Tag Archives: Mark and Abbie Jury

Tikorangi Notes: Friday May 4, 2012

Autumn crocus - real ones

Autumn crocus – real ones

Latest posts:
1) An example of really bad naming (from a PR point of view) – Vireya rhododendron “Satan’s Gift” in Plant Collector this week.

2) Stop moaning – the weather here is not at all bad, even in the depths of winter (comparatively speaking). At least we don’t need to wrap our echiums up in individual sleeping bags.

3) Grow it yourself this week is on pumpkins (if you have the space).

4) Episode two of the serialised history of the Jury plants, as published in the RHS Yearbook for the rhododendron, camellia and magnolia group. It is on the vireyas this year (it was rhododendrons last year and will be camellias next year).

5) A slightly aggrieved post on naked ladies, autumn crocus and so-called autumn crocus (colchicums and sternbergia) and why sternbergia are no more accurately called autumn crocus than colchicums…. (We aim for accuracy here).

Being thankful for gardening in a benign climate

We tend to take it for granted that our gardens are green and lush all year round

We tend to take it for granted that our gardens are green and lush all year round

As the days get shorter and the nights get colder, it is easy to lose sight of quite how benign our climate really is. There is a tendency to take our bright, clear light for granted and the fact that we can sit outside for morning coffee all year round on sunny days comes as a surprise to those from harsher climates. Of course it means we have to keep mowing the lawns, though the interval between cuts will stretch.

True, down the southern half of the South Island, it is cold enough to stop growth (and therefore stop mowing lawns in winter) but at least they keep the bright light which is a hallmark of both this country and Australia. I recall visiting London one December. Quite aside from the fact that darkness fell soon after 3.00pm, when the sun did struggle above the horizon, it was a poor watery thing. On that visit, we headed out to Leeds Castle which has a notable garden designed by famous English gardener, Russell Page. It had been put to bed for winter. Literally. There was only the formal structure to see. Beds were smothered in straw to protect the plants below. Some plants were wrapped up in their own padded sleeping bags – layers of straw, sacking and insulating material and that was just for echiums which are clearly prized a great deal more there than here. It is altogether a different way of gardening.

Autumn cheer in the earliest azalea flowers

Autumn cheer in the earliest azalea flowers

Here we may moan about miserable winter days, whinge about winter wind and stress over storms (enough alliteration!), but the bottom line is that we are green and verdant with flowers all year round. For most of us, temperatures are high enough to be out in the garden in fine weather, even in June and July. Autumn is recommended as the very best planting time for trees and shrubs because it gives plants a chance to settle in over winter and start getting their roots out before the spring flush. Similarly, many perennials can be dug and divided throughout winter. In cold climates, this is a spring and summer activity only because the plants can rot out when dormant in their cold conditions. The timing of pruning is a great deal more critical in colder climates. This applies to deciduous plants like roses, hydrangeas, wisterias, as well as evergreens such as hedges. Pruning can force plants into growth and, when carried out too early, the tender new growth gets burned off by frost and cold.

In cold climates where you only get to view your garden through the window in winter, design, shape and form become all because that is all you see. Most cold climate gardens have a large quantity of deciduous plants, punctuated by a few hardy evergreens such as buxus, conifers, or laurels. Even if the design is good and strong, it can be a bit bleak.

But unless you live in a really cold winter location by our standards (National Park, Ohakune or the like), it is reasonable to expect to look around your garden and see flowers and fresh foliage for twelve months of the year. Sure you may get frosts. Anywhere more than five kilometres from the coast can expect frosts, even in Northland. But we can still grow winter flowering plants.

The gordonias are opening. This is an unidentified Vietnamese species

The gordonias are opening. This is an unidentified Vietnamese species

The sasanqua camellias are opening now and will take us into winter when the early flowering japonicas open. Early season evergreen azaleas are flowering. I see flowers on the gordonias. These look like big, white camellias on steroids but they are only very distant relatives. The first of the luculias is in flower and we always have sub tropical vireya rhododendrons blooming, no matter what the season. These last two plant types are more problematic if you have hard frosts, but in favoured positions or closer to the coast, they are a delight. In the depths of winter, the Magnolia campbellii, michelias and rhododendrons will be opening. None of these flowering trees and shrubs are particularly viable in cold climates. Even the utility camellia can be hard to grow in colder parts of Britain.

There are plenty of autumn bulbs still in flower. Hot on their heels are the winter bulbs, already rocketing through the ground and some showing the first flowers. The earliest narcissi are opening. Most of the dwarf and miniature types flower much earlier than the classic daffodils. In so doing, we find they are less susceptible to narcissi fly which lays its eggs in the crowns of bulbs later in the springtime. Narcissus bulbocodium citrinus “Pandora”, the pale lemon hooped petticoat type, has its first flowers out. The peak display of our dwarf collection is in the depths of winter. The earliest of the lachenalias will be opening soon. The first to flower here is the easy to grow red L. bulbifera which has naturalised happily around tree trunks.

In some places, our common NZ pongas are so highly prized, they are lifted from the garden and moved under cover for winter. True. I have seen it done in the north of Italy. It really does seem churlish to complain about colder seasons here.

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

Grow it yourself: pumpkins

It is pumpkin harvest time, not planting time. Alas the first buttercup pumpkin here (they are the smaller, green coated ones) was a terrible disappointment – watery and lacking flavour. Mongrel seed, even though it came from a major seed company. They are not the buttercups they were meant to be. There is a surprisingly large range of different pumpkin seed you can buy, but the pumpkin grower here plans to keep to the proven heritage varieties next year – grey ironbark for keeping and classic buttercup for eating fresh.

Pumpkins take up a huge amount of room for 3 to 4 months yet are very cheap to buy, so if you only have a small garden, you can probably grow higher value crops. Timing for planting is important. They usually go in as small plants when the soil is warming up but no later than December. You can accelerate early growth by planting them in a bed of warm compost. In good conditions, they then rocket away. Keep the water up to them as the fruit develops because these are thirsty plants. The young shoots of pumpkins, chokos and the like are a taste treat for quick cooking.

Pests and diseases include white fly and mildew but these come late in the season, after the fruit has formed. They should not have much effect on the yield and are rarely treated.

We grew Austrian Oil Seed pumpkins last year because they produce hull-less seed. They took up the usual large amount of space for a small seed yield and the pumpkin flesh was only stock food. We are back to buying pumpkin seed this year.

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

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 27 April, 2011

The Taxodium ascendans nutans has turned orange on one side only

The Taxodium ascendans nutans has turned orange on one side only

Latest posts:

1) Our garden diary for the fortnight (as published in the Weekend Gardener) and mostly on autumn flowers.

2) Slightly nervously, I offer up a carefully crafted opinion on the current state of garden assessments with reference to the New Zealand Gardens Trust.

3) The most lovely schefflera I know in Plant Collector this week – Schefflera septulosa. Not that I pretend for one moment to be an expert on scheffleras, but it is a beauty.

4) Feijoas feature this week in Grow It Yourself.

5) Revisiting Outdoor Classroom (in conjunction with the Weekend Gardener) – how to deal with large clumping plants. We tackled a massive Curculigo recurvata but we might equally have tackled an astelia or a flax.

It is time to gather magnolia seed. I mentioned in an earlier Tikorangi Diary that we have been asked several times about odd growths appearing on magnolias. Each time it has been seed pods – photographed below for reference, now that they are ripe. These pods will open in due course and produce the red seeds, looking like the michelia seeds in the lower photograph. The soft red casing is then rotted off to reveal a black seed.

Michelias these days are more correctly known as magnolias – a reclassication based on scientific analysis. We persist in referring to them as michelias for clarity, while acknowledging that we are probably incorrect botanically.

Magnolia seed pods

Magnolia seed pods

Michelia seed

Michelia seed

Garden assessment and the NZGT

Mark, nose pressed to the window (or door, in this case). On the outside looking in.

Mark, nose pressed to the window (or door, in this case). On the outside looking in.

Hamilton is playing host to some good gardeners this weekend. It is the New Zealand Gardens Trust (NZGT) having its annual conference in the city. This is the parent organisation of many, but not all, open gardens in this country. We are not attending. We were enthusiastic founder members. Indeed, we even contributed $2000 to get the thing up and running. There is nothing like resigning on principle and being totally ignored to remind one not to get ideas above one’s station.

The purpose of the trust is to vet gardens, rank them and give garden visitors an accurate idea of what to expect. Along the way, it aims to provide a pleasant membership club of collegial conviviality for the garden openers and this is really the only aspect we miss.

There aren’t many circumstances where garden assessment is required. There is the occasional local competition which invariably gives lie to the idea that gardening is a non competitive activity – for some at least. There are plenty of people who would like to claim the biggest pumpkin, tallest sunflower, prettiest road frontage, or the best vegetable or flower garden. Winning can be wonderfully affirming.

Some of the garden festivals around the country insist on vetting gardens before accepting them. In this case, assessment is only setting the base line for inclusion. It can be alarmingly controversial but anybody with experience knows just how necessary the process is. Too many gardeners wear rose tinted glasses where their own patch of dirt is concerned.

Show gardens such as seen at the Ellerslie Flower Show are judged and there are some excellent international precedents for how these are assessed, emanating particularly from Britain’s Royal Horticultural Society. Interestingly, the RHS is taking a close look at its assessment processes right now.

And there is our national scheme for ranking gardens, administered by the aforementioned NZGT. Of course you can still open your garden independently, as we do these days, but from the point of view of the garden visitor, some credible outside endorsement and ranking can be helpful. Originally, this open garden scheme had three categories with the top tier being grandly named: Gardens of National Significance. We were really honoured to be named one of only six private gardens to carry this elevated status in the first year. That meant something. These days, with a huge number of gardens in the top categories, it doesn’t seem anywhere near as prestigious. Do we really have over sixty two top tier gardens, of national significance and a few even described with great puffery as being of INTERnational significance, in this country?

Equally, it seems really odd that the next tier of gardens down numbers a mere thirty six. One might expect a pyramid shape – fewer top gardens and a whole lot more in the next layer who would like to move up. Either the organisation is singularly bad at retaining membership below the top tiers, or it gives out its rankings way too cheaply.

The problem, I would suggest, is likely to stem from too heavy a dependence on a points based system. By that, I mean allocating so many points for the state of your lawns, your paved surfaces, how neatly your hedges are clipped, how you support and tie up plants, plant combinations, plant health and so on. It matters not a whit if you are scoring out of 10, 100 or 300.

In practice, slavish adherence to a points based system can mean a damned ordinary or downright awful garden lacking in any charm or originality can get through as long as it scores highly in sufficient categories. The sum of the parts is sometimes greater than the whole. We saw it happen a few years ago when someone with a good level of knowledge trotted around a number of local gardens, clipboard and marking schedule in hand. “When I got to the end,” he told us, “and added up the points, I was astonished at who came out with the highest score.” As indeed we were, too.

A marking schedule is just one tool, not an end in itself. Neither is it a shield to hide behind, to justify decisions. It needs to be used in conjunction with clear definitions, agreed frameworks, some bigger picture thinking about downstream outcomes, maybe a mediated process and preferably in the hands of a convenor. Done well, assessment can even be an empowering experience for the candidate.

I have no idea whether NZGT is now employing a wider range of strategies in assessment. They certainly didn’t in the past. From my current position out in the cold with my nose pressed up against the window pane, the current outcomes are not suggesting that there has been significant change.

Notwithstanding those reservations, one hopes that the keen and dedicated gardeners visiting Hamilton this weekend will encounter fine weather, wine and gardens to be enjoyed in convivial company.

Before becoming a garden writer, Abbie Jury spent 18 years working in education, across all sectors before specialising in adult learning. She was appointed to an advisory committee to the Minister of Education, to a standing committee of NZQA and was awarded a Commonwealth Relations Trust bursary to study alternative forms of assessment of adults in the UK.

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

Three years ago, I published the reasons for our resignation from the New Zealand Gardens Trust. Despite being widely read then and in the intervening years, those comments appear to have fallen into an abyss.

Eight years ago, I wrote in strong support of the NZGT. That does seem rather a long time ago now.