Tag Archives: Lepidozamia peroffskyana

Counting down to Friday

The garden festival started 33 years ago as the Taranaki Rhododendron Festival and to this day, I rate R. polyandrum as one of the loveliest sights as well as one of the most fragrant.

We are down to the last few days before we open this coming Friday as part of the Centuria Taranaki Garden Festival. I may write about how we prepare our very large garden for opening one day soon, but not today. There is still too much to do. All I will say is that it never ceases to amaze me how the final garden round (The Great Rake Over, as Mark calls it) brings all the earlier work together to present the garden at its best – or certainly its tidiest.

Some people prefer the classic ball truss on rhododendrons and we have those, too – in this case, ‘Noyo Chief’

At the risk of being repetitive, this is our final festival so a last chance to visit our garden. We have no plans to open for the general public after this event from the coming Friday 28 October to Sunday 6 November.

I am really hoping for fine weather next Sunday 30 October for our Music in the Garden event and also for a good turnout because other people are involved so I feel personally responsible that it be a success for them. Music is from La Mer, cake sold by the slice from Rose at the Garden Cake Kitchen, pre-ordered savoury platters from Becky at Humble Grazing and the Etta Coffee Van on site selling teas and cold drinks as well as coffee. Our gardener, Zach, will also be selling his plants including the sought-after Stipa gigantea, Curculigo recurvata, Elegia capensis and assorted perennials. Bring folding chairs or a rug and, if you wish, your own bottle of wine.

Azaleas are also members of the rhododendron family and can come in colours that may be described as vibrant or garish, depending on your liking for them. I can go with vibrant when they light up an area which would otherwise be just green.

I am offering free garden tours at 11am on Friday 28 Oct, Tuesday 1 and Thursday 3 Nov. Just turn up five minutes early if you want to join one of these.

Look at this cycad cone. It is from the very handsome  Lepidozamia peroffskyana, sometimes known – Wiki tells me – as Scaly Zamia or Pineapple Cycad. It is an Australian native coming from areas that are more warm-temperate than tropical which will be why it is thriving here. I see it is one of the tallest cycads and can reach up to seven metres tall but it is clearly going to take a long time to get anywhere near that height here. We cut the cone off because our experience is that if we leave it on the plant, it reacts by turning the new growth yellow which is distinctly unsightly. Neither of us being botanists, we are uncertain why this happens although Mark vaguely mentioned ‘something to do with a chemical reaction’.

Lepidozamia peroffskyana

Ralph was particularly fascinated by it and felt sure that the segments should be edible. There is not much that bypasses that dog’s nose. There is some anxiety here about how Ralph will cope with festival, this being his first (and last, as it turns out). We bought a new chest harness for him in case we have to keep him on a lead or tie him up but he is fairly sure that harness is a punishment and an instrument of torture. Dudley dog is more experienced and likely to take on his seasonal role of Carpark Biosecurity Officer as he optimistically checks all arrivals for hidden food.

Plant Collector: Lepidozamia peroffskyana

Lepidozamia peroffskyana - an Australian cycad

Lepidozamia peroffskyana - an Australian cycad

Difficult name, I know, but this plant does not appear to have a common name. It is a cycad and one native to Australia at that. Some mistake it for a palm because it grows a trunk and sprouts it leaves in a palm-like habit, fountaining from the top as it matures. Those leaves can be up to 3 metres long, which is extremely large when you think about it. But it is a cycad which is an entirely different plant family to palms. This particular plant is a seedling from a mature specimen we have and I photographed it because of its spectacular cone which has split open in a wonderful spiral. This split is to release its pollen, rather than to create a perfect pattern.

Lepidozamia peroffskyana cone

Lepidozamia peroffskyana cone

Normally we remove cones to stop the plant putting its energies into trying to set seed. It is suspected that forming the cone robs the plant of too many essential micro nutrients which can lead to yellow banding disfiguring mature leaves. It looks like sunburn. Our mature plant suffered badly in the past from this yellowing but it is still a little early for us to be able to state with confidence that de-coning it solves the problem, though it is looking hopeful.

This is an east coast rainforest plant from northern New South Wales through to Gympie in Queensland (I have been to Gympie though I cannot say I recall seeing lepidozamia there). In our conditions, it will tolerate light frosts and cooler temperatures overall. The natural rainforest habitat gives an indication that it likes fertile soils rich in humus, growing in company and in ground that never dries out. I had to go searching to find out for whom this plant was named – Count Peroffsky, a Russian nobleman and benefactor of the St Petersburgh Botanic Garden where this plant was first cultivated beyond its natural habitat. First in gets dibs on the naming rights even now.

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