Summer Clematis

I always say I am the easiest person in the world to buy a present for. Any kind of garden voucher or book voucher will suit me fine. Those who know me really well might even be able to work out what sort of garden plants or books I would like.
The Head gardener knows my tastes better than anyone, so I was not surprised that she returned from a recent trip to Taranaki with a book or two – albeit rescued from the sales table at the Inglwood Public Library. As well as a novel or two, there was an interesting book on the cultivation of Clematis, written in Australia.
I grow a few native Clematis species, and have grown some of the more popular garden varieties, but there is an amazing number of hybrids available, most of which I have never grown.
I am keen on some of the autumn flowering species and varieties, but there is a problem with some of them – they have delightful fluffy seed heads which convinces everyone that they are the dreaded (and mis-named) Traveller’s Joy, C. vitalba which has become such a pest in our native forest lands.
One of the best of these is the delightful yellow-flowered species, C. orientalis. This, in its best forms, has butter yellow flowers that nod on the end of stiff stalks. It flowers from about Christmas time, with spluttering of flowers through until autumn. At the same time silken flower heads are forming, providing a nice contrast.
This species is quite energetic – it can grow about eight meters in a season – but looks great when grown among dark-leaved trees. It is deciduous, losing its leaves over winter, when it can be trimmed back.
I have grown the similar looking C. tangutica, although it is not in our present garden. This also has small lantern-shaped flowers, lighter yellow in this species. This is sometimes called the orange peel Clematis, although that common name really belongs to C. orientalis.
Again, this flowers from about the New Year, and later flowers will be held among the silken flower heads. These heads will stay safely on the plant until the winter winds and rains destroy them.
Both the above are very hardy and will cope with anything our climate throws at them. They should be planted relatively shallowly – do not plant and deeper than the mark in the planter bag – and make sure you keep them well watered while they are being established. Once safely away they require no special looking after.

Dirty confession

I have a dirty confession to make – I have some Montbretias in my garden.
This is a shameful thing to admit because Montbretias are a pest plant in many parts of New Zealand. Their ancestry in damp and warm areas of South Africa has allowed them acclimatise to New Zealand conditions with startling rapidity.
At this time of the year river banks splashed with burnt orange can be found all over the country. Last year, when I walked the length of the Ruamahanga River, I found wild samples of these weedy corms in big patches along the river, coming across my first clump underneath the first road bridge across the river at Mount Bruce.
Since then I have found clumps further into the hills, but still alongside streams, indicating their method of dispersal - they move along in the floods and when they find themselves stranded on the banks, put down roots and set up home, eventually starting a family who, in turn, migrate downstream.
Montbretias are in fact Crocosmias – Montbretia is an old fashioned and osolete name. They are native to south-eastern South Africa, and are mostly winter deciduous bulbs. They are members of the vast iris family, with flowers that look a little like an orange or yellow Freesia when seen up close.
The problem plant in New Zealand is the hybrid Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora, first bred in France in the nineteenth century. It has been extensively developed in England, when it is a popular garden plant. The English winters make this a slightly tender treasure in all but the southern counties.
There are some non-invasive species and hybrids suitable for New Zealand gardens. The one I grow in my garden is C. masoniorum ‘Lucifer’. As you would expect, this has bright red flowers, and has received awards in the United Kingdom. It is popular all over the gardening world.
There are other varieties available. Well-regarded English plant breeder Alan Bloom (yes, I know his name is a pun!) breeds many perennial plants at his Bressingham gardens, and he has been playing with Crocosmias. The wonderful butter yellow ‘Jenny Bloom’ has recently been released in New Zealand, and is a variety to keep an eye out for.
If you do have a patchy of the weedy forms, do your best to get in under control, especially if it is on a waterway. Small clumps can be dug up, but larger ones are best treated when they are growing strongly, with a dose of Round Up or something similar.
This great image from the University of British Columbia webiste www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org

Watering in time of drought

My dear old Auntie Molly, who died last year in her nineties, was right on the button about climate warming. On one of my visits to her there was a lull in the conversation, and being the experienced conversationalist she was – she was in her nineties, after all – she told me she did not believe in global warming.
I was initially surprised that a ninety-something year old should hold an opinion on the subject at all. I quickly assumed she meant that she was a sceptic on the matter.
She proceeded to put me right, telling me the problem should be thought of as climate change, not global warming, as some places were going to get colder and some places were going to get warmer. And some places were going to get warmer in summer but colder in winter.
It looks pretty much like she was right. We have been having record high temperatures, while our northern hemisphere cousins freeze under record cold temperatures.
Those of us who garden on the eastern coast of both New Zealand’s main islands are going to have to gradually rethink the sort of gardens we aim for, and make some alterations in the plants we grow. We are fooling ourselves if we think we are going to be able to continue to irrigate as though there is a never ending supply of water for our horticultural needs. Councils are going to introduce more stringent watering restrictions, and societal tolerance for those who water outside those rules will be zero.
So what do we water first when watering is restricted?
When prioritising plants for water, make sure you protect reasonably recently planted trees and shrubs, especially those in exposed, windy positions. Mature trees and shrubs will have a much more extensive root system, and, as such, will be far better able to cope with a water deficit. Keep an eye on such plantings though, as they will still be prone to water stress if the drought continues long enough. Fortunately such trees will normally show early signs of being under stress. Their leaves will wilt, perhaps even drop, when they are water stressed.
Make sure you follow a few other sensible guidelines when watering any trees and shrubs.
Do not water the leaves – it is a waste of time and water. Trees cannot absorb water through their leaves, and much of the water thrown in the air is wasted through evaporation. Instead water at ground level, and make sure you water to a depth of 30 cm at least, remembering to water inside the tree’s drip line.
It is also important to keep an eye on the rate of water application – too fast and the ground will not be able to absorb the water and it will run off. Water slowly over a long period, so the flow of water gets deep down to the trees roots. Watering for short times only encourages shallow rooting which can lead to more drought damage. Do not be tempted to dig holes in the ground in an effort to water deeply either. This dries roots out even more and causes more damage.

P.s. photo courtesy Iowa State University - thanks folks!

Lake Onoke Spit

I am still on leave so took the chance to go visit the other end of the Ruamahanga River today – the Lake Onoke Spit, the barrier between the waters of the Ruamahanga system and the sea, on the shore of Cook Strait.

The Lake Onoke ‘spit’ is a mixed sand and gravel barrier beach that has formed by concurrent processes of marine sedimentation and tectonic uplift. In the process it has impounded an embayment to form a shallow coastal lake, Lake Onoke.
Mixed sand and gravel beaches are uncommon shorelines types and the examples that occur in New Zealand are internationally significant. The shallow coastal lake and gravel barrier system is one the largest of its kind in New Zealand and its relatively unmodified state makes this feature an outstanding example of its type.
I was expecting to find the colony of Caspian Terns that my friend Colin Scadden has been documenting for many years, but I saw no sign of it. I was accompanied by Black Backed Gulls at times, and saw a few shags, oyster catchers, dotterels, and a group of four gannets, swooping along the shoreline, parallel to the coast.

There were signs of visitors, including this shelter which has probably been constructed over the summer.

The spit is partially colonised by plants, including the lovely nihinihi, Calystegia soldanella. Those of you who are gardeners will recognise this as a member of the convolvulus family. It does not grow naturally inland, so I assume it is frost tender.

In many New Zealand coastal places Hare’s Tail Grass, Lagurus ovatus, is a common component of the flora – here on the spit it has made one or two extensive lawns, which look quite pretty in late summer when the seed heads are full.

On my way back along the spit I found a fish - but the birds had found it first!

Chamberlain's Creek and beyond

Today is the first anniversary of the day I started walking down the river. As I am on leave, I celebrated by walking up into the bed of the Ruamahanga from Roaring Stag hut, venturing further upstream than I have ever been.
It is about a 150 minute climb up and over a steep hill from Putara to get into the river at Roaring Stag, and then another 75 minute clamber to get as far up the river as I went today. The river gradually gets narrower and, at the place I stopped, it is in a gorge. I even walked past the dreaded Chamberlain's Creek, the most dangerous little creek in the ranges according to some. Looked calm with summer flow, of course.
I did not need to swim on any of the pools, but I would not venture past the point I finished at without a party to help.


I have talked to others about the last remaining section of the river – and none of my tramping friends have ever been into the upper gorge, which suggests it is not a place for the fainthearted, and perhaps not a place for a nature-loving bushwalker – much less a 56 year old one.
Time will tell whether I am spurred to clamber up to Cattle Ridge, for example, and then drop down through untracked country into the southern arm of the river, then out through the two upper gorges.

As gay as a row of pink tents

The Head Gardener has a theory about my passion for small bulbs and rock plants. She reckons the plants I like have such long Latin names that I have to have labels that are larger than the plants. I think the final straw for her was the pretty little annual American daisy I grew – called Haplopappus phyllocephalus. I told her the first name meant “happy” (or at least sounded like it) and the second part meant “head”, so she should just call the plant “happy head” or “smiler”.
Some plants, though, have names that reflect their nature perfectly – although it is not always intentional. Take that flamboyant climber, the Campsis. Its name comes from a Greek word for “something bent”, an allusion to the curving stamen, but the flowers on this vigorous climber are as camp as a row of pink tents. Perfectly named, if you ask me.
There are only two species of Campsis in the wild, both Northern Hemisphere climbers of woodlands. They are strong growing plants and need a little bit of care in smaller gardens, but in an area where they can be allowed to grow almost unchecked, they will flounce about with gay abandon, giving an amazing display of orange or yellow flowers during the hot months of the year.
Despite being woodland plants in the wild, they will grow well in full sun, and free draining soil. Remarkably, they are very tolerant of salt winds, so they are a popular plant for the seaside.
They can be pruned rigorously if their natural exuberance needs controlling.
A suburban garden near my first garden had a remarkable example of this. It featured Campsis growing up some verandah poles. Each winter, when the plant lost its leaves, the owner used to trim the whole plant back to the stems. Each spring it would bounce into growth again, and flower profusely over the summer, before being trimmed back to its bare state in winter.
You do have to be a bit careful about digging around the roots though. If you cut a root you will have a new plant or two – a great easy way to propagate if you are a nurseryman, but a potential nuisance in the garden.
There is another potential problem with this plant. It is a self-supporting climber. It produces aerial roots which cling to branches or netting – but they will also work their way into masonry, so do not plant these climbers against a brick wall.
The two most common forms seen in New Zealand are ‘Madame Galen’ and ‘Guilfoeyli’ and I have sent hem described as C. radicans, and also as forms of the Chinese Trumpet Vine, C. grandiflora.
They are actually both varieties of the hybrid between the two species, C. x tagliabuana – and I am sorry about the Latin name again. The “tagliabuana” bit comes from some well-known Italian gardeners, the Tagliabue brothers, who first crossed the two species.
‘Guilfoeyli’ is an Australian raised variety with panicles of about ten orange-red trumpet flowers through late summer, while ‘Madame Galen’ has flowers more in the orange-yellow range.
There is also a lovely yellow form of the species C. radicans, sometimes seen – it is nowhere near as common – called ‘Flava.’ The flowers are smaller than the hybrids, and its seems the plant is a little less vigorous.

Hibiscus

It is one of the quirks of history that our gardening ancestors learnt their craft in the cold lands of the Northern hemisphere. The plants they most valued were those they were most familiar with – the Rhododendrons, Camellias, and roses.
We have followed the tastes of our British founders, to a large degree, when it comes to the garden. I wonder how different our gardens would look if we came from a different gardening heritage.
Take our fascination with the Rhododendron. It is regarded by many gardeners as the ultimate tree or shrub. It is available in a wide range of colours, it is dependable, some varieties are a challenge to grow, and it is delightfully evergreen.
But if we inherited the gardening traditions of another, warmer clime, I wonder whether we might not be cherishing another plant that we tend to be a bit pretentious about – the wonderfully flamboyant tropical Hibiscus.
Among the many species and hybrids of this wide-spread genus, there must surely be the loveliest of all the summer flowering shrubs for the New Zealand garden, with amazing flowers held on tidy plants.
They are, of course, frost tender, and most varieties will need careful placement. In our inland towns they will need to be placed against a north-facing wall, preferably in full sun, and with well-drained soil. All varieties hate clay, and will not thrive at all in water-logged soils, so it pays to completely replace the soil if you are stuck with gardening on clay – or grow some of the smaller varieties in pots.
We have grown a couple of shrubby hibiscus for many years in containers. They are slightly neglected – they are never fed and seldom pruned – and I am sure we could do a let better if we spent a bit of time on them.
Firstly, we should be feeding them in spring/ early summer. Once established, Hibiscus are relatively hungry feeders, and will respond well to a good application of a general fertiliser. A slow-release form, designed for trees and shrubs, would be even better.
Hibiscus only flower on new wood (like roses, come to think of it) and a regeneration of branches each year is needed. Just prune back at the same time as you are pruning the roses in July/August, and they will respond with a flush of new growth that will bear flowers from December through to winter.
Hibiscus can cope with a very vigorous pruning. If they are starting to get a bit leggy and woody (they look very uninspiring when they do) just cut them back. Within a year they will have bounced back with a whole lot of new growth, and more crops of flowers.
Most varieties branch near to ground level and make attractively thick growth. If you have a mind to, they also can be trained to make wonderful espaliered shrubs.
A childhood neighbour grew a luscious pink Hibiscus against her chimney – it grew right up to the gutter of the house and threw large single flowers all summer long. I think the frost was probably training it, as I do not recall her ever trimming it.
The most common Hibiscus seen in New Zealand are the Fijian varieties. They are smaller growing, bushy shrubs, and are slightly hardier than their Hawaiian counterparts.
Perhaps the most common varieties are ‘Suva Queen’, with her double pink flowers, ‘Agnes Gault’, a single pink that was probably what my childhood neighbour grew, and ‘D J O’Brien’, semi-double tangerine.
Hawaii has a number of native species which have been crosses with the older forms to give a new race of plants. They are tenderer than the Fijian types, and need more sheltered growing conditions. This far south, they probably do best in a conservatory in all but the warmest sites.
‘Golden Belle’ has rich bright yellow flowers in abundance; ‘Hawaiian Sunset’ is cerise pink with yellow edges; and ‘Nathan Charles’ had large flowers of crimson red.
Some of the Hawaiian forms are not very vigorous on their own roots and thus need to be grafted.
The Fijian and Hawaiian varieties have been crossed and recrossed, and there are now literally hundreds of varieties around, many of them bred in New Zealand and Australia. It would pay to have

More time on the river

The Mangatainoka River










This weekend I journeyed north to Putara, to take the next steps along my river walk. I walked in to the headwaters of the Ruamahanga by going up the valley of the Mangatainoka (of ‘Tui’ beer fame) then crossing a ridge to Roaring Stag Hut.



Roaring Stag Hut











It was blowing real hard there, and the swingbridge was rocking as I gingerly crossed over it. The wind took my hat on the way. I managed to sneak up-river and downstream shots as I went over.















I jumped into the river bed there and rock-hopped another two hours down to just below Cleft Creek, the point I started my journey last February. On the way out, I used my still camera to take this video of myself crossing an un-named stream – reportedly the largest stream in the Tararuas without a name.

Thalictrums

When our elder son spent time here over Christmas, his girlfriend insisted he show her around our garden. They are new gardeners, always difficult in flats, and they have concentrated their efforts on vegetables – but Ana was keen to see how much plant knowledge is absorbed by someone brought up in a nursery.
He did not do too badly, managing to name about half the flowers in the garden, and even surprised me by remembering the name of ‘Strawberry Parfait’ Dianthus. I assume it must have been the association with a dessert that kept it on his mind.
One of the Head Gardener’s favourite plants had them guessing though. She has a few clumps of a perennial growing in one of her gardens, with tall stems that are foaming with small mauve flowers at this time of the year.
The geneticist son had no idea what it was. His research scientist girlfriend thought it might be a different coloured form of “that filler you see in florists’ flowers”. She was thinking of Gypsophila of course, but the two plants have only a passing similarity to each other.
The plant that had them flummoxed was a Thalictrum, one of more than a hundred species in a large genus found over much of the Northern Hemisphere, with representatives also in tropical South America and southern Africa. They are essentially plants of damp or shady places (unlike the Gypsophilas). Their common name is “meadow rue”, but this is a little confusing as they are not closely related to the true rues, but are members of the vast Ranunculus family. The garden forms generally grow to a metre and a half.
They are dainty yet robust plants, usually with maidenhair fern-like foliage, and are ideally suited for a woodland garden, or a border with other tall perennials. The flowers are also valuable for picking, if you can bear to take them off the plants.
One I like is T. auilegiifolium – with divided leaves looking much like a Granny’s Bonnet, and heaps of tiny mauve flowers in early summer.
T. delavayi flowers later in the season, but also has a myriad of light mauve flowers. There is a stunning white form – more commonly found than the mauve one, and called with great imagination, ‘Album' – as well as an amazing form with double flowers. ‘Hewitt’s Double’ has masses of tiny little pom-pom like flowers. It is great for floral work.
A newer variety is quickly becoming a favourite among perennial gardeners – the intriguingly-named ‘Black Stockings’. In a way it is a stock standard Thalictrum – blue-green foliage, thousands of mauve flowers – but these flowers are held atop black stems. It makes a wonderful display in the garden.
There are a number of yellow flowers species. The most commonly found one in New Zealand is T. flavum. It has blue-green foliage and masses of light yellow flowers at about this time of the year.
The Thalictrums are generally no-fuss plants. They will do best in slightly heavy soils that retain moisture. They certainly look best in reasonable sized clumps, and are easily propagated. They look great when grown with other large perennials, especially those with large leaves

Blue spires

For the last few weeks I have been writing about some members of the sage family – some of the many garden Salvias, both for the herb and ornamental gardens.
In my back garden I have a bit of a problem with a plant that is sometimes called a sage, the “Russian Sage”, Petrovskia atriplicifolia ‘Blue Spires’.
I love the effect this plant has in the garden, with its long spires of mauve-blue flowers springing from finely divided ferny-like silver branches.
This is a great, no-fuss plant; it is not fussy about soil conditions, does not worry about pH levels, and is also very drought tolerant. Mine grows in a semi-shaded spot among other perennials, but I suspect it would be best in full sun, along with most other silver-leaved plants.
Its growth habit is a problem though. It is a sprawling shrub, although usually grown as a perennial. I planted mine too close to the edge of the bed and it sprawls across the other plants near it and then lazes across the perimeter of the lawn.
This year I decided I had to do things better by it. I have always cut it back hard after flowering – and by hard, I mean very hard. At the end of the season it has branches about a metre and a half high, with a slightly larger spread, and I cut them almost right off, leaving stubs of about 20 cm over the winter. Russian Sage is very hardy and will not be damaged by such brutal action over the winter.
This encourages the plant to make good growth in the following spring – too good, in fact, as the soft growth flops all over the place later in summer. This year I remembered early enough in the season, and I nipped all the growths in the bud – tipping them when they were about 30 cm high. It has made an enormous difference. The plant has responded with better branched stems, and a better flowering effect at lower heights.
During the pruning, I found the foliage has a strong “herby” scent – reminiscent of wormwood or one of the other Artimesias – and not that pleasant! Still, I am sure it is now doing good work in the compost pile.
It would be fun to experiment with plantings to associate with this plant. I have it growing with some purple Delphiniums and a clump of the lovely Penstemon ‘Alice Hindley’, as per the photograph above, but it would look even better with pink coloured flowers I think. It also combines well with lavenders and other silver foliaged plants.

The end of the holiday season

My all-too-brief season holiday is drawing to a close.
We have done the usual Kiwi Christmas things – eating too much in the warm weather, buying too much rubbish – but we have also taken part in some family rituals. One of those was our annual trip to Pukaha, Mount Bruce Wildlife Centre. This time we had two PhD students – our evolutionary geneticist son and his partner, a neurophysiologist – and one playwright, our younger son. The highlight was not the kaka feeding, from whence this photo comes, but the discovery of a tiny rifleman, high on the ridge overlooking the centre, at the ends of a new track.
Our other annual tradition is a beach visit, usually to Mataikona, a rugged beach east of here. The geneticist and I spent a lot of time searching in the rock pools for blue starfish, crabs, shrimps and his beloved snails. Also had some time to fly kites in the light wind.
Somehow the archive does not sound as appealing as flying a kite in the breeze…

Common sage and pineapples

I have already achieved the first of my New Year resolutions – I have planted out my plant of common sage, bought from the friendly herb seller at my local car boot sale. It is many years since I grew this sage, and I am not even sure I know why I have kept not it in the garden.
It can hardly be that it is hard to grow. Common sage, S. officinalis, is one of the easiest of all herbs. It is a small woody perennial, or sub-shrub perhaps, that needs only a moderately sunny place in the garden to succeed. It will flourish in most soils, but prefers slightly less fertility than most other plants. If grown in very rich soil it tends to grow too floppy and lax, and will not last so long. It will do best if restarted every four or five years, as it tends to get a bit woody. It is simplicity itself to grow from a summer cuttings, as it strikes with alacrity.
If you like an ornamental sort of herb garden, there are a number of forms with coloured leaves. The purple leafed variety is probably the best known, but there are also golden-leaved and variegated types around too. These are perfect if you are looking to plant a herb garden on a parterre pattern.
In the kitchen, common sage is probably most-often used in the preparation of poultry or pork stuffing, although it can also be used in sauces and drinks. It has a variety of medicinal uses too – in fact, a recent trial suggests it might be useful in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. As a matter of interest, the very name “Salvia” comes from a Latin word meaning “to heal,” and “sage” means wise.
I mentioned last week that I had planted a red flowered sage, a dwarf from of the once-ubiquitous ‘Bonfire’ salvias. Not everyone is keen on this plant, thinking it too much a blob of red pigment.

Most people would agree that another red flowered sage, the Pineapple Sage, S. rutilans, is a plant of a totally different kind. It is much larger for a start! If growing in suitable conditions it will happily grow to two metres in a season. It is a slightly frost tender perennial, but it will not matter if it gets slightly hit by cold over the winter as it will happily grow back to two metres the following summer.
And what a two metres it will grow to, with long stems of the most deliciously pineapple-scented leaves, topped with spikes of bright red flowers in summer. The flowers will be raided by bees, and children for that matter, all in search of the honey-like nectar stored in the long red tubes at the back of the flowers.
The leaves can be chopped up and used in salads – both green and the more fruity varieties – and can also be used as a garnish. The flowers are also edible, making a great splash in summer salads as well as giving a honey-sweet taste.

East Holdsworth

The Christmas season is upside down in the southern hemisphere and we, somewhat stupidly, try to follow the celebration patterns of our northern cousins, with roast turkey on the menu in the middle of the day, even though it is over 25 degrees.
I have a Christmas ritual – my annual climb up Mount Holdsworth. This year I decided on the East Holdsworth ascent, a track I have never been up.
I was pleasantly surprised. The first part of it is comparatively gentle, and the upper section – much steeper – is very climbable.
On the way up I found a lovely clump of the native forest snowberry, Luzuriaga parviflora in flower.
As is usually the case, this was growing in a rotted log, having spread through the rotten wood. There were little clusters of the single white flowers. A little further up the mountain I noticed a white berry on another clump.
This is relatively easy to grow in the garden, but hard to find in any garden centres.

I only climbed to the bush line, as I needed to get back home for my son to borrow my car to go and see his girlfriend. It was windy and claggy on the tops, so I just took a quick rest behind this rock. There was a lovely mountain daisy, Celmisia species in flower, and a Raoulia, as seen up close.





It was really a quick sprint up the mountain, but it was nice to see a new track.

New Zealand Christmas

The Christmas season usually brings a few horticultural gifts for those of use who garden. Our relatives, struggling to find a gift for someone who has almost everything they need, always know that a gardener is easily satisfied. A gift voucher for your favourite garden centre, or a garden book or two will always be very welcome. And plants can never go amiss.
There are, of course, a number of plants closely associated with Christmas, sometimes a little out of kilter with the season though, with our hemispherical flip around.
The holly, with its prickly leaves and bright red berries in the middle of winter, is loaded with obvious analogies for a northern hemisphere festival, but in the south, by mid-summer, most of the berries will have well and truly been picked over by birds.
The mistletoe is different. If you know where to look, there will be patches of New Zealand mistletoe in flower. There is a wonderful one in flower at Mount Holdsworth at the moment. It is off the beaten track, but if you ask at the caretakers’ office he will happily tell you where it is. The species in flower at the moment is the bright red one, and it is a rare treat to see it. Opossums have decimated most native mistletoe plants, so take the chance to see this beauty.
The traditional New Zealand Christmas tree is the pohutukawa, again with red flowers (usually – there are yellow forms) and again, flowering well at Christmas – usually.
Pohutukawa and rata are brothers, members of the Metrosideros genus, and more or less closely related to Australian gum trees, Eucalyptus, South American fruits, Feijoa and Australian bottlebrushes, Callistemon. They are also, a little less obviously, related to manuka, Leptospermum, and ramarama, Lophomyrtus.
In northern and coastal areas it is pohutukawa that are usually called the New Zealand Christmas Tree, while rata is sometimes given the name in inland areas. Most years it is a little of a misnomer, as it generally flowers a little after Christmas, but this year it is flowering early, in time for the festive season. I have to say, much as I love ratas, they lack the stunning floral affect of a pohutukawa, the flowers generally being slightly smaller and slightly darker.
There are two main pohutukawa species in New Zealand – the mainland form, and a different species from the Kermadec Islands. The latter has smaller and more rounded leaves that the mainland form, and tends to flower spasmodically through the year rather than in one sustained burst.
If you are keen to try a pohutukawa in our district you must bear in mind that they are frost tender – especially when young – and need a frost-free area to grow well. There are some nice examples growing in Masterton, up on Lansdowne hill, so they can cope with a Wairarapa winter if grown in the right are, and given some protection.
Most of us, though, will have to be content to grow one in a pot. Fortunately, that is not hard – in nature they grow in hard, exposed places on the coast and they will flourish without too much care in a large pot. It would pay, though, to make sure you bought as named cultivar, as you would be able to ensure you got the flower colour and growth habit you were interested in. I think ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’ is the one to go for – it is smaller growing than most species, it has crimson red flowers (others can be darker and almost rusty coloured) and it flowers all at once usually. ‘Te Kaha’, selected from a famous East Coast tree, is similarly mannered but the flowers are more orange coloured.
‘Mistral’ is a deeper flowering form, but is also slightly hardier, being a natural hybrid between pohutukawa and southern rata. It flowers slightly before Christmas.

New seedling

Another maiden seedling has bloomed, this time another one of the 2007 seedlings, but an unusual one.
That year my USA seed was destroyed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, on suspicion of a fungous disease. As I only had a few seedlings of my own, I potted up some garden seedlings, making careful note of where they were growing. This is meant to have been growing under a ‘Pacific Rim’ seedling, but it looks nothing like any of them.
It is more violet than the picture shows, but the stripe of turquoise is very prominent. It is pretty enough to keep, I think, but time will tell.

MAF

Hems

As summer’s heat starts to build up, there is one type of plant I know I can rely on to provide me with heaps of colour right through rest of the hot season - the day lily, Hemerocallis. It is quite beyond my understanding why this brilliant summer-flowering perennial is not grown much more in New Zealand, as it should be stand-by in every perennial garden over summer. In other parts of the world it is the most important perennial, planted more then irises and dahlias, but here in Aotearoa, it is relatively unknown.Some city councils have tumbled that this is a great value plant for low maintenance gardens – in fact, some have planted up whole beds with some of the smaller flowering varieties.What is so good about these plants?
Obviously the first attraction is their lily shaped flowers. These are available in a huge range of colours, from almost-black through pinks, oranges, reds, yellows, and almost-whites. Each of these flowers only last one day – hence the common name and, perhaps, their lack of popularity – but there is a long succession of flowers and each variety will flower for up to a month, with many re-blooming later in the season. With careful selection, it is possible top have flowers for over five months.
There are evergreen varieties, and those that are semi-deciduous or totally deciduous. Even those that die away completely for the winter tend to only lose their leaves, much like a Hosta, for a short time,.
The leaves are interesting. In some of the smaller flowered forms they are almost grass-like, and would fit into a modern grass garden with ease. They are all more or less light green, and quite textured.
Flower size is very variable. Breeders overseas – especially in America where there are over 40,000 registered varieties – have been striving to increase the size of the flowers, and to flatten them somewhat, making them less trumpet-like. Most of mine are about 15 cm across, but I do grow one or two dwarf varieties too, which have smaller flowers. These smaller flowering forms are very popular for those with smaller gardens, or those who wish to mix their “Hems”, as they are popularly called, with other perennials.
They will grow almost anywhere in the garden. They are said to prefer free draining soils, but I have seen them growing perfectly well on the edges of bogs. They do, however, prefer full sun. I grew a number of these in light shade at the edge of a woodland garden, and they grew alright, but I was not happy with their increase or their flowering rate. It was not until I planted them out in the full sun that I realised what I had been missing out on. With their cheerful faces in the sun, they quickly grew much larger, and flowered much more exuberantly.

New Slideshow and altered look

As a fifty-five year old who is only interested in any technology as a tool, it is always a challenge for me to alter anything like the settings on my blog, or the pictures displayed in my slideshow.
My over the past week I have been working a little on that.
The slideshow now features some of the more interesting Pacific Coast Irises (PCIS) I have bred over the past few years. I hope you enjoy them.
I am coming under pressure to register and distribute some, so I am looking to find space for a growing-on bed around the section somewhere. I think it might mean taking out a small tree or two. I am loathe to do that, but the trees cause headaches for the swimming pool, and I am sure Jill would like them gone, so.....

Late PCIs

This has been one of those weekends – I do not seem to have stopped, and it is now late-ish on Sunday evening.
I started the day with a quick sprint up to Powell Hut on Mount Holdsworth. A friend told me they had managed to reached the hut in two hours (the normal time is about three to four hours) so, of course….. well, I went as hard as I could and got there in 1.55. I doubt whether I could get there much faster.
The problem was I needed to be back home by lunchtime, as I was taking the family to see the Christmas Parade. So I had an apple, and drunk in the wonderful view along with some cold water, then came back down. In a way it was almost sacrilegious, as it was a day out of the box – sparkling clear and not a breath of wind.
Still I got to see Christmas Parade. For what that was worth.
The afternoon was better as I swam and cleaned the pool, then the whangai grandkids arrived, so I swam again! I managed some gardening in between, including harvesting potatoes and raspberries. The last of the firewood arrived just before tea so I stacked that and went and had a rest.
Today I was awake early – too early for the gym – so I went for a long bike ride, then gardened some more. We went out to the Mauriceville Fair, taking our son Owen’s friend Sophie, with us. Met up with lots of people I knew, including Kay from New Pacific Studio, who had a stall there, and Rachel, an artist from New Orleans doing a residency at NPS.
It is not the greatest fair, but it is a day in a part of the country I like.
I came home and gardened some more, and took some photos of some Pacific Coast Irises I have out.
It is very late in the season, and two of the irises are seedlings that should not flower until next year – they were sown March 2007 – and next year they will almost certainly settle into normal flower patterns. They are both nice ones of my own breeding, one an unusual salmon colour with green and blue undertones (as seen above) , the other a red with a deep signal. The salmon one fades during its time, as will be apparent from the pics.

The other, though, is a Mocha Melody seedling, with good branching, that should have flowered with its siblings six weeks ago. If this is a genetic trait I will be very excited. As it is, I have two seedlings to cross it with! I am crossing at the same time as I am watching the seed pods ripen on my other crosses.

There was another one out. This is very unusual. It has four legs, it bares it teeth every timne I go past, and it growls and barks a lot.

Must be a dog

Sprouting into summer

This weekend has been one of harvesting some of the first of the summer crops, and planning for the winter crop. On Saturday, I harvested the first of the raspberries, after having to put a mesh net over them earlier in the week, designed to keep little birds, and little girls, from beating me to the crop.
On the same day, I dug the first of the new season’s potatoes, the ‘Rocket’ I planted in late August. As you will be able to work out, this is a very early season variety, not one I have grown before. I was surprised when the tops fell over about a fortnight ago, thinking they were under-watered, but no amount of watering convinced them to stand up again, so I dug them. As you will remember, I plant my potatoes in a trough filled with compost and straw, and this makes harvesting very easy. The soil falls away from the tubers and they come up very cleanly. The return was good too – not outstanding, but ample, and the first of the potatoes (the tiddlers) have already been eaten and were delicious.
That left room in the garden, so I took advantage of the chance to get some Brussels Sprouts in. These vegetables are winter standbys, and new gardeners are tricked into thinking they should be planted in late summer/early autumn, but they need planting much earlier.
Brussels Sprouts are members of the vast Brassica tribe, and descend from cabbages. The usually accepted story of their origin is that they arose as a sport in Belgium about 1750, and were exported to other European countries and England by 1800.
They have become a winter standby in Europe – and are a traditional component of English Christmas Dinner, in much the same way the new potatoes and peas are part of ours.
Brussels Sprouts are quite straightforward to grow. They need good fertile soil, so I dug a trench in the old potato ground (finding some more tubers too!) filling it with a generous layer of my own worm-filled compost. I topped this off with some lime, as it is important to keep the pH level up for brassicas, to help stop the incursion of club foot disease. Most compost has low pH anyway, so it is a good idea to add lime when applying it. I also threw a little general purpose garden fertiliser, mixed with more slow release food, as sprouts like fertile soil and they are long-term plants.
Once the soil was prepared I tramped it to make it as firm as I could – sprouts like to be planted in as firm a soil as possible - then planted and watered them in.
I bought the plants in from my nursery, as they had good, strong, healthy-looking F1 hybrid plants. You could probably still grow your own from seed, but it is getting late enough in the season to do that. I think you would be better off to buy the seedlings in if you have not already sown.
It has been my experience that it pays to buy F1 hybrid Sprouts, as they are much more reliable and more likely to give a good crop. Do not forget that these plants like a cool snap to develop their flavour fully.
When it comes to eating them, make sure the cook does not over boil the sprouts. If they are overcooked they tend to have a sulphurous taste that few people like. I like them in stir fries, or lightly steamed and served with butter and pepper. If you find you have some loose sprouts at the end of the season (and I always do) just leave them to keep on growing. In the spring, they will send out flower shoots, just like small broccoli heads. They are delicious if cut small enough, and, once again, they are great in stir fries.

A Very Publick Reserve

We launched my latest book today – 'A Very Publick Reserve', the story of Queen Elizabeth Park, our local municipal park. The launch coincided with the opening of an exhibition on the park at Aratoi, the local museum of art and history.





















The ceremony started with a mihi (welcome) from local kaumatua and friend Mike Kawana….
then Aratoi director Marcus Burroughs introduced my publisher, Ian Grant of Fraser Books…..


































Taini Wright spoke very eloquently about the statue her poua (grandfather) Taiawhio Te Tau erected in the park in 1921… here is she welcomed to the microphone by Marcus and myself....




















The book was launched by Dex Knowles, whose father was custodian of the park from 1940 until 1958. Dex spoke entertainingly about his childhood, and his father’s part in the park development.




















I spoke briefly, explaining how the research started with a request for help from my daughter Lavinia and her friend Callum Daniell. I explained that this request has changed me from an nurseryman who like history, into an archivist who loved gardening! Callum and Lavinia both died in their thirties, and the book is dedicated to their memory. Vin’s brother Owen was there (he has some photographs in the book) and Callum’s widow and son were there too, so it was a moving day for me.
















I signed books and caught up with some of the many friends and relatives who were present.
Later, I photographed Owen, reading the book in the rose bed we planted in Vin’s memory in the park.

An emotionally tiring day but very satisfying.