Tag Archives: ornamental oxalis

Plant Collector – Oxalis massoniana

Oxalis massoniana

Oxalis massoniana

Envy the gardener who has not had to battle invasive oxalis. Most of us know only too well how difficult it is to eradicate the weedy ones. But there are only a few villains in a very large family and unfortunately, most people shun the lot because of those few. We wouldn’t be without the decorative oxalis and O. massoniana is just one putting on a splendid display at this time.

I think we must have around 30 different oxalis in pots and in the garden here and they are just a drop in the bucket of the many hundreds of different species. Flower colour ranges from white, through the gamut of pinks, lilacs and lavenders, crimson red, yellows and oranges. The foliage is also varied from the clover type leaves to fine and feathery, trailing and even miniature palm leaves. We must have them flowering for six to eight months of the year. I should comment that some have a flowering season lasting a long time, while others are a bit of a flash in the pan.

Some oxalis are garden safe but if in doubt, keep them in pots where they are wonderfully forgiving of benign neglect. The flowers only open in the sun so the pots make a lovely seasonal feature on a sunny doorstep. I have tried massoniana in the garden but it seems to be happier and showier in a big, shallow container.

The apricot and soft yellow two-tone colouring is very pretty and the flowering season lasts a good length of time. As with most of the autumn and early winter flowering oxalis, it is native to the bulb wonderland of South Africa. If you can’t bear the thought of growing oxalis, just call it by its more romantic sounding common name overseas – wood sorrel.

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

Tikorangi Diary: March 30, 2012

The lovely autumn oxalis - O.eckloniana

The lovely autumn oxalis - O.eckloniana

Latest posts:

1) Lycoris aurea – the golden spider lily
2) I guess it was inevitable that the thoughts here would be directed to trees after the casualties of last week. We accord them a rather higher value than many New Zealanders who see them as a disposable commodity. Abbie’s column.
3) Grow it yourself: rocket. Merely a humble, quick growing brassica that has been elevated beyond its status in the lexicon of vegetables.
4) In the garden this fortnight and the talk is about sustainability and our guilt over the use of motorised equipment.

The clean up continues

The clean up continues

... and Oxalis massoniana

... and Oxalis massoniana

Tikorangi Diary

A magic week of weather has seen first Mark and then Lloyd out cleaning up the fallen totara and Picea omorika. It is done. I rather liked the piles of sawdust like a zebra crossing where the ramrod straight trunk of the picea was cut for firewood. While it looked wonderfully straight, the wood lacked heart and was pretty soft.

The pretty ornamental oxalis are all coming on stream. I used to pot some of each to sell but finally figured that too few people shared my pleasure in these autumn bulbs so it was a waste of time potting them. These days we just enjoy them ourselves. The nerines are starting but won’t peak for another week or two.

Tikorangi Notes: May 14, 2010

Maybe best not to follow Mark's example
Latest posts:
1) May 14, 2010: The lovely blue of autumn flowering Moraea polystachya keep continuing over a long period.

2)May 14, 2010: Outdoor Classroom – our fortnightly step by step guide. This time it is pruning a rampant climbing jasmine which is blocking most light in a window as well as threatening the downpipe, roof spouting and even the roof tiles. We used to have a member of staff who refused to use any of our ladders on the grounds they were unsafe. Mark has no such qualms as can be seen in this photo which we did not dare to use in this Outdoor Classroom instalment which gets published in our local paper. We could see an onslaught of outraged letters to the editor about unsafe practices and that would be from people who didn’t even know that the ladder in question lacks even a bracing cross bar. Mark credits regular yoga for his good sense of balance.

3) May 14, 2010: As our unusually calm, dry and sunny autumn continues, there is plenty to do in the garden this week. Advice on lawn care, harvests, green crops (yet again) and more.

The colours of the autumn flowering oxalis

4) May 14, 2010: After the breathtaking inadequacies of the Tui NZ Fruit Garden, it was a relief this week to be reviewing a NZ publication of merit. Threatened Plants of New Zealand deserves a place on the shelf of anybody interested in our native flora, botany or conservation. Apparently 1 in 13 of our native plants are currently under threat of extinction.

5) May 14, 2010: The first of a new series of notes about plants which are tried and true in our garden – this week the smaller flowered vireya rhododendron hybrids.

6) Camellia Diary instalment number 2. It appears to have been a busy week for me with new posts!

Oxalis purpurea alba - one of the very best garden varieties.

Last week certainly ended on an exciting note with my review of the new Tui NZ Fruit Garden Book by Sally Cameron (published by Penguin) even making the metropolitan daily papers and being picked up by radio as well as other publications. The speed with which the internet disseminates information is amazing, nearly matched by the speed at which Penguin ordered a total recall of a book they had only released days earlier!

This week it is back into the garden. Mark has been continuing his autumn harvesting routines though he had the grace to laugh at his banana harvest which will be revealed in detail in due course. I have to say we are more than marginal for growing bananas and he has to work hard to get a crop from his outdoor plants. In the garden, the ornamental oxalis are making a very pretty picture indeed. I think we must have somewhere around 30 different varieties now across a range of colours. These are surely an under-rated autumn bulb in our New Zealand gardens.