Tag Archives: Mark and Abbie Jury

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 3 February, 2012

Our pregnant gecko, Glenys, is back in view

Latest posts: Friday 3 February, 2012

1) The battle with the water weeds in Abbie’s column this week.

2) One for the dendrologists in Plant Collector this week – Pinus montezumae. It takes a bit to convince most New Zealanders that any pine tree is capable of being special but garden visitors do single our specimen of P.montezumae as being a tree out of the ordinary realm of the common pine.

3) Grow it yourself – silver beet. Some people are even alleged to enjoy eating this iron-rich but utility vegetable.

4) Welcome back Glenys, our highly prized but rather shy resident gecko. We are terribly excited by the evidence that we have a population of gecko in our garden, though that excitement does not appear to have been widely shared by others! But in this country, the small skinks are a common sight whereas our native gecko is nocturnal, elusive and rarely seen.

5) Check out the lily photo album I am building on our Facebook garden page. If you feel inclined to “like” the whole Facebook page, it would be most gratifying. Our popularity on Facebook lags behind the visitor numbers to our websites, and even the subscribers. This may of course just indicate that gardeners are less inclined to use social networks.

The auratum lily season is late this year, but no less spectacular for its delay

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 3 February, 2012

Oh summer, where art thou? Even the auratum lilies seem to be waiting for some real summer heat before opening fully in all their glory. This may go down in history as one of the coolest summers in recent history. On the bright side, the garden is very lush and green and working conditions are not unpleasantly hot. In fact, for Lloyd and I cleaning out the ponds and stream in our park, working conditions have been very pleasant. I just like a little searing heat to justify the fact we have a swimming pool. It has had precious little use so far this year.

Mark is very excited to see the blandfordia coming into flower. I have tried to photograph it but even by our standards, it is still looking a little too modest to boast about. It may look more notable when additional buds open. The reason for our excitement is that it was planted in the rockery by Felix Jury and as Felix died in 1997, it means it has been there for quite a long time and not doing very much. In fact, in all those years, it has only flowered twice before. Its third flowering is cause to celebrate.

Our Lloyd makes a prettier sight than I do when it comes to weeding the pond

Tikorangi Notes; Friday 27 January, 2012

Crocosmia hybrids

Latest posts: Friday 27 January, 2012
1) No amount of wishful thinking can alter the fact that we do not in fact have a Mediterranean climate here and romantic recreations of the glam of Med holidays are likely doomed to disaster. Abbie’s column.
2) A big, beautiful, fragrant rhododendron flowering in mid to late January? R. diaprepes in Plant Collector this week (but don’t expect to find this one offered for sale at your local plant store).
3) Grow it Yourself – broccoli. Personally I prefer not to. I have tried repeatedly over many years to learn to love broccoli and have met with dismal failure but others are more enthusiastic and it is fearfully good for you.
4) The latest instalment of our fortnightly garden diary as published first in the Weekend Gardener – dealing with prickly onehunga weed without resorting to lawn sprays and other garden matters.

The sad state of Camellia chyrsantha

Tikorangi Notes; Friday 27 January, 2012

It was only last year that I featured one of the best flowerings we have had on Camellia chyrsantha (it of the butter yellow flowers – bright New Zealand butter at that). It only took a decade or two to start performing well. Alas, it came off second best to the rapid descent of a massive old pear tree last week. The trouble is that it is a grafted plant and the trunk has been split. We are hoping it may still recover and live to bloom again. We can take the long view and wait another decade, if need be.

I have been photographing the different bulbs flowering this month. We were worried we had lost the yellow-orange form of crocosmia but it has leapt into flower and is remarkably showy with very large blooms. The red form (the one above is a hybrid called Lucifer) is such a strong grower that the chances of losing it are negligible, which means we take it completely for granted. Indeed, red crocosmia is a widespread roadside flower regarded as an invasive weed and known as montbretia in our area. The pink vallota is also looking particularly fetching. I would describe it more as peach than pink. There appears to be some debate about whether it is a vallota or a cyrtanthus so the pink vallota may in fact be the peach cyrtanthus. The auratum lilies are still fattening buds and not yet in full stride – just some tasters open so far.

The pink vallota. Or should that be the peach cyrtanthus?

Grow it Yourself – Broccoli

Ssh and I will make an admission. I am not keen at all on broccoli despite understanding that it is terribly good for me. There is just something about the taste and texture that does not appeal, though I concede it is acceptable in a creamy soup with blue cheese. But, it is a staple vegetable and so easy to grow that it is a mainstay for most vegetable gardeners. We avoid growing it over summer here because it is a magnet for white butterflies and we don’t want to have to spray it but as the cooler weather of autumn approaches, it is planting time again. The white butterflies peter out when cooler weather comes and in the interim, it is easier to keep small plants insect free.

If you start from seed, it is usual to sow it into small pots or a seed tray to get the plants growing strongly before planting them in the garden. Unless you have a huge family of voracious broccoli eaters, buying an occasional punnet of seedlings is the easy way to go. They need the usual well cultivated soil rich in humus and with plenty of sun. Being a leafy green, they also appreciate fertiliser. We prefer to give this through extensive use of compost (nature’s very own slow release fertiliser) and blood and bone or you can feed with any number of cheap and cheerful proprietary mixes if you prefer. Aim for one rich in nitrogen. Keep the water up to the plants if we get a dry spell – leafy plants need plenty of moisture. Allow about half a metre of space around each plant. It seems a lot when the plants are small but they need room to spread and they don’t appreciate competition from neighbours. Plant them a little deeper than they are in the seed pots to encourage them to develop more roots higher up the stem.

Broccoli is generally cold hardy and will hold in the ground in winter to enable you to harvest as little or as much as you want at a time. Plants may need protecting from birds while they get established.

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

Plant Collector: The golden-rayed lily of Japan (Lilium auratum)

The wonderfully fragrant auratum lily hybrids - hybridising and raising from seed keeps the plants healthy and reduces problems with virus

The golden-rayed lily of Japan – what a beautifully evocative common name. We grow quite a few lilies here but it is the auratum hybrids that are the mainstay of our summer garden. These are the results of decades of breeding, first by Felix Jury and now by Mark. This particular pink one is a pleasing new selection from that breeding programme. There is no commercial gain in breeding these auratums. The aim is to extend the colour range and vigour so they perform better as plants in our own garden as well as keeping them free of virus, which is common. We also prefer outward facing flowers (rather than the upward facing blooms used in floristry) because that gives more protection from the weather.

The hybrids are bigger and showier than the species. This flower is over 30cm across so not for the shy or retiring gardener. The species are predominantly white with yellow or red streaks and crimson spotting. Hybridising extends that colour range into pure whites, white with dominant yellow markings, reds and pinks. We also want strong growing plants that can hold themselves up without needing to be staked every year and which will keep performing under a regime of benign neglect (which means digging and dividing every decade, not every second year). We grow them both in sun and on the woodland margins – wherever there are reasonable light levels, good drainage and soil rich in humus.

Auratums are offered for sale as dormant bulbs from time to time but they don’t like being dried out and dessicated so try and find ones which are plump and firm.

Saving the best for last: oh, the fragrance. The auratum lilies are one of the flowers I cut to bring indoors. A single stem has multiple blooms and can scent a large room all by itself. I remove the pollen which will stain everything it falls upon.

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

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 13 January, 2012

Latest Posts:

1) It is difficult to do justice to the Cyanella capensis in a photograph, but it must be one of the longest lasting summer bulb. It just gently flowers on and on in an unassuming way. “It looks like a blue gypsophila,” was Mark’s comment.

2) The weird and wonderful world of show vegetables – a competitive social phenomenon in the UK which has pretty much bypassed the more pragmatic gardeners in this country.

3) The wonderful world of growing parsnips. Okay, a bit of hyperbole there – just a bit of practical advice on how to grow one of the world’s less glamorous vegetables for winter.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 13 January, 2012
I guess the one consoling factor in the continued run of dreary weather is that it is not limited to the area where we live! A misery shared is a misery halved, in the weather stakes at least. Even the Australian daughters are complaining about Sydney and Canberra weather and certainly it does not appear to be any better anywhere in the North Island of New Zealand. The raspberries are rotting before they have sweetened. The roses are mush. Anything bravely standing up is beaten down by the intermittent but torrential rain. The swimming pool cover remains resolutely in place. I have not even thought of going for a dip in recent weeks. The only consolation is that we know fine weather will return – it is just a matter of whether it is sooner or later.

The clematis remain valiant stars in all this dreary weather. We have lost the names on all of them though, should we feel the need, we know how we can get them identified. We have dug out the ones that are too rampant and thuggish in their ways and I remain unconvinced at the idea of ground cover types (too strong and choking). But given something to climb up, we have a range which are quiet and undemanding performers. All I do is cut them down once or twice a year to near ground level. Beyond that, they just get the standard treatment of other plants in the borders (a mulch of compost). I was told by a clematis expert that most of the hybrids can be cut back very hard after flowering, fed, watered and they will return with a new flush of blooms in six weeks time. I haven’t timed it, but it did make me realise that many clematis are not shy and timid plants and can take fairly ruthless handling. Should you feel the need to make a bamboo obelisk (you can just catch a glimpse of one supporting the clematis in the photo below, we gave step by step instructions in an earlier Outdoor Classroom.

The Turk’s cap and trumpet lilies are in flower with the auratums in heavy bud. It is the auratums that are the stars of summer display so we are hoping for better weather in the next fortnight.

: Clematis with Loropetalum China Pink

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