Garden Lore
“A weed is a plant that is not only in the wrong place, but intends to stay.”
My Weeds by Sara Stein (1988).
Decidedly invasive geissorhiza
Dangerous Escapees
Behold two of the prettiest weeds in our rockery. Both are bulbs and have dangerously invasive habits. Both will have been bought as ornamentals and frankly should not be sold without a warning, in our opinion. The blue is a geissorhiza – probably G. aspera – and I shudder to think how many hours have been spent carefully digging out this bulb year after year after year and ensuring that none ever go to seed. It spreads readily from seed but take a look at that cluster of bulbs in the photo. It makes numerous offsets every year and as you try and dig out the flowering stem, the little bulbs detach readily and every sodding bulb grows. Every one that flowers in our rockery in spring represents a survivor from two decades of sustained attempts at weeding it out.
The pink is an allium but with over 850 different allium species, I have no idea where to start on identifying it. Pretty it may be but you can see it has the same habit of forming multiple bulb offsets as the geissorhiza. Not only that but it has another trick up its sleeve. Look at the centre of the flowers – that is not seed forming. No, it is another dozen or so offsets ready to make a bid for independent life after one season.
Pretty they may be. So is onion weed quite pretty in its way. But you liberate these sorts of pretty weeds at your peril. There are plenty of lovely plants to go without knowingly unleashing more garden escapes.
Decidedly dangerous allium
First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.
My first encounter with a garden strongly promoted for its romanticism was in northern Italy – Villa San Remigio. If you have ever been to the Italian lakes district, you will nod in agreement when I say that the whole place seems impossibly romantic. Stresa, Mennagio, Bellagio (the Lake Como one, not the Las Vegas one) – in the right circumstances these are places of charm bordering on enchantment.
I approached this book with a little trepidation because it seemed to be part of the trend to release Australian publications in this country, assuming that they will be equally relevant here with no significant difference in conditions and plant varieties. In this case it works. This is a charming and helpful book written by somebody who combines vast experience with a genuine love for the topic. The author ran a rose nursery for 25 years where they chose to go to organic production well before many others came to realise that our growing of roses had become bad practice environmentally. There is no doubt it would be easier in Australia to grow good roses without chemical intervention because of their dry climate, but her experience is invaluable. I am not sure how readily available some of her alternatives are in this country yet – but they are stocked even by Bunnings in Australia so if the demand is here, I am sure we will see them soon. That is eco-fungicide, eco-oil, eco-neem and eco-amingro.
1) The old wooden ladders, one vertical and one secured horizontally across the top, are the effort of a creative gardener down the road. The clematis appears to be a strong growing variety which will cover pretty much the entire shed wall in relatively quick time. If you can find old ladders cheaply, it is a quick solution but I do not think that old aluminium ladders would be so pleasing visually.
2) Where you have masonry or brick surfaces, separate framing can avoid the need to drill holes. Here we have constructed a simple bamboo grid, tied together with twine, to give a light weight frame for the seasonal climber, Tropaeleum tricolourm. Gridded wire used to reinforce concrete can also make a handy and economical frame for climbers which can be cut to the required size.
3) We make our own bamboo obelisks specifically to hold clematis. They last for several seasons you need access to fresh giant bamboo to use as the raw material. That is grape vine pruning holding the verticals apart. You can improvise something similar with wooden or cane teepees. If you want step by step instructions for the bamboo, 
4) I had these pipe frames built to hold my tall weeping roses, though I am now using two of them for wisterias. They were not cheap at the time, but they have proven their worth over more than 15 years. They need to be driven a long way into the ground – around 40cm at least – to keep them rock solid but they are capable of supporting a weighty mass of foliage at the top. Top heavy plants can readily snap off when only the stem has been staked.
5) Tanalised timber posts and old maritime rope have been used to construct this frame which gives a simple garden structure as well as a support for climbing plants. It should last for many years and the only stumbling block I can see is sourcing the rope. The aesthetics rest entirely on having heavy, old rope. Modern, coloured nylon rope with a thinner girth just will not cut the mustard.
6) From the cheap and cheerful, to the mid priced permanent, to this handsome splendour – which I photographed in a Yorkshire garden. The owner deprecatingly refers to this modern recreation as a “plant carrier”. It is there solely to support climbing plants and to provide an attractive structure within the garden. It is all concrete but using the ground-up local stone added to the concrete mix gives it a weathered stone appearance and colouring that fits the local environment.
Tikorangi The Jury Garden 