Tag Archives: gardening

Plant Collector: Geranium maderense

Geranium maderense

There is nothing rare about Geranium maderense but it is certainly eye-catching if you have not seen it before. The only tricky part seems to be getting the first plant to grow. It then sets seed prolifically and it will continue coming up for years to come. I weed out most of them, leaving two or three to grow on to flowering size each season.

This is the largest of the geranium family and it is biennial. It doesn’t flower until its second year and then it puts on a huge show, sets seed and dies. By this point it is at least a metre high and a metre across so it does require space. Curiously, its lower leaves (which are large and attractive in their own right) become elbows resting on the ground to enable the plant to stand upright without support when flowering time arrives. It comes from the island of Madeira and to save you looking it up, this island group belong to Portugal and is located southwards to the west (or left) of North Africa. So this geranium comes from a hot, dry, maritime climate and is not particularly hardy to cold areas but it seems to be resilient in a range of soil conditions.

Elbows!

Apparently the Romans used to call Madeira the Purple Isles which seems appropriate given the most common form of G. maderense is in cerise to purple tones. There is a white form available. Terry Hatch from Joy Plants on the northern border of the Waikato gave us three plants of the white form but, alas, they failed to survive with us. This may be because we didn’t get around to planting them out quickly enough though others have told me they have tried and lost the common purple form too. If you are going to try growing G. maderense, go for a position which offers warmth, sun, good drainage and space.

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

Postscript: I have just been alerted to the existence of an endangered geranium in Hawaii which would almost certainly beat G. maderense on size. Geranium arboreum can reach up to 4 metres high, though it does not appear to be as showy in bloom as the second place-getter in the big geranium stakes.

In The Garden: November 18, 2011

A fortnightly series first published in the Weekend Gardener and reproduced here with their permission.

Planting out hostas now

Planting out hostas now

With our annual garden festival (now the Powerco Taranaki Garden Spectacular) over, it is back into the garden with a vengeance. The festival is incredibly important to us but standing on concrete all day every day for ten days on end, meeting and greeting visitors is far more tiring than a hard day in the garden. Unless we have a very wet spell, it is late for planting out woody trees and shrubs. Large plants will now be heeled into the vegetable garden because it has very well cultivated soil and offers easy planting and growing conditions, to be relocated next autumn. Any planting now requires wetting the root ball thoroughly. We plunge the plant, pot and all, into a bucket (or a drum for large plants) until the bubbles stop rising which means the root ball is saturated. This can take anything up to 30 minutes. Once a root ball has dried out, it is very hard to get it to take up water again without soaking.

We will continue planting out perennials, particularly hostas and bromeliads. Perennials in full growth can be divided now, as long as they are well watered and planted into well dug soil where they can get their roots out easily. We mulch with compost as a matter of routine, to enrich the soil and to keep moisture levels up in the soil before summer arrives. It also controls weeds, as long as you make a hot compost mix which kills any seeds in the composting process.

Top tasks:

1) The daffodils in the lawn need to be lifted and separated. I will only replant the large bulbs. They have been there for many years and the flowering is now greatly reduced which means that either they need dividing or we have a problem with narcissi fly in them. If I leave it any longer, I won’t remember exactly where the bulbs are because the grass will cover them.
2) Narcissi fly are on the wing. They look like a small blowfly but with a yellow abdomen. Removing all foliage from narcissi bulbs will reduce problems as long as I cover the bulbs with dirt so the narcissi fly can’t lay its eggs in the hole left from the foliage. Mark also stalks the flies individually with a little sprayer of Decis, which is a synthetic pyrethroid.
3) Label overcrowded patches of spring bulbs which need lifting and dividing when they are dormant over summer.

Fairy Magnolia Blush picked for success in Australia

Fairy Magnolia Blush - Mark Jury's pink michelia

Fairy Magnolia Blush - Mark Jury's pink michelia

Australia’s leading garden magazine and TV programme, Gardening Australia, has named Mark’s new Fairy Magnolia Blush as one of its top ten selections for plants for the future in Australia. This is in addition to naming the Jury-bred Cordyline Red Fountain as one of the top twenty plants in the past twenty years. Gardening Australia is currently celebrating its own twentieth birthday.

Fairy Magnolia Blush is the first of a new series of michelias released by Mark, the result of a plant breeding programme over many years. It brings a distinct pink colour into a plant which is usually resolutely white or cream. It is an evergreen plant which clips easily and can be kept compact.

Blush is readily available from plant retailers in New Zealand.

On the case with Grandma’s violets (subtitled: it is hard to find the perfect groundcover).


I see it was only a little over two years ago that I gave the death sentence to Rubus pentalobus (commonly called the orangeberry plant because few of us can recall its proper name) and chose Grandma’s violets as a ground cover instead. In fact they are more likely to Mark’s great grandma’s violets because they date back to the 1880s house site and have gently survived paddock conditions there ever since. Once divided and planted into the garden, they have taken off with alarming vigour. Sweetly scented and charming though they are in flower, they were starting to overwhelm everything in their path.

Last year we tried thinning the patch and it was a surprisingly difficult task because the violets had formed an impenetrable mat. I figured this year it would be easier to dig the entire patch and replant small divisions. Digging is only difficult when the ground is heavily compacted or with a blunt spade. Using a sharp spade, I cut the violets into squares as one does with turf. Each square was easy enough to lift.

I raked over the bare soil to level it. Some of the clumps I had dug fell apart quite readily, giving me small divisions to replant immediately. Others, I pulled apart as required, spacing at around 15cm intervals.

There was a large surplus of violets. Not every plant is precious. This barrowload (one of several) is destined for the compost heap.

A final topdressing of compost feeds the soil, reduces water loss from the poor stressed plants and makes the whole area look more attractive. There is an open verdict here as to whether I want to persist with a groundcover that looks as if it will need drastic digging and dividing every year. I will make the call next spring.

Tikorangi Notes: November 11, 2011

How curious is Hippeastrum papilio?

How curious is Hippeastrum papilio?

Latest Posts: 11/11/11

1) The exotica of Hippeastrum papilio in flower this week. To me it looks more like an orchid than a butterfly.

2) So you think you might like to open your garden to the public? Abbie’s column (based on 24 years of experience here).

3) Grow it yourself – parsley, a vegetable garden staple of underestimated value.

4) Cordyline Red Fountain receives high praise in Australia.

5) In the Garden this fortnight – the first of a new series written for the Weekend Gardener, detailing what we have been up to in our garden.

Tikorangi Notes: 11/11/11

Rhododendron Ivan D Wood

Rhododendron Ivan D Wood

With the end of our garden festival (formerly the Taranaki Rhododendron and Garden Festival but these days the equal mouthful of Powerco Taranaki Garden Spectacular), we woke up on Monday feeling like zombies. Ten days of standing on concrete and meeting and greeting of visitors takes its toll when the pressure comes off.

Dichelostemma Ida Maia

Dichelostemma Ida Maia

Our flowering remains late but no doubt the season will catch up soon. The curious Dichelostemma Ida Maia (formerly a brodiaea) has been attracting frequent comment and Rhododendron Ivan D Wood is justifying its place with its annual flowering – lovely colour range but the foliage is pretty unappealing for the remaining 50 weeks of the year. It wants to live in a colder climate than ours.

We are stripping out the retail area and are no longer selling plants, though the garden remains open. The plant sales list has been taken off this site until next September or early October. We will not be selling again until Labour Weekend next year when there will be a two week period of sales. We have just had enough of selling plants and would rather enjoy gardening and gardening conversations.

It was undeniably pleasing to see Gardening Australia name Cordyline Red Fountain amongst their top 20 plants in the last 20 years. Equally pleasing to see Fairy Magnolia Blush named amongst their top 10 recent picks for long term success.