Tag Archives: gardening

In the Garden: February 11, 2011

• My optometrist tells me that the most common cause of embedded foreign objects in eyes he sees is… gardening. He mentioned this as he fished out what he thought was part of a seed head well stuck to the cornea of one eye. As I couldn’t spot anything wrong, I had thought I must have an eye infection and was rather slow off the mark to seek help, during which time the condition of the eye deteriorated rapidly. I just mention this so readers know to be less stoical and faster to seek treatment should they experience escalating eye problems after being in the garden.

• Bearded irises can be lifted and divided now. These spring flowering beauties need attention every three years or so and we did an Outdoor Classroom on the topic last year which you can find on this site (type “dividing bearded irises” in the search box on the right of the page). In summary, discard mushy or old sections of the tubers, trim off the roots from the sections you are saving, chop off two thirds of the foliage and replant to a shallow depth in light, friable soil in full sun.

• Bulbs are arriving in garden centres so keep an eye out. Anything choice or unusual is likely to disappear quickly.

• If you planned to lift and divide daffodils in your garden or lawn, do it now because they will start putting on fresh, white root soon. The same goes for bluebells which are early starters.

• Pinch back rampant runners on cucumbers, melons, courgettes, pumpkins and other vegetables that grow in the same way. You want the plant to concentrate its energies on ripening its crop rather than making a run for the neighbour’s place. The tips are delicious when young and tender – steam them lightly.

• The recent wet and humid weather means there will be an explosion of fungal ailments in both the vegetable and ornamental gardens. These often show as a white powder over the leaves. It is a fact of life in our climate. You can be out there spraying your cucurbits every week if you want to but we just live with it. Thin the foliage to allow as much light and air movement as you can but don’t spread the diseased foliage through the garden or compost heap, unless you make a hot mix. You either have to bury it or put it out in the rubbish.

• I was going to do the next Outdoor Classroom on making cold compost (by far the most common for home gardeners) but dealing to wasp nests is more timely so we will return to the final instalment on compost a little later.

Plant Collector – Helichrysum Silver Cushion

A delightful mound of silver foliage and white daisies

A delightful mound of silver foliage and white daisies

When helichrysum are mentioned, most people think of the everlasting straw flowers, usually orange and yellow, which are fun for children to grow and may have a place decorating a sunhat (preferably somebody else’s) or gathering dust as part of permanent flower displays. However the helichrysum family is much larger than that. Silver Cushion looks like a mounded silver cushion with dense tiny leaves (they are about 4mm across) and a mass of dainty white straw flowers. The flowers are daisies but tiny – under a centimetre across. It is attractive without the flowers but lovely when in full summer bloom.

This is a woody sub-shrub which will gently layer where it touches the ground. The tiny grey foliage and strawflowers give a clue that it will take hot, dry conditions. It thrives in our rockery and can make a good container plant but it did not thrive when I tried it in bone dry conditions with root competition. The plants survived there for a few years but in the end I pulled them out because they were looking pretty hard done by. Silver Cushion has been around for many years, decades even, and is still being produced commercially in NZ. My attempts to unravel its background failed and it may be that a reader can tell me more. As far as we understand, it is a native but what we don’t know is whether it is a species selection or a hybrid. My best guess is that it has at least some H. bellidiodes in its background. To make matters worse, that helichrysum now appears to have been renamed as Anaphalioides bellidioides . While I can live a happy life blissfully ignorant of the finer points of most helichrysum species, it would be interesting to know a little more about the background of Silver Cushion in particular.

In the garden this week: February 4, 2010

· The coming of February heralds the time to be thinking about the winter vegetable garden. As you clear summer harvests, you can start planting winter crops such as winter spinach, brassicas, peas and Florence fennel or celery. Get in quickly if you want to sow carrots, leeks or parsnips. They need a longer growing season. It is the very last call for Brussels sprouts and they must be from plants now, not seed.

· Keep up with plantings of green leafy vegetables which are a quicker maturing crop and can keep you supplied in bulk filler daily veg – lettuce, spinach, silver beet and Asian greens of the bok choi, pak choy, mizuna types.

· If you want to add animal manures to your garden, in their raw state they are best either put through the compost heap first or dug straight into the garden and left to mature and to start decomposing for some weeks before you attempt planting. However chicken manure is too strong to add directly to the garden – dilute it through the compost heap or let it age for a period of time (exposed to the air but not to rain). If you buy product like Grunt or sheep pellets rather than gathering your own au naturel, it will already have gone through some of the composting process and should come with its own instructions.

· Seaweed is excellent for the garden and can be dug in or laid on top, whichever you prefer. It does not need to be washed in fresh water first.

It takes a bit of effort to outwit the birds but the resulting fig harvest makes it worthwhile

It takes a bit of effort to outwit the birds but the resulting fig harvest makes it worthwhile

· We have been enjoying an excellent fresh fig crop this year – the common brown turkey figs which can grow perfectly well here. However, it does take some active management because the birds also love them and don’t worry about waiting for them to ripen. Because our tree is too large to cover, Mark has been bagging the ripening fruit with opaque plastic bags with the bottom cut of, secured with a freezer twist. As long as the birds can’t see the fruit, they won’t eat it and the bottomless bag means the fruit doesn’t rot. Alternatively you could espalier a fig against the side of a building or wall so that the whole plant can be bird netted.

· You can prune plum trees as soon as they have finished fruiting. Summer pruning can help reduce diseases getting in to cut surfaces. The aim is to have a good, open framework to the tree to allow for light and air movement. Take out wayward branches that cross others or branches that rub their neighbour.

Agapanthus -the blue (and white) stars of our summer roadsides

Our summer roadsides would be the poorer without agapanthus

Our summer roadsides would be the poorer without agapanthus

We have a bit of a love-hate relationship with agapanthus here in Taranaki and in warmer areas of this country. But as you drive around the countryside at this time of the year, most would agree that our roadsides would be the poorer if they were gone. They resemble giant blue harebells growing, well, growing pretty well everywhere if we are honest.

Agapanthus all come from South Africa and from relatively limited areas of that country. Don’t be misled by the common international name, the Lily of the Nile. They are neither a member of the lily family, nor do they grow anywhere near the Nile. Nor does Agapanthus orientalis come from the Orient. That descriptor merely means eastern, so the natural habitat of A. orientalis (probably more correctly known as A. praecox ssp orientalis) should be on the eastern side of South Africa, assuming the original plant collections and recording was done accurately.

The name comes from Greek. Agape is love and anthos is flower but whether this means the flower of love or lovely flower is unclear.

So are they a weed? These matters are rarely as black and white as they appear. On the debit side:
• Most agapanthus set seed freely and the seed germinates readily.
• Agapanthus grow well in a wide range of situations including inhospitable clay banks and shaded areas. They form a dense cover which prevents other plants from germinating – particularly desirable native regeneration. They have the potential to colonise bush reserves, national parks and native bush.
• The common agapanthus are resistant to the world’s handiest weedkiller, glyphosate (formerly known by its original brand name: Round Up). While you can take them out with stronger brush killer sprays, most of these require you to hold a spray licence.
• Digging out well established clumps takes quite some physical strength and determination because the plants cling on for grim death and the clumps can be formidable. Because they have roots which are rhizomes, if you don’t get the whole plant out, what is left behind in the soil will re-grow.
• There is no way this plant would ever be permitted into the country now. Mind you, the same thing could be said about kiwifruit.

There is a credit side and a degree of resigned acceptance by the authorities in this country which sees agapanthus treated as a surveillance pest plant rather than the hard line decision to ban it outright.
• While it seeds freely, the seeds are not dispersed by birds at all so in most cases, the seedlings pop up close to the parent plants. The big problem comes with plants beside waterways because the water can do a very efficient job of spreading them much further.
• They are a significant plant for cut flower producers and there are dwarf and sterile forms available for home gardeners which pose no threat at all. There is a large international market and agapanthus occupy an established niche in our nursery industry. Many of the named hybrids have parentage which includes one or more of the species other than praecox and this reduces the weed problems.
• They make a significant contribution to our summer landscape as a flowering plant and will tolerate harsh, roadside conditions so are favoured for amenity plantings.
• They are evergreen, tidy and suitable for using to stabilise slip-prone areas.

Basically Biosecurity and most northern regional councils would love to ban it outright but pragmatism triumphs so the aggie lives on to flower another day. Auckland has banned the larger growing forms of A.praecox (the common form), still allowing the production and sale of dwarf forms as a compromise position. The sensible position for the home gardener who lives adjacent to native forest or to waterways, would be to remove them entirely. As a back-up position, being industrious and thorough about dead heading would reduce the problem. For the rest of us, it probably doesn’t matter and they make a huge contribution to our summer gardens and landscape.

Agapanthus Tinkerbell - no weed potential here

Agapanthus Tinkerbell - no weed potential here

By no means are all agapanthus thugs. Little Tinkerbell is common in gardens though probably more noted for its very clean white and sage green variegated foliage than its flowers. It is distinctly shy on flowering, as a rule. It also has a significantly large root system for a plant without a great deal on top but it is a useful addition in the garden border. Other named hybrids are often more amenable than thuggish and have their place in the garden setting.

This is a plant family which is a great deal more highly prized overseas than here. In harsher climates, stronger growing plants are valued for their ability to survive the conditions and most of Europe and the US have much harder conditions than we have. Toughies that stay in leaf as well as put on a lovely summer flowering display are harder to come by, especially in blue. Because they don’t tolerate extremely cold conditions, additional measures are often required to get the common agapanthus through winter.

But in this country, you can’t even give away common agapanthus. Which is why we were genuinely shocked by a section in “A Green Granny’s Garden”, by Fionna Hill. I reviewed this before Christmas and I have to admit I did not read it cover to cover or that review might have been a little tougher had I come across the following paragraph referencing her attendance at a Hollard Gardens’ workshop here in Taranaki:
“Workshop participants have been invited to bring seed and other plant material to share. We pulled lots of agapanthus plants from Maggie’s New Plymouth garden that day and (we thought) cheekily we’d take the opportunity to leave a wheelbarrowful. We give the barrow to some helpful children to wheel back to the meeting shed, while we speed off down the road. I think it might not have been welcome, at that time, believing them to be a pest.” (sic). The page of self justification that follows does not mitigate the action for anybody except the author, who concludes: “I shouldn’t feel so guilty about that wheelbarrowful that Maggie and I have left as a contribution – at UK rates, the barrowful was worth about 300 pounds.” I don’t think so, dear. What you did was to furtively leave your friend’s weeds for Hollards’ staff to dispose of. You should be feeling guilty and embarrassed.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 28 January, 2010

LATEST POSTS: Friday 28 January

1) Agapanthus – love them or hate them, they are stars of our summer roadsides. Abbie’s column.

2) An exceptionally fierce summer storm last Sunday took out many flowers in the garden but the disa orchids came through unscathed. Plant Collector.

3) Garden tasks for the week from dealing with potato blight to why you may want to think twice before planning to become self sufficient in pine nuts.

Agapanthus blue and white, and montbretia on our roadside

Agapanthus blue and white, and montbretia on our roadside

TIKORANGI NOTES:
Agapanthus or Nile lilies are considerably more highly prized overseas than in New Zealand. Here we tend to see them as indestructible, utility roadside plants or fillers but come summertime, these large clumps of strappy foliage are adorned with a mass of blue or white blooms. They become a real feature of our countryside. But such is the antipathy to these plants, that they are frequently looked down on as garden plants. I think the only one we have in a garden situation (as opposed to our road verges bounding the property) is little variegated Tinkerbell.

Variegated agapanthus - doubly damned in NZ

Variegated agapanthus - doubly damned in NZ

I will have to find a spot for the yellow variegated form shown here, but am not sure yet where it will fit. We have never done anything with this seedling of ours. There is no point in building it up for sale in this country – it is damned on account of being an agapanthus, doubly damned because it is variegated in a country where we do not favour variegated foliage much at all, though it is a good plant with stable colour. The crocosmia (commonly referred to as montbretia) is similarly a borderline weed but it lights up the roadside outside with the agapanthus.