Red Robin

I have been very busy over the past few months, writing a book about Queen Elizabeth Park, Masterton’s main recreation ground. It was formally established in 1875 and first planted in 1878, with some of the original North American conifers still flourishing and giving the horticultural backbone to the park.
In my research I found out some more details about one of the most interesting plant introductions from New Zealand, about a plant that originated in the park and is now grown all over the world.
The members of the Robinson family are locally famous horticulturists. Their founding ancestor, Alexander Robinson, was a nurseryman/gardener, who established a business in association with some of his sons. At one stage their grounds were in Nursery Road, the original gardens of W.W. McCardle, the nurseryman who first planted the park.
One of Alexander’s sons, Lawrence, usually known as Laurie, came to run the nursery. He was a native plant fanatic and was a passionate advocate for the forested environment to the west of Masterton. For many years he agitated for the Tararuas to be declared a national park.
He was a very observant gardener, and over the years introduced many new varieties to the nursery trade, mainly native plants, although his most famous introduction came from an exotic.
He was active in the Masterton Beautifying Society for many years, and served as a seconded member of the Masterton Borough Council for decades. It was this inside knowledge that was to lead to the discovery of his most successful introduction.
He learned the staff at the park were about to fell a mature Photinia serrulata.
This was once an important large shrub in the trade, being evergreen and having attractive bright green leaves. I always think of it as a more refined laurel cherry. It flowers profusely in September, with black berries following in the summer.
It was the fruit, which last on the tree through the winter that was the attraction to Laurie Robinson. He normally raised his stock plants from seed he bought in, so the chance of grabbing some fresh seed free of charge was too good to pass up. He sent his young son Paul, who was to later run the nursery (and to tell me the details of the story) down to the park to gather the seed, which was duly sown in the long fields at the nursery.
And what happened?
One of the seedlings, and one only, turned out to have bright red foliage in spring. Laurie realised it was a hybrid with Photinia glabra ‘Rubens’, which grew near to the seed tree in the park. It was quickly propagated, and after years of building up enough plants to be released, it was made available to the public as ‘Red Robin’.
All this took place in the late 1940s, long before legislation allowed plant breeders to register their new varieties and receive a royalty for their endeavours. ‘Red Robin’ is now grown in the millions world-wide, being particularly well-known as a hedge plant, but also popular for use as a standard, as a street tree and as a feature shrub in the garden.
‘Red Robin’ is very easy to grow, not seeming to pose any particular cultural difficulties other than the requirement for reasonable drainage. It simply will not tolerate soil that is waterlogged. It does prefer full sunlight, as this will

Plums

In May we spent a weekend in Rotorua, and took the opportunity to scout out their market, held in Kuirau Park – lots of stalls with lots of vegetables and plants. There was another sale going on there too – once a month the friends of the library hold a dispersal sale of old stock from the library. Of course, I had to have a look through the books on offer.
One just amazed me – a book published in Britain and dedicated to purple-leaved plums. Now, I like purple leaved plums, but I would not have thought there was enough information to make a solid book on them.
I was tempted to buy it (I have far too many plant books!) but in the end decided it was not really a book I needed.
I thought of the book again this week as I noticed the plum trees in full blossom, including some of those purple-leaved varieties – and I still do not think I need the book!
The most common purple plum is the dark form of the cherry plum, Prunus cerasifera ‘Nigra’.
Most of us will be familiar with the cherry plum, Prunus cerasifera, as it will grow wild with the slightest encouragement. I know my childhood home had three or four large trees of the variety in its boundaries. The plums from these trees kept my family in jam for many years, and one tree – which may have been a hybrid with a Japanese plum – gave fruit big enough to be bottled.
The purple form ‘Nigra’ has small but very pretty light pink flowers at this time of the year, followed by almost black foliage. As the leaves mature through the season they lighten a little, but largely retain their depth of colour. In the summer there is a crop of small red fruit.
This tree is very useful for providing dramatically dark foliage in the garden, and will be a great contrast for lighter foliaged trees. It grows to about four metres.
‘Thundercloud’ is similar, with single pale pink flowers and deeply coloured foliage, as the name suggests.
P. cerasifera will cross with other plums, and other members of the vast Prunus genus, including the early-flowering P. mume, the Japanese Apricot.
Although there are many varieties of P. mume grown overseas, and sometimes a small selection of these can be found in New Zealand, the most popular by far of these is ‘The Geisha’. This has lovely scented flowers of claret rose, borne in mid-winter. The flowers are small, and carried among a tracery of bare branches. This tree picks well, and gardening friends have told me the flowers will scent the whole house when a generous bunch is picked.
There is a large specimen of the tree near our house, and I like to take a special walk along to look at when it is flower – it is just stunning.
One of the most popular of the flowering plums is a result of crossing P. mume and a dark coloured form of P. cerasifera – Prunus x blireiana. This has fluffy pink, fully doubled flowers at this time of the year, and as the flowers fade the coppery red leaves appear. Over the summer the leaves gradually fade to greenish bronze.
This variety gives a cheering display in the garden, and is also good for picking. It will grow to about four meters and is popular as a street tree, as it does not have many fruit.

Asparagus

The promise of spring which seemed so eminent has rapidly dissipated. The snow and sleet we have been experiencing among the thunderous storms has certainly changed people’s minds about how much work they can do in the garden.
It is a funny time of the year in many ways. The first of the blossom trees are out and the early bulbs have already been and gone, but it is far from spring yet, and care has to be taken in the garden.
If you are itching to get out into the vegetable garden, check the state of the soil before you start doing anything too vigorous. Working sodden soil is not a good idea – it is hard work for a start, but it is also very damaging to the soil. If your soil is waterlogged, give it a chance to dry out before you start doing anything major.
If your soil is not too wet, and if you have grown a winter green crop, it is probably a good idea to get in turned into the soil as soon as you can. That will give the vegetable matter a chance to break down a bit before the spring and summer planting season
As mentioned last week, it is time to get started on planting asparagus. Despite being a fanatic for this wonderful perennial vegetable, I do not grow them in my garden. They are a long-term crop and my kitchen garden area is too small, and I am too fickle in my growing desires, to commit to having such a long term crop.
If you want to grow this aristocrat of the vege world, make sure you get in and get your crowns as soon as possible. They do not need planting straight away though. I think it probably pays to get the crowns off to a head start by planting them in a pot first, and placing it in a nice warm, well-lit spot. At the same time, you can prepare the eventual planting space.
Firstly, choice a well-drained sunny spot, and start digging! Old books always stresses the importance of double digging, and getting down two spades deep when preparing beds. Today we are much more likely to use a no-dig technique, with lots of compost, which works for most crops, but for asparagus and rhubarb it is better to put the hard yards in.
As you are digging, mix in some blood and bone, and a good general purpose fertiliser, as well as some compost. It probably also pays to throw in some lime too.
If planting directly and not from pots, excavate a trench in the bed, and plant each of the clumps on a small mound of soil, lightly covering each crown when it is placed. Once planted, fill the trench with a good layer of organic mulch.
Now comes the difficult part.
When the luscious and succulent spears force their way through the soil, grab your knife – and leave them alone. The plant needs time to grow and will need all the time you can allow it to grow, so the leaves can photosynthesise and feed the plant. I hate to say it, but it is best if you leave them for a second year, if you can resist.
After that, you can harvest each year. Do not forget to leave some spears to grow through the season though, and do not get worried when they die down for the winter. They will come back for the next spring.

Heidi Blyth's irises

One of the things I do is edit the Almanac for the Society for Pacific Coast Native Irises (SPCNI). I have been wanting to do a piece on the PCIs growing in the southern hemisphere, and had been hoping to get some pics of the irises Heidi Blyth is introducing.
I am sure Heidi is sick of being referred to this way, but she is the daughter of the well-known Australian iris breeder, Barry Blyth. He has made his name with a series of innovative bearded iris introductions.
I have found a link to some of Heidi’s introductions, so if you would like a look, go here: http://www.ausgarden.com.au/smf/index.php?topic=6674.0

Travelling along

Living with a mentally ill person is certainly never boring. Our mood fluctuations seem to mirror his, in a weird way. When he is sort of well, we get our hopes up and imagine there will be an end to this terrible time. When he slips back, we also slide towards depression, imagining a ghastly future for him.
This week the nurses at the mental health clinic where he is staying let him go. There was a note on his file that he was not allowed to go, but they ignored that. Then, two hours later, they rang us, to casually let us know.
Needless to say we had a sleepless night. It was a frosty night here and we knew he would have no money and no way to get anywhere.
It turns out he managed to find his way to the motorway and somehow walked into Wellington from Lower Hutt. When we caught up with him he was at Wellington Railway Station after a frozen and sleepless night.
You will notice we caught up with him. Not mental health services. We traveled 100 km to find him and return him to the clinic.
But, silver linings and all that stuff….
We finally got to talk to a sensible psychiatrist who was prepared to listen to what we said. His medications have been altered and he already sounds a different person.
Today we go down to the clinic to take him out for lunch and catch a show at the local art gallery.
The last thing Lavinia said to him and me when we left her was “Travel safely.”
It’s not a bad piece of advice, but maybe we need to travel hopefully too.

A sad week

This has been a sad week for our family.
Our younger son has been struggling with his mental health for the past three months, and we have been struggling with mental health services, trying to get them to understand that he is far worse than they imagine.
Since the second anniversary of his sister Lavinia’s death, he has become more and more detached, and over the past month or so has been living in a fog of confusion. He has been a worry to all of us who love him.
I have had visits from the community police, who were concerned to know why he was behaving so irrationally in town, and from various shopkeepers. No-one has been judgmental of him – apart from many in the mental health service, who were sure he was taking drugs.
On Thursday we finally had a message to say they were considering hospitalizing him.
I had been in meetings in Wellington and Jill was concerned that our son was not home, but he was at home when we got back from collecting me from the train.
We settled down for the evening, and our son started going onto the back steps for his smokes.
At one stage I realised he was not there. His shoes were on the steps but he had gone.
I raced into town and could not find him. I then had a voice tell me he was in Pownall Street, a suburban street near our house. I drove there and found him, on a dark and stormy night, walking in black clothing and barefooted, down the middle of the road.
He came home with me.
We rang mental health services – and were told there was nothing they would do, and we should lock out doors!
The following day his case worker rang and finally agreed we had to do something for him, and he went into hospital in Lower Hutt, a 80 minute drive from here.
We went to see him today. He is obviously sedated, and is slightly confused still, but hopefully he is in the right place to get back on the road to wellness.
Years ago, when he was still a teenager, he and I, along with his brother, went to Rotorua to see his sister, us males staying in a motel. In the morning he got up and went for a walk, after I had gone for a run. He got lost in Kuirau Park, a thermal park opposite the Rotorua Hospital. He was in the middle of the park, alongside a steaming pool, wondering how he would find his way out, when I appeared out of the mist – not knowing he was missing, or where he was.
It’s what fathers like to think they can do.
They can rescue their children – even when they don’t know they need rescuing.
I now know I cannot do that. He and I stood at Lavinia’s bed, overlooking Kuirau Park, the weekend before she died, the last time we three were together.
I could not save Lavinia.
I cannot find my son.

Spuds

Last week I wrote about the upsurge of interest in vegetable gardening. It is almost a lost art among the young, and it is perhaps it is us baby boomers who are to blame. We were brought up with our father’s assiduous vegetable gardening habits as part of our cultural background, but as we grew up and questioned the values of our parents, we somehow threw gardening out the window.
Mostly, our children did not spend time in the garden with us, and we did not raise them to understand the joys and thrills of picking their own fresh produce.
It is time to start encouraging them again, and letting them see just how rewarding vegetable gardening is.
Last week I explained the procedures for making a raised bed for vegetables. I mentioned how suitable a number of different crops were for this process, but did not talk about potatoes. Partly this is because potatoes are slightly demanding of space, but they are very amenable to raised bed cultivation and will quickly reward the tyro gardener. And if we get underway soon, even the greenest gardener can produce some potatoes for Christmas.
This is the time of the year to start thinking about planting potatoes. Firstly, pop along to your garden supplies shop and select a bag of your favourite type. Do not be put off by the wide range of varieties available. There are many, many different types on the market today, and it can seem a little daunting. I suggest you get a reliable early type. The ‘early’ designation refers to how long the potato takes to mature, rather than the time of the year it should be planted, so you can plant ‘early’ types late in the season – sounds a bit silly doesn’t it?
Once you have purchased your seed spuds, they should be sprouted. Just place them with their eyes upwards in a cool, dry but well-lit area – I use the glasshouse bench but a window sill away from direct light will do just as well. The eyes will sprout and once they are about 1 cm long the seed is ready to be planted.
Now the fun begins.
If you are growing in a traditional manner, you need to make some furrows for the seed. The seeds are placed sprouts up in the furrows, and about 10 cm of soil placed over them. As the sprouts grow taller, the earth excavated from the furrow is placed on the sprouts until you end up mounds of earth. The new potatoes form on the stems as they grow.
But with raised beds that process can be a whole lot easier.
Firstly, use a bed that is only about half-filled with soil. Place the seeds on small depressions in this soil and cover with a generous layer of straw. Water this in very well, and then add about 10 cm of soil. As the sprouts grow, just keep adding more soil until the plants are growing in a tall mound, as in an open garden. You should ideally keep mounding until the plants flower and growth starts to die off. I always find the mounds have grown too tall for me to do that – and I run out of soil!
There is an important reason for doing this mounding. As well as allowing more potatoes to form on the stems, it is vital to keep the sunlight away from the developing tubers as they will turn green and poisonous of not kept covered.
I used straw for the first time last year. My beds are probably a hybrid – neither an old fashioned bed nor quite a modern no-dig bed either. I found the potatoes grew very well, and when harvested were a magnificent size – and very clean. I will definitely use this method again this year

Eat your garden

At first glance a downturn in the economy looks like it would prove a problem for the nursery industry. People with less disposable income are going to cut down on spending in the gardens, and the sale of Italian ceramics and expensive palm trees will plummet.
But it does not seem to work like that.
When things get tough we cancel our overseas holidays and we postpone the upgrade to our cars and our houses, but we also stay at home more. When we stay at home we look at our sections, and there is usually an upsurge of interest in gardening during economic hard times.
You would think there would also be an increase in spending on home vegetable production too, but there is interesting information about that. Friends in the trade tell me they have had difficulty keeping up with the demand for asparagus and strawberries this year. I guess this means we are looking to grow the higher status vegetables, rather than pay high prices for them.
This downturn has coincided with increased communal concern about the eating habits of our children - and ourselves! Some schools are taking a very proactive role in encouraging healthier eating. They are promoting Kid’s Edible Gardens by helping schools make organic, no-dig mulch gardens within their grounds, as well as setting up worm farms and encouraging the kids to compost. The kids can grow their own vegetables, herbs and flowers, and hopefully persuade their parents of the benefits of home gardening
No-dig, mulch-based gardens are the ideal way for tyro gardeners to get their gardening career off to a flying start. It is, basically, gardening in a giant sandbox, and if done properly should entail little weeding and lots of harvesting
The first step is site location. For vegetables a raised bed is best located where it gets full sun. It should also be away from the roots of large trees or hedges that create shade and compete for moisture.
When planning beds remember you want to be able to easily access the beds from all sides so don’t make them too wide. I think about 1.3 metres is about right. It is definitely better to have two small beds than one large one. Leave about 50 cm between each of the beds – wide enough to get a wheelbarrow through.
I think the beds should be about 40 cm high. Much lower and you miss the benefits of easier cultivation – too much higher and they are going to be difficult to work in. I prefer to use treated timber for the walls of my beds, but I know others have used concrete block or bricks. If you are extra green, you might even use woven willow or something similar.
I made my frames away from where the beds are, and then moved them over and drove the corner pegs into place. You can, of course, drive the stakes in at the corner first, and then attach the boards. If the gardens are more than a couple of meters long you will probably need a central stake as well.
Now comes the fun part.
First of all place a deep layer of newspaper all over the bottom of the bed. I know you will not want to use the garden section of the paper, but make sure this layer is about twenty pages thick. This will ensure there will be no weeds germinating from underneath your freshly planted garden. It will also keep all but the most determined perennial weeds at bay.
Next place a deep layer of straw on top of the paper. I like to use pea straw but cereal straw, like barley straw, will work equally well. Again, make sure this is a thick layer – perhaps a third of the height of the bed.
The next step is the soil creation. You can make your own, by mixing compost and good garden loam. It is important that this loam is weed free. You could buy in a mix of soil from one of the composting company. Our local recycling centre makes a good mix I have used in the past.
I like to add another layer of pure compost on top of the mix – about 10 cm deep. You can happily plant directly into that mulch, perhaps adding a little handful of fertilizer with each plant.
The beds will last for about three years before they start to run out of fertility. I think it best to replenish the top layers but some recommend taking all the soil and straw out and replacing it.

Molly's citrus

There are some people in this world you just bond with. I am not sure what causes it – maybe there is some kind of reflection of ourselves in what we see – but I have found myself becoming closer to many of my older relatives as I age.
Last weekend one of my favourites died in her rest home in Wanganui. My Aunty Molly was my father’s youngest sister, his last surviving sibling. She was the last link to a past my father spoke little of, so it was always enlightening to speak with her.
But more than that, she was one of the world’s great optimists. Even when struck with a terrible back problem that basically immobilised her, and despite being functionally deaf, she found delight in the world. In her room perched high above the Wanganui River, she kept in touch with family goings on and, despite her age, crocheted lace edgings to handkerchiefs.
She was a good gardener too, and a great story teller.
When she was admitted to the rest home she sold her home of countless decades in Gonville, Wanganui. It was a quick sale and she received the price she wanted.
About six weeks later she was visited by her neighbour across the road, who had been away for months on work. The neighbour came bearing a large armful of freshly picked flowers.
“Oh, you honey” Aunty Molly said. “All my favorites.”
The neighbour looked slightly perplexed.
“Of course they’re your favourites Molly. I picked them from your garden early this morning.”
The neighbour had obviously not realised the house was sold.
She had also picked a bucket or two from Molly’s famous grapefruit tree and made pots of marmalade, much to Molly’s delight.
Gonville is, of course, a great place for growing citrus. Although Wanganui’s climate is not so warm as the east coast it has mild winters, and lemons, grapefruits and their allied plants thrive there.
August is a good time to start planning for spring plantings of citrus trees. Ideally,
They should be planted in a warm, sunny protected position out of cold winds. The soil should be free draining so if your soil is a little stiff dig in some compost and some sharp sand. If you have terrible clay loam and it is impossible to get a good position, remember citrus can be grown in pots.
When planting out make sure you plant your tree no deeper than it is in the bag and be careful with the roots -citrus do not like their roots to be disturbed. As well as adding some compost, add a slow release fertiliser too. I use Osmocote but there are other brands available. If you are going to put your citrus in a pot use a quality outdoor potting mix to ensure good water retention and slow release fertiliser to help your plant through summer.
You will need to feed your plants once they are established. As citrus are gross feeders they require regular feeding for best fruiting and growth. A branded citrus fertiliser (your garden centre will probably stock more than one) can be applied monthly, or again, a 3-4 month controlled release fertiliser can be applied 3-4 times a year. I think the slow release is best for potted plants as it prevents salt build up in the soil. If you prefer a more organic approach, pelletised sheep manure can also be used as a top dressing in spring and summer
I am a great fan of mulch, and my citrus all grow with bark mulch at their feet. You can spread mulch around the base of the tree in spring and summer to help prevent water loss, and keep weeds down. Make sure the mulch does not touch the base of the trunk as this can lead to rotting.
Keep the watering up during summer especially, and at fruit set, as lack of water at that time can lead to incomplete pollination and dry fruit later.

Too subtle for words!

It is an unwritten rule of gardening that the more we garden the more refined out tastes become. We eschew the bright gaudy flowers we adored when we started gardening in favour of more delicate colours and simpler forms.
It is, I think, part of a western belief that simple forms and toned-down colours are the height of sophistication. Japanese taste is sometimes held up as an ideal, people citing the wonderful contemplative gardens of the Japanese temples and courts as exemplars of sophisticated refinement.
They might not have ever seen a Japanese seed catalogue, not photographs of Japanese and Chinese public gardens, redolent with the worst excesses of “public gardening” imaginable – the strongest colour clashes and the most strident floral designs. Keep an eye out for the plantings in Chinese public gardens during the Olympic Games. I have seen a taste of some of these and they are gloriously bizarre and as far from sophisticated as it is possible to get.
I guess my tastes have changed over the years. When I first gardened I loved bright and bold cactus plants, and grew many of them in my garden. I also loved the bold Tall Barded Irises my grandparents cultivated, with every colour imaginable except true red. Like most men, I liked the flowers to be as big as possible, and the brighter coloured they were they more I liked them. I loved two-toned roses like ‘Raspberry Ice’ and grew pink and red dahlias for summer.
Now I grow softer coloured plants in the main, although I do like some colour still, and will often sneak some bright flowers into the picking garden, so I can have them inside.
Among the few plants that are in flower at the moment, I have a few varieties of hellebores blooming. Here it is possible to go to ridiculous lengths to have subtle colours – so subtle they are hardly noticeable in fact.
There are green flowered hellebores and grey flowered hellebores for those whose taste is so refined they abhor any colour at all, but there are also a good number of varieties with colour as well.

Among the species I grow Helleborus niger ‘White Magic.’ This is an evergreen plant that grows maybe 50 cm high and will eventually make a clump of about the size diameter. It has white flowers with a prominent green eye, but as they followers age and they get pollinated they can tend towards pinks.
This plant prefers really good drainage – I have mine in an elevated position at the edge of a garden under a weeping maple – and must not be planted where it will get wet feet.
I also grow the interesting species H x sternii. This is a hybrid of H. argutifolius and H. lividus. As it is usually seed grown it can show give a lot of variation in height, leaf and stem colour. It has greyish foliage and wonderful lime green flowers, backed with maroon. Mine has seeded itself a little, but not enough to be a pest.

The best colour variations available are among the H. x orientalis hybrids. There are some stunning forms around, and it is just a matter of picking which ones you prefer. Remember that these are always sold as seedling, as it is just too difficult to multiply these in any numbers to make them commercially viable. Most modern strains will breed very close to true, so if you buy a deep red strain, you should get deep red flowers.
The best way to select your plants is to buy them in flower, and they will be in nurseries very soon, if they are not already.

Kowhais and wax eyes

I just went outside to take some photographs for next week’s blog, looking for images of my hellebores and violets. I wandered around, noticing how many of my Pacific Coast Irises were germinating, and how many other little things (like snowdrops) were out in the garden. I went around the front to take a pic or two of the Dragon’s Gold kowhai, which is having a great season, and found it under attack from wax eyes! What a treat this little birds are.

Mahonias

There are plants that are almost too reliable, an odd concept though that may seem to many gardeners. You know the sort of plants I mean. They cope with cold and wet places, they flourish in dry and warm sports - they tolerate quite shady areas, but they also seem to manage full sun as well. They flower reliably each year and frequently give an autumn display or a fruiting show in the winter. And we neglect these hardy plants because they are not quite showy enough for our tastes.
Surely the shrub that best fits into the category is the deeply unfashionable holly grape, the Mahonia. There are about seventy of these northern hemisphere shrubs and small trees, distantly related to the barberries, and with prickly foliage. They tend to make very architectural looking plants, with multiple stems carrying tidy and interesting-looking leaves. They mostly flower over the winter period – that is what made me think of them this week – with racemes of bright yellow flowers about 20 cm long, and often follow this flowering season up with a display of grape-like fruit. The prickly leaves and the vinous fruit have obviously led to the common name.
These shrubs are enormously popular in the United Kingdom and in America, partly due to their hardy evergreen nature I am sure, but have not earned the same following here. Probably the most popular is M. lomariifolia from Burma and China, with what some claim as the most beautiful leaf design of any ornamental shrub. Botanists among you will know the name “Lomaria” as it is the Latin name for a genus of ferns (some of which are found in New Zealand) which gives a good indication of the leaf type. The flowers are carried erect, while the fruit, which has a lovely white powder over it, is blue-black.
When you buy one of these it usually comes as a single stem, but as it grows, more branches will appear from the base until it makes a nice little thicket. The effect is enhanced by the way each of these stems is a different age, thus a different height.
This is a reliable old performer, although it will do best in semi-shade and in slightly acid soil. It is an obvious plant for among smaller growing Rhododendrons and the like, but looks equally good among a more modern planting with natives and grasses.
A more modern form ‘Winter Sun’, is starting to become popular, and is similar.

Glad to see you...

There are some plants inextricably tied up with childhood memories and old wives tales. For me there are the Muscari that lined the garden beds under my bedroom window – sailor boys we called the ranks of blue flowers. Sweet Williams are another flower I cannot separate from my childhood, recalling my mother’s desperate disappointment that they were biennial and did not flower for her in their first spring. Their multi-coloured flowers always intrigued me, and may be the basis of my enduring affection for most members of the vast Dianthus tribe.
Gladioli will always remind me of my mother’s front garden, where generations of these South African bulbs (strictly speaking, not bulbs but corms) grew untethered. There were only two colours that I can remember – a lovely apricot and, of course, white, white, white. My mother was certainly one of those who believe Gladioli can ‘revert’ to white. Most authorities aver it is simply not true. They say the white forms are more vigorous and simply out multiply the coloured ones. I accept what they say, begrudgingly, as my eyes tend to tell me the contrary, as my Mum had a great collection of white gladioli!
Mum was a frugal gardener and was rarely in a position to splash out for new bulbs, and I cannot help but think of her when I buy new Gladioli corms each year I am sure she would think it an outrageous extravagance, but I cannot do without a few new plants each summer.
I think Gladioli, with their sword-shaped leaves (that is where the Latin name comes from, the same root as gladiator =swordsman) are a bit tricky to handle in the average garden. If you have a large mixed border then it is relatively straightforward to plant clumps of Gladioli in various colours, but most of us do not garden like that. In the end, I have decided that I really grow these beauties for picking, so I grow them in the vegetable garden, where I can stake them without making the garden look too much like a bamboo stake field.
I used to go past the garden of a Gladiolus fancier, where the whole garden was given over to the cultivation of these corms. There were raised beds, terraced and elevated, everywhere, and miles of stakes. It looked great in the flowering season, but very ordinary at any other time.
Gladioli are not that hard to grow. They prefer full sun and well-drained, reasonable rich soils. They do not like to dry out during the growing season though. If they suffer a sustained dry spell they will almost certainly become infested with thrips and the glorious green foliage will turn sickly silver
I like to dress the soil with a little bulb fertiliser. I always use part of the garden that has not been manured recently as high nitrogen levels can lead to disease and rotting. The soil is very friable so I do not need to cultivate it, but in poorer soils it would pay to cultivate to about 20 cm.
Gladioli have a neat trick to enable staggered flowering. They bloom 100 days after planting. If you want to have bouquets for Christmas, just count backwards to the appropriate date and plant then. It also means you can stage the plantings for a succession of bloom.
I will not mention any varieties by name. It seems to me that the range changes every year and when I go back to me nursery to get extra stocks of one I have enjoyed the previous year, I find they no longer stock it. I will say, however, that there is an incredible range of colours available now, probably due to their popularity as cut flowers. I like strong colours, and have planted browns and reds over the past few years, but in the past have grown some lovely light blue and pink shades as well.
I have changed my mind about the size I like. I started out (like most men) liking the biggest flowers I could find, but over the past few years I have been only buying the miniature flowered forms. These are not the species-derived hybrids usually grown as Gladiolus nanus, these are small flowered forms of the summer flowering hybrids. They are a lot easier to place in the garden, and as they do not grow quite so tall, they are also more wind tolerant.
A few years ago I was in Gisborne in the autumn (the persimmon were hanging like Chinese lanterns on trees everywhere – amazing) and I saw quite a few gardens with a bright orange Gladiolus flowering in large clumps. I was very taken with it, not having seen it growing in our more southern gardens. I have since seen it in Napier as well. It is probably a form of Gladiolus natalensis, and I have never seen it for sale, but if you see it in a garden try and cadge a corm or two. It is a fabulous autumn plant.

You little beauties!

I wrote about apple trees a few weeks ago, and made comment on the great value the ‘Ballerina’ varieties were for those gardening with constrained space. The column-shaped apple trees are very popular for growing in containers and many of you expressed an interest in growing them, and any other dwarf fruit trees.
Fortunately there is a range of other trees available in dwarf forms, with stone fruit being particularly well represented, peaches in particular.
These trees are naturally dwarf – they are sports from other trees and do not rely on being grafted onto dwarfing rootstock to keep them small. They make very attractive garden trees as they assume a symmetrical shape as they grow, giving an almost topiary like affect.
Probably the best-known of these varieties is ‘Bonanza’, a yellow-fleshed freestone with a red blush. The fruit are not in any sense dwarf – in fact, they are quite large – and have a sweet taste. This is covered in pink flowers before leafing up in spring, and is very attractive, both in blossom and in fruit, and is fully self fertile.
‘Garden Lady’ is similar, but is only semi self-fertile, while the newer ‘Honey Babe, which has large orange-fleshed fruit, probably does best near other peaches and nectarine for pollination.
If you are like me and adore white-fleshed peaches, but have very little space for fruit trees, ‘Rose Chiffon’ is the one for you. It has rose-pink flowers in the spring, doubled like the ornamental peaches, but unlike most double-flowered peaches, it also sets fruit well, a large crop of juicy, white-fleshed peaches following the flowers.
I hate the furry skin on peaches. It is as bad as chalk screech on blackboard for me, so I prefer to eat nectarines. Fortunately there are some dwarf varieties of these too. ‘Garden Delight’ is well named, as it is a very reliably fruiting variety, even succeeding in warmer area where nectarines and peaches can be difficult to fruit. It has large pale pink blossom, and juicy red-skinned, yellow-fleshed fruit. ‘Flavourzee’ and ‘Nectar Babe’ are similar but neither are as self-fertile as ‘Garden Delight’ and will fruit best if near other nectarines or peaches. It would probably be a good idea to plant more than one variety anyway, as it will also give a longer fruiting season.
These trees will probably reach something like two metres tall after twenty years, and will attain less than a metre’s girth. They will do best in a sunny spot with well-drained soil. They will respond very well to lots of food, so make sure you keep the fruit tree fertiliser up to them. Also make sure they are well watered during the growing season as they do not like to dry out, especially in grown in containers.
Bear I mind that these are miniature peaches and nectarines, and they are prone to the same problems that tall trees are, in particular leaf curl. Being smaller they are much easier to spray when they flowers are in bud, but it is important to remember to keep them leaf-curl free as they are not as robust as a tall tree.
If you are feeling like expanding the range of stone fruit you grow you might like to try those cousins, the apricot and the almond.
Dwarf apricots make charming little trees, again growing to about two metres high but bearing full sized fruit. Most apricots are self-fertile and will perform well as long as they get a chilling over winter – these are not trees for Northland or Auckland, or milder districts on the lower North Island. If you do not get frosts it is probably not worth trying to grow these, but if you are in a cold zone (and we are today!) give them a try.
‘Aprigold’ and ‘Golden Glow’ are the only two varieties I have seen offered in New Zealand. ‘Golden Glow is slightly smaller than ‘Aprigold, not growing more than 1.5 metres tall.
They need similar conditions to the peaches and apricots, except they can cope with the cold better.

Beating the blues

It has not been the best week to be the parent of a mentally ill son.
For a start, our justice system decided it was okay for policemen to bash someone in a locked cell if they were psychotic. Four middle-aged, white Whakatane policemen were found not guilty of assaulting a young Maori man, Rawiri Falowasser. They beat him with batons and filled his cell with pepper spray because he would not co-operate with them.
Here’s the thing. Sometimes psychotic people behave oddly. It’s what psychotics do.
Then, Saturday's Weekend Herald carried a story about Ruby Wax’s new show about he depression. The headlined it by referring to her ‘blues.’
Blues!
Depression = blues!
It is sort of like describing someone who has had their leg mauled by a shark as having minor abrasions.
Still, it is good to know the mentally ill are still there for us all to have a laugh at.
During the past month or so our son has been in psychosis. Not a lot of laughs for anyone close to the action, but no doubt others will have managed a cheap laugh or two.
Like the mental health “crisis team” who saw him when this episode first manifested itself, about a month ago. He was talking to the clock, and running a continual stream of consciousness conversation with himself.
The crisis team consisted of two people, one of whom complained they had been dragged away from their favourite television programme on a Sunday evening, the other of whom said we should be on medication as well as our son.
Still, I guess they got a laugh out of that.
As did the receptionist at the mental health clinic who, later that week, told our son he was ‘bleating’ about his illness.
Good supportive people work in the mental health field.
One of the many frustrating things about being mentally ill is that your diagnosis changes all the time. You are schizophrenic. No, this week you have schizophrenic affective disorder, and next week it will be bipolar, and then ... well, you get the picture.
Our son has had eight different diagnoses in as many years. This time around he has a ‘creative mind’. Apparently that is a disorder now and he needs to learn to make himself uncreative, presumably.
Fortunately he also has a wicked sense of humour – sometimes quite bleak, as you might imagine. The Mental Health Foundation has run a campaign to convince us not to judge the mentally ill. Our son does a little piss take on it.
“Hello, my name is Fred. I am mentally ill. Don’t judge me until you know me ... not like those bloody voices in my head do!”
He might need to change that.
“Don’t judge me ... not like those mental health workers do!”

Winter's dreaming

Mid-winter brings one of the real delights of the gardening season – the perusal of mail order catalogues while seated with a red wine in hand in front of a roaring fire.
What fantastic gardens we create in mid-winter! So much better than anything we can ever achieve in the flush of spring. Those plants we carefully plan to flower alongside each other that, when we place them in our gardens, fail to bloom at the same time, prove reliable in these imagined gardens, and those wonderfully matching varieties that in reality clash terribly, fir together perfectly.
This weekend I have been looking through some bulbs catalogues, trying to work out whether I can fit some new varieties into the garden somewhere, and exactly where I might be able to find room for them.
I am tempted by one of the black Zantedeschias. This is, of course, the Latin name for the plants that most of us, for obvious reasons, cheerfully call Calla lilies, relatives of the old fashioned Arum lily so beloved of English florists.
They are a world away from those deadly white flowers, associated with funerals for our ancestors. Modern forms of these South African beauties come in all sorts of colours, including deepest burgundy red. One variety that a mail order company I deal with is called ‘Hot Chocolate’ and the catalogue writer is trying to tell me it is “the best bulb and cut flower yet bred in the world.” I wonder why they are so modest. It is a startling flower though, the flowers almost being black, and nothing like chocolate!
I want to plant this is my dark garden, where I have a number of other flowers in similar colours, including day lilies, irises, dahlias and salvias. Fortunately, this is in very well-drained soil and in a sunny position, requirements for growing Zantedeschia well. In the garden it would also a good degree of herbaceous plant cover which would protect the young shoots of the lily when they sprout, as they are slightly frost tender when young.
There are some other wonderful colours among Zantedeschias. As well as white and yellow, there are some great new orange shaded varieties, like ‘Hawaii’, ‘Hot Shot’ and ‘Treasure’. I also like the two-toned varieties. ‘Picasso’ has cream flowers stained with purple in the throat, the staining bleeding through slightly on the outside of the petals. ‘Cameo’ is similar with creamy flowers stained all over with pink, then set off with a deeper throat.
There are also some wonderfully deep red coloured true lilies, Liliums. One of the Asiatic lilies (oddly enough bearing its name in mind!) is ‘America’ with deep wine red flowers, while the Los Angeles hybrid ‘Black Out’ is also a very deeply coloured form.
If two-toned flowers are more your thing, you might want to look out for the very well named ‘Shocking’, which has huge cream flowers, upward looking, each petal splashed with red. Unique and absolutely true to name. ‘Latvia’ is deep yellow and marked with deeper red, while ‘Centrefold’ has white flowers marked with purple.
Lilies need almost perfect drainage but are among the aristocrats of the plant world and should be found in all gardens.
I have some bamboo stakes erected as tripods in the dark garden, and I usually try to grow some sweet peas over the frames. In the past I have grown some of the softer coloured forms, often light pinks, or peach coloured. I find these make a wonderful contrast to the darker colours. Last year I grew the creamy coloured ‘Jilly’ in honour of the Head Gardener, but I found they did not perform very well in my garden!
One plant I will not be planting in the bed again is the carnation called ‘King of the Blacks.’ I have planted it twice now, from different nurseries, and each time it has grown reasonably well, making a nice silver clump, but it stubbornly refuses to flower. It sets buds but the flowers, said to be the darkest of the Dianthus clan, refuse to open properly. I grow other pinks and carnations in the bed, so I assume it must just be the variety. I might try the black Sweet William called ‘Sootie’ instead. It has dark purple foliage as well as deepest red flowers.
I can just see it flourishing in that garden - in my mind’s eye at least!

Visiting the neighbour

It was one of those ridiculously fine spring mornings we have been having lately – ridiculous because it is the middle of winter – when I had donned a silly woollen hat, slipped on my golden earmuffs to protect what remains of my hearing, and got the old trusty red lawn mower to work. It was fun and easy, although I could not help but think it was too late in the year to still be mowing lawns!
I had almost finished when the young fellow who lives next door popped over to our shared box hedge and signalled he wanted a chat. He was sorry to have stopped my mowing (I was glad of the break) but could I pop over the hedge and see him when I had finished, as he had a few questions?
The neighbours are a lovely family – Mum, Dad and two little gorgeous blond girls – and I was happy to pay a social visit to discuss a few gardening queries. They are self-confessed tyros at the gardening game and wanted a few bits of advice.
One of the problems they wanted to talk about was moving some fruit trees out of the middle of their lawn. The previous owners planted a mini-orchard, with about three or four peaches and nectarines, a couple of plums and a couple of apples, scattered around an extensive back yard. They are not planted in any lines and the current owner finds it vexing to have to swerve and dodge the trees when he mows the lawn. I think they are also inconvenient when he rides his motorbike around the lawn!
He wanted to know whether he could move them.
Of course, winter is the right time to transplant most deciduous trees, and as these are not very big I am sure they will present no problems to move. In an ideal world he would have wrenched them earlier in the season, and then taken the trees carefully to their new site, but as they are only being moved a few metres into already extant garden beds, I am sure there will be no problem just lifting them now.
Home fruit growers will know only too well what the difference is between tree-ripened, home-grown fruit, and the fruit bought from the local supermarket. It is tastier, fresher, and most importantly, can be left on the tree to properly ripen. It is only tree-ripened fruit that has fully developed sweetness and flavour.
When I asked what varieties the apple trees were, the neighbour shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
“The type that has apples!” he answered.
I was asking because I think if I was growing one or two apples I would be looking to grow something that I could not get from the shops. I love the Wairarapa-bred ‘Royal Gala’ (which I see in now Britain’s most popular eating apple) and ‘Pacific Rose’ is hard to beat later in the season, but there are a few I would be looking seriously at.
A friend grows a number of unusual types, and I was surprised to be given a ‘Peasgood Nonsuch’ during the last season. This is a giant of an apple – colouring similar to Royal Gala but at least twice the size. It is an old variety – released in 1853 – and is very sweet. It bakes very well but is also a delicious fresh apple, and is a reliable cropper in the garden.
If you believe the old adage (and most of them are believable) about an apple a day keeping the doctor away, there are a couple of varieties you might want to try to seek out this year ‘Hetlina’ and ‘Monty’s Surprise.’
The New Zealand Tree Crops Association decided to put their heritage apples to the test, thinking that the older varieties might have higher levels of anti-oxidants and other beneficial compounds. They commissioned exhaustive analysis of their many varieties they were cultivating band two came out trumps.
‘Hetlina’ is a Czech variety, with reliable crops of medium sized red fruit. It is an early season variety carried on a disease resistant tree.
‘Monty’s Surprise’ is the name given to an ancient tree found growing in Manawatu. The large fruit are red splashed over light green, and are crisp. This late ripening variety is great for cooking and is also disease resistant. Sounds like a pleasant way to keep the doctor’s bills down.
If you would like to grow an apple but are very constrained as far as space goes, either espalier along a fence line, or grow some ‘Ballerina’ apples. These are columnar varieties growing perhaps three metres high but no more than 30 cm across. They are obviously well suited to growing in narrow beds, or even as accent plants in formal beds as they have such constricted growth. They are also excellent for growing in containers. There are a number of different varieties, mostly with dance names like ‘Bolero’, ‘Polka’ and ‘Waltz,’ from green-skinned to red, so it would pay to check these out too.
They may be ideal for my neighbours.
While I was visiting the elder daughter, nearly five, confidently rode past us on her bicycle. She is nearly five, and has the confidence of a new cyclist. She grinned like a Cheshire cat each time she went past, and each time she navigated the trailer nearby I gave a sigh of relief. On her last pass she was so intent to showing us her grin she managed to graze the trailer’s drawbar.
Maybe it is just as well those trees are going to be removed from the back yard. Sounds a whole lot safer to me.

Gumballs and mop tops

Sometimes a particular plant will take my fancy for a brief time of the year. The Liquidambar is not a plant I can consider for my garden, as much as I like its autumnal glory – it is simply too big for my garden and I have half an acre – but there are times when I wish I could accommodate it.
Just north of the Esk Valley, on the Napier-Taupo road is a farm garden with a string of these trees, which each autumn turn to fire. I once travelled up the valley at dusk, and the magnificence of the sight was almost overpowering. I recently spent time in the Bay of Plenty, where these trees are such an important part of the autumn landscape, and looked forward to coming back through the Esk to see the trees again. They did not disappoint, although I have to admit I thought I was never going to find them – they are a lot closer to Napier than I remembered.
I drove through the area in December last year and looked out for the trees, but did not notice them. For me at least, they are autumn trees, and well worth growing for that reason, and although they do hold their leaves for weeks at a time, I think it would too extravagant to have such a large tree in the garden.
Unless you go for ‘Gumball.’
This is a dwarf form which only grows to about two metres tall, and can easily be shaped into a tight ball of foliage. I have only ever seen this grafted onto a standard of about 1.5 metres, but it makes a fantastic little accent plant for the formal part of the garden. It has the usual bright green leaves through summer then in autumn the leaves take on red, wine, orange and purple shades. The leaves hold on well into the winter. I can vouch for that because I saw two of these trees in the front lawn of a garden near me, but missed photographing them as a storm approached. After a few days of nor’westerlies, followed by a thunderstorm with rain and hail, the strong southerlies, I was afraid to go back, expecting the trees to be branches only. As you can see from the photograph, both small trees still had most of their leaves.
If you have a large garden and are able to cope with a full sized liquidambar (lucky you!) it would probably pay to seek out one of the named varieties. Most Liquiambars sold in New Zealand are raised from seed, and they are relatively cheap, but some nurseries graft named varieties onto the seedling stock, and if you purchase one of them, you will be certain to get the colour you are wanting.
‘Worpleston’ is one of the most popular varieties. It has an upright pyramidal form with foliage that turns pale apricot and orange first, then switches to deep purple – the colour we imagine when we think of pinot noir.
‘Palo Alto’ also has a good pyramidal form but its leaves turn orange and red. I suspect that the Esk Valley trees are this form.
‘Aurora’ is slightly smaller growing than the previous two varieties, and turns yellow and orange in the autumn.
Of course, the other dwarf from of a popular tree is the wonderful Robinia ‘Mop Top’. They make a bold statement in the garden, and have quickly become one of the most popular trees with landscape designers, who love placing groups of them in beds, or in avenues alongside drives. They are probably now almost thought of as passé, but a bit of imaginative thought and this could make a great feature in a grass garden, or perhaps towering above some informal plantings of hebes and coprosmas.

The family tree of camellias

I come from a gardening family. Among my kin it is not so much a matter of whether you garden, as what you garden. Some relatives share my inherited passion for irises, others have a predilection for fuchsias or orchids, and one branch of the family were great camellia growers.
I say ‘were’ as my Auntie June died recently, and at Queen’s Birthday weekend we gathered to remember her, literally in the shade of a huge camellia bush growing in her daughter’s garden.
Camellias are very rewarding plants to grow. They are tidy evergreens, generally looking attractive year round with bright, glossy green foliage. They are not too demanding as to growing conditions either, as long as a few fundamentals are taken care of.
Soil conditions are simple- slightly acidic soil, free draining is perfect, but less than perfect is not going to worry these plants too much. Camellias do not like growing in waterlogged soils, and they really dislike very alkaline soil, but they will do on most other soils. They will cope with reasonably heavy soils as long as a good degree of humus is added – make sure not to use mushroom compost though, as that is very alkaline.
Sun or shade is not crucial either – camellias are very adaptable as far as light requirements go and they will cope with either. Obviously plants in the full sun will need more protection from wind and sun, with a deep mulch of peat or bark going a long way to helping.
I find our varieties that are growing in the shade flower a little later than those in the sun, and also tend to grow a little looser. I have not seen it in my own garden, but I do know that some plants growing in the shade develop problems with scales and sooty mould, and in extreme cases, thrips.
Camellias can safely be planted at this time of the year as long as one or two little tips are followed.
Work some organic matter into your soil before planting. The bigger the area you can do this for the better, as the plant will make quite a sizable ball of fibrous roots. If you are planting in very heavy soils such as clay, make sure you do not create a large basin in the soil, trapping water in what is in effect a big bucket. Make sure there is a way for any water that potentially could collect in such a depression, to drain away.
Once the soil conditioning has been carried out, dig a hole about twice the size of the container, and sit the container in the base of the hole. The bag can gently be removed, and the soils carefully built up around the root ball. Make sure the top of the root ball is level with the soil, as it will act as a wick and draw moisture out of the soil if it sits higher.
Many varieties have a willowy growth and benefit from being staked as this will stop the new growth from tipping over. New plants like this tend to look a little leggy, and it is tempting to prune out the new growth but this is a mistake. Leave the growth as it will help fill the plant out as it grows, and will give a more mature looking specimen more quickly. This is obviously not the case if you are trying to shape an espalier or other tailored form.
Do not be tempted to feed the shrub as you plant it – this is best left until the spring and summer when it is actively growing. I think it is best to use a slow-release product such as Osmocote, especially on young plants. Use a long-lasting type designed for trees and shrubs, and you will be able to feed annually. For larger tress you could use one of the proprietary mixes designed for azaleas, rhododendrons and Camellias, or the same slow-release types. Natural manures will be fine, but remember to use them sparingly, especially chicken manure. A little and often is probably the best message.
Camellias need little pruning other than for shape. The best time to prune is in winter, as the next season’s flowers are produced on spring growth, and a spring or summer pruning will remove many of the flowers.
I will be looking out for a new Camellia for our garden this season. It will have to be bright and cheery – and it will have to flower in June.

Another week....

One of the great things about my job is that I get to spend half of most days helping people with their research enquiries. It can be all sorts of things, ranging (this week) from the location of petroleum storage tanks in the 1960s, the location of Bacon and Wrigley’s flourmill in the 1880s, through to the discovery of the takahe in the 1940s, and its subsequent cultivation in captivity in Wairarapa in the 1950s and 1960s.
The rescue and raising were largely done by local man Elwyn Welch, whose entry in the New Zealand Dictionary of Biography I wrote some years ago. I was honoured to be invited to the launch of a children’s book about the rescue, and to catch up with Elwyn’s widow Shirley, and their son Murray whom I had gone to school with.
Seems like a great use of an archive, in that the information for the story came from some of my writing, and photographs came from the collection of long-time archive supporter the late Ted Nikolaison’s collection.
The book launch was at Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Centre, and the local paper published this picture of the auther Ali Foster, Shirley Welch and the illustrator Viv Walker, herself a remote cousin of the Welches.

The family has come to light with extra treasures, in the form of correspondence and papers relating to Elwyn’s work, plus movie film from the time. I was shown it yesterday, and promised it will be coming our way soon.
Makes me wonder what next week will bring.

I have finally found my place.

It seems to me that we all spend a lot of our lives looking for our place; the place we belong, the place we feel comfortable. Often that place is illusory, ephemeral – it is a state of mind rather than a physical locale.
But sometimes it is a place. It might be the forest-clad side of a precipitous mountain – it might be the wind-swept reach of a long, sandy beach – it could be the rocky rills of a mountain stream. Or it could be all those things – the long stretch of a rumbling river as it moves from youthful exuberance in gorge-enclosed containment, through expansive valley to a reunion with the sea at a south-facing beach.
Or it could be something a lot simpler than that.
This weekend we went north to Rotorua, for the second anniversary of my daughter Lavinia’s death. We went to spend time with her mother and her partner, and to remind ourselves that her life continues in our lives. It went very well – it was heartening to see how well they are both doing.
And I found my place!

Up the mountain with Kyle

This Saturday I had the fun of sharing my mountain with an American artist friend Kyle Browne. Kyle spent some time at the New Pacific Studio at Kaiparoro last year, and I helped her with some research into the area for a piece she was working on.
It was a fabulous hand-made book, illustrated with some wonderful imagery from her time in the quiet of the retreat, as well as a wonderful storyline about a journey along a dusty road alongside a mountain Stream, the Makakahi.
Kyle returned to Gloucester, Massachusetts, but returned this year to do another retreat, this time at Karamea. We have kept in touch over the past year, and I was happy to meet up with her again when she spent a few days at Kaiparoro. She was there for the ANZAC day ceremony, and the following day we climbed up to Powell Hut.
We had a great day, looking out for fungi and plants, and steadily climbing up the hill.
It is fantastic to see the mountain through someone else’s eyes - especially an artist. She even found a hollowed out tree to hide in on the way down!


The day turned out to be a bit hectic, as I had to race her back to Kaiparoro, then speed back to Masterton to cook tea, then Jill and I went to the opening night of a play our son Owen is in. Hectic but rewarding.

I am a fun guy

I am sorry about the awful pun in the title - only, of course I'm not, or I would simply change it.
I have been hard at work writing my new book on the history of a local park - very "local history" I know - but I took time out to walk around the base of Mount Holdsworth this afternoon, looking for fungi.
I do not have a clue as to the names of any of these, but I was taken with them and thought I'd share.

Autumn glories

Autumn is a funny time in the Wairarapa. It is often a very dry season, with our hot summers stretching on into March, and even April sometimes. Some autumns are the opposite, with rain setting in during February and never seeming to cease.
This has been a dry one, with day after day of fine weather - little wind, no rain.
Some gardens have suffered terribly, and those who have no access to watering systems will have had a heartbreaking season.
But even in years like this, we have some treasures to look forward too.
I love this spparkling white Colchicum, C. speciosum 'Album', with its gloriously clean tulip-shaped flowers.

Its cousin, 'Waterlily' is a ragamuffin flowered thing, with strappy, multipetalled flowers. The child in me loves it.

The toad lilies, Tricyrtus, are a little more refined, and I love them too! This is one of my favourites, T. hirta, in flower at the moment.

Trimble Trust

The drought has broken – sort of. There was a bit of rain overnight and some light showery drizzle during the day, but it did not stop us from going up to have a walk through the Trimble Forest. This is a pine plantation on the banks of the Ruamahanga River in the Mikimiki area, just north of ‘Dunvegan’ farm.
This area is interesting to me because it represents reforestation of an area of the 70 Mile Forest destroyed by the pakeha settlers in the 1880s and 1890s. I had hoped the track might go closer to the river, but we seemed to keep well clear of it. When I walked the Ruamahanga I was looking out for the forest but it is not noticeable from the bed of the river, largely because the section near the bed has only just been replanted.
At one high point on the walk I took this view of the river.

As always on a nature ramble, there were plenty of interesting things to see, including a number of different fungi. I was surprised to see so many different types out in such a dry season – I should think that the next week or two would be very good for fungous hunting. This is a Shaggy Ink Cap, growing alongside the track.

Up Jumbo

I have been missing my mountain, Taratahi, Mount Holdsworth, as I have been working on my Ruamahanga project, so this Good Friday I went up the Atiwhakatu Stream and then up Rain Gauge Ridge to Jumbo Hut. This is a view of the Atiwhakatu just downstream of the hut.

Up on the ridge above the hut I could not help but notice the near straight line the Waingawa River takes as it sprints across the plains to join the Ruamahanga.

There were not many plants in flower but, of course, the Gentians were out. It is typical of our indigenous gentian should be white not violet!

The view along the ridge to Taratahi is stunning – if a little daunting. The track is clearly discernible.

The hikoi

As part of my Ruamahanga project I had been hoping to revisit a number of sites along the river. Local iwi had discussed a trip themselves, and I was intending to join them. I was delighted to hear about a trip that took place last Monday, to the Hidden lakes, to the supposed site of Kohekutu paa, and to Rathkeale College, where a number of old paa sites are known.
A group of ten, including film-maker Richard Clark left the Te Ore Ore making our way to the Hidden Lakes, formed when a huge earthquake caused a Kopuaranga hillside known to Maori as Te Tirohanga a Hinetearorangi ki te Motu a Kapiti, the lookout of Hinetearorangi as she gazed towards Kapiti. Hinetearorangi is an important ancestress of the local people, and she looked over the Tararua mountains to Kapiti island where her ancestors are buried. The lake is local beauty spot.

We then travelled down to an impressive paa site, known to the local farming community as Kohekutu. It is sited on the end of a ridge underneath Rangitumau, the maunga (mountain) that local people associate with. I think it is perhaps another paa, as the rifle-pitted Kohekutu paa was sited in a valley. Nanny Frances found the climbing hard, and she lagged behind, talking with Richard.

The view from the range, looking westward, was amazing. We looked over the Kopuaranga Stream, past Tirohanga towards the Tararua range.

We lunched on the slopes of the hill, then went down to Rathkeale College where we were met by the deputy headmaster Grant Harper, who told us some stories, and showed us the site of the old Waioriori village. He also told us about Waipipi urupa on the top of a hill opposite. I found the tracks of some pied stilts on a sandy beach.

It was a great day. Joe Potangaroa was his usual helpful self, freely sharing his information. Makuini Kerehi arranged the day brilliantly and we all learnt a lot.

Missing the river

I am missing the river. Even though I claim the Ruamahanga as my river, the place where I belong, I had not thought I would become bonded to the river the way I did during my journey.
Perhaps though, it is just the silence I miss – the chance for reflection and thoughtfulness. Perhaps, like many men, I surround myself with noise, both literally and figuratively, as a defence against quiet, but those many hours along the river were a time of peace for me.
I had thought the journey would make me think of Lavinia’s passing, as she was probably the spur to complete this long-held aspiration, but it did not happen like that. It may be that I am more reconciled to that event than I had imagined.
On the final day, I did think a lot about why I was making the journey.
I realised that it felt like the restfulness I felt as a teenager, that troubled time when identity is emerging. I can remember great voyages of exploration then too – an attempted bike ride to Riversdale, on an ungeared 28” men’s bicycle, doomed to failure, and cycling trips to the limestone hills at Gladstone, looking for fossils. On one trip I took my friend Robbie – we rode his tandem, not very well.
But they were trips of discovery, both in the physical and emotional sense.
Many of my friends have had mid-life crises, of differing kinds. They buy red (or green) sports cars, they divorce, they “look for themselves”, (and are usually very disappointed when they do find themselves), they change jobs; take extended holidays, or perhaps fall in love with their young assistants.
Maybe for me, I took a walk along a river.

Go there! .... or got there....

Wednesday 27 February
There at last!
I left Tuhitarata about 10.30, walking along the eastern stopbank. The river looked sparkling – there was next to no wind and the day was not too warm yet.

The first real problem was the Turanganui River – it was not too wide but it was chest deep- and muddy bottomed. I had to cross it, so I did but I wasn’t too happy about it.

I was even less happy when I came across a herd of cows on the stopbank, protected by an electric fence across the stopbank, and wires along the edge of the bank. I had to choose between the electricity and the cows. The electricity won out, and I crawled under the hot wires on the side of the stopbank, past the cows. They watched me, then moved away – of course.

The view to the west is stunning – the Rimutaka Ranges look fabulous – better and better the further south you go. At one stage a cloud conveniently parked itself for me to take a photograph.

It was great to get to the end of the river and move around the beach at Lake Onoke. There are some huge driftwood logs stranded like whales on the beach.

I walked down to the point where the river rushes through the Onoke Spit to meet the sea.
It was about 4.30 when I made it to the Lake Ferry Hotel, to sit and marvel at the view, and have a very cold Heineken.