I have a sentimental attachment to bauhinias with a personal memory of Mark bringing me a bauhinia flower in our early days together. It was just the most exotic and beautiful bloom. So they caught my eye, growing in southern China in the Xishuangbanna area (near the border with Burma).
The bauhinia family is huge – around 500 different species – and in the fabaceae family (so a legume). I can’t unravel them to identify the ones I photographed, though the dark pink may be Bauhinia x blakeana, otherwise known as the Hong Kong Orchid Tree and the floral emblem of that island. They are not orchids, they just look as they should be. Or maybe exotic butterflies.
The one Mark picked all those years ago was from a small tree growing in the garden here – a leggy, rangy specimen maybe 5 metres tall. History does not recall if it died out or his late father removed it. In our garden conditions, it was not a specimen of beauty and was somewhat shy on blooming. Essentially these are tropical trees, extending into the sub tropics. While we grow many sub tropical plants here, we are actually temperate (not sub tropical). Just because a plant can be grown here, doesn’t necessarily mean it performs to its peak or even justifies its space in the garden. These days, I just have to admire bauhinia blooms when we travel to warmer climes. Though, I should maybe add that when I think about it, even in the tropics it is all about the flowers. The trees themselves were not sensational in form or foliage.
A water meadow! I was delighted at the sight in our park this afternoon. We stopped regular mowing of our park two years ago when we first closed our garden to the public. We were keen to see how far we could push the meadow effect in our climate and also concerned at our heavy dependence on internal combustion engines to maintain the garden. Long grass and flowers are far more ecologically friendly than mown grass.
Mark took note of my request that we mow double width paths through the grass this year. A single mower width looked a bit mean to my eyes. I commented to him earlier this week that my only worry was the abundance of buttercup that we now have. He wryly pointed out that it has always been that way. His childhood memories are of the yellow buttercups and dandelions and white daisies throughout the park. We have just returned to that, though not to grazing with sheep.
Before the thunder storm hit this afternoon, the sheer size of the 
News from Australia that Mark’s new 
And then there are the tricksy ones, few more so than the Japanese A. sikokianum with its phallic spadix and hooded spathe rising prominently above the foliage. It is a show stopper in spring, though definitely curious rather than beautiful. After many years of growing it, I can tell you that it is difficult. We have never seen it increase from the corm. Growing well, it will set seed but these need to be raised in controlled conditions because it will not seed down naturally here. Even then, the patches tend to get smaller with time, rather than larger. It was for this reason that Mark experimented with hybridising it, to try and get increased vigour. This is known as hybrid vigour, in a similar way that the controlled breeding of designer dogs can make the offspring a stronger genetic strain than the highly refined parentage of pure breds. It has worked for us. The offspring carry all the best characteristics of A. sikokianum but they grow more strongly and are reliable as garden plants. Few would pick the difference to the lead species, but we know they are actually hybrids.
First published in the December issue of NZ Gardener and reprinted here with their permission. 
Tikorangi The Jury Garden 