Tag Archives: Mark and Abbie Jury

Tikorangi Notes: Sunday March 15, 2015 Mostly about saving native trees

Schefflera septulosa in flower

Without the discipline of a weekly newspaper deadline, it is frankly alarming how quickly I find myself slipping out of the pattern of regular writing. I realise how focussed I was all the time on ideas and images to share, always thinking ahead. But I shall show discipline and application, dear Reader, because otherwise my ideas of writing a book will fade forever into pipe dream territory.

I shall set myself an easy task, I thought, and just rattle off a Plant Collector on Schefflera septulosa for starters. But a quick check shows that I had already done that three years ago. It is the story of my life as the years of writing rack up. What caught my eyes and ears this week was to walk beneath a plant of the aforementioned schefflera and to hear the hum of hundreds of busy honey bees. The flowers are not spectacular and I must admit that, not being the world’s most observant person, I had not noticed them before. As we do not have any beehives around us, we are delighted to see such large populations of bees in residence. It is a sign that we are managing a good ecosystem for them.

Foliage on our own kauri tree

The felling of mature native trees in urban locations, done in the name of “modern progress” and “economic gain” is big news at the moment. Sustained protests in Auckland have seen the Western Springs pohutukawa (6 large trees) saved from the motorway widening exercise and a reprieve for a mature kauri due to be felled to make way for an outside deck on a new house in the bush-clad suburb of Titirangi. The age of the kauri was declared at 500 years and immediately challenged by those who think any environmental protest undermines economic wealth. Honestly, it becomes academic as to whether it is 200 or 500 years old, but for somebody to describe it as being a “newbie” is just ignorant. It is a significant surviving tree in a rare remnant of forest which pre-dates European settlement. I cannot think that other developed countries – particularly the UK – would countenance a developer cutting down such notable trees.

Our own kauri is but a young tree at 65 years

I headed down to photograph our kauri in our park. It is a juvenile at a mere 65 years old but has achieved a remarkable stature in that time because it was planted in prime conditions without competition from other plants. It would be nice to think that it may survive many generations into the future. The botanical name is Agathis australis but it is usual in New Zealand to refer to these by their Maori name of kauri.

The Waitara #Pohutukawa23

In the meantime, our own battle to save 23 mature pohutukawa on the river bank in our local town continues. The local authorities are less receptive and responsive than in Auckland. Indeed, the Auckland pohutukawa team sent down their banners, bunting and yarn bombing for us to use on our Waitara 23. They survived many weeks in Auckland without mishap but a mere 24 hours in Waitara before the engineer contracted to the Regional Council saw fit to rip them down, damaging many in the process. So much for the right to peaceful, democratic protest in Taranaki. The tattered and damaged “regalia” was eventually returned and will be hung again today as a reminder to the council that this issue is not going to die a quiet death.

If you feel like adding your voice, to tell the Taranaki Regional Council that felling mature native trees is not just a local issue and that people beyond are watching, please visit our on-line email campaign and add your voice. Numbers matter and your support will be much appreciated.
We are inching gently into autumn and the under-rated belladonnas are in bloom. I am looking at these with new respect and thinking that they may warrant bringing in from the roadside to some of the areas of naturalistic garden. I dislike the descriptor “naturalistic gardening”, which seems clumsy to my eyes, but it is more accurate than “wild gardening” which may suggest weedy chaos to some.

And finally, I leave you with Man, Planet Junior and Dogs this quiet Sunday morning – Mark heading over to his vegetable patch with a treasured implement from times past which he still uses on a regular basis.

Bamboo but where are the panda bears?

Phyllostachys edulis but, alas, no panda bears

We have the odd stand of bamboo around the place. This giant form is Phyllostachys edulis.

There are no fewer than 42 different species that giant pandas eat. Mark told me that P. edulis is one of them so I briefly entertained the cargo cult dream – grow the food and wait for them to arrive – but sadly that seems unlikely. A net search does not highlight P. edulis as one of the pandas’ preferred species so maybe that is the problem? We have
tried harvesting the young shoots to eat and they were fine, if not sufficiently inspiring to ensure that they became a dietary staple. It is, however, a useful source of very long and remarkably stable poles. One is a prop for the washing line. Mark uses it to build shelter frames for his bananas and even to make super long handles for the rake he uses to clean out our ponds. Inspired by our awe of bamboo scaffolding in Hong Kong, seen on high-rise buildings, he threatens to construct our own scaffolding but I think it is all talk.

I photographed this bamboo screen in a Herne Bay garden during the recent Heroic Gardens Festival. It was a lovely small town garden which successfully utilised pretty much every bit of available space to integrate the indoors and outdoors as living space. I really liked the informality of the screen, with the varied lengths of bamboo rather than forcing them into uniformity and the natural weathering process. Mark was particularly taken by the close-up photo showing how the lengths were held in place. Cable ties – a wonderfully simple idea.
Also seen at Heroic was this crafted bamboo gate in a Mount Eden garden, which was beautifully executed and appropriate to the restrained, immaculately maintained sub-tropical back garden. This is located in the heart of a densely populated urban area but the garden gives no hint of that. The gate has clearly been coated, presumably both to prolong its life but also to stop the weathering process and preserve the smart, new appearance. Sealing the bamboo will also stop the growth of lichens.

At the other end of the sophistication scale, I photographed these two bamboo gates in an Okato garden last spring. These have been added on to existing gate frames in a garden where many different bamboos are grown, and then left to weather over many years. You can see the high humidity environment and clean atmosphere in our coastal Taranaki that encourages such abundant lichen growth. As long as the bamboo is kept off the ground, it can last a surprisingly long time.

The best bamboo collection we know is at Paloma, Clive and Nicki Higgie’s garden at Fordell, near Whanganui. Bamboo enthusiasts will find much of interest there. But no panda bears, alas.

Paloma Garden

Tikorangi Notes, Feb 8, 2015: In search of a missing tennis ball

New dog Dudley lacked application when it came to searching for his missing tennis ball in the shrubbery

When we first plant a garden, we all experience impatience – waiting for the plants to settle in, to grow and to fill the space. At some point, often without us even noticing, the garden morphs over to the point where it is all about trimming back, shaping and letting in light. This thought came as I spent my weekend on an entirely different task to that I had planned. The shrubbery beside the driveway had indeed reached the point where it would benefit from some serious attention.

Our new dog Dudley was the unwitting catalyst. Dudley, or Dudders to give him his cricketing nickname, is a four year old fox terrier – a re-home from the SPCA (as opposed to a rescue dog). He was clearly a much loved dog but a townie dog and it has been a steep learning curve of liberation for him to move to the country and space. In his nine short days with us, he has won a place in our affections already and settled in better than any of us ever anticipated. Dudley plays and therein lies the connection. Yours truly was never a sporty gal at school and my ball skills were always a little lacking. Out entertaining Dudders on the lawn with a tennis ball, I hurled it into the shrubbery in error. He quickly gave up the search.

I have removed a prodigious amount of material – to the left for compost, to the right to be chipped and then composted

I, on the other hand, have spent two full days cutting back and clearing out a prodigious amount of plant material. Yet the tennis ball remains missing. Each time Mark passes, he asks whether I have found it yet. He has suggested I may not know my own strength and maybe launched it further than I realised. That seems unlikely but its whereabouts remains a mystery. The shrubbery, however, is now open to the light and there are gaps to be filled when the autumn rains arrive. I expect it to look well furnished and handsome again by spring and I am keeping it largely true to my original theme of blue and white flowered shrubs only.

I have long thought that shrubberies are one of the lowest maintenance forms of gardening and they probably are but even they need a major clean out once every five years.
In the garden it is still all about lilies. Big, blowsy, over the top auratum lilies. I am not picking the ones in the garden but in a small area of Mark’s new vegetable garden is a congested block of his seedling auratums, raised in anticipation of our new summer garden. There I can pick by the armful and oh, how I love these extravagant blooms. Auratums are a strong argument for the vigilant border control we have in this country. We do not, repeat NOT, need the lily beetle here. It is a nasty critter that takes up residence on auratum lilies and covers itself in its own excrement. We have seen it in the UK where it is an unwelcome arrival which has all but destroyed the auratum display in some areas.
Following my final photo feature for the Waikato Times on the topic of washing lines, Times reader Carol Lodge sent me a lovely email of appreciation and sent me photos of her new washing line which struck me as genuinely creative and resourceful. She says: “The insulators and stays for the washing line came from a trade with the power board gang who were replacing poles down our road- morning tea in return for the insulators…. My husband is a radio ham and apparently , and not by coincidence my clothesline is tuned to the 80 metre band.”

It is a bit like the final word on washing lines, isn’t it? But I am off garden visiting with friends in Auckland this weekend at the Heroic Garden Festival. It appears to have lost many of its heroic origins now – become “straightified” a gay friend observed – but I may well find additional examples of washing lines and other ideas to share from these smaller urban gardens.

I have ALL the lilies

The January Garden

Auratums and pink lobelia

I don’t cut many flowers to bring indoors. It feels a bit like murdering them to sever them in their prime and bring them indoors to die. We were lucky that Mark’s parents had the foresight to plan the garden so there is a different view from every house window and we have plenty of flowers in sight all year round. The lilies are different. In summer I love to bring in huge stems to scent the house. They are big. They are bold. They are beautiful. Lilies define our summers.

You need quite a lot of lilies to justify cutting the entire stem off and, after many decades, we have a few. Mark’s father Felix started breeding auratums maybe four or five decades ago and Mark has continued. This was never for commercial reasons. It was to build up plants for the garden, to extend the colour range and the season and particularly to get outward facing blooms rather than the upward facing ones which are preferred in floristry. Constantly replenishing with newly raised plants is also a safeguard against the potential ravages of lily virus. Not that we have had a problem with lily virus and disease, but if we ever do, we are prepared.

The lily we scorned at Wisley

We noticed a floriferous new lily at the Royal Horticultural Society Wisley Gardens last June. People were admiring it and but Mark took one look and said: “Gross. No good as a garden plant. Look at those upward facing blooms waiting to mark.” Not only are the upward facing blooms more vulnerable to weather damage, but the pollen falls internally and spoils it sooner. So I photographed it, but not for the same reason as the admirers. It was showy but we wouldn’t give it garden space.

Although you can to leave auratum lilies in the ground year after year, lifting and replanting deeper on a regular basis saves having to stake every stem. They work their way upwards over time. In our free draining soil, if I put them anything up to 20cm down, they are much better at holding themselves upright. The other technique to save forever staking (and then de-staking at the end of the season) is to grow them through shrubs which can act as supports. Apple trees and azaleas work well for us. When I do have to stake, I prefer to harvest my own bamboo lengths and leave the leaf axils in place to grip the flower stem. It saves tying to a smooth stake.

Just another unnamed seedling (or JAUS, as we call them here)

Auratum bulbs do not respond well to drying out, even in their dormant season. This is why they are usually sold in bags of sphagnum moss or sawdust. Always try and buy them as soon as they come into garden centres in early winter and get them into the ground as soon as possible.

Orange tiger lilies growing through the espaliered apple trees

Our lily season starts with what we call the Christmas lily, or Lilium regale from China. It even Others sometimes refer to L. longiflorum as the Christmas lily. It is typically pure white and hails from Japan whereas L. regale has deep pink petal backs fading out to white. The orange tiger lilies with their reflexed petals follow soon after. They lack scent but they are a showy addition to the summer garden and very easy to grow. Next we get the aurelians – scented trumpet lilies in pretty gold and apricot shades. Most of ours have been raised from seed. They have a lovely elegance to them both in the garden and as a cut flower. You will notice their trumpets face outwards and downwards.

Aforementioned JAUS

These are all but an overture to the main event – the glory of the auratums which take us through January and well into February. There is nothing subtle or understated about the flower power. Their common name is the “golden rayed lily of Japan”. How lovely is that?

First published in the New Zealand Gardener and reprinted here with their permission.

A forest of cycads

I admit not everybody will find a woodland understory of native cycads exciting but we were pretty taken with this natural phenomenon

We drove through a cycad forest. It was so exciting – in a low-key sort of way. Most of us have gardens which are the botanical equivalent of the United Nations. While some of us may know in theory where at least some of the plants originate, to see them in their natural habitat can be a thrill.

Our New Zealand bush is thick, dense and verdant. Overseas visitors are frequently amazed by our ferns, particularly our tree ferns which we take for granted. Our dicksonias (the common pongas) are particularly highly prized overseas. When we had the garden open, I used to like shocking overseas visitors by commenting that they just seed down here and we chainsaw out those that are in the wrong place. Familiarity can breed contempt.

The Australian bush is different. It is much more open in character but it had never occurred to us to consider that of course their native cycad, Macrozamia communis, must have its natural habitat somewhere. At least one place is in the eucalyptus woodland heading inland from Bateman’s Bay on the coast south of Sydney.

We know the cycads as expensive, designer plants much favoured by Auckland landscapers in recent decades. Most are very slow growing plants and they show little seasonal change so they fit well into the near-static designer garden mode favoured by some. They have always been expensive because you are paying for the years of growth to get them to a large enough size to have visual impact.

Botanically, they are even more interesting, having undergone little evolutionary change down the centuries. These are ancient plants, traced 200 million years which takes them back considerably earlier than the dinosaur era. Individual plants can be long lived too – anything up to 1000 years. While they are often grouped with palms and there is a certain passing resemblance in form to some ferns, there is only a remote botanical connection to either at best.

Many cycads are rare and endangered around the world but not Macrozamia communis. It is common enough in New Zealand gardens because it is a species that can adapt to our cooler temperatures. We have several in our garden where they thrive.

In the wild, eucalypts and Macrozamia communis near the coast south of Sydney. Notice the lovely mottled bark on the gum tree

But to see them in the wild was a different experience. They form the lower canopy beneath the spotted gum (what used to be known as Eucalytus maculata but has now been reclassified as Corymbia maculata) and there were hectares of them at various stages of maturity. They seed down and some had babies growing at their feet. One reason they have survived is that they are adapted to cope with bush fires sweeping through. Even if all the foliage is removed (either by fire or when cut off), the trunk and bulbous base are capable of pushing out fresh growth.

A carpet of bark, leaves and debris from the top layer of eucalypts creates conditions which discourage many other plants

Being squeamish New Zealanders, we found the Aussie bush challenging. Even on the coast where we were staying in Vincentia, quiet strolls along well-trod paths by the scenic beaches took on new fears after we found the first ticks taking up residence on both humans and the two little dogs that were with us. Mark’s one brief foray off piste (to look at a native orchid in flower) resulted in a leach latching onto his foot. He was unaware of it until, replete, it fell off him on the kitchen floor. We missed seeing – by a matter of a minute – the red belly snake which freaked out another party. Truly our native bush and forest is benign compared to the natural hazards in Australia. So we were not going to go far off the track to explore the macrozamia wonderland but viewed it from the rough vehicle access. Their woodland lacks competition from a wide range of different plants. The top canopy of eucalypts drops vast amounts of foliage and bark which sits around taking a very long time to decompose. That, allied to the extremely dry soil conditions which result from the gums getting down on available moisture, creates inhospitable conditions. The macrozamias can coexist in this environment but not a lot else can.

I have a treasured memory of seeing natural bluebell woods in Scotland. Mark got all excited finding Helleborus niger and hepaticas growing wild in their homelands in Northern Italy. The cycad woodland of south eastern Australia ranks up with these experiences.

The macrozamia is equally popular as a garden plant

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

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: