Tag Archives: summer flowers

Seedling variation

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I found the range of different seedlings in the self-sown dwarf cosmos this year interesting and thought some readers may, too. Last year, we planted seedlings of Cosmos ‘Bright Lights Mix’ (from King’s Seeds) for late summer colour in the rockery. They performed well, stayed compact in growth and provided vibrant splashes of colour at an otherwise drab time of year for that garden. Our rockery is predominantly smaller bulbs and it peaks twice a year in autumn and then in spring. Summer conditions are tough when it dries out, the soil heats up and there is little life in the soil but the cosmos didn’t turn a hair.

Because the seedlings are reasonably easy to recognise, they didn’t get weeded out but came up, bushed out and flowered in abundance over recent weeks. It is much easier if they can self-seed and not need to be raised from scratch in a seed tray and then planted out again. These cosmos are not subtle; they are perhaps reminiscent of marigolds (tagetes) but a simpler flower with clean colours so I prefer them. Cheerful, they are.

Mark’s and my early evening sitting spot is on the front porch, looking across the rockery and the variation of growth habit and flower colour caught my attention. These second generation seedlings were showing more variation than the original plants from last year. Most of the plants have remained pretty bushy and compact, which is what we want in the rockery even though we are usually sniffy about bedding plants, commonly seen in floral clocks and on traffic roundabouts. But some of the plants have reverted to the taller, more open, willowy growth that I associate with other cosmos varieties I have grown in the past.

It was the variation in colour, size and flower form that led me to picking a selection. The colour range is from a clear lemon yellow, through a gamut of golden hues to orange and then deepening to reds, but not a pure red as we know it. Some are fully single with just one row of petals, some have two rows of petals and the ones with three rows of petals are the fullest flowers on the plants. Bees love them but it wasn’t until I looked up the supplier’s website that I found out they are, allegedly, not only edible for humans but also tasty. “Flowers are edible with a sweet nectar flavour, try them in salads as garnishes or float in summer cocktails.” I have not used them as a culinary garnish, but I am sure this may be handy to know.

Most plants in the wild reproduce by seed and Nature is full of seedling variation. My cosmos are just a small example of Nature in action. When you buy packets of seed, you are trusting the supplier to have made selections from the best and most desirable seeding parents. When you save your own seed, always select from the best plant – be it garlic, tomatoes, annuals or anything else. Don’t make the mistake of saving seed from the smallest plant or fruit that you don’t want to eat. Careful seedling selection down the years is what gave us sweet corn instead of tough old maize, chunky orange carrots instead of very thin purple ones and a host of other plants. 

I may yet pull out the leggy cosmos to give more chance for the more compact ones to be the seeders but the bees will have cross-pollinated them already and any seedlings may still throw taller plants. In removing the leggy ones, I am just bettering the odds of a compact future generation.

Zach diffidently gave me a few seedlings of a named cosmos he had raised from seed. “I don’t think you will like it,” he said. “Murky colours.” He knows I prefer clean colours in the garden whereas he likes colour blends. I guess you could describe the flowers as subtle; to my eyes, they are more insipid that subtle. I won’t be sad if these ones fail to seed down.

I once photographed these tall, white cosmos in an Auckland garden. En masse, they were absolutely lovely. I even bought a packet of seed in anticipation of something similar in our blue and white Wave Garden but I am not very good with starting from seed – that is Mark’s territory. From memory, my seed was patchy in the extreme and the only plants that grew to flowering size were not pure white but candy pink and white which was not what I wanted at all. Clearly that seed had been collected from a plant that had cross pollinated with a neighbouring pink. Maybe I could try again.

The Colour Orange

My starting point was dahlias, single and semi-double flowers

I was intending to write about dahlias this week. Not that we grow many dahlias but I see friends posting many photos of huge, specimen blooms in a range of colours and complex forms. I was going to plead the case for the simplicity of single and semi double blooms in a garden setting and argue that those big novelty blooms are perhaps better grown in a row in the cutting garden than in mixed plantings in flower beds. I like the light, airiness of the simpler forms in the garden.

We don’t know if this orange dahlia with its dark foliage is a named form or a seedling from the red ‘Bishop of Llandaff’ beside it but it is very attractive.

But then I got distracted by the colour orange because this year, my favourite dahlias are the orange ones and I have not been greatly enamoured of that colour since I was a child when I desperately wanted an orange bedspread. My dear mother always did her very best to meet our requests but we were only ever a step or two above the poverty line so it was always a case of near enough has to be good enough. She found some velvet being remaindered but it was more red than orange so she made the bedspread and assured me it was *tangerine*. It may have been tangerine-ish but it wasn’t the pure orange I had dreamed of. I remember swallowing my disappointment to express appreciation, knowing she had done the best she could.  

A selection of orange flowers from the garden with three tangerines in memory of my mother and a monarch butterfly that died of natural causes. Reader, my velvet bedspread was not the colour of these tangerines.

I turned my eyes to orange flowers in the garden and was surprised when I picked flowers from a dozen different plants. The orange – and yellow – cosmos we planted in the rockery for late summer and autumn colour are looking particularly cheerful and they started flowering within two weeks of my planting out tiny seedlings a few centimetres high. And this week, it is the heleniums that are the stars of the twin borders.

Heleniums or sneezeweeds

Every year, I forget whether these are helenium, helianthus or helianthemum and I have to google them to refresh my memory. Maybe I could call them sneezeweeds instead. That is the common name conferred upon them when, in times gone by, the dried leaves were used in snuff to encourage sneezing in order to rid the body of evil spirits. Fellow sufferers of hayfever, take heart. We just didn’t know that we were expelling the bad spirits from our bodies without having to resort to snuff. That said, I am not aware of the helenium flowers making my hay fever worse.

Castanospermum australe, black bean tree or Moreton Bay Chestnut

The Castanospermum australe is having a particularly good season. The tree is well over ten metres tall now and we usually only see the flowers from a distance right at the top. This year, we seem to have more growing beneath the foliage as well so they are only about eight metres up. Being native to the more tropical parts of Australia, it may be enjoying the milder winters and warmer summers we are now experiencing.  

A crocosmia on steroids in the rockery. It may be a similar colour to the common roadside weed but the flowers are huge by comparison and it is very slow to increase. We think it is the form named as ‘Star of David’.

When it comes to orange as a colour in the garden, a little can go a long way. It is a very strong colour in its pure shades. Mark’s advice is to include plenty of other plants from the other side of the colour wheel – so in the blue and purple shades, although green also acts as a visual foil. Personally, I am not so keen visually on a whole lot of orange combined with either red or yellow and pastel pink is problematic.

I would have said I never wear orange, but that changed as of yesterday when this orange cardigan arrived. In self defence, I tell you that it is just for summer gardening, 100% cotton, has the all-important pockets and was reduced from $100 to $25. I was just a little alarmed by the colour. I may have thought of it more as burnt orange when I ordered it but it is Very Orange. At least I will not be difficult to find in the garden. When I come to think of it, it is probably the very shade eleven-or-twelve-year-old me had envisaged for my bedspread.

My thoughts are with northerners this weekend, particularly in Auckland, Coromandel and Northland, who must feel as though they have the sword of Damocles poised above them as they await the arrival of Cyclone Gabrielle. It is one week off a year since we learned what cyclonic winds can do when we took a direct hit from Cyclone Dovi. That was bad enough and we didn’t get the torrential rain that is predicted with Gabrielle, falling on land that is already saturated and further threatening infrastructure already badly damaged by the recent extreme weather and flooding in those areas. May you stay safe. We will breathe a sigh of relief if the dire predictions do not come to pass for you in the next few days.

Alstromerias

Edited: after information received yesterday, I realised I had a senior moment and some of the information in the original post was incorrect.

I don’t have a big collection of alstromerias and the tall ones can be bothersome as garden plants but I do quite like them. When I gathered them up, I seem to have about ten different ones, all ‘acquired’ as I say. This is not a plant family I have felt the need to go out and buy.

Why bothersome? They have a tendency to spread if left to their own devices. Some may call them invasive. They are difficult to eradicate because any parts of the fleshy tubers left behind will grow again. But the big problem is that the tall ones that I favour need staking. The stems are rarely strong enough to hold them up on their own.

I don’t like the murky pink with yellow thrid from the left but the remaining ones are all pretty

Alstromerias are much favoured as a cut flower, but I don’t often cut flowers to bring indoors. Every window in our house looks out onto gardens so it seems a bit unnecessary to bring flowers indoors to die. We don’t feel the need of house plants either. Alstros are sometimes called Peruvian lilies and the family tree does trace back to the lily group but their homeland is not limited to Peru. There are many different species found widely throughout South and Central America. The ever-handy Wikipedia tells me that most of our garden plants are hybrids between winter-growing species from Chile and summer-growing species from Brazil. They certainly have a long flowering season.

Some years ago, the ‘Princess lilies’ group hit the shelves in plant shops here and I sniffily dismissed them as part of the dwarfing down of fine big plants to make something like traffic island bedding plants. I never even bothered to look at them. Then I was given a white form and my dismissive attitude continued but I divided it up and planted it out. For the next two years, they still looked like tidy, traffic island, bedding plants to me. I didn’t like them and I still don’t. *Dot plants*, to coin a phrase from early Alan Titchmarsh.

Intermediate-sized ‘Summer Sky’ at the back, a ‘Princess lily’ at the front

Until yesterday, I thought my intermediate-sized white alstros that were delighting me this summer were that Princess series dot plant putting itself on steroids. In self-defence, plants that are dwarf in different climates can surprise us in our benign conditions and romp away well beyond their predicted size. But it was a senior moment on my part. I had forgotten entirely that a gardening friend gave these to me last year. It turns out there is a whole other alstromeria series that has been released internationally – including NZ – and these are from the Paradise Summer series. This one is, apparently, ‘Summer Sky’.  They are an intermediate size and generally strong enough to hold themselves up.

‘Summer Sky’ from the Paradise Summer range

I looked up both the ‘Princess lily’ and  ‘Paradise Summer’ series and both seem to have come from Dutch breeders. No surprises there. The Dutch do a lot of plant breeding and especially in the area of flowers for floristry or mass plantings.

Probably ‘Indian Summer’ from the Paradise Summer range

Two gardening friends have waxed eloquent about the merits of an orange flowered one with burgundy foliage. I think it is probably ‘Indian Summer’ and likely the same as this one I photographed at RHS Wisley some years ago. I can see it is an excellent performer but I think it is a bit garish, a bit ‘look at me! Look at me!’ for my taste. But maybe I could use it in the sunny borders. It is from the Paradise Summer series too. I may have to take a closer look at the other selections available in this group because there is a whole range of colours now available.

Finally, two bits of advice about alstromerias. Firstly, they benefit from being deadheaded. As long as your plant is well rooted in the ground, the advice from the professionals is to grab the spent flowering stem and tug the whole thing out of the ground rather than cutting it. The same goes for picking them. It is easier than cutting each stem and it leaves a cleaner plant.

Secondly, plant the tall varieties in groups, not drifts. I managed to get around all my clumps in the twin borders this year with stakes (forked pieces of dead yew branches in this case which become invisible, unlike bamboo stakes) and that has largely worked well to keep the flowers up. Where I planted them in drifts in the Iolanthe garden they are chaotic. Zach asked me recently if I had any advice on how to stake them and I didn’t. As soon as it rains, we will dig them and consolidate them into clumps that can be staked.

There is always room for improvement in gardening.

The pink is an alstromeria and when viewed close up, it is a sprawling mess that defeats any staking, let alone invisible staking

A week of paper wasps, fasciated lilies and crocosmia

A paper wasp nest

Look at this cute honeycomb nest. A small wonder of nature but not a welcome one. It is the nest of a paper wasp. I have lived my life blissfully unconcerned about these creatures. We have both the Australian and the Asian paper wasp in New Zealand, along with the more aggressive German and common wasp. Mark wages war every summer on the nests of the latter two.

The nest is fairly hard to spot in the foliage

Alas, a wasp from this nest that I hadn’t even noticed took exception to me cutting out some of the leafy tips of an over-large osmanthus. It stung me twice just below the eye and then buzzed me aggressively as I exited hastily. I didn’t even see it. I was more worried about getting to a mirror to work out whether it was a bee (in which case I would have needed to get the sting out) or a wasp. Mark went straight out and spotted the nest at eye level – he is observant, that man. They are quite hard to spot because there is not the busy coming and going that defines a common wasp nest. We looked on line and came to the conclusion that what he saw crawling over the nest was more likely an Australian than Asian paper wasp. Whichever, they are dead wasps now.

Left to right: German wasp, common wasp, Australian paper wasp, Asian paper wasp. Photo credit: unknown. All these wasps are unwelcome intruders to this country.

While unpleasant, two paper wasp stings do not appear to be as bad those from the larger common or German wasp. I kept ice cubes wrapped in cloth on them for an hour or more as required on the first day. The puffy swelling remained for another three days and the site remained tender to touch but not exactly painful, so it could have been much worse. At least I know what to look out for now.

We are past peak auratum lily season although there are still plenty in bloom as we enter late summer.

A mass of blooms on a single stem – a sign of fasciation

Here we have the curiosity of a fasciated lily, not to be confused with a fascinating lily unless you like freaks and novelties. It is an aberration in a plant, usually a seasonal deformity but not a lasting condition and it causes a flattening of the stem (basically it is two dimensional and ribbed) and a huge increase in the number of flowers but they are correspondingly smaller. The cause is unknown and it may stem from any number of things (including hormone spray damage but not in this situation) but presumably environmental because it does not appear to be a genetic issue in the plant. It is not likely to occur again in the same plant next year.

You can see the stem is very broad and ribbed. What you can’t see is that it is also almost flat.

I picked the white stem because the weight of the flowers was too heavy for the stem to hold it up but we have another example in the lily border which stands very sturdily, showing off its freakish growth. The local paper used to publish stories every year with some breathlessly excited gardener showing off their ‘special’ plant with its unusual head of flowers and flat stem but it is not rare and fasciation occurs across a wide range of plants. It is not generally stable or lasting but broccoli, apparently, is a freak fasciation that was stabilised. Google it, if you want to know more.

You can see a much fuller head of blooms and dense foliage on the fasciated lily in the centre

The crocosmias are starting to pass over but I like to line them up and compare them. Going left to right, we start with the common roadside weed. It is usually called montbretia in this country and while pretty, it is a seriously invasive weed. It washes down our stream in every flood and it is all down our roadsides but we certainly never introduced it ourselves. It multiplies readily both from the bulbs and by seed. Botanically, it is C. crocosmia x C. crocosmiiflora.

Second from the left is ‘Severn Sunrise’ and I am working to eradicate it from the garden. It appears to be just as invasive the common one and not much different in flower, habit or growth. I wonder if it is just a selection of the same cross. It may be more highly valued in countries where it is not such an invasive weed.

Third is red ‘Lucifer’ which is now listed as Crocosmia x curtonus (I see I previously found it as C. masoniorum × C. paniculata) so it has different parentage to the orange, weedy ones. It is by far the strongest growing one we have and certainly showy but also vigorous (read: the bulbs increase very rapidly) and it sets so much seed that I try and deadhead it to control it. I also need to thin out the bulbs which are getting a bit too determined to colonise and dominate the areas where they live.

Fourth along is one of my current favourite and the purest yellow with dainty blooms. It is just a chance seedling Mark picked up from the roadside so it will be the same cross as common montbretia (C. crocosmia x C. crocosmiiflora) but we have not had an issue with it seeding down. The bulbs increase readily but without free seeding, it is not a problem to keep it restrained and it seems to have a longer flowering season.

Second from the right is my newest addition – larger flowered and a pretty yellow but richer in colour so more apricot than pure yellow without quite getting to orange. I swapped some of our yellow one with Cemetery Sue at the graveyard to get this one and it is likely to be a named form but neither of us know the name. She has not had an issue with it seeding around so I am hopeful for its future in our garden.

The large bloom may or may not be ‘Star of the East’. It is certainly dramatically larger than all the others.

The last one is by far the showiest and I think it is probably ‘Star of the East’, judging from photographs. Although it may not be, because ‘Star of the East’ is just a selection from the same cross that gives us weedy montbretia and this bears no resemblance to that cross.  It is genuinely spectacular but certainly not vigorous. We have had it in the rockery for several years where it limps on without increasing as I would like it to and it seems to be sterile. Conditions are hard in the rockery and I think I need to lift it and move it to a more hospitable location with richer soil. I say this every year but this season, I swear I will do it. It is worth the effort.

Crocosmia are wildflowers of the grasslands in southern and eastern Africa. There are currently nine different species and they should not all be judged by their wayward, roadside weed family member. They are also not as invasive in less benign climates than ours.

Our yellow crocosmia in the Iolanthe meadow garden

Some flowers of summer

 

 

Tecomanthe venusta at its best 

I have been busy gardening all week so all I have to give you this weekend are summer flowers. The New Guinea Tecomanthe venusta has never bloomed better than this week. The vines are simply smothered with its pink trumpets and I had trouble getting a photo that does it justice. True, it is not the prettiest pink to my eyes, but with all its blooms sprouting out from bare wood, it is spectacular. We have it growing under the verandah on our shed because it is a tropical climber and we are warm temperate, not tropical. For much of the year, it serves as the repository for the birds’ nests I pick up around the place. 

Mummified rat in a nest

If you can get over the somewhat grotesque aspect, the mummified rat found in a blackbird nest is a little haunting. I found it like that.

Calodendron capense 

Not an aesculus, a calodendron

Across the southern hemisphere, it is the south east of Africa that gave us the cape chestnut or Calodendron capense. This is another plant that probably prefers a drier climate and few more degrees of heat than we can give it but some years, it pleases us with a really good season in bloom. Even before I found its common name of cape chestnut, I noticed the similarity of the blooms to the aesculus, or horse chestnut. The edible sweet chestnut, by they way, is a different plant altogether, being Castanea sativa. It is not even a distant relative though there is some botanical heritage shared between aesculus and calodendron so the latter should really be the Cape horse chestnut. I haven’t found any advice that it is any more edible to humans than the common horse chestnut.

Tecoma stans – with apple tree and nicotiana in the Iolanthe garden 

Tecoma stans – it is very yellow.

Tecoma stans is also from southern and central Africa and it is coming into its own now it is well established and has some size. It is growing in the Iolanthe garden where I have been working and because I have spent most of my time on my knees in that garden, eyes faced downwards, it was the bright yellow fallen blooms that first caught my eye. I had meant to photograph the falling blue of the jacaranda flower carpet but I left it a bit late so this is the best I can offer.

Jacaranda to the left, tecoma to the right – fallen flowers

The echinaceas have been slow to come into their own this summer. Some were set back when I did a certain amount of digging and dividing of large clumps over autumn and winter but the main problem has been the rabbits. They never touched them in the previous two years but developed a taste for them in spring when they started coming into growth and it took me a while to notice.

Mark has been waging war on the rabbits this summer. Every evening he heads out with our useless fox terriers – one too old and deaf to be any good on rabbits and who just likes to feel a part of things these days and the other who has never really caught on to how to hunt. Dudley hangs around waiting for Mark to shoot them. “Come on Dad, hurry up.” He appears to think he is a retriever, not a terrier. Mark is simply gobsmacked at how many he has shot in recent weeks – around 23 in just one area of the garden that is probably only an acre or two in total. They are spread over the rest of the property – in fact, right across Tikorangi we are told by others – but they aren’t wreaking havoc there on the same scale as in the house gardens.

Mark is on a mission, the fairly useless dogs don’t want to miss out on potential excitement but fail to honour their terrier heritage

Next spring, I will be out with the blood and bone in early spring at the first hint of growth on the echinaceas. We beat the bunnies on the lilies though I admitted defeat and moved the campanula that they took down despite my best efforts. I will win on the echinaceas.