Tuhitarata Bridge

Tuesday 26 February
Today’s trip was the best – the scenery on this section of the river is amazing. Not as many dramatic cliffs, but a wonderfully meandering river.
I started early – at seven – when the light was brilliant – the river was almost autumnal for a short while at Martinborough.

Bird scarers abound in this area – their thump rebounding from the banks, in a strange staccato effect.
The soil is better and the trees look great on the banks.

I walked for four hours, down to Kahutara, before taking one of John McCosh’s canoes down to the Tuhitarata Bridge. It has been many years since I was in a kayak, but it all came back quickly and it was a thoroughly enjoyable trip down the river using arm power not leg power!

The weather got worse as I paddled along the river - the wind got up and there were even waves on the river. But the view of the Aorangis was marvellous.

John came down to pick me up, and took me back to his house for a cup of tea and a look through his taxidermy museum. This is a lion, not John!

To Martinborough

Sunday 24 February
I rejoined the river early in the morning, for a trot down to the bridge at Martinborough. I got Jill to take a pic of me at the start of the day – maybe not a bright idea!

The river starts to meander through this section. I could see that I was backtracking at times, circling around and around, but as I went I could see a series of wonderful cliffs.
I also saw my first campers, as a couple of parties were settled in caravans at Morison’s Bush. They both had children and dogs, those essential prerequisites of camping.
I was happy to get through Moiki, where I spent some summers camping, when Jill and I were first married.
Just past Moiki, I saw some great wind-blown trees on a large lean, near the confluence of the totally dry Huangarua River, nearly at Martinborough.

Before that I finally got to the bridge, I met my first vessel. Not a jet boat, not a speedboat, not a yacht, but Wave Phillips on a wind surfer without a sail!

All along the river I had noticed that a bulldozer had been along the river – there were tracks along all the beaches, and it seemed that some of the beaches had been ripped. When I got to the bridge I saw why!

Wardells Bridge south

Saturday 23 February
Today I walked through the waters from just south of the Masterton sewage treatment ponds – and did I know it. The stench as I walked down to the river had me worried, but I soon walked through it.
I found the mythical colony of back-billed gulls that my ornithological friends were asking about, on a backwater at Te Whiti o Tu. They were not pleased to seem me, dive bombing me as I walked through their shit-splattered boulders.
I walked underneath the Hurunuiorangi Bridge as a bush of motor scooter fanatics made their way over the bridge. Slightly disconcerting.
One of the highlights of the walk was this fabulous cliff, with layers of colour displayed.

As I walked down further I could hear the bird scarers working at the various vineyards, and suddenly realised that the birds had disappeared from the bed of the river. This lasted for a quite a while, but as I ventured further south the birds returned.
It was great to reach the confluence of the Waiohine, which had a surprising amount of water considering the drouhgt - much mkore than the Waingawa earlier in the day.

I had no lunch with me, and when I stopped to pick some blackberries, a pair of quail whirred out of the large bramble patch I chose. I suspect I got more of as fright than they did!
I hauled out of the river at Healy's property in Fabians Road, near Greytown, after a seven hour day rockhopping. I was hot, and tired, but pleased to have made such good progress.

Double Bridges to Wardell's

Sunday 17 Feburay.
The weather broke this week, and a series of fronts dropped a fair bit of rain in the northern parts of Wairarapa, where the Ruamahanga rises. Masterton missed most of the rain, although the air did turn quite a bit cooler.
On Saturday, the weather was not too bad, and I thought it might have been possible to go down the river on the next stage, but the river was up quite a bit, and also looked very dirty. I decided to take a break and wait for the better weather and improved river conditions of Sunday.
Sunday started cloudy, but the river had subsided a lot from the day before, so I packed up and went north – in order to trek south.
The first crossing of the river – and there were many crossings – convinced me that there was a lot more water in the river as the force of the flow had my trekking stick vibrating!
The journey was a slow one, as the river moved into more inhabited territory. I saw my first car wreck on the banks, and found much more litter on, and in, the river as I moved down towards the Te Ore Ore Road bridge.


I seemed to be accompanied by pied stilts all day today, wheeling and yapping above me. There were often family groups – four or five birds flying together. As I arrived at the Te Ore Ore Road bridge I came across a group of young people playing on a motor cycle, graffiti, and a pile of rubbish.

The river is slowing down all the time – getting wider and deeper as other rivers and stream join in. I walked around the perimeter of Henley Lake and stopped at the confluence of the Waipoua to have a cup of tea. There is virtually no water in the Waipoua at all, and there is an toxic algae in the river. Needless to say I brought my own drinking water.

The walk down to Wardell’s Bridge was saddening really, as this stretch of the river has two major features – Masterton’s rubbish dup, and it’s sewage works.
The Canada Geese, that had been missing from the morning’s walk, were back in evidence in the afternoon, with three or four flocks on the wing. The birds are very cautious, as will take flight whenever I get within three hundred metres. Once, I saw a family of spur-winged plovers flying with the geese. Looked a little odd.
There were a few black swan on the river near the end of the walk, and a number of black-fronted dotterels scattered along the walk. There was also a confident young pied stilt, pecking away at the edge of the river.


The most unusual thing today? There appears to be a teepee on the hills above the Black Rock Road. Something to look into, so to speak.

The next step in the journey

Saturday 8th February, I inflated my car inner tube and got Jill to drop me off at the Mount Bruce bridge as I continued my travels down the Ruamahanga River. My goal was to walk down the river to the area known as “Double Bridges.”
The river is much straighter now as it makes its way across the Wairarapa valley – more correctly, the Ruamahanga Valley. The boulders gradually got smaller as I moved away from the ranges, and the bird life increased. I had not thought about that, but there was a much larger number of birds on the river in the open that there had been in the bush. I saw herons, shags, black backed gulls, pied stilts, magpies, plovers, welcome swallows, mallards, paradise ducks, Canadian geese, hawks, goldfinches, and a pair of New Zealand pipits.

I came to the first landmark, the Ashleigh Gorge, after an hour. This is a very picturesque gorge, narrow and lined with native trees. I can imagine it would be ferocious in a fresh, but at the moment the river is very low and it was peaceful as I floated through.

I fell just before the gorge, and sprained a finger, but it was nothing more than a minor inconvenience during the journey, although it did swell overnight.
After the gorge I worked my way down the river for another two hours, before I reached the Hidden Lakes. I passed my first papa bed (soft sandstone) and a wonderfully picturesque bluff and pool.

There were patches of manuka bush on the riverbank, and the remains of river control schemes, with large strips of steel smashed into rust on the boulders. About halfway to the Hidden Lakes I found some dead Canadian Geese, with shotgun cartridges nearby, and some herons one the Dunvegan bridge, a small stock bridge that replaced the larger suspension bridge erected by the Upper Opaki Saw Mills when they were in operation a century ago..
I took a small break at the Hidden Lakes, and looking at the detritus of the huge landslide found a couple of fragile fossils of a kind of periwinkle.
I pushed on to Double Bridges, taking another two hours. At one stage I walked through a colony of black-billed gulls, and pied stilts, and at one spot, where the river skirted close to a broom-laden bank, there were many damselflies skirting over the water. I noticed both blue (Austrolestes colensonis) and red (Xanthocnemis zealandica) damselflies, flying united, so to speak. They frequently breed on the wing!

The first sign I saw of humans on the trip was when I stopped to photograph the damsels – a man was cutting down kanuka on the opposite bank, his chainsaw spluttering in the early afternoon air. He stopped for lunch as I passed.
I arrived at Double Bridges at just after 1.00 p.m., following a five and a half hour walk. There were children swimming in the river, and quite a few cars parked on the banks.
The first of the big walks in the journey is over. A couple of short ones beckon in the next few weekends, with a trip down to my hometown Masterton next on the agenda, with a walk to my childhood swimming hole at the Te Ore Ore bridge.

Second steps

Today has been Waitangi Day, New Zealander’s day to celebrate our foundation document, and the creation of our state. It is also a day for New Zealanders to think about how we all get on together, and what we can do to make our society better.
I started the day walking back over some of the farmland I traveled on Sunday, then I dropped back into the bed of the Ruamahanga River, to continue my downstream journey.
It was an appropriate day, because this journey took me from the margins of the world of the forest, Te Ao of Tane, into the world of the transformed landscape. I was thinking about these matters as I picked my way backward and forward across the river and along the boulder banks that make up most of the journey.
At one pint I noticed the native mauve-flowered brooms (Carmichaelia spp) had disappeared, their place taken by the yellow introduced broom, Cytisus scoparius. The kereru, the native wood pigeon, had also gone, but there were introduced wood pigeons. And the spectacular beech forest was replaced by rows of pines on the hills ahead.
As I was meditating on this, crossing the river again, I noticed a movement on the bank opposite.
I could not believe my eyes – there were three goats about ten meters away, blissfully unconcerned about my splashing through their domain.

After a two and a half hour journey I came to the SH2 bridge – an beautifully arched structure spanning a small gorge – and found a wonderful clump of the pest plant, montbretia.

The afternoon I spent at the Origins Festival in the local park, where groups of all parts of the community – I saw various Maori hapu (sub-tribes), Phillipines, Samoans, Dutch, German, Scottish and Welsh stalls, but I am sure there were more. There was a fabulous vibe to the day, and it was an uplifting thing to be part of.
The local community station, Access Radio, of which I am a board member, spent the day there, broadcasting, so I could up with the staff, as well as many of my friends from the Maori community.
I hope to speak to various members of the river hapu as part of my journey down the river, possibly starting this weekend, when I will be a part of a party visiting the Te Ore Ore marae, where I will be speaking about some aspects of our history.

First steps down the river

I have had a long-held dream to travel the Ruamahanga River, the river that defines our region. When local Maori talk about their identity they talk about their mountain, the river and their iwi (tribe). For me, I belong to Taratahi (Mount Holdsworth), my river is the Ruamahanga and I am proudly Ngati Pakeha ki Wairarapa – a white person of Wairarapa.

Today I took the firsts steps towards realizing that goal when I joined six members of the Masterton Tramping Club(seven if you include Jess the dog) in a trip down the river from Cleft Creek.
To achieve this we set off at 8.00, to walk in from the road end at Mount Bruce, just off the main highway. We walked across farmland and then through beautiful bush, for about three hours before we reach Cleft Creek.
We then tramped/clambered/rock-hopped/rubber-tubed our way back down the river for about five hours. It was stunning day and a great way to start the challenge that will, hopefully, result in a book on the river.

African beauties

In the middle of summer, when the heat really goes on, we need plants that are going to cope with extreme temperatures, and with lowered moisture levels. It should come as no surprise that many of the plants we look to provide us with colour and life in the mid-summer garden will be coming from the drier areas of the word – South Africa, Australia and the drier parts of the Americas.
I have a particular fondness for the various South African daisies – and there are very many different species available.
Last year’s Ellerslie Flower Show did not feature many flowers, with foliage and decorations being more predominant, but there were tubs of wonderful Osteospermums in full flower.
These flowers have only been very popular for the past twenty years or so. They are commonly called “Cape Daisies” - although they do not have that name to themselves as other members of the vast daisy family are also known by that name – and were once known under their old botanical name Dimorphetheca.
Twenty years ago there was a very restricted range available – mainly white and mauve-pink – and they were grown as seaside perennials, although they are almost hardy in our part of the world. They were also used a lot on banks and walls, as their prostrate habit made them very suitable for such use. They were sunny weather plants, the flowers not opening in cloudy days, or in poor light.
Then the whirligig varieties appeared on the market. These had many spoon shaped petals, and were quickly popular.
Then the Dutch plant breeders got hold of them, seeing a huge market for improved varieties to be used as summer bedding. They have vastly increased the colour range and have also introduced reliability and disease resistance.
The spoon-petalled varieties are released under the name of “Nasinga”, and are available as white, cream, pink and purple. The thinnest part of the spoon is considerable thinner than in older varieties and the flowers look startling – almost space age if you know what I mean. They will not be to everyone’s taste but they are certainly eye catching.
The colour range among the other varieties now includes white, pink, lavender, purple, copper-purple, yellow, cream and apricot. Many of the varieties have two-toned flowers, usually with brighter, deeper colours on the outside of the petals. “Warembo Arwen”, with yellowish flowers, and “Nuanza,” with copper purple flowers, are the ones that I like the most.
These will do very well for summer bedding, as previously stated, but they are also fabulous for growing in hot, dry beds, and, even more so, in containers. They will not mind drying out too much, and will cope in soils with poor fertility. They do not like shady areas, and demand full sun.
Gazanias are also deservedly popular daisies, and have been popular plants in New Zealand for a long time. There are many un-named forms floating around, and many seed grown forms. I like to change my containers every year, trying our new varieties to see whether they are useful for the garden. This year I planted up a pot of a new Gazania called “Stars and Stripes.” These have bright flowers with deep coloured stripes, but I have to say that they are nothing extra special, and a few cuttings from almost any wild gazanias would have done as well.
I planted these with a much more interesting choice – a cereal! I had seen the millet “Purple Spear” in a garden centre the year before and been tempted, but this time I could not resist it. It grows like a dwarf sweet corn, but with deep green foliage edged with purple. The flowers are held on deep purple stems, and are even deeper purple, with golden pollen. I planted a few of these in the centre of a pot of Gazanias, and the effect is great. This plant would also work very well if mass planted, with golden or silver foliage to set it off.
There are some stunning new Gazanias on the market, with bigger and fuller flowers, and denser growth. The best of these are from an Australian breeding programme and have been available in New Zealand for a couple of years now.
“Sunset Jane” is a lovely variety, with coloured, fully-double flowers in shades of
honey, amber and burnt orange. It forms a rounded clump with grey foliage and is s stunning plant with subtle colours.
“Montezuma” is also a fabulous plant, with glorious flowers that change as they age. When young they resemble a wagon wheel with lemon-to-gold fine petals radiating from a bold centre. As they mature, the petals broaden and open to reveal a stunning purple shade with white tips. The leaves are green in this case.

One of my obsessions during the teen-age years (one of the more socially acceptable one!) was a passion for science fiction writing. I have long ago out-grown the fascination, but a little residual memory of it catches up with my every now and again.
It also catches up with my younger son, Owen, who has love of theatre and film – one of his favourite shows is the musical version of the odd “Little Shop of Horrors”.
The unifying feature of much of the science fiction I used to read, and the slightly camp story of a nerdy florist with a problem plant, is that within both genres, flesh-eating plants are the norm.
My guess is that many of the plants that feature in this fiction are based on one or two real plants, the perennially popular Venus Fly Trap in particular.
The Venus Fly Trap comes from very swampy soils in both North and South Carolina in the United States. They are such iconic plants for botanists and gardeners alike (as well as sci-fi writers obviously!) that they are endangered in the wild.
They come from wet soils with very poor fertility, and have developed methods to obtain their nutriment needs from the environment. The “traps” are especially adapted leaves with a series of special hairs protruding from the surface. When an insect lands on the leaf, and moves across it, it springs the hairs, which act as triggers to close the leaves. The insect needs to move across a number of hairs – just one will not trigger the process_ presumably an evolutionary defence against wasting energy trying to digest dirt and dust.
The “trap” has guard hairs on the outer rim, and if the insect that triggers the hairs is too small to be nutritionally viable, the leaf will not close properly, allowing the insect to escape. Similarly, if the trap is triggered by a stone of piece of bark, the leaf seams to be able to recognize this, and it opens again after about twelve hours, and ejects the foreign object.
If the leaf traps an insect, such as a fly, the process goes into overdrive. The guard hairs, cilia they are called, hold the prey within the leaf, which closes tightly enough to be water-tight. The plant then secretes digestive juices (rather like the chemicals our own stomachs use!) which break down the soft, fleshy parts of the insect, leaving the hard exoskeleton behind. When the prey has been digested, which takes from about five to ten days, the juices are re-absorbed and the trap opens again. The dried-out skeleton is exposed to the wind and soon blows away. No-one is quite sure how the plan achieves this trick, as it obviously has no muscles or a nervous system- the best guess is that differences in fluid pressure are at work.
This is a popular plant with young men. When I worked in the retail end of the horticulture trade, we had a steady demand for these insect-eating plants from such customers. Every now and then, one of the local boarding schools would have a craze on them, and we would have lots of fifteen year olds looking to buy them.
Fortunately they are not very hard to grow as long as one or two points are kept in mind.
Firstly, these are plants from warm and moist climes, and need similar conditions to grow well, especially over summer. Ideally, they should be grown in poor, wet soil, so the best bet is to use a mix of sand and sphagnum moss. Do not add any fertilizer nor any lime, and make sure the rhizome is flush with the top of the mix. Just keeping the water in the saucer underneath the pot should keep the humidity about right.
The plants need good light and warmth, but you will need to be careful to avoid exposing them to full sun near a window as they will wilt in extreme heat, especially if they are a little dry. One solution might be to grow a plant in a terrarium, where the humidity levels will be naturally high.
These plants come from areas with cool winters, so they will need a period over winter when they can have a rest. That is simply a matter of ensuring that they are a little cooler, and the watering can be slightly less during this time too.
You cannot use a Venus Fly Trap to keep the flies under control in the house, as each plant only requires about two small flies a month. I imagine that many plants are killed by inquisitive young men feeding the plants with pieces of hamburger, fried bacon and luncheon sausage.

Spikes and all....

I have an intriguing old book on my shelves, a settlers’ guide. It is a compendium of all sorts of information for new settlers heading west across the vast North American landscape. The publishers assumed that there would be a demand for a book that could guide these new adventurers on all aspects of their lives, and they filled the large volume with information on all sorts of things.
There were plans for homesteads and dovecots; information on different cereal crops; details on aspects of veterinary care; sketches of rudimentary surgery needed in times of accident; recipes for fireworks, and of course, a section on gardening.
The gardening section is largely concerned with the provision of foodstuffs for the family, but there are also some pages devoted to ornamental horticulture.
The first time I glanced through these pages I was amused to find a new classification for plant types. This book does not group plants according to their family or genus – instead it states that there are only four types of trees - columnar, round-headed, pyramidal and weeping. It is certainly an interesting way to divide plant types.
This classification system was bought home to me again recently as I have been contacted by a few people about rosette forming plants flowering for their first time, and wanting identification of these plants. In our climes it is almost always one of two plants that people are talking about.
The first of these is one of the most spectacular of all flowering plants, the so-called “Sapphire Tower”, Puya alpestris. This looks for all the world like some kind of weird cactus as it grows. It forms a rosette of greyish-green leaves, symmetrically arranged, and edged with hideously sharp spikes. As the plant matures the rosette gets larger until it is about two metres across.
It then throws up the most amazing flower stem. At first the stem looks like a large silvery asparagus spear, but it grows rapidly until it is about two metres high, then the flowers themselves appear along the stem.
The colour of the individual flowers is almost impossible to adequately describe. I have seen them called “iridescent, peacock bluish-green” by an author, who then confessed that he found the flowers impossible to describe, and said the colour could not be found on any colour chart.
These flowers are set off my bright orange anthers, and last about three or four days, although a succession of flowers will give a relatively long flowering season.
This exotic beauty is in fact of the vast bromeliad family, hailing from Chile, making it a distant cousin of the pineapple. It seems to be quite hardy in our area, as I have seen plenty of plants growing out in the open. Most bromeliads are very particular about having good drainage so I suspect that would be its prime cultural requirement, and plenty of summer moisture.
It is not often seen in garden centres, but if you are looking for a really exciting accent plant for your garden, it is well worth hunting this beauty out. Do not plant it too close to the front door though, unless you are trying to discourage door-to-door salesmen, as the spikes will happily spear anyone or anything that gets to close.

Some gardening highlights for 2007

Biggest disappointment- the non-arrival of my seed from the SPCNI pool in the United Statte, due to MAF finding a speck of fungous. A year's new genes missed out on.

Biggest improvement in a garden –Hollard’s Garden, Taranaki. I had previously visited this garden in October, and been disappointed, but visiting in November I saw a totally different garden. Pretty much my ideal sort of garden – well laid out, lots of unusual plants, and lots of unusual combinations. I loved it. Runner up – Auckland Botanical Gardens – I visited twice – July and November – and the gardens were very interesting both times, with lost of interesting plants and well thought-out advice.

Hollards gardens

Biggest surprise of the year – “Richmond” Garden I was a bit worried about visiting this garden, as I was not sure about whether I would like it. I was expecting it to be very austere and unwelcoming – threatening almost- but found it to be a charming a peaceful garden. It is certainly not a cottage garden, not a modern succulent garden, but it is a stunning piece of garden art and everyone who gets the chance should visit.

Worst mistake in a garden – is a tie this year. The Palmerston North Rose Trial gardens looked dreadful this year. Apparently the gardeners swapped their brand of spraying oil, and the roses did not like it. This year’s trial will be next to useless I think.
The other tied garden I will not name, because I do not want to cause them trouble, but a nationally rankled garden had a huge patch of one of the most poisonous noxious weeds, Cape Tulip, Homeria, in full flower. To the gardeners’ credit, when I told them they immediately destroyed all the plants.


Most spectacular plant. No contest here. The wonderful red mistletoe growing on the banks of the Atiwhakatu River, just upstream from Donnelly’s Flats, flowering just before Christmas. A most remarkable sight- just a pity we can not grow them in the garden.

New flowers from maiden plants

This has been a very strange season, with many frost damaged plants from seed sown in 2005 failing to flower and then, very late in the season, a few flowers on seed sown in 2006.
I am not complaining - any seedlings in flower are something to celebrate.
In season 2005 I crossed two of my favouriste seedling. 03059 is a Foothill Banner seedling, with interesting markings and a bigger flower than FB.

08081 is a "Magic Sea" seedling with glowing blue flowers, not unlike "Mendocino Blue".



I do not know what I expected to see from crossing these two, but the two sibs below are the first of these seedlings to flower. They are both interesting, but not quite what I was expecting!

Cabbage trees

Flaxes and cabbage trees – what a flowering season they are having this year – and what does it portend?
This season the cabbage trees and flaxes all seem to be having a fantastic flowering season, with many people commenting to me that they have never seen such a good bloom on their plants. I have even had one or two non-gardeners contact me, concerned about the funny creamy white growths they have noticed on their cabbage trees, worried about what it might be.
Although it is fabulous that these iconic New Zealand plants are having a fruitful season, according to Maori tradition, it does not augur well for those who are already fretting about the lack of moisture we have experienced this year. Maori tradition states that the sooner the cabbage tree blooms, the sooner the summer arrives. In another version, the better the flowering, the hotter the season. This has also been applied to flowering in flaxes.
In his wonderful book Dancing Leaves, the story of New Zealand’s cabbage tree, ti kouka, Philip Simpson offers a more prosaic explanation of the flowering habits of cabbage trees. He quotes research that suggests a biennial flowering pattern, with alternate years being larger or smaller, but overlays this with a longer interval between mass flowerings caused by the length of time taken for new stems to reach maturity. He suggests that sometimes these two patterns align, and a significantly more prolific flowering occurs.
There is another factor at work too. These bumper flowering years seem to follow periods of good growth, when the plants are able to make better plant growth, and able to convert their nutriment into flowers.
I guess you have to take your choice; Maori tradition holds that the flowering foreshadows a long, hot, dry summer, while pakeha scientists say that it is an effect of good growing period the year before. Either way, let’s just enjoy this rare floral treat from these wonderful New Zealanders.
Many gardeners have very negative feelings about cabbage trees, finding their leaf shedding habits very trying. I confess that, as much as I love the larger species and forms in the countryside and in large gardens, I would struggle to find room for them in a smaller garden.

But there are newer garden hybrids that are very much worth growing. Among these is the very attractive Jury hybrid from Taranaki, ‘Red Fountain’. There was a large number of this plant in the Auckland Botanical Gardens when I visited recently, and the staff at the gardens are obviously taken with it too, as they have erected information boards, extolling its virtues.
‘Red Fountain’ has bright burgundy red leaves from a stem that stays very small – the breeders say their plant has not grown 30 cm tall. The leaves weep gracefully, giving red cascade effect. They are very hardy and will cope with full sun. They are not fussy about soil types, and can easily cope with any but the hardest frosts. In view of the predicted dry summer, it is also useful that they can cope with minimal watering once established.
I think these are just made for growing in containers. I have seen some growing in electric blue glazed pots and they look stunning. They flower too – they had lots of flower in Auckland a few weeks ago – and the light pink to mauve flowers have a delightful scent – jasmine-like although not very strong.

A day on Mount Holdsworth - and what a day

I got an e-mail from a geologist friend the other night, telling me that the native mistletoe was in flower on the Atiwhakatu River bank on Mou=nt Holdsworth in the Tararua Range, just upstream of Donnelly’s Flats. I had heard about this particular plant – a specimen of Peraxilla tetrapetala I think – but I had never seen it in flower.

The mistletoe is very rare in the Tararua Range now – as it is most places – and the few trees that have specimens have been banded with wide strips of metal to prevent the opossums from reaching them.
It is worth the effort as they are spectacular plants. Older books talk about this plant being common in the Tararuas. What a sight it must have made.

I pushed on up the track, and went up the Hooper Loop track to Mountain House. On the way up a stiff climb I came across a little group of tiny orchids in the mossy floor underneath the beech. I think they are Caladenia nothofageti.
[An orchid expert friend has identified this as Adenochilus gracilis]

Coming back down the track I found the clump of greenhoods I saw in flower last year, just before Rocky Lookout on the way down. I think they are Pterostylis australis, but greenhoods look remarkably alike!


[The same friend, Ian St George, had this to say about the greenhood - The greenhood is probably P australis, but there are features of P. areolata and P. patens – I think there is a fair bit of hybridisation among these insect pollinated species]

I had to stop at Rocky Lookout on the way back down and check whether the Winika cunninghami was in flower around the back of the rock – it was, but very sparse!

Ngatea lilies

My children (and the Head Gardener too I think) say that I have a mortgage on silly jokes – “Dad jokes” they call them. I have news for them. I have found a garden filled with silly jokes, of the practical and unpractical variety in equal measure.
It is the extensive water garden in Ngatea called ….. surprisingly….. the Ngatea Water Garden.
I was driving north recently, going from Tauranga toward Miranda on the Thames Estuary to see the multitudinous bird life that gathers on the beach there. I noticed the large signs for the water gardens and decided that I needed a break in the journey. I didn’t expect to find quite the sort of garden I found though.
Roger and Emma Blake started this project in 1995 when they bought the 2 hectare property. Neither had a background in horticulture, but Roger’s engineering skills came in very handy as the couple set about constructing four large ponds on their property, using the excavated soils to help shape the gardens.
They were greatly helped by the extremely high water table on the Hauraki Plains – the ponds started to fill as soon as they were excavated. In total, over 5000 cubic metres of soil was shifted, and 300 tonnes of greywacke imported for building the rock features, including a large waterfall.
The ponds were cleverly designed with shallow areas near the shore and much deeper middles. This allows the water lilies and other aquatic plants to flourish near the shore, while also allowing the ponds to be relatively clean.
The water level in the ponds is almost self regulating – a 1 mm rainfall will mean a 3 mm increase in the pod levels, before the overflow system works. There are pumps to top up the water, but they are usually only used for about two months a year.
I wandered around the garden for over an hour, looking at the various highlights, jokes and plants. For part of the journey I was accompanied by a troupe of white ducks, no doubt thinking they would score a meal from me. They were to be disappointed.
There were a lot of different plants in flower in the garden, and they were very well labeled, so my camera was going mad. I was particularly interested in the Louisiana irises,, and the water lilies.
The Louisiana irises are water loving plants from the Southern United States, and unlike many so-called water plants, these are true pond-edge plants that do not mind being planted in boggy ground. They are vigorous plants, and have large flowers in a range of colours from near-red to blue, purple, white and yellow, with all sorts of combinations.
These are nowhere near as popular as they should be. They are easily grown in almost any garden soil except the very dry, and they are very hardy. For the water gardener they are essential.
Water lilies are a little trickier, although they are not as difficult to cultivate as most gardeners seem to imagine, and will provide many moths of glorious flower for the pond owner, or the tub owner for that matter.
There are many different types of water lily, but the hardy varieties are the easiest to grow outside in our climate. They flower with a wide range of colours, except for the blues and purples. For those shades you need to grow the less hardy tropical varieties.
Garden centres will have hardy varieties in stock now, usually growing in little tubs they have constructed for display purposes.
The hardy water lily existed only as a few species, found in different parts of the world, until the mid-1800s when French nurserymen created hybrids of many different kinds including most of what we now regard as classic water lilies. These were the same water lilies that Monet bought for his ponds, and most are still in cultivation today. New hybrids continue to be produced by today's growers, expanding the range of colour and form.

Water lily Pink Sensation

The easiest way to plant water lilies is in special mesh baskets. Start out by putting some aquatic fertiliser tablets in the base of the basket then fill the basket with garden soil, clay or special water lily potting mix. Do not use normal potting mix as it will probably have too much fertiliser in it.
The basket should be three-quarters filled with the soil, and formed into a mound. Place the lily rhizome on the top of the mound, tilted so the growing tip is at the final soil level. Fill the rest of the basket with soil, then top with gravel to help hold the rhizome firmly.
Gently place the basket into the pond. Often the plant is placed in shallow water until it has started growth, and then placed in slightly deeper water. The idea is to keep the pads at, or slightly under, water level.
The elegant flowers will appear right through summer. Once the flower bud reaches the surface of the water, it will open in the morning and close in the evening for three successive days before sinking beneath the surface again.
Water lilies need very little ongoing care. When they have filled their baskets they need to be divided and replanted – it is a good chance to swap varieties with other growers. At the end of the season remove all dead foliage and just leave the basket to over winter, as these plants are true perennials and go dormant over winter.

Water lily 'James Brydon' and fish

If you are in the Hauraki area this summer take the chance to see these water gardens – the various water lilies are worth the effort alone, and there are plenty of other horticultural attractions as well.And see if you can out up with the “Dad jokes” while you are there!

Pacific Coast Irises 2007

This year’s Pacific Coast season has been terrible, from the view point of new seedlings.
It started off badly when my annual delivery of seed from the Society for Pacific Coast Irises (SPCNI) was halted at the border because the inspectors found some supposed fungous spores on one seed. All the seed was detained and destroyed.
Then the growing season turned our bad as well. We had a number of late frosts, one or two of them quite hard, and it killed many buds in the fan. Some of the more established plants ended up having a beautiful late season flush, and the naturally late flowering types were lovely in the first week or so of November. The hybrids with a strong dose of I. munzii flowered last and they were lovely. They have a restricted colour range, in the blue range, but they are lovely things.
My crossing this year has concentrated on some “Pretty Boy” seedlings. Plants grown from seed in 2003 have given small plants, with flowering stems only about 15 cm high, and in mauve shades. The best of these are very light. 2004-41

Plants from 2004 seed have tended to be more in the orange/yellow shades, although there is one very floriferous dwarf form with mauve flowers, 2004-041. My favourite is my 2004-053, which has apricot pink flowers. It does not set seed very well as a pod parent, but seems to have worked as a pollen parent as there are pods filling.

2004-053
The best of this year’ seedlings are 2004-004 and 2004-005, both seedlings from ‘Wishing,” and the lovely 2004-056, a seedling from “Sojourner.”

2005-004

2005-053

Now I just wait for the SPCNI seed list, and for my own crosses to swell up those pods so I can harvest and start again!

Waterfalls

Dawson's Falls, Taranaki

Mist at Bridal Veils Falls

Bridal Veils Falls

This week I went on a big trip north. I went through Rotorua, onto Auckland via a very circuitous route. I reported on the Ellerslie Flower Show, then made my way back home, also going to some off beat places.

On my travels I saw two awesome waterfalls - the Bridal Veil Falls near Raglan, and Dawson's Falls on Taranaki, Mount Egmont.

My son sent me an e-mail of some waterfalls he saw on his trip to the Catlins, south of Dunedin, so this is my riposte!

Snowball trees

I had a new experience this weekend. I showed some flowers at the local horticultural society’s show. I think I once entered a sand saucer in a show when I was a young child, encouraged by my family no doubt. My grandparents were keen exhibitors, and in my late mother’s scrapbook, I have newspaper entries of her horticultural endeavours. Pride of place went to a photograph of a prize-winning ginger plant she assiduously cultivated against the wall of our house, where it was protected from frost. I can still recall her pride in the sweetly-scented plant. She would be horrified to know that it is now a noxious weed!
This Saturday morning saw me taking a bucket of my Pacific Coast Irises seedling flowers down to the local hall, where I carefully arranged them among the many other flowers. It was really just a chance to let other gardeners see how lovely they are, but I confess to being slightly chuffed at winning a couple of little certificates.
There were many different flowers in the hall – not many roses as it is still a little early in this late flowering season- and I enjoyed looking at other exhibitors’ vases. One of my favourites was a large vase filled with that most child-like off all shrubs, the Snowball Tree.
This delightfully old-fashioned shrub has instant appeal at this time of the year when its large white flowers – they really do look like snowballs – cover the bright green leaves. When the flowers first appear they have a greenish tinge, but they soon take on a pure white colour. They are very attractive as cut flowers, and I believe they are currently being looked at as a cut flower crop.
The shrubs grow to about four metres high, but they do better if they are trimmed, and also thinned out to stop the branches becoming crowded and the flowers reducing in size. The foliage is deep green through summer, and colours up in the autumn, although that is not so noticeable in warmer climates. It is very unfussy as to soil type, but prefers a sunny aspect. It will grow better is given some wind protection.
It glories in the odd name of Viburnum opulus ‘Sterile’. The wild form of the species has flat flowers, fully fertile, but in this form the individual flowers are all sterile, and composed of large florets, much like a mop-headed hydrangea. Being sterile the flowers do not set seed.
The fertile flowered forms are very popular overseas, but less so in this country. They are mot so attractive in flower, but they have a wonderful summer/autumn bonus with very attractive berries, usually red. The form ‘Compactum’ is dwarf growing, to about a metre, and has white lace cap flowers in spring. The berries are red.
Those of you who took Latin at school (there cannot be many of you left now!) will recognise that ‘Xanthocarpum’ will have yellow fruits.
There are many different Viburnums in flower at this time of the year in New Zealand, representatives of a large genus of trees and shrubs, some with sterile flowers interspersed among the fertile, others with fully fertile flowers. Have a look around – there is bound to be one you like.