Magnolias

This has been a remarkable season for deciduous magnolias – the best I can remember in years. We have gone through a sustained period without any strong frosts and that has meant that the buds, so often cleaned out by the cold weather, have been able to mature into full blooms, and have been spectacular.


Among those to look their best this year have been the various forms of Magnolia campbellii, with their stunning pink flowers, and the amazing white M. denudata ‘Alba’. There are not too many of these trees in our inland location, partly I guess because the flowers are so frost tender that it can be a heartbreaking occupation growing these beauties. They are also very reluctant to flower early in their lives – we always used to tell people it could take up to 15 years before they would settle into flowering.

If you want to play it safe there are always the very hardy old forms of M. x soulangeana, which are reliably hardy although they are perhaps not as entrancing as modern hybrids, tending to be thinner, tulip-shaped, and often rosy purple flowered. These are the giant magnolias that grace most suburbs in established New Zealand towns. We don’t have any in our garden, but in our neighbourhood there are trees nearly 20 metres high, and they are covered with flowers at this time of the year.

As they grow they take a very pronounced rounded form, which looks slightly eerie over winter (some kids call them witches trees!) but come the spring, when covered with their multitude of two-toned flowers, they are just amazing.

The newer hybrids are a great advance, and over the past fifty years or so, New Zealand has led the world in producing M. campbellii derived hybrids in an amazing range of colours, with increased hardiness and more precocious flowering, as well as reduced size.

The initiator of this progress was Felix Jury, one of the well-known plant breeding family from Taranaki. He had ordered a plant of the M. campbellii form called ‘Lanarth’ from England, but when it first flowered it was immediately obvious that it had been sent in error and was not true to type, but was nonetheless very attractive so he released it, calling it ‘Mark Jury’ after his son.

But things did not stop there. He used this as a parent, crossing it to more compact forms, and developed a wonderful collection of hybrids, including the enormously flowered pink form, ‘Atlas’, the lovely two-toned ‘Athene’, the delectable pink ‘Serene’, two stunning white forms, ‘Lotus’ and ‘Milky Away’, and the remarkable creamy pink ‘Iolanthe’, with its long lasting flowers.

‘Iolanthe’ flowers young, with giant saucer shaped creamy pink flowers that are borne along the branch, not just at the tip as is the common way, meaning the flowering season lasts longer than most other varieties.

I had a bad case of déjà vu the other day.  I was wondering through my local garden centre having a look through their new arrivals, when I noticed a lovely red Leucadendron, with bright shining bracts.  It looked a little like the old variety we used to sell as L. salignum ‘Red’, so I looked closer to see what variety it was.

I was pleasantly surprised to see it was named ’Jack Harre’, after the well known and regarded protea grower.  It brought back pleasant memories of trips up to the Harre nursery at Rewa, near Kimbolton, where we would load up truckloads of Leucadendrons, Leucospermums and Proteas, and then retire for a cup of tea with Jack.  He was an ex-dairy farmer and his nursery was not the tidiest one you will ever see, but he certainly knew his plants and had a great way with words.  He wrote a very good book on the Protea family, and was even interviewed by National Radio about his childhood.

The Leucadendron named for him is a compact growing form with flaming-red star-like bracts at the end of arm-length branches from early in winter. The cooler the weather becomes, the deeper the flowers become.  This is a rapid growing form suitable for most gardens, and becomes a nicely rounded shrub. 

Pebble gardens

During this past week I have been corresponding with a Christchurch-based researcher who is writing a history of New Zealand gardening.  He was interested in the changing way we have gardened over the past forty years, the time I have been active as a gardener, nurseryman and garden writer.

It made me think of the huge changes made in the garden world, with the demise and diminution of many of the specialist flower societies that were once so popular – who has a cactus club in their region any more? – and to the many fads that have come and gone during that time.

The writer was especially interested in the cult of the pebble garden in the 1970s, wondering whether it really was as popular as some of the literature of the time would indicate. 

I can certainly recall the intense interest in this form of gardening, which seemed to involve me unloading truckload after truckload of bags filled with dirty and heavy scoria, the pebble of choice, even this far away from the source, and the thousands of dwarf conifers and small Ericas that were very much in fashion for these gardens.

I suspect the fad came from a combination of the popularity of the Western American Sunset series of garden publications, which stressed the idea of planting gardens that required little maintenance, combined with the English notion of heather gardens, largely comprised of Ericas, Callunas and dwarf conifers.
In New Zealand we added some native elements – the variegated Hebe ‘Waireka’ seemed to be in every pebble garden, along with the yellow flax, Phormium ‘Yellow Wave’, and the dwarf  dark leaved kohuhu, Pittosporum ‘Tom Thumb’.

The craze did not last very long, but in a way it has a continuing influence, with many modern gardens having stone mulches and, especially in northern areas, a Californian planting style.

In our rush to get away from such plantings we have also abandoned many of the plants that were such a feature of ‘pebble gardens’, and maybe it is time to rethink our attitudes to these once-popular garden features.

I recently stopped and looked at a heather bed in the Wellington Botanical Gardens, and I was underwhelmed.  It contained a number of cultivars from both the Northern Hemisphere, generally with smaller flowers in clusters that flower in winter and spring, and those from the African continent, which have larger flowers, a greater colour range, and also flower for a longer period.  I think most of the plants would work be of more value when planted in a mixed planting, and should not be isolated in a ghetto of Erica-only beds.

For winter flowering it is hard to go past Erica melanthera, especially the form sold as ‘Improved’, which has a vibrant mass of pink haze from early June, and the exciting  Erica ‘Surprise’, a supposedly pure white form of Erica melanthera which sometimes produces both pink and white flowers hence the name.

The weekend did not start very well for my whangai granddaughter.  A soccer game in the cold and wet went gone badly awry, the scoreline being so onesided I will not embarrass her by repeating it here, but let me assure you, it was ugly, and made worse by her having friends playing in the opposing side.

To try and rescue the day, we decided we would take her younger sister and investigate the pig pens and chicken coops at the nearby school to revive flagging spirits.  Fortunately the rain had abated and the wind had died down, so we traipsed across the paddocks to see our farm animal friends.

The children were enchanted by the ham and egg production units, but I was far more taken with the wildlife – mud-encrusted pigs’ snouts just do not do it for me, but the sound of the tuis chortling and singing away in the adjacent gum tress was a delight.

The school has a major planting of gums for firewood but the tuis were inhabiting a beautiful specimen of the winter flowering red gum, Eucalyptus leucoxylon ‘Rosea’.   This is a selected form of a widespread Australian species, with deeper coloured red flowers than are normally found in the wild and is an invaluable tree for the gardener wanting to attract extra bird life into the garden in winter, as it flowers for many months during the coldest time of the year.

It is a small to medium sized tree (among a family that has some giant members) with attractive light-coloured bark and typically olive green gum leaves and, although it probably grows too big for small gardens, it is one that should be considered for slightly bigger sections.

I know those who advocate all native gardens for everyone are not going to like the idea of planting Australian gums tui feed, and they are not going to like the idea of using Banskia integrifolia for the same reason. It is perhaps not the most exciting of this Australian genus of trees and shrubs, but the light yellow bottlebrush flowers, usually with a funny greenish cast as well, are very freely produced through most of winter. 

There are many different varieties of this species in Australia, including both coastal and mountain forms with different growing requirements. The most commonly planted forms in New Zealand are all seed raised and seem to be able to cope with most anything our climate throws at them, although they do struggle with cold and frosty sites.

It is hardy and quick growing, and is often used for shelter belts in warmer areas of the country.  It copes with both sandy and clay-based soils, so is a good choice to help establish new gardens.

A new beginning

The weekend was freezing cold again – but this time I was happy enough with the cooler temperatures, as I had to dig out a new garden, or rather extend an older one. 

It was all a bit annoying actually.  A visit from the swimming pool inspection team resulted in the information the pool had failed because we had a vegetable garden in the same enclosed area. The kindly inspector patiently explained to me why it was a bad idea, and I have to say I grudgingly agreed with him, although I am still perplexed as to why the pool had passed previous inspections.

I accepted the inevitable, and tried to think of ways around the problem, in the end coming to the conclusion that I had to transfer my vegetable garden out of the enclosed area and into an adjacent area at the end of the driveway.  The cleared vegetable grounds would be converted for flowers and shrubs.

That entailed one slight problem.  The garden bed at the end of the drive was not big enough, and I knew would be in for a few hours of strenuous digging to convert old driveway into garden.  I had created the original bed in the January of the first year we were here, and I knew how hard the compacted base mix was going to be, but I also knew there was going to be some well drained soil underneath it, and I would be able to create a well-drained and fertile garden.

It was certainly easier digging in the cool of winter – the first time I dug this compacted tangle of sandy spoil and small boulders in the summer heat I was taking a break every fifteen minutes and diving into the pool!  This time I started in the frosty cold, and as the day warmed (slightly) and I heated, I discarded layer after layer of unwanted clothing until I ended up in a tee shirt and shorts.

As I worked I recalled the interesting plants we had grown in the border over the years.

The bed started out as a mixed border, with lots of perennials and annuals to keep it colourful.  The first year of planting featured some annual and perennial Lavateras.  The perennial ‘Barnsley’ was undoubtedly the star of the garden.  This is the delightful light pink tree mallow that seemed to be in everyone’s garden in the early 1990s, and is a sport from the deeper pink form called ‘Rosea’.  It is a quick growing, floriferous plant, flowering for months over spring and summer, but it tends to be short lived.  It is easily kept growing from cuttings and certainly makes a wonderful display if grown in the sun with good drainage.  Keep an eye out for reversions to the deeper form – it is not quite as attractive.

I was looking through some of my gardening books on Saturday, as I recuperated from a period outside in that awful windy and wet weather. As often happens, I did not find what I was looking for, and, as usual, it was my own fault – I got sidetracked by a remarkable coincidence.   Two different books on perennials described themselves as being the definitive one, “from Acanthus to Zauschneria.”

What is interesting is that both these name are probably unfamiliar to anything other than keen gardeners, although one of them is, or rather was, quite a common plant.

The most famous of the many species of Acanthus is the plant known to generations of gardeners as ‘Bears Breeches’, A. mollis.   This is a handsome perennial with shining, green leaves whose distinctive cut shape is replicated in architectural decoration, most famously atop Corinthian columns.  As well as a good show of luxuriant looking foliage, the plant carries a wonderful flower show – spikes of purple bracts that enclose white flowers, up to 1.8 metres high.

This plant is at its best in light shade, with good shelter and a deep moist soil but it can be a bit invasive, spreading by deeply buried rhizomes, and, once established, is tricky to remove entirely.  It is a valuable plant for the edge of woodland or in semi-wild areas, but perhaps not one to introduce into the most valuable spaces in the garden.

There is an interesting golden foliaged form around, originating in the Hollard garden at Kaponga in Taranaki, called ‘Hollards Gold’.  It is very attractive but is just about as persistent.

The only other species sometimes seen in New Zealand is a prickly customer, as it the name A. spinosus suggests.  In contrast to the above, it has lanceolate leaves, heavily dissected almost to the midrid, and also carries a smattering of soft spines.  Unlike the above, this prefers full sun and a well-drained soil, and is often seen with other spiky sunlovers, such as agaves and aloes.

The other end of the alphabet, the Zauschneria is not as popular as it should be in New Zealand, as it is a bright and cheerful perennial with a lot going for it.  As its common name of ‘Californian Fuchsia’ suggests, it is a native of western North America, and it forms a dense bush from a woody rootstock.  The grey/green foliage is topped through the summer and into the autumn with brilliant scarlet flowers, tubular in shape, reminiscent of fuchsias.

This is an easily grown plant in full sun and well-drained soils, where it will easily grow about 40 cm across and about 50 cm high.  There is a white form around, which is pretty enough in its own way, but the red is the thing with this plant, so get that one if you can find it.  It can be increased by division over the winter, but it strikes readily from semi-softwood cuttings in the spring and I think that is the easier way to go.

Another California perennial that is seldom seen is the amazing Californian Tree Poppy, Romney coulteri, which has the most glorious semi-transparent delicately crinkled white flowers,  about 150 mm across.   I guess it is best described as a sub-shrub, as it does form a sort of woody base, growing to about 1.5 metres high and around that wide too, but it best treated as though it is an herbaceous perennial, and cut back each year.

The foliage is grey-green again, very deeply cut,  and the flowers are borne in clusters of up to 20 on the end of long stems which branch at the top.  These flowers, which can be cut for the house although they have an unusual fruity scent, are carried through the spring and into the summer.

This plant is very particular about where it will grow.  It needs good drainage and full sun – it simply will not do well in the shade or damp – but then it presents another problem.  If it likes where it is growing it can grow too well, and be a bit of a pest.  It spreads with runners from its fleshy roots (root cuttings are the best way to increase it) and in well-drained sandy soils it can be a bit of a pest.

T

From my office window at home I get a nice view of my neighbour’s golden totara, which is one of those trees that are interesting year round.  In the spring the new foliage makes the whole tree go bright green, but as summer arrives it turns rich yellow before arriving at the deep golden colour it keeps for the winter.  If left untrimmed at makes an attractive irregular growth habit, but of you have a passion for clipping it can also be kept well under control and trimmed to whatever height you want – within reason.   I have seen it used for hedging and the effect is spectacular.

The golden totara, officially Podocarpus totara ‘Aurea’, is a male form and as such will grow slower than most seed grown trees, and will grow in most soils, but like many totaras, does not like to have wet feet.

I think this lovely golden totara may be one of our most underrated trees as it provides some colour, without being a glaring as most of the golden forms of other conifers, such as Macracarpas.

There are not that many golden trees than can comfortably be planted into a modern-sized garden.  When I first started in the gardening trade we used to sell hundreds of golden elms, Ulmus procera ‘Lutescens’ also known as Louis van Houtte, but as this quickly tunrs into a giant,it is too big for small gardens, despite its attractions.   In spring, the new leaves are bright golden- lime but as summer moves on they age to soft golden yellow, deepening to rich yellow in autumn.

It is one of the hardiest golden leafed trees, well able to cope with windy exposed sites. A friend grew some along the top of a rise on his farm, exposed to winds from all quarters, and, although the trees were certainly not as luxuriant as they would have been in a more sheltered spot, they also grew perfectly well for him.

Probably the most popular golden tree for home gardens now is the wonderfully bright Robinia pseudoacacia ‘Robinia’.  This is not really a naturally small tree and needs the occasional pruning to keep it under control, but there is no doubt it is a wonderful tree.  The Robinias are native to the United States and Mexico, R. pseudoacacia being the only species commonly grown.  The type species is a very fast growing tree which has a suckering habit, making it used for erosion control at one time – the stock would not eat it and the timber is very durable, even when untreated.  Having said that, it is hardly a tree for the home garden, as it easily reaches 15 metres in ten years, and does not stop then!

‘Frisia’ was, as the name suggests, discovered in a Dutch nursery, and during the 1980s became one of the most widely planted trees in New Zealand.  It forms a tidy head of bright golden foliage atop a sturdy trunk, and is manageable with a little care.

Pruning is made slightly more difficult because of two traits of most Robinias – prickly stems and hard but brittle wood.  Because the wood is also so hard, a saw is usually better than pruning shears, other than with small branches, and even then, because the stems are also brittle, they sometimes snap before the saw is halfway through, so be careful.

‘Frisia’ can be pruned almost any time of the year, even during the periods of high growth, but be warned that if you cut it back too heavily it will respond with very rapidly growing new shoots which will need careful pruning within a month or two.

Red Hot Pokers

The problem of the winter garden is tackled different ways in different parts of the world. For much of the world that suffers a continental climate, the garden is wrapped up and put away for the winter. There are so few things that can cope with snowdrifts and biting cold that people who live in such climates do not expect to have anything in flower. They pull their garden inside, to ledges in their kitchens, or shelves in their conservatories, and they hibernate until the weather is a little more kind to their gardening aspirations.


In warmer parts of the world the exact opposite happens. Winter is the cooler season when plants can be grown, so gardeners approach the winter season with enthusiasm. In some parts, the summer weather is so hot and dry that plants have evolved reversed deciduous pattern – they go leafless over the summer. In other places, the summer is so wet and disease-ridden that many cool climate crops rot, and have to be sown over the cooler, drier winter period.

Then there are those of us who garden in temperate zones, who like to think we do not have bad winters, and expect our gardens to be at their best all winter long. We plant seedlings that are grown for spring display in other parts of the world – polyanthus and Primula malacoides for example – to give us colour through the winter, and we even look to some perennials to give us colour through the cooler months.

Among those we can rely on are some winter-flowering members of genera we normally think of as spring flowering, and probably the best known of those is the long familiar “Winter Cheer” Red Hot Poker. This is the stoutly performing orange-red flowering plant that is seen in many city gardens (and seemingly every country garden) from the top of the North Island to near the bottom of the South. It can be relied upon to flower from as early as June through to spring.

This is such a tough and free-growing plant that we tend to take the other members of the vast Kniphofia genus for granted, but there are some wonderfully valuable garden plants among them that deserve to be better known.

“Winter Gold” is a case in point. This is probably the best of the golden flowered forms, growing to about 1.2 meters, the same as ‘Winter Cheer’, but this time with golden flowers that start out limey green in the bud.

These two fulfil another function as well. Each flower head is actually a cluster of small tubular flowers which (usually) hang down from the long stems. These small hanging flowers are filled with nectar and over the winter they will be visited by birds, feeding on the nectar.

Overseas these plants are usually called ‘Torch Lilies’ rather than ‘Red Hot Pokers’ and that avoids the clumsy construction that we Kiwis get ourselves into when we want to talk about the other coloured varieties of Kniphofia. For example, it is faintly ridiculous to talk of a yellow ‘Red Hot Poker’, but that is what we are forced to do!

Although New Zealanders are most familiar with the tall growing forms of these South African beauties, it is in fact among the smaller flowered forms that we find the most attractive range of subtle colours. I grow a number of these dwarf varieties and they provide lots of interest in the summer and autumn garden.

Roses

For beginning gardeners, the idea of planting roses in the depths of winter sounds a bit crazy, and for many of us older gardeners, the thought of mainly planting them in the flowering season seems like an equally insane idea! 

I can recall when container grown roses first appeared on the market, and the lack of enthusiasm that garden centre staff had for the idea, thinking it a silly fad that would not catch on.  We were wrong of course, and the rose planting season has long ago extended to cover most of the year.

I must be old fashioned but really believe it is better for most deciduous plants to be shifted during their dormant season, while they are at rest and can better cope with the surprise to the system that transplanting imposes on them.  Rose planting is easy at this time of the year, provided a few easy preparatory steps have been taken.

The first step is to decide where the roses are to be planted.    As a rule, they do best in new soil, so if you are planting into an area that has already had roses in it, it pays to remove the soil and replace it.  This is due to an insidious disease called “rose sickness” which, although it does not normally kill roses, makes them grow in such an unhealthy manner as to make them ungardenworthy.  If you are replacing soil in an existing bed you will need about a wheel barrowful of soil for each plant.

If you have the luxury of creating a new bed, make sure it is in full sun.  There are a few (very few) roses that will cope with semi-shade, but most will need the maximum amount of sunshine, to help keep them disease free if for no other reason.  Those that will do better in the slight shade are those whose flowers tend to get burnt in the full sun.

Soil type is important too.  The best soil for roses is undoubtedly a slightly stiff loam.  By that I mean a good garden soil that is not too light, as thin, sandy soils will dry out too much over summer, and the roses will fail to thrive.

If you have anything other than very rich loam, it pays to work in some compost or well-rotted farmyard manure.  Ideally, this should have been done about a month ago, but if you have not had a chance to do it, it is still fine to do it now as long as the manure is not green.  It is a good idea to try and keep the bed at the same level as the surrounding ground as elevating the bed will just make it drain more quickly, giving problems late in the dry summer period.

Autumn foliage

This is surely one of the interesting times of the year, with a plethora of wonderfully coloured trees and shrubs to look for in the streetscape. I wonder how long this will last however, as the heyday of planting deciduous trees seems to have long gone, and as more and more gardeners plant almost only evergreens, we are going to miss out on such a grand autumn display.

One of the reasons for the diminished use of deciduous trees and shrubs is surely the more diminutive gardens we now have. We simple do not have the space for the same number of large specimens and are more reliant on smaller plants for the garden.

Some plants that will fit easily into most gardens, and can be reliably called upon for a spectacular display are the various members of the Cotinus family. These are the Smoke Bushes and feature some of the most amazingly lurid colours in the autumn palette.

There are three species of these in the wild, but there are only two that are commonly available. The first of these is the European smoke bush, C. coggygria which actually grows from Europe into central China, and is perhaps best known for the large panicles of fuzzy looking plumes in early summer that give the plant its common name, especially as they grey into the autumn.



The leaves are bright green during the bulk of the growing season, but as they autumn approaches they take on the most startling array of colours, from yellow to orange to fiery red. They appear to differ from plant to plant, suggesting the New Zealand forms have been seed raised, as overseas, varieties can be selected for a particular colour.

The exception to this rule is the strongly coloured ‘Royal Purple’ which has deep wine-purple leaves which have a conspicuous waxy surface that appears translucent in sunlight. The flowers are a slightly deeper colour through the growing season, and then turn bright orange and burning red in autumn. This is a great plant for associating with lighter coloured foliage. At slightly more than two metres high it is about two thirds the height of its plainer cousin.

The American species C. obovatus is a taller beast altogether, growing to perhaps five metres. It does not have the same floral display of its European kin, but makes up for that with a stunning foliage display in the autumn, when the leaves turn yellow, orange, red, purple – often all at the same time – to give an very impressive show.

In the very small garden, there is another little treasure that can be relied upon to give a great display in autumn – and it is not even deciduous. The dwarf heavenly bamboo (do not worry it is not actually a bamboo, so it will not go mad in the garden) Nandina domestica ‘Pygmaea’ was planted extensively during the 1970s craze for pebble gardens, and has perhaps not regained its proper place in the garden, but its fresh lime leaves during the summer always look attractive, and in autumn and winter it turns on a very impressive display of purple, orange and (more usually) bright red foliage. The colder the winter, and the poorer your soil, the better this will colour up. In fact, you could even do the old nurseryman’s trick of feeding it a bit of sulphate of potash at this time of the year – it will certainly colour up better then!

Shining examples

When we select new plants for our garden we go through a sort of checklist.  We will include all sorts of different attributes for consideration as we think about our garden – flower colour, foliage colour, foliage shape, maybe even foliage texture – but we seldom think of how well the foliage reflects light. 
It might sound like a slightly daft thing to be weighing up when choosing plants, but it does have quite a bearing on how we perceive the plant in the garden, especially in winter when light levels are lower.  A plant that has a soft surface, covered with fine hairs for example, will absorb much of the light it receives, giving a soft reflection.  On the other hand, plants with highly glossy leaves will reflect back much of the light, giving them a brighter appearance.

Perhaps the greatest examples of the power of reflection –“shining examples” I call them – among native plants are the many Coprosma species and varieties.

There are over 100 species in the genus, distributed through the Pacific Rim but centred on New Zealand, where about half the species are found.  Many are dwarf shrubs with tiny leaves, but there are also some small trees to be found among the species.

Until recently the best known plant was undoubtedly, C. repens.  This is a soft-wooded shrub that will grow as a prostrate shrub in exposed conditions, but in sheltered and humus-rich sites can grow up to nearly ten metres.  It has dark green, very glossy leaves, earning it the common name of Looking Glass Bush, Mirror Plant, New Zealand Laurel or Shiny Leaf.  I am sure you get the idea!

What has made it very popular as a garden plant is the wide range of coloured sports it has given rise to, which has meant it has become a very popular garden plant in coastal areas in particular.  Unfortunately, its reliable performance in windy and exposed sites is matched by its tenacity at setting seed, and it has escaped from the garden in parts of Australia where it is now classed a weed. Perhaps that just our revenge for the magpie!

Over the past few years a lot of coloured hybrid coprosmas have been released onto the market, with so many options for the gardener that it is a little confusing.  A trip to the garden centre and a stroll down the “dwarf natives” section will certainly be a colourful experience, especially at this time of the year when so many of the cultivars colour up.

‘Lemon and Lime’ is a small leaved form with very interesting variegation of green and yellow.  As the cooler weather appears, the yellow deepens and hints of orange appear.  This is a tidy growing form, and like almost all of these hybrids, it is very disease resistant. It is the child of an even better variety – one that has become one of the best selling shrubs in New Zealand, the unremittingly cheerful ‘Evening Glow.’  This has golden foliage over the summer but as autumn arrives it takes on rich orange and deep red hues.  That is not a bad achievement for an evergreen shrub, and it has made it into one of the most popular natives.

Autumn glories

The balmy autumn has continued, much to the consternation of many farmers and gardeners. Warm and sunny days, and near frost-free conditions might be nice of you are on holiday or looking to relax, but it is starting to be a nightmare again for those who need some rain. The summer was moist enough to keep most east coast farmers happy, but there will be a few out there scratching their heads, wondering what happened to the autumn rainfalls. The same applies to gardeners – a weekend in the garden has shown me it is much drier than I had thought, and as I finished each section of the garden, I dragged a hose behind me to try and get some moisture into the soil.


As always, we will be looking at the bright side, thinking that a relatively calm autumn might be good for autumn colour, but the warm conditions will militate against that too, as warmer temperature actually lead to less colour. Has anyone ever travelled to Auckland to see the autumn display?

I caught the start of the autumn colour season while in Dunedin recently. High on hills at the northern end of town, the Dunedin Botanic Garden is a treasure for garden lovers, filled with all sorts of exotic treasures, set in well-tended gardens that I wandered through on a number of occasions. Near the end of our stay, I took my camera with me for a concerted walk through as many of the different gardens as I could.

I was not expecting the Rhododendron garden to be as interesting as it was, bearing in mind it was so late in the season. There was very little in flower, although there were some R. yakushimanum varieties flowering out of season, but the effects of the coloured foliage, a mix of maples and azaleas mainly, was outstanding.

These plants are both relatively easy to grow, and can usually be called on to give a good year-round display.

The deciduous azaleas are probably best known for their wonderful display of flowers in late spring – October and November – when their delicious red, yellow and orange displays are so eye-catching. They flower on bare wood (usually see later) so the flowers are displayed very prominently, and being late flowering they are also safe from frost.

These very hardy plants are probably not as popular as they once were, but they give an unrivalled display, and they are very garden friendly. They are hardy, pest free, easy to look after, and very long lived – what more could you look for in a shrub?

Botanically, these plants are Rhododendrons, and as such need a relatively acid soil, preferably also moist. They are shallow rooting, and they do need to be kept moist over the summer, so thin limey soil is not for them.

There are many varieties on the market and it is pointless for me to suggest any particular ones, but the New Zealand raised Ilam hybrids seem as good as any to me. If you are in the Manawatu area in spring, a visit to the Rhododendron gardens at Kimbolton will be enough to make a convert of you.

Edges and hedges

One of the difficult areas of the garden is the border lands – those awkward areas where the garden finishes and other elements of the environment start.  It can be the line between the garden and the lawn that is the problem, or perhaps the delineation between physical boundaries, such as neighbouring properties or a driveway or roadway.

In some situations an informal edging between the two environments works well.  In a woodland garden, for example, it looks great of the understory of planting gradually give way to a soft bark pathway, or even on the edge of quite hard planting, the effect can be softened by having sprawling plants that help blur the edge.  We have a wooden wall retaining an elevated lawn area, and have planted some trailing plants to help soften the boundaries.  Sometimes, though, you actually want a clear delineation between two different areas, and that is when formal hedging some into it own.

 I was recently in the extensive gardens of Larnach Castle, high on the Otago Peninsular, overlooking Otago Harbour and Port Chalmers – I was supposed to be visiting the castle itself, but the gardens held my attention for much longer than the building.  Even though it was late autumn and the garden was long past its summer splendour, there was still plenty of interest.

The formal gardens in front of the house have been cleverly designed to reflect and augment the severe Scottish Baronial architectural style employed in the castle, with very formal edgings in somewhat informally shaped beds.  The beds are extensively edged in box, with corner highlights of totara topiary.

There are a number of varieties if box hedging, all forms of Buxus.  The most commonly grown is English box, a relatively slow growing form.  This sounds like a less desirable trait, but you have basic conflict between the desire to have your edging looking as mature as possible, as quickly as possible, and the need to keep the growth under control once the plant has reached its desired height and width.

I would plump for English box, perhaps buying the more expensive advanced grade plants, which can be found easily enough in the trade. They will be four years old and perhaps 40 cm high.  Pop some fertiliser in the soil once the plants are well established, and continue to fertilise about twice a year.  It is essential to water the fertiliser in well as it will burn the foliage is just left sprinkled on the surface.

Little berried treasures

A recent trip to the South Island had many highlights, but one of the was an early Sunday morning stroll through the Christchurch Botanic Garden, looking and photographing the many horticultural treasures the garden contains. 
I spent some time conversing with another early morning riser in the Curator’s House vegetable patch.  He was, he delighted in telling me, a European, although he seemed to me to have a perfectly New Zealand accent.

His origin was a talking point as we discussed the flavour of the little New Zealand cranberries, Myrtus ugni, that were heavily in fruit.  He pinched a few of the bright red berries and chomped on them enthusiastically.  He said he was puzzled that I did not share his predilection for this Chilean native.

For those of you not familiar with this little shrub, it is a small growing evergreen shrub from South America, with small glossy dark green leaves that are spicy if crushed. In spring they bear small drooping white flowers which are followed by small pink to red fruit, which can be born from March to May.  They have a very peculiar fragrance and taste – something sweet surely, but underlain by a turpentine flavour. 

My fellow visitor insisted that I was displaying my British origins, and if I was European I would love the flavour, as the more sophisticated European palate prefers the slightly turpentine flavour of the berry.  I cannot say I was convinced, but being a basically affable sort of guy I agreed with him, and we happily went our separate ways.

The clever gardeners had used the cranberries as a hedge at the edge of the vegetable plot because it forms an easily trimmed barrier that can be kept relatively short, and will also not rob the garden of too much nutriment. This smart little plant will also look good as a part of a shrubbery, and I have even seen it used an espalier and as a subject for topiary.

Christchurch plants

I was standing at the counter in my local supermarket when a lady came up to me, asking me to identify a plant she had seen on a garden tour.  She did not have it with her and could only give a vague description – it was a perennial with blue flowers and did not grow very tall.  I was very confused at first, but then she gave me the crucial piece of information – the flowers were sort of everlasting.

I knew then what it was – but it took a bit of head scratching before I finally managed to dig the name out of the dark recesses of my mind – Limonium perezii.  It is not a plant I had seen for a few years, but at one time it was very popular.

In the late eighties there was a bit of a passion for growing everlasting flowers for the market, and lots of small paddocks were planted with row upon row of everlasting daisies and annual statice plants.  The fad did not last very long and the paddocks were returned to ponies, or perhaps upgraded to alpacas.

But the craze did engender a bit of interest in some of the more unusual members of the statice, including this intriguing plant, so I was intrigued to see clumps of this Canary Island native in a perennial border in a recent visit to the Christchurch Botanic Garden on a recent visit.

The border stretched along a long stretch from the museum entrance down towards the hot house, and featured a great range of cool climate perennials, as well as a few warmer ones.  It was long past its best, with lots of dead flower heads on view, but it still had lots of interest.

Limonium perezii is sometimes called Prez’s sea lavender, and is one of many valuable garden plants from the Canary Islands.  It has a woody rhizome, from which tough bright green leaves about 30 cm long, emerge, followed by a stiff panicle of flowers.  The flowers are small, with purple sepals and white petals, but they are carried exuberantly.  They look fine on their own, but even better when grown in clumps.  They associate well with other Mediterranean plants like lavender, rosemary and bearded irises.

As a matter of interest, these have slightly naturalised themselves in warm parts of California.  I do not think they would be a problem here, but I also know they are relatively easy to grow from seed, as I have done it!

There are many species in this genus but not that many worth growing in the garden.  The very best is almost impossible to buy in New Zealand – the wonderful pink flowered shrubby South African species I knew as L. roseum, but now called L. peregrinum. This grows to about two metres and with bright green leaves.  It is covered with panicles of pink flowers, which fade as they age.  It is very difficult to grow and not even easy to propagate, but it is a thing of rare beauty.  I grew some from seed gathered from a friend’s plant and was able to sell them all very quickly.

All the way from Amsterdam

When I say I have a mania for tulips I do not want you to get the idea that I have caught the obscure Dutch disease of the 17^th century and mortgaged the house, sold the car, traded in the Head Gardener and bought sacks filled to the brim with tulip bulbs.  Because things really did get that extreme in Holland at one time. The rarest of the varieties sold for 10 times the annual salary of a tradesman.  Assuming you plumber makes about $60,000 a year, that is $600,000 for one bulb!

Now I am mad about bulbs, and I love tulips, but that amount of money almost beggars belief.  And of course, it was not about the bulbs at all – the whole sensation was perhaps the first economic bubble.  As long as more and more money kept chasing less and less bulbs, the price was forced up, and up, until it all fell down in a heap.  Remind you of anything that has happened recently, with finance companies and house prices?
Still, we can count ourselves lucky because we can buy bulbs at a severely discounted price to 1637, and can afford to splash out and buy enough of these bulbs to make a solid effect.

Normally, I would be against the idea of bulk planting bulbs.  The flowering season is too short and if you get bad weather in the middle of that season, you miss out on a whole year’s worth of blooms.  But I am prepared to make an exception for tulips.  The effect of the massed plantings in the Wellington Botanical Gardens is genuinely amazing – even our non-gardening son was impressed with the display and wandered around taking photographs.

Tulips are relatively easy to grow and flower, for the first year at least.  They will have been grown in ideal conditions over the previous growing season, and the flower will have been formed and lock in deep within the bulbs.  All you need to do is provide it the right conditions and it will sprout forth for you next spring.

There are a few little tricks to bear in mind.  In our conditions it pays to plant tulip bulbs a little later in the season that most other bulbs.  They need a proper period of chilling before they will bloom properly, so it pays to buy pre-chilled bulbs, or to hold off planting until the season is a little cooler.  For warmer areas you can even plant into June, but I would think you would be best to get your bulbs in by the end of this month, or perhaps into early May.

Clothed in nakedness

Regular readers of this column will now I am a great fan of autumn.  I love the cooling temperature, I relish on the sweet scents and savour the mellow fruitfulness of the decay of the growing season.  And, of course, I love the bulb season.

When we think of bulbs in March and April we naturally think of the plethora of spring flowering bulbs, corms and tubers that are now gracing the walls of our favourite garden centres.  But there are other bulbs (and corms and tubers too) that prefer to flower at this time of the year.  The remarkable thing about so many that flower at this time of the year is that they are naked – naked boys and naked ladies are both abundant, clothed in nakedness.

The naked ladies are certainly the best known of the naked flowers, and at one time all gardens would have had a stand of these reliable autumn-flowering members of the daffodil family.  

Known for years as belladonnas, (literally 'lovely lady') the botanical name for this hardy favourite is Amaryllis belladonna, and it hails originally from that land of fabulous bulbs, South Africa, from the rocky and dry soils of Western Province. As such they are ideally suited for growing in well-drained sites in New Zealand.  They flourish in poor conditions, and when well-suited will rapidly naturalise.  I think the best naked ladies I have ever seen were in the convent garden at Hiruharama (Jerusalem) on the Whanganui River – surely an unlikely place to find naked ladies!

Most gardeners are familiar with the light pink forms of this robustly growing bulb, but there is actually a lot of variation among them.  I love the white forms, and have seen two quite distinct forms.  I grow a pure white, which glistens with icy whiteness, but there is also a warmer looking form with a golden throat.  Neither of these seems to be available in the trade under any specific name.

There are also a number of brighter pink forms, the best of which is possibly 'Beacon' which is almost cerise coloured.  Dr Keith Hammett, best known for his work with breeding dahlias, has also had a lick at these plants, trying to breed salmon toned forms.  He has had some success and some new varieties are in the pipeline.  A friend gave me some seed from his programme (thousands of them) and I have some seedlings in the glasshouse, but I expect it will be a few years before I see any results.

The autumn blues

I had the mortification of rolling over another year last week.  It really does seem that they steamroll through so quickly that I cannot keep up with them. 

Still, looking on the bright side, I do have my birthday at the right time of the year for a bulb-loving gardener, as most people know it is a very easy gift for me, and each year I get my share of daffodils and tulips.  Fortunately,  I manage to get a few of the more unusual types each year as well.

This year, for example, I was given a little packet of striped squills – Puschkinia scilloides.  These are dwarf-growing members of the hyacinth family, and are most closely related to the blue bells and Chionodoxa.  They are very hardy, originating in the eastern Mediterranean, and will cope with almost anything the New Zealand climate throws at them.  They are small bulbs – about the size of a Lachenalia – and should be planted in full sun to light shade, in generous clumps.  In the spring they pop up with little heads of cool blue flowers, each petal striped with a deeper band. 

In England, this charming little plant is used for naturalising, but I have not seen it used that way in New Zealand.  Perhaps it is too fragile to compete with our stronger-growing pasture.  It is best planted near the front of a flower border or in the rock garden.

The nearly-related Chionodoxa species are perhaps even more attractive, the blue tones often being clearer.  These are called ‘Glory of the Snow’ because they flower very early in the season.  They make great rock garden plants and also do very well in pots.  Like the striped squills, they will look their best when they are massed.

The best of these is C. forbesii ‘Blue Giant’.  It has sky-blue tipped white flowers, and shines in the garden.

Like the striped squill, this is an easily grown plant that will grow happily in a sunny position with humus enriched soil.  It will cheefully set seed as well, which can be sown in seed trays and will germinate over winter.  It is easy to quickly raise large numbers of bulbs this way.

These little plants are closely related to Scillas, a genus that seems to be always undergoing revision, with species joining and leaving at a remarkable rate.

Perhaps the best of these is the striking C. peruviana, the so-called Peruvian blue bell, although it comes from the Mediterranean, not Peru!  It is a large bulb with thick waxy leaves.  The flower heads first appear as rounded heads of stars but as they elongate the flowers open to violet-blue.  The flower heads will eventually become 40 cm long. 

There are a number of different coloured forms, ranging from the usual violet-blue through lighter blues to almost white. They are very hardy plants, flourishing in quite neglected areas while still flowering year after year.

Daffy for daffodils

It is too ironic for words. All season long we have been complaining about the wet, wet, wet summer we have been having, and now, the beginning of March when we expect some rains, it has turned mild and fine on us.


Everyone I know is grumbling about their tomatoes – it just been an absolutely awful year for them – and mine, although fruiting well, look like nothing on earth. The bottom leaves have fallen to blight, and the top leaves are thin and ugly looking.

As always, though, we gardeners are an optimistic lot, so we are all looking forward to having a normal summer (whatever that means) next year.

The sunny days of March have been matched with some cool evenings, no doubt pleasing the orchardists who need a big diurnal temperature difference to colour theirapples. It is also a pleasant reminder to the rest of us that autumn has arrived and it is time to start thinking about planting some spring-flowering bulbs.

One of the delights of gardening in our temperate climate is the wide range of plants we can grow and bulb season shows that up, with cold climate species and bulbs from warmer climes elbowing for space on the garden centre shelves.

For most of us though, spring bulbs begin with daffodils, and I guess there are many for whom they end at daffodils as well. For most the image of a daffodil is a large trumpeted variety, probably golden all over, but there is a wide range of varieties, with a surprisingly wide range of colours and a large range of sizes as well.

One of the beauties of the daffodil is that it will grow almost anywhere in our country. Perhaps if you are gardening in the more humid and warm areas in the north of the North Island it might be a little more difficult, but for most of us it is quite straight forward as long as one or two little things are borne in mind.

The first is to simply remember that these bulbs almost all grow in meadows in the wild – they are used to quite moist soil in the spring. That means they do not want to be waterlogged over winter, but they also do not like growing in hot, dry conditions either.

Secondly, they like a bit of feeding too.

So, let’s assume we have been down to the garden centre, or perhaps spent some time perusing the colourful fliers garden centres seem to specialise in, and you have been seduced by some colourful looking varieties. What do you do next?

Well, actually what you do is wait. Daffodils are best planted once the soil has cooled down a little, so perhaps it might pay to wait another month before planting out. It is a good idea to keep the bulbs in the refrigerator during that time as a little chilling before planting will help to promote better flowering in the spring.

Where to plant is the next question. The best place is a well-drained sunny site with deep soil. If possible the bulbs should be planted about 20 cm deep as daffodils require deep soil to feed properly. You can plant even deeper in light soils, as that will help keep the bulbs cooler.

It is a good idea to work some bulb fertiliser into the soil while planting. Make sure it is bulb fertiliser though, as it is higher in potash and contains less nitrogen. The lower nitrogen levels are important as this element promotes leaf growth at the expense of flowers, and also makes the bulbs more prone to disease. Do not be tempted to use a general fertiliser for your bulbs.

Feeling like a dill?

The first week in March is Herb Awareness Week, promoted by the Herb Federation of New Zealand.  Each year the Federation promote the herb of the year as chosen by the International Herb Association, and adds another three herbs of their own choice.

This year the international choice has been dill, a member of the vast Umbilliferae family, along with carrots, Queen Anne’s Lace and parsley.  It is an easily grown annual, looking superficially like fennel, but with blue-green leaves rather than fennel’s yellow-green ones, and lacking the distinctive aniseed scent of the latter.

It is best to sow the seeds in situ as the plants resent being moved, like most of their cousins.  They are spindly growers and might even need some twiggy framework to cling to us they grow, but once established they are self-supporting. They are usually grown in a succession of sowings, as they mature in about six weeks and a number of crops are needed to ensure a constant supply of leaves.

They are good plants to have growing in amongst others as they attract lots of insectivorous insects – the ones that will eat your aphids -  and the little umbels of yellow flowers are very attractive in a subdued way.

Dill is one of those classic herbs, more commonly used in Northern Europe than in the Mediterranean areas where it is supposed to originate.  The leaves are best snipped and chopped very finely, before being added to fish dishes in particular.  The leaves are best harvested shortly before flowering as they will be at their strongest then.

Once flowering has occurred, the plants should be left alone to ripen the seeds. These are used us a flavouring for pickles, in particular for small pickled cucumbers.  I have a friend who makes some pots most summers, and lets me have a jar if I am especially nice to her – and they are delicious

It is also said to have some medicinal properties.  If taken at bedtime it can help sleep, as both leaves and seeds have a mild sedative effect.  It is also meant to be great at getting rid of the hiccoughs!

Dichroas at 'Woodleigh'

Last week I wrote about a recent visit to the Taranaki garden of author Glyn Church. ‘Woodleigh’ is situated just north of Oakura, near another nationally significant garden, ‘Ngamamaku’. ‘Woodleigh’ is home to Glyn’s extensive hydrangea collection, and during my visit we spent some time looking at some of his favourites among the many species and varieties that make us this large group of plants.


The first plant we saw was a very large specimen of Dichroa versicolor. This shrub from China has become quite well-known in the past few years, and is sold under a variety of names – usually with “blue” at the beginning.

I have always known it to be a relative of the hydrangea, but Glyn was able to shed a little more light on its history. He told me he introduced it to New Zealand, and had it growing in his garden for some years before it was released to the market. From there, different nurseries picked it up, giving it varietal names. It is an evergreen shrub with bright blue flowers from early summer into the autumn. The bright blue flowers are fertile, and carry berries in the autumn.

One year he noticed some seedlings in his garden, which he grew on until they flowered. Once they flowered he formed the opinion that they were actually crosses with a Hydrangea, and kept careful notes of the various hybrids he had. He spoke at a Hydrangea conference in Belgium (yes – there are such things!) about his discovery, and was intrigued to find an American nurseryman who has raised many hybrids between Dichroa and Hydrangea, and never succeeded in breeding anything as colourful as Glyn’s seedlings. It turns out, too, that the plant we have been growing as D. versicolor is in fact a hybrid itself, first found by the plant hunter Robert Fortune in a Chinese nursery.

As we walked around the garden, Glyn showed me the plant he considers the best of his hybrids – one called ‘Cambridge Blue’, and it is a lovely big flowered hybrid.

Work will continue in these crosses, as they offer the chance of evergreen hydrangeas that are able to grow in full sun, as the Dichroa does.

'Woodleigh Garden'

The gardens of Taranaki hold a great allure to those of us who garden in the east. The extra rainfall and increased humidity, and the generally more temperate climate, make Taranaki home to many famous gardens, gardeners and nurseries.

My forays to explore this wonderful horticultural region have almost always been undertaken in the spring, usually in conjunction with the fabled Rhododendron festival.

There are 32 gardens of national significance in New Zealand – 10 of them in Taranaki. Until last week I had visited 9 of them, so I thought it was about time I saw the tenth, Glyn and Gail Church’s ‘Woodleigh Gardens’, just north of Oakura, on the Surf Highway. This is a fabled garden among hydrangea growers, as Glyn Church is a work acclaimed authority on these shrubs, and their allied species, and unlike most Taranaki gardens, has a summer emphasis.

It was very hot when I called in, and I was glad to sit inside with Glyn, at the dining table, overlooking the extensive garden, to chat for a while before venturing outside

In front of the house, overlooking a large pond, was a hedge that looked at first glance like box, but closer inspection revealed it to be mature forms of the native scarlet rata Meterosideros fulgens. In the wild, this clambers up through the canopy until it reaches the light, and then flowers in the upper storey of the forest, usually red but sometimes yellow. The form at ‘Woodleigh’ was a lovely burnt orange.

Two other rare plants in the top garden took my eye. The first was a Canary Islands Foxglove, Isoplexis canariensis. This is a woody perennial that makes a stand of deep green, serrated leaves, topped for months on end with brownish-orange trumpet shaped flowers in tall racemes. I grew this plant from seed many years ago, but it clearly thrives much better in the nearly frost-free ‘Woodleigh’ than it did for me. Glyn told me it has another great attraction for him – the bell birds love feeding from it.

Near by was a large perennial growing Cassia species I had never seen before. Glyn told me it was C. didymobotrya, an African species he grew from seed, and had been unable to propagate again. It does not grow from cuttings and does not set seed in his garden. It has upright stems of bright golden flowers, as you would expect from a Cassia. It grows exuberantly, covering a few square meters. No lean and hungry look to this Cassia!

‘Woodleigh’ is a garden well worth visiting. Glyn is a generous and affable host, and the hours I spent walking around the garden with him were marvelous. Next week we will take a closer look at his collection of hydrangeas.

A 'Naki road trip

Tuesday started out with a leisurely run along the spectacular coastal walkway in New Plymouth.  This is a stunning track that snakes around the edge of the coastline from the Waiwhakaiho River down to the port, about 6 kms in all.  I ran from one end to the other, then turned around and went back! 

It was a calm, still, warm morning, with lots of people out walking, running, biking and even a few swimming.

I raced back to my motel in Inglewood, and set off on my overland adventure, along to Stratford then onto the wonderful Forgotten World Highway, which snakes through the Taranaki hinterland, through dense rain forest, past Whangamomona and out into 'tiger country.' 

A detour along a narrow country road led to the Mt Damper Falls - all 85 metres of them.  The drop is huge but the summer flow was not so dramatic. 

Still, I am very glad I called in to see it, as I saw one of my all time favourite plants, Parataniwha, Elatostema rugosum, growing in the wild.  I love this native herb.

I then headed further into the wilds, along a rollercoaster road, eventually joining SH3 just to the north of Mount Messenger. I followed the Tongapuroto River north until I reached its mouth.  I parked up and walked looking at the remarkable effects of the sea on the landscape, including the popular 'Three Sisters" - although there are now only two and a bit!

I found a dead crab, stranded in a sea cave.  It took some imaginative use of the camera's time exposure to get these slightly odd pics.

Hunger forced me to hit the road again, and I ended up eating lunch in Waitara at about 4.00 p.m.  While I was eating I looked through the local newspaper and saw that Central Districts was playing a cricket game at Pukekura Park, so I scooted along and watched that for a while, before detouring up to the North Egmont Visitors Centre on the flanks of Mount Egmont/Taranaki on my way back to the motel. 

I found this littrle chap sitting on some grass.  This was taken with a 70mm lens, so you can see how close I was able to get to him!