Tag Archives: Tikorangi: The Jury garden

Plant Collector: Picea albertiana 'Conica'

Picea albertiana 'Conica' after a mere 20 years

Picea albertiana ‘Conica’ after a mere 20 years

“So how old is the small Picea albertiana ‘Conica’?” I asked. “Not very old,” he replied. Then we worked out that this little specimen, under 2 metres high, is in fact over 20 years, whereas the big one (a scaled up version about 4 metres high) is 60 years old. Time can fly in the garden.

When conifers fell from grace after their heyday in the 70s, we threw some babies out with the bathwater. P. albertiana ‘Conica’ is a dwarf sport from the timber tree, Picea glauca. Glauca just means blue, and the fine foliage of the dwarf form retains a blue-grey hue. P. glauca is commonly known as the white spruce growing naturally right across from east to west of the northern states of USA, Canada and even Alaska. It is a valuable timber tree. You would be waiting a long time to get any timber out of P. albertiana ‘Conica’. In fact it is such a slow grower that it is a favourite candidate for bonsai. Our two specimens are in our rockery and the perfect icecream cone shape that gives them a wonderful silhouette. The leaves are fine, short needles, densely packed. I always want to put stars on top of them at Christmas.

That said, they may be on borrowed time. Coming from a very cold climate, they survive here because Mark is willing to treat them each year for red spider. These are two of the only plants in the garden he still sprays. If we get much more purist in our quest to garden without chemical sprays and fertiliser and shun treating even these, they are likely to kark it over time. We know this because the one in our park that he didn’t get around to spraying died. I would miss their tight cones.

Tikorangi Notes: Friday June 1, 2012

A true blue verbascum - Blue Lagoon (Photo: Thompson and Morgan)

A true blue verbascum – Blue Lagoon (Photo: Thompson and Morgan)

Latest posts: June 1, 2012
1) Astoundingly, a blue as blue verbascum. Currently only available in the UK, as far as I know, but we seriously covet it for our garden. Abbie’s column.
2) The last nerine for the season, N. bowdenii, standing up to late autumn with brazen pinkness.
3) Grow it yourself – a bay tree. It is easy.
4) And, nothing to do with gardening, but a slew of new reviews on http://runningfurs.com – children’s books this time (mostly picture books) with three really good ones amongst them.

After last week’s column about reviewing our mixed borders, I have been having such fun reworking some of the borders. But I think my concept (and practice) of unifying the underplantings is on a somewhat different page to that of the author, Anne Wareham, who motivated me in this direction. True, in one border, I drifted the blue corydalis, yellow polyanthus and blue lobelia, but also retained the Rodgersia aesculifolia and Mark’s showy arisaemea hybrids. I cast out the dreadful mondo grass which seems to inveigling its way in everywhere (compost heaps are so useful) and figured that the interesting Manfreda maculosa would be better being interesting somewhere else. Same with the burgundy eucomis and a few other plants. But I was always bound to fall off the simplifying wagon. It being the coldest border we have in the upper gardens, I simply could not resist trying some meconopsis (blue Himalayan poppies) to see if they would like the spot. Ditto, some Higo iris, because we are looking for the right conditions for these.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. We will see how my border looks in the spring and then for the next two or three years. There is little dross left but I realise it is just not in my nature (nor, indeed, in Mark’s) to switch to simple, unified plantings. We just have to work harder at getting the combinations better and establishing different looks so they don’t all start to meld and look the same.

Plant Collector: Nerine bowdenii

Nerine bowdenii - the last of the season to bloom

Nerine bowdenii – the last of the season to bloom

When other nerines have long since passed over, the tall, sugar pink Nerine bowdenii are looking remarkably elegant in full bloom. They flower before their foliage appears and they are happy in congested clumps, though it takes a few years to get a clump this size if you start with a single bulb. Each head has about 10 individual flowers held up on a good strong stem so it doesn’t need staking. They can bend a little in our torrential downpours but don’t flatten. N. bowdenii has particularly long stems, 80cm or even taller at times.

These South African bulbs like to have their necks out of the ground so are planted at a shallow depth only. They are best in full sun; clearly they thrive on being baked in summer when they are dormant. As with all bulbs, good drainage is critical. The strappy foliage follows soon after flowering and will hang on until late spring. This means they can look a bit tatty in the spring garden but who can complain when they cheer up an early winter day with their splendid display?

N. bowdenii only comes in shades of pink and is often grown as a cut flower. Nerines last well in a vase, though I admit we leave ours in the garden. When a bulb only puts up one flower spike, it seems mean to cut it off in its prime. You can grow them from seed (make sure the seed is fresh and sow it immediately) but you will be waiting several years for them to get to flowering size.

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

Grow it yourself: bay tree

The culinary bay has a long and noble history

The culinary bay has a long and noble history

The culinary bay is Laurus nobilis, also referred to as sweet bay. It has a long history dating right back to ancient Greece and Rome yet is still widely used today. It is easy to grow and hardy for all conditions in this country. However it needs to be kept trimmed. Left to their own devices, bay trees can reach 15 metres. Fortunately once a year is usually sufficient. We trim ours hard in early spring and the fresh growth soon appears to cover up the unsightly woodiness. At the same time, we clean up the base. Bays will sucker and shoot all over the place. If you train the plant to a standard lollipop shape, it is easy to cut away growth at the base.

One plant will yield plenty of leaves for any family. The current fashion is to use clipped bays as formal standards in potagers, but you will never need that number of leaves and there are other more interesting plants you can clip for effect. Besides, as well as suckering, bays are vulnerable to thrips – tiny insects which live on the underside of the leaf and suck the chlorophyll out, turning the leaf silver. We never spray our bay and would not want to spray insecticide on an edible leaf. Planting in a position with good air movement helps (thrips don’t like drafts) and stopping the plant from being too dense will also help reduce infestations.

Bay is not difficult to strike from cutting, though most people buy it. It grows reaonably quickly so it is not necessary to pay over the odds for a large one, unless you are impatient. If you have an abundance of leaves, they are reputed to repel pantry moths when you strew them through your food cupboard.

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

Tikorangi notes: Friday 25 May, 2012

Latest posts:

1) Reviewing our mixed borders (and why the old fashioned activity of reading books can have quite an impact).
2) Iochroma grandiflorum (blue tubular trumpets non-stop for the past seven months or more).
3) Grow it yourself: rosemary
4) It has not been a good year for monarch butterflies in the garden – our garden diary from the Weekend Gardener.
5) Revisiting garden mulch options in Outdoor Classroom.

I can’t think I have ever written about maples (except maybe Acer griseum which is notable for its superb bark). Part of the reason could be that I have never got to grips with names of the cultivars we grow here. I recall Mark and I taking a tour of the British Hardy Plants Society around the garden one time. They were a knowledgeable crew but they also collected plant names as some collect autographs – it didn’t matter if they could never grow the plant in the UK. Every plant had to be recorded. Between us, Mark and I could name everything except… the irises and the maples.

At this time of the year, the maples come into their own. Some have lovely autumn colour. Most have a lovely form which comes into sharp relief as the foliage colours and falls. They are pretty in fresh growth in spring, and fit in very well over summer (as long as they are well sheltered from wind), but it is the bare form that I like the most. They clean up very well with a little pruning and grooming to make excellent skeletons in winter.