Tag Archives: gardening

Plant Collector: vriesea

A vriesea, but we are not sure which one

A vriesea, but we are not sure which one

In the depths of winter, most of the bromeliads come into flower – an exotic counterpoint to wintery gloom. Bromeliads are a surprisingly diverse plant family. The best known brom is the pineapple but fewer realise that tillandsia or Spanish moss is also a member. The vast majority come from the warmer climes of Central America. This one is a vriesea. It will be a named cultivar but we lost the labels in the mists of time. Unlike many in the family, it is not prickly. Its foliage is just an anonymous looking green rosette, really, which holds water and also traps an abundance of falling leaves and debris. Then it puts up this flower which lasts for many weeks, stretching into a couple of months. The bloom is like a flat wax cast, almost two dimensional and of such heavy substance that it is unaffected by the weather.

Like many bromeliads, the vriesea is epiphytic and generally self sustaining. It draws all the sustenance it needs from the air and rain and will grow perched in the fork of a tree or on an old stump. This one is in the ground but it will never develop much of a root system.

We grow most of our bromeliads in protected woodland conditions with high shade from evergreen trees. It can get cold for them, but they never get any frost. We go through and pluck out debris and remove dead leaves from time to time and in return, they are totally undemanding and surprise us with the most wonderfully exotic blooms.

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

Flower Carpet Roses

Flower Carpet Appleblosson - one of the prettiest of the series

Flower Carpet Appleblosson – one of the prettiest of the series

When I wrote about roses a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the Rose Flower Carpet series in passing at the end, noting their absence yet again from the Rose Review. One of the comments I received in reply acknowledged that absence and noted: “the Flower Carpet range is part of the rose scene here and overseas”.

For readers who don’t know the history, the Flower Carpet series of roses hit the retail scene with a roar close to two decades ago. Most roses in this country are grown by a handful of specialist nurseries and the production is tightly controlled because so many varieties can only be produced under licence. At a time when the market was starting to call out for easier care roses that could be grown without the usual recommended spraying routine, nurseries were slow to react. Their focus remained on more beautiful flowers, too often at the cost of good garden performance.

Flower Carpet Pink - rather bright but undeniably a fantastic performer which keeps wonderful foliage

Flower Carpet Pink – rather bright but undeniably a fantastic performer which keeps wonderful foliage

Flower Carpet Pink (the first of the series) was launched with an unusually strong marketing campaign and its production came through general nurseries rather than specialist growers. Sales were made through the big box stores as well as the usual retail garden centres. Gone was the traditional prestige of roses, the romance, mystique, fragrance and cut flower potential. This was a new generation of utility rose with a utility name. It was followed by the rest of the series, identified by colour, not by evocative names – Flower Carpets White, Appleblossom, Red, Yellow, Scarlet, Gold, Coral and now Amber.

The market place seized these roses with alacrity. They promised to be high health and require very little care. The purists sniffed and derided – and still do to some extent. Many looked for fault. But sales figures do not lie. While the initial spike could be attributed to an aggressive marketing campaign, the endurance of these varieties now should force a rethink from the doubters. There have been 2 million sold in NZ alone, 75 million internationally. They are here to stay and the reason is that people buy them because they make good garden plants. By now they have amassed goodly swag of international rose awards too.

Utility roses the Flower Carpets may be, but they deliver on health and performance and we all need some plants in our garden that are undemanding and reliable. Not that they are all equal. The first release, Pink, is a fantastic performer but a hard, somewhat garish colour. It creates a lovely bright spot if you situate it in a very green garden, but it lacks subtlety. It is a bit “look at me, look at me” when surrounded by other colours. With my inside info, I can tell you that it is much favoured in the UK where lower sunshine hours and lower light levels mean that people favour bright spots of colour.

Flower Carpet White growing growing through a dwarf maple

Flower Carpet White growing growing through a dwarf maple

White remains the best seller in New Zealand. I have it both grafted as standards and as a shrub rose. It flowers on and on and on. It still a few flowers right now in mid winter. It is a terrific performer and completely reliable, in my experience.

Appleblossom is arguably one of the prettiest in flower form and colour, but its flowering season is shorter and the one I have in partial shadow does tend to ball in heavy rain. If it wasn’t a big standard, I would move it because the shrub ones in full sun are much better.

I didn’t keep Red (but that may have been issues with the position I chose to plant it), and Yellow is a bit average in my experience, but Coral has been a surprise as a top performer. It is a single (just one row of petals) and the trouble with single flowers is that as soon as a petal drops, the whole flower falls apart quickly. Coral just has so many flowers that it doesn’t matter and I have found it more upright in growth than the yellow.

I am told both Amber and Scarlet are very good, but I haven’t found a place for them yet. These two are the first releases of the next generation of Flower Carpet roses. The initial six colours were all the work of the late Dr Werner Noack, a German rose breeder who started work over 30 years ago on breeding healthier garden roses. Now the mantle has fallen to his son. Look out for Pink Splash (the first bicolour and a sport of Pink) and Pink Supreme.

I would not only grow Flower Carpet roses. There are others I like too, especially for picking. But I would certainly miss them in the garden if they were removed. They are the best garden plants in terms of flowering season and health.

In the interests of disclosure, I should note that the company which manages the Flower Carpet series also manages some of our Jury plants internationally. In practical terms, what this means is that if I did not think the roses were good, I would remain silent.

White again, much favoured by New Zealanders

White again, much favoured by New Zealanders

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

Plant Collector: Cycas revoluta

Cycas revoluta - the so-called Japanese sago palm

Cycas revoluta – the so-called Japanese sago palm

It is often referred to as the Japanese sago palm. It is from Japan but it is definitely not a palm. Cycads are different to palms with only a distant botanical connection. Apparently you can extract edible starch to make sago but the plant is so very slow growing that I am sure there are more sustainable and easier food sources should you feel the need for sago in your diet.

There is nothing rare about C. revoluta. It is probably the most widely available variety on the international market, often sold as a house plant. After several decades – five or six – ours is quite large but these are slow growing plants which are generally undemanding. As a house plant, it will want good light levels. In the garden it is one of the hardier cycads, not turning a hair at several degrees of frost but it needs a well drained situation. Ours is in the rockery, too close to a narrow path so I am forever clipping back its very stiff leaves to allow passage. It develops oversized football-like offshoots which can be grown as new plants. Over time a trunk develops – up to 6m, apparently. As the trunk of ours is sitting around 20cm at this point, it won’t be in my time. It has been taller but rotted out some years ago, re-growing from the base.

Like all cycads, C.revoluta is dioecious. Both male and female plants are needed to set seed. This is probably a good thing given that the seeds are toxic and can kill dogs.

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

Garden lore

“In a marshy spot in the garden we had excavated a pit, forming a pond, around which stood a grove of pine trees. It looks as if, in five or six years, a thousand years have left their mark here – one bank of the pond has collapsed, new trees have sprung up among the old, and such is the air of neglect that all who look are afflicted with a sense of sadness. Old memories come flooding back…”

Ki No Tsurayuki, The Tosa Diary (ca. 936, translated from the original Japanese 1955).

Espalier
Espalier is simply the exercise of keeping a plant to a flat plane so it has height and width but no depth. This makes it an ideal technique for narrow spaces. It does not have to be against a hard surface like a wall or fence, but there need to be cross wires or a frame to tie the plant to. Plants do not naturally grow in a two dimensional shape so you have to prune wayward growths and tie in branches often. It is possible to espalier any woody plant which establishes a permanent structure of trunk, stems and branches but it tends to easier if it has a central leader, is not going to grow too large and has flexible rather than brittle new growth. If it is too brittle, it can snap easily. Camellias are ideal candidates as are dwarf apples, figs or wisteria. I can’t see any reason why citrus couldn’t be espaliered but it is always easiest to start with a young plant. You can’t really rush espalier. It takes time to grow and train a plant properly.

Use a flexible tie, not string or wire which will cut into the bark of the plant. We like the balls of stockinette tie that you buy at the garden centre. Black is the least intrusive colour but they all fade with time.

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

Food forests – fashion trend or sound option?

Mark's recent directions in the old vegetable garden may unwittingly be well down the food forest track

Mark’s recent directions in the old vegetable garden may unwittingly be well down the food forest track

Food forests. Trendy. That was enough to make us raise our eyebrows and sniff, even more so when we saw a patently absurd attempt on an earlier series of BBC Gardeners’ World to plant a so-called food forest. But we realised that they were in vogue. It was time to have a closer look.

If you are into raised vegetable beds, ultra-tidy gardens, mown lawns and general orderliness, the food forest concept will not appeal. It is not going to be an easy fit for somebody who buys their veg seedlings by the plastic punnet and on the way out, picks up a heavy grade plastic bag of compost. Nor is it overly practical in a tiny back garden.

In its simplest form, the food forest is modelled on the tropical forest and traditional methods of achieving ongoing food production with fewer inputs and less hands-on work. In a forest, you have three layers. The top canopy is the tallest trees (maybe mango, coconut palm, avocado). Beneath that are the mid canopy plants like the banana palms, maybe citrus trees or figs. At ground level are the crops that will grow in semi shade and with root competition – the likes of cassava, yams and physalis. Clambering up the trees are the climbers – think passionfruit.

The whole thing about the tropics is that you get fantastic rates of growth because of the warmth and the moisture. It is a bit different in a colder climate and, to be honest, the more temperate food forests I have looked at on line are somewhat less purist with the layers. That is because, the colder the climate, the more important sun, warmth and light become. We just won’t get the food production without them.

Parsley, bluebells and self-seeding brassicas. Why not?

Parsley, bluebells and self-seeding brassicas. Why not?

The contemporary, temperate food forest appears to be more about building a sustainable ecology. So the top layers of maybe the walnut tree, the pear, the olives and plums get pushed back to the boundary where they become a productive shelter belt, rather than a canopy.

In appearance it may look somewhat chaotic, untidy even, maybe unkempt. Crops are not usually put into tightly managed rows. Garden beds and edgings disappear. Plants are placed where they will grow best and often dotted around in a visually random manner. There is a heavy emphasis on permanent plants and on varieties which will seed down to regenerate themselves. Ornamentals and vegetables are often inter-planted, though the ornamentals will usually be there for a purpose other than aesthetics – maybe to provide food for the bees or the native birds or to contribute as a green crop.

Traditional practices of crop rotation don’t feature in this style of food production. As far as we can see, the range of plants that can be grown also contracts. You are not likely to get marginal crops through. While pumpkins may seed down and adapt, the rock melons probably won’t. Aubergines will want more hands-on management and for much of the country, tomatoes are not going to be a reliable crop in such situations.

But neither will you be working as hard (a good, traditional vegetable garden takes a lot of work and time) and the environment you have created is going to be a great deal sounder ecologically. Maybe those positives make up for any drop in range or volume of produce.

If you like rules and a tightly defined philosophy, look into permaculture. It will give you a great deal more detail. It is a recent movement, founded on principles of sustainable and ecologically sound food production and ways of living. It still sits outside the mainstream as a somewhat fringe movement, even though the driving principles are very hard to fault.

As we talked through the whole food forest concept here and peeled back the layers of romanticism, of philosophical purity, the higher moral ground and the occasional flaky spirituality, we came to the conclusion that Mark’s efforts on the old vegetable garden here probably qualify. He has relocated the pickier crops to his sunny terrace gardens as increasing shade has created problems. There is the top canopy of assorted citrus, a side dressing of espalier apples of venerable vintage (including a Golden Delicious, no less), banana palms, a feijoa. Self seeders include yams, Cape gooseberries and parsley and there is a rich middle layer of plants grown predominantly as butterfly and bee food. Not to forget the sugar cane. It is all a bit chaotic but largely sustainable and very pretty in summer.

Mostly the food forest concept is about finding a balance in producing food and sustaining nature – about not stripping so much goodness from the soil that you have to keep bringing in fertilisers and soil conditioners, about not growing crops that need spraying and intensive care to get a harvest while keeping labour to a minimum.

It is mighty hard to argue against those principles. This might be a garden trend to be considered with an open mind.

Not such a great view in winter, but what can we expect? Navel orange trees. swan plants (for the monarch butterflies) and physalis

Not such a great view in winter, but what can we expect? Navel orange trees. swan plants (for the monarch butterflies) and physalis

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