants were too big, fell apart from the middle and flopped over this year, it is probably a sign that there are too many tubers. In cold climates, dahlias are lifted every year and over-wintered under cover. Here, where most of us just leave them to their own devices, often as roadside plantings, that lifting and thinning process does not happen. Be ruthless. As they die off for winter, lift and thin. You will get a much better display next summer and autumn.
• It is a good time to lift and divide day lilies (hemerocallis) which respond well to a bit of attention occasionally. If the clump is very congested, it is often the outer part which contains the greatest vigour and strength so discard the middle.
• Plant brassicas for spring eating and broad beans too. Continue sowing leafy greens to ensure regular harvests. Most of the quick maturing Asian greens can be grown over winter as well as silver beet and winter spinach. Peas can also be planted.
• Get an autumn copper spray onto citrus trees to prevent leaf drop, fruit rotting on the tree and a range of nasties. This is a critical spray to carry out if you want to protect your harvest. Mandarins are particularly vulnerable.
• Don’t let the autumn leaves build up in your fish ponds. Rotting leaves can reduce the oxygen levels in the water and even kill the fish in extreme cases.
• Keep a sharp eye on weeds. With the shortening day length, pesky cress does not bother about growing large. It just goes straight to seed, as do other weeds.
• Green crops must be sown now if they are to make some sort of growth before winter and to justify their role in nourishing the vegetable garden. Don’t put it off. Green crops develop a root system which makes the soil much easier to break up and till in the spring, particularly with heavier soils.
Tag Archives: Abbie Jury
Tikorangi Notes: May 14, 2010
Latest posts:
1) May 14, 2010: The lovely blue of autumn flowering Moraea polystachya keep continuing over a long period.
2)May 14, 2010: Outdoor Classroom – our fortnightly step by step guide. This time it is pruning a rampant climbing jasmine which is blocking most light in a window as well as threatening the downpipe, roof spouting and even the roof tiles. We used to have a member of staff who refused to use any of our ladders on the grounds they were unsafe. Mark has no such qualms as can be seen in this photo which we did not dare to use in this Outdoor Classroom instalment which gets published in our local paper. We could see an onslaught of outraged letters to the editor about unsafe practices and that would be from people who didn’t even know that the ladder in question lacks even a bracing cross bar. Mark credits regular yoga for his good sense of balance.
3) May 14, 2010: As our unusually calm, dry and sunny autumn continues, there is plenty to do in the garden this week. Advice on lawn care, harvests, green crops (yet again) and more.
The colours of the autumn flowering oxalis
4) May 14, 2010: After the breathtaking inadequacies of the Tui NZ Fruit Garden, it was a relief this week to be reviewing a NZ publication of merit. Threatened Plants of New Zealand deserves a place on the shelf of anybody interested in our native flora, botany or conservation. Apparently 1 in 13 of our native plants are currently under threat of extinction.
5) May 14, 2010: The first of a new series of notes about plants which are tried and true in our garden – this week the smaller flowered vireya rhododendron hybrids.
6) Camellia Diary instalment number 2. It appears to have been a busy week for me with new posts!
Oxalis purpurea alba - one of the very best garden varieties.
Last week certainly ended on an exciting note with my review of the new Tui NZ Fruit Garden Book by Sally Cameron (published by Penguin) even making the metropolitan daily papers and being picked up by radio as well as other publications. The speed with which the internet disseminates information is amazing, nearly matched by the speed at which Penguin ordered a total recall of a book they had only released days earlier!
This week it is back into the garden. Mark has been continuing his autumn harvesting routines though he had the grace to laugh at his banana harvest which will be revealed in detail in due course. I have to say we are more than marginal for growing bananas and he has to work hard to get a crop from his outdoor plants. In the garden, the ornamental oxalis are making a very pretty picture indeed. I think we must have somewhere around 30 different varieties now across a range of colours. These are surely an under-rated autumn bulb in our New Zealand gardens.
Flowering this week: Moraea polystachya
Moraea polystachya - blue lilac flowers all autumn into winter
Some bulbs are a fleeting seasonal delight but you can’t say that about Moraea polystachya which has been a sight to behold for many weeks in our rockery and which will continue to flower for some time to come. The wiry stems are about 50cm high and while individual flowers don’t last long, fresh buds keep opening because it flowers down the stem, a bit like a bearded iris. The colour is an intense blue lilac with yellow markings. When the foliage follows, it is narrow and unobtrusive so these are not plants which take up much room.
Moraeas grow from corms, like gladiolus, and most of the family hail, yet again, from South Africa. It is the spring flowering M.villosa which has given the common name of peacock iris to the whole family (its flattish blooms have markings like the eye of a peacock feather). Polystachya looks more akin to a dainty iris. It is not tricky to grow and seeds down easily in well drained conditions without becoming weedy. If you can find somebody with one, it sets seed freely and is easy to raise. I have never timed its flowering season from go to whoa but it is more likely into the months rather than days or weeks.
In the Garden this week: May 14, 2010
Gather up the pumpkins and their relations before the bad weather hits
• No doubt the weather statistics will confirm in due course, but this autumn seems to be notable for the extended spell of calm, sunny, dry weather. It will run out soon and we will be complaining about damp, bleak and cold days so make the most of the mild conditions while they last.
• If you wish to use sprays on your lawn to kill out flat weeds and invasive competitors, it is much safer to surrounding plants to apply in autumn. Most lawn sprays are hormone based and designed to leave the grasses while targeting unwanted plants. Hormone sprays are particularly damaging to vulnerable plants which can be affected by even the slightest of spray drift. Always use on a dead calm day. Deciduous plants coming into growth in spring can get hit very hard by a mere whiff (magnolias and kiwifruit in particular) so applying these sprays in autumn can be an extra safeguard and still effective.
• While on lawns, if you wish to fertilise yours, watch the weather forecast and always apply just as the rain is about to start to avoid burning the grass. Don’t be heavy handed – keep to the recommended application rate. If you use a mulcher mower, you don’t need to feed the lawn to keep it lush and green because you are constantly returning the goodness in the clippings.
• If you have any nut trees and have yet to gather the autumn harvest, the rats will likely be beating you to them. It doesn’t pay to delay picking them up. As a general rule, nuts need to be dried in a warm, airy position for a few weeks before being stored or used. The personal nut favourite here is the enormous walnut we grow (nice and easy to shell) but it is not a heavy cropper.
Each walnut is large but the entire crop this year was not a great deal more than this
• Lift the last of the season’s potato crops to avoid damage from insect pests and blight. Gather up your pumpkins before the weather turns cold and wet. Likewise, keep your compost covered to keep it warm and dry. We use heavy black plastic for this.
• Sow down bare areas of the veg garden in a green crop. Lupins are a good winter option and have the added bonus of fixing nitrogen in the soils.
• If you haven’t renovated your strawberries, get onto it straight away because these are spring croppers and they need to get re-established while conditions are still mild. You can split the clumps if they are a clumping type or replanting the runners and discarding the old crown is the usual method. Replant them in well dug, friable, rich conditions in full sun.
• The early spring bulbs are all coming through the ground. Watch where you put your feet and be cautious with weed spraying and push-hoeing.
Tried and True – vireya rhododendrons
• Extended flowering, sometimes more than once a year.
• Once established, generally only need dead heading and an occasional prune.
• Available from garden centres in a range of colours.
• Easy to propagate at home from cutting.
The smaller leafed, smaller flowered vireya hybrids are often tougher and better performing as garden plants.
This small flowered yellow vireya has been a picture in full flower in recent weeks. Vireyas can be touchy as garden plants but get them well established in a frost free area with good drainage and they are most rewarding. Unfortunately people are often drawn to the exceptionally showy, fragrant varieties and bypass these less spectacular types. The big scented trumpet types with heavy felted foliage can be very touchy indeed and you often don’t get the flower power display of the smaller leafed, smaller flowered ones. This particular one is a sister seedling to one we have sold in the past under the name of Mellow Yellow but there is a whole range of different vireyas available with the same characteristics – in different colours too. They are hardier and tougher by nature and certainly justify a place in the garden. Flowering times are unpredictable with vireyas but many will repeat flower later in the year or gently open flower buds over an extended period of many months.
