Tag Archives: Mark and Abbie Jury

Plant Collector – Helleborus orientalis

Helleborus orientalis - quiet and undemanding stars of winter

Helleborus orientalis – quiet and undemanding stars of winter

Hellebores are quiet heroes in the winter garden. I have never seen a strident one. By far the most common hellebore is H. orientalis – though it is not from the Orient, being native to northern Turkey and Greece. It is a perennial which keeps its leaves all year round but in our experience it is not one that appreciates being dug and divided. Plants subjected to this routine can sulk for a long time afterwards. You are better to salvage some of the many seedlings you get around plants if you want more.

Given their origins, it is not surprising that these plants are happy to lead their quiet existence in fairly tough conditions, coping with root competition and shallow soils. This makes them ideal for semi shaded, dry areas beneath trees where it is not always easy to find suitable plants. However, they won’t appreciate dense shade. Lift the canopy of overhanging trees and shrubs to get more light.

Most hellebores come in shades of dusky pinks, reds, greens and white – or sometimes in blends of these colours and they often change colour with age. There are some highly desirable deep red and slate colours – the latter bringing blue-purple tones. However the performance of these appears to be temperature related. The colder your conditions (and these are cold hardy plants), the better colour you will get. The best ones we have seen were in Taupo and the UK where winters are considerably chillier.

If you have prized cultivars, keep them separate if you are hoping to raise seedlings. They are promiscuous plants and will cross readily. That said, to my mind, hellebores look best in big patches or drifts. Interplant with winter and early spring bulbs (bluebells, snowdrops, smaller growing daffodils are our preferences) to add interest.

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

Grow it youself: celery

If you are harvesting celery now, you will be congratulating yourself because it is a very useful vegetable to have on hand. However, it is not a foolproof crop and if you do succeed in getting it to maturity without being stringy, slimy, disease ridden or slug infested, you often have the problem of excessive amounts of celery ready all at once. You can raise celery from seed but the need to stagger harvest means that most people will buy a few baby plants at a time from the garden centre. Seed is not such a great option when you only want 3 or 4 plants maturing at once. That said, I read one advisory that 16 to 20 plants per sowing (so we are talking successional planting) is sufficient for the average family. All I can say is that the author must have eaten vast amounts of celery.

Celery is a cool climate, very hungry crop. It needs good soil, preferably enriched with compost and rotted manure and you must keep it well watered in dry periods. Lack of water leads to stringiness and a bitter flavour. It is also a slow grower and can take up to four months to mature so you have to keep the food and water up to it for quite some time. In cold climates it is a spring crop, but in mild areas it can be sown or planted in early autumn as well. If you want to get a jump start on spring, you could sow seed soon into small pots and grow them under cover for planting out as soon as the soils start to warm up in September. Space at about 20cm apart and stay on top of the weeds which will compete with the celery’s root system and rob the nutrients.

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

Outdoor Classroom – how to sharpen garden tools

1) Every winter, the advice comes to sharpen and clean tools, but it rarely includes instructions on how sharpening should be done. There is no doubt that good tools with sharp cutting edges make gardening much easier. If you try it, you will believe it. Better quality tools hold a sharp edge longer.

2) It helps to be able to hold larger tools firmly while sharpening and we prefer to do this in a simple workbench vice.

3) Only ever sharpen one side of a spade or push hoe – the side that faces upwards. With a push hoe, this keeps the blade flat to the ground with the cutting angle on the upper side. Spades cut better with one flat side and the upward or outward side bevelled and sharpened. We use a file to sharpen the blade. Home handypeople may go so far as to use an angle grinder but be careful not to overheat the garden tool or you will lose the temper (hardness) of the blade.

4) An oil stone is the best implement we know for sharpening secateurs and can be bought from a hardware store. Most secateurs are held together with a central bolt and nut. You have to unscrew this to take the blades completely apart. Some CRC or oil may help to loosen it. Do not lose the spring in the process.

5) Wetting the stone with oil, use a gentle circular motion to sharpen one side of the blade. Never sharpen both sides of the blade or you will find it no longer cuts (it is the same with scissors). Cutting relies on a sharp bevelled edge meeting a completely flat surface so always sharpen the side of the blade that is already bevelled. Where you have secateurs like these with one blade incurved, this second blade shown on the table will need to sharpened on a round stone or with a round file because it will not sit flat to this type of stone.

6) A quick-fix sharpen for secateurs and scissors can be achieved with this handy little tool from garden retail outlets. It is also the only way we know of sharpening cheap secateurs held together by rivet, or the grape snips with upward curving blades. Run it along the angled edge of the cutting blade about six times. Remember to sharpen only the bevelled side of each blade. This tool is made by Bahco though there are other brands on the market.

A little bit of Tikorangi at Clarence House

The promise of big fat buds on the magnolias just yesterday morning

The promise of big fat buds on the magnolias just yesterday morning

Latest posts: Friday 29 June, 2012

1) Snowdrop season has started!
2) Not perhaps for everybody. The exotica of a bilbergia in Plant Collector this week. (Hint: it is a bromeliad).
3) Grow it yourself – whacking great Oriental radishes.

It may take a little while for the Black Tulip at Clarence House to reach this scale of display

It may take a little while for the Black Tulip at Clarence House to reach this scale of display

Tikorangi Notes: Friday June 22, 2012
Without a doubt, the highlight of the week was when it was pointed out to us that the magnolia planted by Aung San Suu Kyi at Clarence House, the London home of the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, was in fact none other than our very own Black Tulip. The story came via The Telegraph complete with short video of the Nobel peace laureate and Burmese Opposition leader scooping three spade loads of dirt around the tree. Black Tulip is adjacent to another magnolia planted by the Dalai Lama in 2008.

Magnolia Black Tulip was bred here at Tikorangi by Mark. Last year, the Queen herself was given a presentation of Black Tulip, though it looks as if the Clarence House specimen may be slightly larger.

We are honoured by this international recognition, though Mark would have preferred them to have planted his Magnolia Felix instead. It appears to be performing very well in the UK and the Royals’ gardens are large enough to take large flowered magnolias.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 22 June, 2012

Latest posts: June 22, 2012
1) The garden identity crisis (or why you need to do quite big things around about year 15). My column from the Waikato Times this morning.
2) The sugar candy pink of Luculia gratissima Early Dawn on a winter’s day. Not my favourite luculia, perhaps. Plant Collector from the Waikato Times this morning.
3) The strawberry bed should be planted this weekend. Time is running out. From the Waikato Times this morning.
4) Much of what you may want to know about the early flowering camellias (plus more). From the latest edition of Weekend Gardener.
5) In the garden this fortnight. On actually getting around to digging and dividing instead of merely advising others to do it and getting rid of excess mondo grass – my garden diary from Weekend Gardener.
6) For absolute beginners – how to plant a tree. Outdoor Classroom has a second coming with our step by step guides.
7) Latest cookbook reviews – and why it may be better to keep local. In fact our NZ cookbooks are particularly good so it is a mystery to me as to why a NZ publishing house would want to import and release this utility series from Kyle Books in the UK.

A reasonably remarkable mid winter sight - the original R. macgregoriae aged 55 years!

A reasonably remarkable mid winter sight – the original R. macgregoriae aged 55 years!

A week of typical winter weather – random rain, torrential at times with thunder storms and just enough sun to remind us that our weather isn’t too bad, temperatures swinging from cold (like 10 degrees during the day) to a balmy 16 or 17. A typical mid winter’s week, really. I have at least started my major renovation of the rose garden. It is fun and not all gardening is fun. Wait for more – it is all part of learning to garden with perennials and finding a level we are happy with in terms of a modern look without resorting to mass planting and utilitiarian ground cover.

The snowdrops are opening here and that is a simple delight. But the flowering star this week is the vireya rhododendron, R. macgregoriae. This is the original plant that Felix Jury collected in what was just New Guinea in 1957. It is a particularly good form and gave the basis of a breeding programme here. But the astonishing thing, for anyone who knows vireyas, is that it is still thriving after 55 years. This is not a plant genus that is known for its longevity.