Tag Archives: Tikorangi: The Jury garden

Tikorangi Notes, Friday 30 September, 2010

The ephemeral delight of the erythroniums in flower this week

The ephemeral delight of the erythroniums in flower this week

Latest Posts:
1) Magnolia Athene in all her glory in Plant Collector this week and gratitude for the mid season varieties.

2) New Zealand’s Native Trees by John Dawson and Rob Lucas. Thank you Craig Potton Publishing for not cutting corners, simplifying and dumbing down on the assumption that most of us have the mental capacity and experience of a child.

3) The differing agendas of gardeners, novices and designers (or why I am happy to accommodate plants with a scruffy period which includes deciduous plants and bulbs)

4) Grow it Yourself topic this week is Mark’s absolutely most favourite vegetable – sweetcorn.

5) Clearance special this week is Magnolia grandiflora Little Gem – a snip at $12 but very limited numbers.

6) In Praise of Plunging – a traditional technique from the UK which has its relevance here, in our conditions too.

The pink puffery of Magnolia Serene

The pink puffery of Magnolia Serene

I suggested to Mark that the start of a new year here was marked by the magnolias and early spring but he was pretty adamant that it is the snowdrops that herald the new beginning. The snowdrops have long finished, most of the narcissi are passing over and while the magnolia season continues, it is on the wane – the opening of Serene heralds the end of the season because it is the last of the major ones to flower for us. But temperatures are rising, the rhododendrons are opening and other new plants open every day. The trilliums are a triumph for us here. We are not natural trillium territory (bar two days this winter, we lack the winter chill they prefer) and have to choose planting situations carefully.

Showing off: the trilliums

Showing off: the trilliums

Each flower may be only three petals but when you get the deep red ones blooming with the light passing through, the effort is well worth it. The erythroniums are in full flower. If we don’t get torrential rain, we may get two or even three weeks of pleasure from these short-lived, dainty delights. The countdown to our annual garden festival at the end of October is on so the pressure is mounting.

In a rash moment, I agreed to present at the Waikato Home and Garden Show next Friday and Saturday. My main presentation is entitled “What Makes a Good Garden” (Friday at 12.30 and Saturday at 2.30) and I am also doing a presentation on our annual festival (styled the Powerco Taranaki Garden Spectacular this year but we will say no more about that, formerly known as the Taranaki Rhododendron and Garden Festival) at 6.30 on Friday and 4.30 on Saturday.

Plant Collector: Magnolia Athene

Magnolia Athene in her glory

Magnolia Athene in her glory


Thank goodness for the mid season magnolias this year. There we were, as usual, admiring the early season ones in flower when a once in a hundred year event hit here – snow followed by a killer frost in late August. The early bloomers did not like it one bit. But the next flush rose to the challenge and their flowering was unaffected. This one is Magnolia Athene, a particularly lovely variety with big ivory white flowers sporting a violet pink base. It is what is called a cup and saucer form. When open, the outer layer of petals drops a little to form the saucer, while the inner petals keep a tight cup form. Botanically, magnolias don’t actually have much in the way of petals, they have tepals which look like petals but that tends to confuse all but the most enthusiastic gardener.

Bred in the early 1960s, Athene is one of a small series from the late Felix Jury in his quest for new plants which would carry the good aspects of the classic campbellii magnolias but flower on young plants and not grow as large. It should flower within a year of planting out. The parents are magnolias lennei alba (which is a very tidy, smaller tree with pure cream flowers) and Mark Jury (which is a large growing tree with very large, heavy textured flowers in lilac tones). Athene was a significant advance on the parents and puts on a magnificent display with its bi-coloured blooms. It will eventually reach about 5 metres with an upright habit and the flowers are pleasantly scented.

The differing agendas of gardeners, novices and designers

If you will only grow evergreen plants, you miss out on seasonal delights like Prunus Awanui in flower

If you will only grow evergreen plants, you miss out on seasonal delights like Prunus Awanui in flower

I am trying to think if there are any plants which do not have an off period and which look good all year round. I have failed to come up with anything other than conifers and they are hardly the country’s most popular plant family these days. Every other plant I have thought of has times of the year when they look better than other times and generally they go through a scruffy period.

Most conifers don't seem to have an off-period but too few people want them in their garden these days

Most conifers don't seem to have an off-period but too few people want them in their garden these days

It is a bit like the perceived wisdom that evergreen trees and shrubs don’t drop their leaves. Sorry, but they do. They just don’t drop them all at once in autumn. It is in the nature of woody plants to drop a full year’s foliage every year. They may hold onto leaves for several years, but sooner or later they drop them. Some drop them gradually and quietly all the time. Some have a bit of an off period when they will shed more (usually just before the fresh growth comes). Some, like our enormous Schima noronhae, are semi evergreen and will drop the lot as the new leaves come so it is never without foliage but each set only stays one year.

Gardening and nature is an inherently untidy business. If you can’t live with that, you may be better off in an apartment with no outside space calling out for plants. What started this train of thought was reading a landscaper’s account of a client’s garden where plants were chosen for their year round foliage, their lack of an off season, preferably shiny green and fragrant (presumably they were allowed to flower because foliage tends to be aromatic, rather than fragrant). It is a list of attributes I have often seen before, almost invariably from novices, non gardeners and designers who by very definition tend to have clients falling into the first two categories. It all seems so controlling and static to me – wanting to create a pleasing picture that will stay the same all year. I just think that is what you do inside the house with inert objects away from the ravages of the elements. It is more about design than landscaping.

I can’t imagine having a garden which does not celebrate the seasons. Why would you want to eliminate the variables of nature when that is what makes it interesting? If you refuse to have deciduous plants, you miss the fresh and fulsome spring burst when they look so lush. You also miss the autumn colour on some (though this will be better if you live inland and in areas where you get sharp frosts to signal the change of season). There is a beauty in bare branches throughout winter, especially if the plant has interesting bark or form. These are not as obvious on plants which remain fully clothed all year round. So many deciduous plants burst into bloom, to be followed soon after by the foliage and those plants which flower on bare wood are hugely more spectacular than plants which flower amongst the foliage. Think of magnolias, flowering cherries or chimonanthus. But not just woody trees and shrubs: bulbs mark the passage of the seasons better than any other plant group I can think of. In the static picture garden, there is no place for bulbs, the vast majority of which have an undeniably scruffy season after flowering before they go to bed below ground for their dormant period. But before that scruffy time, they wow us with their flowering brilliance.

The delight of seasonal bulbs - Moraea villosa (the peacock iris) with Narcissus bulbocodium behind

The delight of seasonal bulbs - Moraea villosa (the peacock iris) with Narcissus bulbocodium behind

That said, I wouldn’t want a garden which only has deciduous plants. Evergreens give year round structure and colour, even if they are mostly shades of green in foliage. It is the mix of plant groups and differing characteristics of plants that makes the garden a more interesting place.

Neither would I reject a plant because it lacks scent just as I would be unlikely to buy a plant on scent alone. We have many scented plants but it is more obvious with most if you pick them and bring them indoors. It takes a very strong scent to stop you dead in your tracks outdoors – some daphnes, perhaps, jonquils, auratum lilies and orange blossom come to mind. These are heady scents but you usually have to be within a metre or so of the plant to smell them. All that fresh air outside dilutes and dissipates scent more quickly than most people realise. It is far more common that you need to stick your nose right into the flower to smell it. Certainly, fragrance is a bonus but a basic criterion for selection? Not in my books.

I guess it all comes down to the difference between a designer and gardener. The former wants something that looks good and can be maintained easily while the latter wants something which is interesting, changing, even challenging and looks good.

GIY Sweetcorn

I am married to one of the world’s biggest fans of sweetcorn. Maybe he has been reincarnated from an indigenous tribe from the Americas, where our modern sweetcorn has its antecedents as the primary carbodydrate staple. He has planted his first seed of this season into small pots to get them started under cover and he will plant them out, in accordance with NZ tradition, at Labour Weekend. From there, he will sow in succession through as late as the end of January in order to get fresh corn for a period of five months of the year. Sweetcorn is worth growing at home because the freshly picked product is infinitely superior to anything you will buy. The natural sugars start turning to starch almost immediately on picking.

Corn can either be sown direct into the ground (well cultivated soil and full sun, as with most vegetables) or started in small pots. He Who Grows the Corn here does not subscribe to the advice sometimes given to sow closely together. Quite the opposite – too close and the tall stems lack strength and fail to develop full cobs. You only get one or two good cobs per plant anyway. He recommends spacings of 20 to 30cm between plants and up to a metre between rows. They need lots of sunshine and light and growing in open conditions means the stems will be stronger and hold themselves up. Corn is a gross feeder so needs plenty of compost added and they respond well to superphosphate if you want to add a general garden fertiliser.

Modern corn is far removed from the old heritage crops which are more akin to tougher maize. These days we save our own seed but started from Honey and Pearl which is one of the newer generation hybrids which made corn more palatable to eat and easier to prepare.

In Praise of Plunging

First published in the Weekend Gardener and reproduced here with their permission. 

Plunging is a gardening technique that has been around for a long time but is not often seen in New Zealand. It is simply burying a porous pot in the ground so that only the lip is visible. Traditionally, in the United Kingdom, it was often done to stop the roots of the plants from freezing in cold winters. It also stopped terracotta pots from shattering in severe frosts. It is also done to equalise moisture and to stop plants getting either waterlogged or too dry. If you visit the alpine houses at the RHS Wisley Gardens, you will see that all the alpine treasures are grown in pots which are plunged into beds of compacted sand.

Plunging is a technique I have been using around our garden for a variety of purposes. It is important to note that it only works with porous pots. Fortunately, I inherited a collection of aged terracotta pots and drainage pipes in various sizes which fit the bill. If you use glazed or plastic pots, the water cannot move between the surrounding soils and the plant’s roots in the pot.

1)      I had some rather special camellias which blew over every time it was windy and which dried out too quickly in summer because I was erratic with watering. They were also getting too heavy to move easily and root pruning and repotting became difficult as the plants grew ever larger. I did not want to plant them out in the garden because I still wanted to feature them as a group. Plunging the pots into a border was one solution. They never blow over. They do not need anywhere near as much hand watering because the moisture from the surrounding soil keeps the pots damp and cool. They remain featured as individual plants. Where some were badly root-bound, I cut off the base off the pots to allow the roots to get into the soil. The remaining plants are treated as container plants and repotted every two years with fresh mix.

2)      I frequently plunge pots of seasonal bulbs to add colour and interest in key spots. When they are past their best, they can be removed out of sight and replaced with something else instead. This particular pot is Narcissus Twilight, One of Felix Jury’s cyclamineus hybrids.

3)      Plunging is one way of keeping track of special plants, especially bulbs which are easy to lose when they are dormant.

4) Equally, plunging can be used to keep invasive plants confined. It won’t work where a plant spreads by setting seed but it is successful in keeping runaway plants under control. Most of the mint family have this tendency, as do many of the ornamental oxalis.

5)      Plunging can be used to restrict growth and to keep plants reduced in size, so it is a rough form of bonsai. I wanted this deliciously fragrant lemon myrtle (Backhousia citriodora) by the house but left unchecked, it would become a tree. Similarly, I have plunged a pot of rosemary to check its growth and also because the position near the back door was in heavy soil which this Mediterranean type of shrub would not enjoy. The pot gives it hotter, drier conditions.

Plunging is essentially container growing in the ground.

Points to remember:

  • Plunging does not eliminate the need for all watering in summer. It merely reduces it. Plants still require watering every pots every two or three days in hot, dry weather. Making sure there is a gap between the level of the potting mix and the top lip of the pot makes watering easier and any water which drains straight through is still going to be available in the surrounding soil.
  • It is important to remember that plunged pots are still container plants so they will need repotting from time to time and they will need feeding in between. All container plants should be repotted in fresh mix every two years with slow release fertiliser.  That fertiliser can last about nine months. Topdress after that as required.
  • If plants start to look deeply stressed with yellow leaves and poor performance, it is likely that they have either run out of food or they are root bound. If the plant starts to drop leaves and look utterly miserable, check that it has not blocked the drainage holes with thick roots. When this happens, the pot becomes a reservoir for water and the plant starts to slowly drown. It will die if left unattended.