Tag Archives: Tikorangi: The Jury garden

“There is a dangerous doctrine – dangerous because it precludes endless gardening pleasures – that every plant in the garden should be disease-free, bug-free, hardy to cold, resistant to heat and drought, cheap to buy and available at any garden center.”

Henry Mitchell Henry Mitchell on Gardening (1998)

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The gardening basket

As we feel the intense pressure of getting our garden all groomed for the busiest 10 days of the garden visiting year here, I was thinking how very useful is my gardening basket. Not for me the style of a pretty willow or cane basket or the tradition of the wooden trug – the former is not going to like getting wet while the latter is heavier. I am afraid mine is utility Warehouse plastic, but invaluable nonetheless. I can almost always find my trowel, secateurs, pruning saw, Wonder Weeder, lawn weeder, kneeling pad, garden gloves and other accoutrements because I just toss them into the garden basket and cart it around with me. When I have finished for the day, I put the basket in the barrow and wheel it into the carport ready for the morrow. Being plastic means I can hose it out when it gets grungy. The only drawback is that this means the two men in my gardening life can also find my gardening tools any time they want to borrow something. One returns them, the other does not always return them to the same place.

A gardening basket may be a thoughful gift for children to give a gardening grandparent or mother.

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

Plant Collector: Ranunculus cortusifolius

Not the ordinary field buttercup, Ranunculus cortusifolius

Not the ordinary field buttercup, Ranunculus cortusifolius

I am guessing that some readers may look at the photo and sniff about common old buttercups. Yes this is a buttercup, but not the nasty, weedy one even if the flowers may look similar. There are hundreds of different ranunculus (or should that be ranunculae?) and quite a few of those are what we call buttercups. This species is highly prized as a garden plant, as long as you aren’t offended by the extremely bright yellow flowers. It hails from the Azores and Canary Islands, sitting in the ocean between North Africa and Western Europe. The online references talk about it being perennial. We would describe it more as biennial, similar to a foxglove. It seeds down gently and in the second year it flowers. The plants are fully deciduous, going dormant and dying off in early summer and returning into growth by early winter. This is usually the pattern of plants triggered into growth by autumn rains.

The foliage is soft and not dissimilar to cineraria, though oft described as maple-like in shape. And yes, you can play the game from childhood of “do you like butter?”

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

About tanalised timber in the veg garden…

Our bean frame - it's hard to avoid tanalised pine in the veg garden

Our bean frame – it’s hard to avoid tanalised pine in the veg garden

Living rurally, the stream of free farming newspapers descending into our letterbox seems never ending. I cannot say we read them from cover to cover, but it is surprising how much interesting material is in these publications. It was ‘Straight Furrow’ that yielded this week’s most interesting article. It was about a project looking for hard wood alternatives to tanalised pine.

The timber production of this country, based as it is on Pinus radiata, derived from a forestry project started way back in the 1870s, trialling various options. Clearly the pine was the stand out performer and work has been ongoing on selecting the best characteristics for plants which are to be commercially cropped. Modern plantation pine is a somewhat different tree to the gnarly old pines sourced originally from Californian and then Australian seed sources. The use of pine as a building material is a boon for what little is left of our native forests, though we are guilty of plundering the hard woods of Asia instead – especially when it comes to outdoor furniture and more upmarket decking.

The pine we use is grown very quickly and is soft as a result. To get any durability outdoors, it is treated by tanalising it in a solution that contains chrome, copper and arsenic. There is now a quest to find quick growing hardwoods as an alternative and some of the eucalypts look extremely promising.

What does this have to do with gardening? The impetus for this research was, apparently, the discovery of arsenic in the Marlborough aquifer back in 2003. In this case, it was not a cause for panic. That arsenic was occurring naturally and not a danger to health. But, as an aside to that particular study, elevated arsenic levels were found in the soils. These were linked to the use of tanalised posts. When you think about it, we use gazillions of tanalised posts in this country, many of them treated to an advanced level so that they are durable in the ground. There is a scary thought.

It appears that those readers who ask whether it is safe to use tanalised timber in the vegetable garden are indeed asking a valid question. It is pretty difficult to avoid when you think about it. The planks many people use to avoid compacting soil when walking between rows are likely to tanalised. The waratahs often used to stake tomatoes, the poles to build the bean frame… but especially the sides of raised vegetable beds. Yes, apparently these do leach toxic chemicals into the surrounding soil. And plants are very good at absorbing heavy metals, especially leafy greens like vegetables.

It appears that some within the wine and kiwifruit industries are very keen on non-tanalised hardwoods as an alternative. Both these producers have extensive need for wooden growing frames. Organic farmers and growers are also anxious.

I have not read that it has been proven beyond any doubt that anyone has suffered from ill health or death as a result of secondary contamination from tanalised timber. It is your call entirely as to whether you consider it is a risk worth taking. It appears that different people respond differently to chemical poisoning. An anecdote about somebody who lived to a ripe old age despite an extremely careless attitude to sprays is not proof of safety because it may be that the next person suffering multiple allergies is a result of very little exposure.

Presumably the leaching of chemicals from tanalised timber slows down as it ages, so if you are using some near edible crops, look for the old stuffveg.

Heart macrocarpa is probably the most suitable alternative to tanalised pine at this stage, though it will rot eventually. The eucalypt alternatives being researched are offering maybe 25 years without being treated but the research project has a way to go yet.

For the record, the article referred to is in the October 15 issue of Straight Furrow, page 11, headed “Hardwood project promises billions”, written by Jon Morgan. The sad point of that story is that they just missed out on $3 million dollars of government funding because they were not able to guarantee that the project would earn $200 million dollars in exports by 2030. It is a fairly sad comment on the nature of government funding for research. It seems an exorbitantly high bar to set for a modest contribution, but the project is continuing. Imagine some of our pine plantations replaced with eucalypts. That would change the landscape.

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

Garden Lore

“I must confess, much as I love the decorative garden, the vegetable plot is, for me, both a place to relax and, occasionally, somewhere to hide. Yes, I admit, my vegetables are organically grown. I cannot see the point of going to all the trouble of growing them yourself, and then dousing them with poisonous chemicals. Save yourself the bother and buy them from the supermarket, sprayed and scrubbed.”

Beth Chatto Dear Friend and Gardener (1998).

It's compost all the way here, or most of the way at least

It’s compost all the way here, or most of the way at least

Fertiliser

Most plants are in full growth now so it is the optimum time for adding fertiliser. The uptake by the plant will be at its greatest while it is growing strongly. However, you don’t need to fertilise everything just because you can. Apply it where it is needed, not as a matter of course. If you use a mulcher mower, your lawn should never need added fertiliser. When you use compost in the vegetable garden, you may not need to use additional fertilisers.

If you are a consumer, you may be talked into buying a whole range of different types for the garden – one for lawn, another for citrus, yet a different one for acid loving plants like rhododendrons and you will be told that different plants need different ratios of NPK (that is nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus). Being of the KISS persuasion, we just go for something cheap and cheerful for the odd occasions we feel impelled to use additional fertiliser in the garden. With the current research on nitrate run-off, the less is more philosophy is looking ever more appealing.

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

Plant Collector: Telopea (probably speciosissima) or Australian waratah

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In days when we used to retail plants from here, we would have to keep a straight face when ingénues came in asking what the “lovely red rhododendron at the gate” was. Ahem – commonly known as a waratah, though not to be confused with the fencing waratah. It is the emblem of New South Wales and, like many Australian natives, is not too happy in the fertile, high rainfall conditions of much of this country. It evolved to grow in poorer, harder, drier environments though I see the gardening advice across the ditch is to give these plants semi shade and to water in summer. It has also evolved to survive regular bush fires.

Telopeas are members of the proteaceae family and we struggle growing most of those because of our regular rain all year. They do better in drier, coastal areas. Some years are much better than others for the telopea floral display and this year it may be the dry summer helped. The Australian advice is to cut the plant back very hard after flowering each year. We have never done this and ours tends to undergo a natural die-back process every few years. However, it has still reached the maximum height of 5 metres, owing to the fact that we don’t get bush fires to keep it down. The habit of growth is more shrubby than tree-like and foliage has that Aussie gum tree look. It is apparently a long-lived cut flower.
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First published in the Waikato Times and reprinted here with their permission.