Tag Archives: Mark and Abbie Jury

Tikorangi Notes: Saturday 5 November, 2011

Mark's "Platinum Ice" is just opening

Mark's "Platinum Ice" is just opening

And "Coconut Ice" is looking a picture

And "Coconut Ice" is looking a picture

Latest Posts
1) From designer trend to cliché in the blink of an eye – Abbie’s column

2) The wonderfully brazen Azalea mollis in Plant Collector this week.

3) Grow it Yourself: lettuces with particular reference to Misticanza di Lattughe (available from Franchi Seeds, or Italian Seeds Pronto in New Zealand).

Tikorangi Notes: Saturday 5 November, 2011

There has not much (indeed, any) gardening going on here this week. As we host the large majority of our annual visitors in one ten day period, we get to spend 8 or even 9 hours a day standing on concrete doing the meet and greet. It is very tiring but also enormously affirming to have so many people come and enjoy the garden. Little do they realise that this means our Lloyd was out mowing the park at 6.30am this morning. I admit it was as late as 7.00am before I was out and about doing the clean up of our public welcoming areas.

The later season rhododendron display is just coming into its own – the wonderful nuttalliis and the later flowering maddeniis. We are still running at least a week behind on the blooming season.

Our annual garden festival finishes on Sunday. Monday will see us back in gardening clothes, probably mooching about in solitary silence achieving very little but focussing our attentions back on the garden. It is a source of amazement to garden visitors that we manage a garden this size with just ourselves as gardeners and our one staffer, Lloyd, on the mower, mulcher, tractor, weedeater and generally assisting. While we would enjoy having additional assistance, visitor numbers in New Zealand are not high enough to pay the wages. However, in the final analysis, we garden for our own pleasure and the visitors are a welcome bonus.

The wonderful fragrant nuttalliis are coming into flower - this one is Floral Legacy (nuttallii x sino nuttallii)

The wonderful fragrant nuttalliis are coming into flower - this one is Floral Legacy (nuttallii x sino nuttallii)

Plant Collector – Azalea mollis

Look at me! Look at me! Azalea mollis

Look at me! Look at me! Azalea mollis

The mollis azaleas can be such a wonderfully flamboyant addition to a garden with strident colours which shout “look at me”! They are members of the rhododendron family but deciduous, cold tolerant and more forgiving of less than ideal soil conditions, particularly wetter and heavier ground. Many have fragrance which is gilding the lily further. Not all of them are such loud colours. You can get pastels, whites and subdued shades which show more refined taste, perhaps. But the vibrant oranges, yellows, reds and colour mixes have an intensity which is unrivalled in other members of the rhododendron family, magnified by the fact that they flower on bare wood, before the new season foliage appears.

Azalea mollis used to be very popular but are nowhere near as readily available these days. Their habits don’t suit modern nursery growing practices and they are only saleable when in flower so garden centres often shy away from them. In winter they are just bare sticks and in summer they are relatively anonymous and prone to mildew in warmer, humid climates. Their comparatively short selling season does not suit modern plant retailing so you may have to search them out and grab them when you find them without worrying too much about particular named cultivars. They are easy to raise from seed and often what is sold are just seedlings. Plant them in sunny positions where they can star in flower and not be too obvious when they aren’t.

Azalea mollis are not a species (which is how they occur in the wild). They are hybrids from controlled crosses, initially between the Chinese and Japanese azaleas but now pretty mixed in their genetics.

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

GIY – Lettuces

I am married to the former Mr Buttercrunch Lettuce Man. For years he has favoured Buttercrunch as the most reliable lettuce for the home garden because it grows so well and can be harvested leaf by leaf over an extended period. This year he has tried a different product from Franchi Seeds who are Italian so it has the name of Misticanza di Lattughe (or just plain lettuce to most of us). It is a great mix of different lettuces of cut and come again varieties which mature at different rates – and it includes Buttercrunch. He is most impressed by the range and performance and his lettuce patch has been yielding an abundance of mixed leaves from the early thinnings (micro greens) through to mature plants. He is now a convert to this particular product which is distributed in NZ through www.italianseedspronto.co.nz and he is sowing in succession at about three weekly intervals.

Lettuces like friable soil with plenty of nitrogen to help them make all that leafy growth. This means they are an excellent crop to follow on from a heavily fertilised crop like corn. They also need plenty of water – a bitter taste is often due to drought. Most take around 60 days to mature. When first planted, we keep a close eye out for slugs and also for cutworm which can work its way along the row, eating the roots off. Diazinon prills are used against cutworm if necessary. We don’t worry about slugs later on which means that the leaves need thorough washing before use. In high summer, lettuces tend to bolt to seed rather than making leafy growth but you can keep sowing and cut them as young plants.

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

Tikorangi Notes: Friday October 28, 2011

Latest posts:
1) Scadoxus puniceus – another bulb delight from southern Africa in Plant Collector this week.
2) Where to start with garden design – Abbie’s column from the Waikato Times.
3) Grow it Yourself – green beans

The season is late this year - Prunus Pearly Shadows is still opening

The season is late this year - Prunus Pearly Shadows is still opening

Tikorangi Notes: Friday 28 October, 2011

The kind neighbours, erecting a temporary gazebo (with the doubly kind neighbour to the left who happens to own said item)

The kind neighbours, erecting a temporary gazebo (with the doubly kind neighbour to the left who happens to own said item)

Our garden festival starts today with a hiss and a roar – a full coachload of Probus members (from Levin, if my memory serves me right), a guided tour of the garden for any, all and sundry and a small Australian tour (that is few in number, not small of stature) all happening at about the same time in the morning. It has been a busy week sprucing up but we are feeling reasonably well prepared with an hour or two in the morning to finish the final touches. The season is later than usual which means that the bluebells are still in flower. We never worry too much about variations in seasons because there is always something blooming. Prunus Pearly Shadows in our entrance area is looking very fetching whereas it is normally passing over by now.

In a moment of great clarity, we have decided to give up on retailing plants after mid November so if you have been planning to purchase anything, you will have to get in quickly. From next year, we plan to retail for two weeks of the year only – from Labour Weekend until the end of our garden festival. And we will not be continuing with much in the way of woody trees and shrubs. However, we will be looking to offer more of the rare and interesting curiosities so there should be material that is interesting on offer for those two weeks this time next year. In the meantime, we are keen to clear out plants so there are bargains to be had – check the Plant Sales section. Most magnolias are currently half the listed price. When they are gone, they are gone. We don’t have crops coming through. We will hold prepaid orders until you can the plants collected, if required.

Plant Collector: Scadoxus puniceus

Scadoxus puniceus - another gem from the bulb wonderland of southern Africa

Scadoxus puniceus - another gem from the bulb wonderland of southern Africa

The bulb wonderland of southern Africa gives us this mid to late spring flowering treasure from Natal. Scadoxus puniceus is not often seen in the country and rarely offered for sale but well worth having if you find it. The bulbs are large fist-sized affairs and slow to increase, but if you find somebody with a plant, it sets seed and as long as you are working with fresh seed, it germinates readily.

Usually the flower stem appears first in late winter, followed soon after by the lush pale lettuce green foliage. The relatively large flowers consist of a mass of orange stamens surrounded by a maroon outer petal casing, which is not a common colour combination in any plant. It is happy in woodland or semi shade conditions which never get hot and dry in summer or cold and wet in winter. The former will force it into early dormancy whereas the latter will rot out the bulb.

It is the same family as Scadoxus multiflorus ssp. katherinae which is far more readily available. Katherinae has large spherical flower heads in red which look like a mass of spidery stamens and runs about three months behind puniceus. It is just coming into growth now and will flower in mid to late summer making a real feature in the summer garden.