Tag Archives: Mark and Abbie Jury

The Magnoliafication

The Magnoliafication – we made it up. A bit like The Rapture, perhaps, but with its roots firmly in the soil, showier and more socialist in concept so not, in fact, like The Rapture at all. It was the process by which we distributed our surplus nursery stock free of charge in our local town of Waitara.

Every plant nursery ends up with surplus stock, seconds and rejects. We had less than many nurseries, being smaller and focused on producing high-end products. But we still had them – lines we had over-produced and plants that did not make the quality grade and it seemed such a waste to burn or compost them. We had the occasional sale but when you are targeting the upper end of the market, sales are something of a betrayal of loyal customers who have already bought a plant at full price. We preferred to give the plants away.

Magnolia Vulcan as a street tree, but not planted by the Council

In the early days, Mark gave a lot of surplus magnolias and rhododendrons to local farmers in the hopes of beautifying the countryside and we still see some of those around the area. We also see properties which have since changed hands and new owners have come in and chainsawed out established trees with no awareness of what they are removing, but such is life. A few experiences made us feel we were being taken somewhat for granted so we stopped giving them to farmers. Instead, we had an arrangement with a charity shop on the main street of Waitara that they would collect plants when we had them and put them out on their front pavement for people to collect free. It worked well. Everything was taken and some of it at least would be planted.

There were a lot of Vulcans in flower around the town

A lot of what went down for collection were magnolias – some with inadequate root systems which would have needed nursing to recover, or misshapen plants which should have grown well, if a slightly odd shape. And a lot of those reject magnolias were ‘Felix Jury’ which took us a while to learn how to grow straight and tall. We also had a contract grower producing an export crop of the magnolias for us and his standards were not as high as ours so too many were unable to be exported. They went down to our magnolia distribution system outside the charity shop.

At the time, Mark quipped about the magnoliafication of Waitara.

Waitara has a lot of magnolias all coming into bloom. By no means did they all come from us, either as purchases or as freebies. When the powerhouse nursery, Duncan and Davies, was in full production on the other side of Waitara, it was a significant employer of locals as seasonal labour and it was also renowned for its huge end-of-season sales. There were also a number of other nurseries around, also producing magnolias and employing locals and some of the trees will have come from those sources.

The irony is that magnolias are generally seen as a high-end, prestige plant and Waitara can be described in many ways but elite is not one of them. Its post-colonial history has made it the poor relative in the district, at the low end of every socio-economic indicator. But it can sure grow magnolias well and I think it likely has more magnolias per capita than similar small towns.

I only drove around about 8 or 10 short streets this week, photographing magnolias from the roadside. I belong to a Facebook page which is mainly comprised of mad, keen magnoliaphiles in the more northerly parts of Europe. Most of the photographs they post are close-ups of blooms on small plants, often growing in challenging climatic conditions. I thought they would be interested to see them used more widely as a mainstream ornamental plant, planted by non-gardeners and gardeners alike. They were indeed surprised to see them in this context.

Given how many reject Magnolia ‘Felix’ we sent down, I was delighted when I found five planted in two gardens a couple of doors apart which were the right age and size to be from those. One had two trees planted side by side and the other house had three planted close together on their side boundary. I don’t know that they were our free ones, but given the high price tag on the premium product from both us and local garden centres we supplied, it seems unlikely that non-gardeners would go out and buy two or three at the same time.

I now plan to drive more extensively around the back streets of Waitara, playing ‘spot the magnolia’.

Finally, a wry observation about human nature. Friday was free plant day at the op shop, when we had plants to send down. One Thursday afternoon, two women drove in here in a modern car. They hadn’t come to buy plants, they had come hoping to get first dibs on picking over the free plants ready to go down to Waitara the next day. At the time we had a lovely, local man called Danny working here. He intercepted them and I hope they felt some shame at his incredulous response as he told them that was not how it worked. The nerve of some people.

This sight will not be seen again until July next year

Waitara has a splendid tree of the pink Magnolia campbellii which is one of my seasonal markers for the start of the magnolia season. It has finished flowering already but here is a photo I prepared earlier, which some of you may recognise. The tree did not come from us; it is likely it was a Duncan and Davies plant.

A travesty, I say. A travesty of pruning on this magnolia on the main street but I wanted to give the poor specimen an award for bravery in flowering on.

In praise of the humble tamarillo

A seedling tamarillo that appeared in the Wild North Garden

The unsung hero of our winter salads is tamarillo. We eat salads most days all year round and finding mixed contents in the depths of winter can be problematic. Mark is Chief Salad Maker here and he is a good forager. Perish the thought that we buy salad ingredients, especially out of season salad ingredients like tomatoes and cucumber. Winter salad staples include random foraged greens (from chickweed to amaranth leaves to juvenile beet foliage), avocado, bean sprouts, finely diced onions, citrus and… tamarillo.

Tamarillo*** are what the oldies amongst us may remember as tree tomatoes, a South American fruit renamed by in this country by a fruit marketing board, just as we renamed kiwifruit from China. Botanically, it is Solanum betaceum and the solanum tells you it is in the same family as tomatoes and potatoes, which means it is frost tender. This is not a plant for everybody, but for those who can grow one, it is worth it, fruiting as it does through the depths of winter.

If you buy one to plant, it should fruit for you within two years. Ours are self-sown seedlings so we really are foraging.

Stewing skinned tamarillos to make jelly

In my childhood, I think I was probably served them as dessert, stewed with a fairly large amount of added sugar. As a young adult, I encountered my mother-in-law’s winter salad standby of finely sliced onion, sliced raw tamarillo and a sprinkling of brown sugar. We have done away with the sugar now for salads. When we gather a surplus, I blanch them to remove the skins and then stew them before sieving them to remove the pips, adding gelatine and a small amount of sugar to turn them into a fresh fruit jelly. The usual way of eating them is to blanch them by pouring boiling water over to remove the skin and stem, slicing them and sprinkling them with sugar. I prefer them jellied to have with my breakfast muesli. They are very much a feature of our winter diet – both savoury and sweet.

The red form is way better known than the orange or yellow but we lean to a preference for the orange.

We are currently eating from two of three volunteer plants. In the depths of the Wild North Garden is a seedling that was presumably spread by a bird pooing on the wing. It is a red one, which is by far the most common form. On the wilder margins of the summer gardens, we have another two plants, one of which is an orange form which is milder and slightly sweeter to taste. Mark prefers to use the orange one for his dinner salad assemblages.

Red, orange and what we think is the result of the potato pysillid.

The third plant is a red which cropped brilliantly for a couple of years. Last year it surprised us with just as many fruit but they were tiny and this year they have remained tiny. We were puzzled why but now think it may have been affected by the dreaded potato psyllid which is a recent pest in this country that is cutting a swathe through commercial solanum crops.

Tamarillos are not long-lived plants but they are easy to root from cutting or raise from seed if you don’t want to buy one from the garden centre. We never spray or prune ours. They are not the world’s most exciting or delicious fruit but we have found them to be one of the most useful – trouble-free and adaptable at a time of the year when options are limited by winter.

The orange seedling starts out red but turns orange as the fruit ripens and ages to yellow

*** The name tamarillo is specific to Aotearoa New Zealand. This fruit is grown in mild to subtropical areas around the world and has many different common names, depending on which country they are in.

“You’ve got mail”

Two interactions this week brought me unexpected pleasure.

The first was an email from Michael in Portland and I was so touched by his words I asked his permission to share it here. I post it without comment except to say that the ‘Dark Tulip’ Magnolia he refers to is of course our Magnolia ‘Black Tulip’.

Hello!

This is a bit of story, but I want to express how grateful I am for your Dark Tulip Magnolia.

I grew up in Mississippi, which is in the southern part of the United States and southern magnolia is the state flower. When I was about five years old my father took me to a garden center where we bought a small southern magnolia. He told me that was “my” tree. I loved that tree and it became a symbol of my childhood and my relationship with my dad. I’m in my late 30’s now and I live in Oregon, which is +2,000 miles from Mississippi. I rarely go back to Mississippi, but when I do I always drive by that house to sit at look at that giant magnolia from my car. My dad died unexpectedly almost two years ago and magnolias are still very much connected to him in my mind.

I’ve always wanted a magnolia of my own, but I’ve been living in apartments my entire adult life. This winter, I finally moved into a house with a (small) yard. I knew I wanted to plant a magnolia even if I had to grow it in a pot (for now). I went to a nursery here in Portland and the moment I saw your Dark Tulip Magnolia, my heart jumped! The blossoms stopped me in my tracks. The flowers immediately sent me back to so many childhood memories, to memories of my father planting our tree. But yet this magnolia is… an evolution of something… the unbelievably deep and soul moving burgundy is stunning! It’s hard to express, but your Dark Tulip Magnolia has become a symbol of growth after loss, of moving forward, of change. It’s deeply poignant to me.

I purchased my first tree of my adult life: your Dark Tulip Magnolia. I have it in a very large container, which I know is not ideal, but it is the best I can do for a few years. I am determined to learn everything I can and do my best to help it thrive. This living art you’ve created has played a role in healing my heart and in my life story. It is the most beautiful tree I have ever seen.

I know the Dark Tulip Magnolia has been around for years, but it is new to me and I’ve been reading everything I can find about how to keep it healthy. I want you to know that your work has created profound meaning in my life. I am so grateful for the years of work you’ve put into creating such beautiful trees.

Thank you for the beauty you’ve contributed to the world and to my life.

Michael

Magnolia Black Tulip – the first magnolia of Mark’s breeding that he named and released

It is always rewarding when people derive pleasure from plants bred here by Mark and Felix before him. When one touches somebody in a deep emotional, almost spiritual way, that is next level altogether.

The rare delight of a hand written postcard

The second treat this week was when the mailbox delivered up the rare specimen of a handwritten postcard. In a week when NZ Post announced the demise of posties, to be replaced by courier drivers, a handwritten card seemed especially poignant. It was a letter of appreciation from a reader of this site. The bit that made me laugh out loud was: “But I really had to say a big thankyou for ‘sad beige’!!!! So funny (and sad!)”

I read that bit out loud to Zach as he came into work that morning and he snorted in delight. It was he who gifted me ‘sad beige’ as in here , here, and here.

Appreciative comments from readers are always treasured but readers who share my sense of humour are gold.

Back in the days when people still bought and read newspapers, I used to get more feedback on the garden pages I wrote from 1997 through to 2015. I just looked up those dates and I am stunned I kept it up for 18 years. Mark used to call the incoming mail my ‘fan mail’. I kept the special ones and I shall add the postcard and the email to that file. I am a bit sorry I can’t store the phone calls I used to receive from elderly gents wanting to discuss growing potatoes. This was in the days of landlines and phone books, you understand, a time when there were quite a few elderly gentlemen wanting to discuss potatoes. Never having grown a potato in my life, I would hand those calls over to Mark who was far better equipped on the topic. They were oddly charming, in a niche sort of way.

Ninfa-ish or Ninfa-esque. Sort of.

I don’t think I have ever felt so flattered in my life as when Australian garden expert, Michael McCoy came here two weeks ago saying that a Wellington landscaper friend told him he must come, that our garden is ‘like Ninfa but without the ruins’. Well, I was even more flattered when he endorsed that observation after we walked around for 2 ½ hours in rain. It took that long to get around because we found so many shared gardening values and, indeed, experiences.

Not exactly Ninfa, our Wild North Garden, but I guess it has a similar ambience but without the ruins

Upon reflection, it isn’t so much that we are like Ninfa (and we certainly lack ruins), but that these two younger professionals in the garden design scene saw the romanticism that we have embraced in our garden. We have reached it in a different way to Ninfa but soft-edged romanticism was the goal and this was an endorsement that we are reaching that goal.

Ninfa with lush growth that is not commonly seen in the hot, dry climate of southern Italy

For those of you who don’t know Ninfa, it is a garden in southern Italy that is often hailed as ‘the world’s most romantic garden’ and it is built around the remains of an entire town that was occupied from Roman times through until it was sacked in 1370. So 750 year old ruins. Our only ruin is a collapsed low brick wall which fell back around 1960s or 70s. I don’t think that counts. Ninfa is renowned for its roses and we don’t have a mass of climbing roses. Neither Mark nor I could recall long grass at Ninfa; I went through my photos from our visit and they don’t have long grass and meadows as we do. So how are we like Ninfa without the ruins?

The Court Garden last week here at Tikorangi

Soft-edged gardening is what it is all about. I see I wrote a piece about romantic gardens for Woman magazine at the beginning of last year and I must be getting old because until I reread it, I had no memory of writing it at all. ‘I grow old… I grow old… I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled’, to quote T.S. Eliot in his Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. At least I still dare to eat a peach.

Before I found those earlier thoughts, I had been musing all week about what makes a romantic garden. In no particular order, I would list the following:

Water is an integral part of the garden at Ninfa

Same principle Mark arrived at long before we even heard of Ninfa – creating small drops to enable the flowing water to be heard as well as seen. We have so little fall from where water enters our property on one side to where it exits on the opposite boundary that this tooks some thought and effort to achieve.

Water – a reasonably large body of water that is moving so it brings the element of sound. Ninfa was exceptional in that it was in a dry, arid part of Italy but it had its own river which gave the feeling of an oasis in a barren landscape beyond. Years ago, when Mark was playing with our onsite water, he worked on ponds and rapids to achieve small drops in level to get the sound of flowing water.
Lush growth – onsite water plays a large part in being able to manage a lush garden. I don’t think I have seen a dry garden that could be described as romantic. Water and lush growth also encourage birds, flowers bring bees and other insects and these natural creatures bring more life to a garden. We do lush growth very easily in our little corner of the world where three weeks without rain has us muttering darkly about drought.
No straight lines, right angles or hard edges. Formal gardens may be many things, but romantic they are not. And no wretched edging plants defining the line between garden and path. To our mutual amusement, Michael McCoy and I share an intense dislike for suburban edging plants.
Avoid evidence of maintaining the garden with glyphosate, too. There is not much that is less romantic than edges that have clearly been sprayed, or indeed expanses of liverwort which are too often a sign of long-term maintenance with glyphosate (Round Up).

Dappled light and glimpses beyond in our Wild North Garden

Light and shade and dappled light which usually means some taller trees. Too often, the delight in variations of light and shade are not factored into planning gardens but they add another dimension beyond flowers, foliage and form. With light and shade come views through. Designs with tightly enclosed garden rooms may be cosy and contained, but they are not often romantic. Glimpses beyond hint at further areas to be experienced.

Romanticism at Gresgarth, Arabella Lennox-Boyd’s lovely garden in the north west of England.

An absence of dominating man-made features or much that is modern. As soon as you add man-made features into a garden, be it a gazebo (oft referred to as ‘gazzybows’ here), a Japanese-style bridge painted red or any other piece of brightly painted garden structure, a modern sculpture or a stark white statue, the eye is always drawn to that piece rather than to the wider environment. Old ruins or suitably aged and mellow pieces can be added but in great moderation and with care. Less is more in a romantic garden and any additions should blend and meld, not shout out to be noticed. Forget focal points which are to direct the eye – they belong in more structured garden styles. The romantic garden is more of an absorbing experience than a directed one.

Flowers are generally in simpler, looser forms. Not necessarily small but if large, they look better if they are on the blousy side. Flowers with the tight form of, say, auriculas or formal camellias are more at home in more controlled situations. The same rule of thumb applies to plants with rigid, stiff forms. Looser forms also give more sense of movement – they will sway and respond to the slightest breeze.

Mown paths give definition – in the area we refer to as the park here at Tikorangi

We have a few roses but not a lot. Because we don’t spray them, they are integrated into plantings that will hide their poor foliage and generally disappointing form when they are not blooming in profusion. The dog, as you may gather, is my constant companion.

Without ruins and rambling roses, we have basically done it with long grass and meandering mown paths following the natural contours of the land (no straight lines!). The paths are what give definition and stop the long grass from looking like the area has just been shut up and left. In our climate, the grass growth is so strong all year round that we have to mow everything down twice a year – in midsummer and midwinter so the end of January and the end of June. But long grass, flowers growing semi-wild and meadows are not a defining characteristic of a romantic garden. They are just one style that sits within the romantic genre.

It is not all about long grass here at Tikorangi; sometimes it is about views through, gently leading from one area to another rather than straitjacketing areas into tightly defined garden rooms.

Romantic gardens come back to being in the garden, not looking at the garden, gardening with Nature more than by controlling Nature and creating gardens that sit within the landscape rather than on the land.

It is not everybody’s cup of tea. It is bringing different eyes to a garden situation and with that, different expectations. It makes us happy, brings us delight and, mostly, that is all that matters. But I am still honoured and flattered that others have referenced Ninfa as a comparator.

Ninfa with its moat and decorative white swans (and a distinctly vulgar orange hybrid tea rose on the right that disturbed me)

Lacking both moat and white swans, we have to make do the neighbour’s white runner ducks who visit the Wild North Garden from time to time.

Finally, just as a point of comparison – NOT romantic in our Wave Garden and lily border – too sharp-edged, too pristine, too tightly managed to be considered romantic. I like it, I like the contrast and it may be described in various ways, but romantic is not one of them.

The Yellow Magnolias

Magnolia ‘Honey Tulip’ with ‘Iolanthe’ behind

When the first yellow magnolia hybrids became available in New Zealand in the early to mid 1990s, they were a bit of a revelation. Most deciduous magnolias are from parts of central Asia and come in shades of pink, white, purple and hues through to red. Yellow seemed a significant addition and many people hadn’t realised that USA has its own deciduous magnolia and it flowers yellow. That is M. acuminata, sometimes referred to in its homelands as the cucumber tree.

It takes time to see how a magnolia will perform in a different climate. We knew that M. acuminata was very cold hardy, could grow very large (think 30 metres) and had small flowers. When you are looking at small nursery plants sporting their first yellow flowers, they can look exciting – something very different and new, to us at least. Given time, the picture becomes clearer and I quote Wikipedia: “Unlike most magnolias, the flowers are not showy. They are typically small, yellow-green, and borne high in the tree…”.

Magnolia ‘Yellow Fever’ on one of our road boundaries. I have never understood why anyone would choose that name

I remember talking to an American enthusiast about magnolias and it was a revelation as to different perceptions of plant hardiness. When we talked about hardiness in magnolias in our temperate climate, we measured things like vulnerability of the open flowers to frost or late storms. The timing of flowering mattered most to us. To the Americans, it was a matter of whether the bark split when the ground and trees froze in winter. That is next-level plant hardiness and they need plants that flower later in the season. Their yellow magnolia species is hardy in their winter cold.

One of the early yellow hybrids – probably ‘Yellow Fever’ – in the magnolia dell at Pukekura Park

And a close-up to show the problem of smaller flowers getting engulfed by new foliage. Most of the first batch of yellow selections flower even later so the flowers get hidden more.

The problem with most of the yellow hybrids in our temperate conditions is that the flowers come out late, at the same time as the leaves, and get lost in the foliage. The trees also grow extremely quickly and become large. The early hybrids came from Brooklyn Botanic Gardens In New York. We started with ‘Elizabeth’ (flowered early enough to beat the foliage but cream, not yellow and small flowers), ‘Yellow Bird’ (best yellow but flowered with its foliage and the small flowers became lost to view), ‘Yellow Fever’ (paler yellow but its main flowering came before the new foliage swamped them from sight and it still puts on a good display, despite its small flowers) and ‘Sundance’ (just another small, pale yellow in a similar mould). To those we added ‘Koban Dori’ (reputedly like a dwarf M. acuminata but the bright yellow flowers disappear behind the lush new foliage), ‘Eva Maria’ (novelty flower in a mix of pink, yellow and green that looks striking viewed close up but simply murky as a landscape tree – the same can be said of ‘Woodsman’) and ‘Hot Flash’ (which we rate as one of the better options because it is a good strong colour and it largely flowers on bare wood for us).

Poor old ‘Hot Flash’ never even got out of the nursery. It has long since rooted through from its pot but at least we get to admire it in a prominent spot beside the driveway to the neighbours.

In the years since those early hybrids, there has been an explosion of new selections internationally. The size of blooms has increased a bit but most keep that upward pointed shape and, in our conditions, most flower with their new foliage . Many magnolia specialists agree that too many yellow hybrids have been named. We stopped collecting more because Mark started hybridising his own and none of the overseas hybrids seemed to shout out to us as ‘must-haves’.

‘Honey Tulip’ on the left, ‘Hot Flash’ on the right

and ‘Honey Tulip’ on the left with ‘Sundance’ on the right

Mark’s ‘Honey Tulip’ is the only yellow he has named and he selected it for its cup shape – rounded petals, different to the more pointed shapes of other yellow hybrids – its reasonable flower size by yellow standards, smaller growth habit than the originating species and the fact that it flowers in abundance before the leaves appear. We have not regretted selecting it as it continues to go from strength to strength as the tree matures.

But ‘Honey Tulip’ was a step on the way. Mark would have preferred a clearer yellow and his quest has always been to see if he could reach a big flower – something the size of an ‘Iolanthe’ bloom – in clear yellow with the cup and saucer form. As we edge past the peak blooming season for the Asiatic magnolias in red, white and pink, his yellow seedlings are all starting to bloom. The dream of a big, proper yellow ‘Iolanthe’ type bloom will likely take another generation or two of plant breeding and, sadly, he may be running out of time. But there is enough amongst the seedlings to see that it is possible. He has reached the size, the colour and the flower form – just not all on the same plant yet!

We are flowering a lot of next generation ‘Honey Tulip’ controlled crosses and most are ending up looking very like their dominant parent. Good colour but not good enough to name.

And again – a good plant but not good enough to name when we already have one

‘Big Flop’, as Mark calls this one. Getting there on size and overall flower form but the upper petals flop and it is not a good enough colour

Good flower size and form but not there yet on colour – more cream than yellow

Getting closer but Mark hates the notched petals…

Good colour and flower size but the tree is growing way too large to even consider

Breeding magnolias is a numbers game, Mark will tell you. Amongst the several score of yellow seedlings, there are two that excite us. Neither are big yellow ‘Iolanthes’ but there is enough that is special about them to make us pick them as worth tracking for potential selection. I don’t share photos of ones that we think may be special, sorry. You only get to see them when we rule them out or when they are actually ready for release. In a world already overcrowded with yellow magnolia selections, we need to be very confident before we add one or two more.

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