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General Subjects => Blogs and Diaries => Topic started by: Lesley Cox on December 03, 2012, 08:27:29 PM

Title: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 03, 2012, 08:27:29 PM
December 4th 2012

Blog 661

Many months ago Roger and I decided we had to move from our 2 acres. They were too much for us, part of what our Govt refers to as “the rapidly aging population” as if to blame us for living longer than pensionable age. Both of us have health issues however and gradually the place is becoming wilder and less garden-like. It went on the market in late July and was sold by late August with a completion date of February 22nd 2013. This long period suited our buyers and us too as I had a garden and nursery to move as well as house. In fact, the house is the least of it. Roger’s collection of cars won’t be moving but is being sold bit by bit but he still has a shed full of machinery, tools and dreams that probably won’t ever come to fruition – like the boat that is being built.

We believed we had found the perfect place for us, 45 mins north of the city of Dunedin, with half an acre of well-maintained garden and two cottages rather than a single house. Both were in excellent (“House and Garden”) order and we started a negotiation process with the owners who were anxious to sell. They gave us their bottom line and what they really wanted and we were happily moving toward this when they dropped a bomb. It was a private sale and therein lay the problem because an agent would have had a conditional contract signed at the beginning. The bomb was a letter from their solicitor, relayed through ours that the seller refused to negotiate further and wanted no further contact with us.

We were devastated! What had we done wrong? We learned a few days later, and through a group of gardeners who had visited the garden, that someone seeing the “For Sale” sign had walked in off the street, looked around and offered a huge sum, way in excess of what we had been told. Fair enough, but they should have asked us if we could match or better that price and when we said we couldn’t, they could have sold without leaving us feeling as if we had been stabbed in the back. “People not to be trusted” said our own solicitor.

I had fallen in love with the place and was heart-broken and didn’t believe those friends and family who assured us the final place, when we found it would be much better. Well we have found that place now and the sale is unconditional with the same completion date. It is not better but it is not worse either, just different with some other advantages.

It is 45 mins south of the city, the climate is different, a little cooler but the garden is very sheltered, and I may have to drive through snow occasionally in the winter to get to my Saturday job in the city, leaving home at 4.15am. The road (NZ’s version of the M1) is flat all the way (the other had two major hill climbs, also snow risks) and the house and garden are situated in open and attractive farm land. The address, hence this Blog title, is 661 Waihola Highway in Otago, just 5 mins south of the lake of that name.

At present the garden is largely a rose garden with many perennials and some very good trees. There are a lot of conifers and some of these will be removed but when we were last there a week ago, I also noticed maples, liquidambers, birches, a beech, a Nyssa, a large Amelanchier canadensis and other trees and shrubs which will give good autumn colour. There is not, so far as I can see, either an alpine or an iris, my favourite genus, on the whole place. This will change of course. What is now a large and quite new rose garden will become one of two rock gardens and a smaller rose garden will become another, with, I hope, a pool linking them.

Our sellers asked, almost timidly, if we would mind if they dug and took a few things with them, especially a few roses. I was delighted with this prospect and said to take everything they wanted. They have potted up some roses but, to my horror, phoned to say they had bought some more to replace those they’d lifted. Yes, I like roses but I should think there are several hundred on the place from old and massive climbers down to tiny patio roses in pots. A few will stay but the vast majority, if liftable, will be given to friends who would like them. (Oddly, on a recent garden visit with my alpine group, I saw 3 roses, all climbers which I liked so much I’m now actively looking for them, to buy!)

Enough for now. All this is to come but there is still a major work in progress at our present address. Something of that very soon.

Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Luc Gilgemyn on December 03, 2012, 09:50:56 PM
What a great prospect, Lesley !
This is a blog I will be following with great interest !  :D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Tim Ingram on December 03, 2012, 10:19:52 PM
Lesley - the house looks to sit very comfortably in the garden! I could imagine a small scale Peter Korn type sand bed in the lawn, but what sort of plants will you aim to grow there? Good wishes for your move.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Brian Ellis on December 03, 2012, 10:28:26 PM
A project I am sure you will enjoy Lesley.  I hope all goes well with this one.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: angie on December 03, 2012, 10:38:38 PM
Lesley your new home looks lovely. I could see myself sitting at that table and chairs enjoying the evening sun.
Looking forward to see and hear about your changes in the future.

Angie  :)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: sippa on December 03, 2012, 11:22:35 PM

I like your new house Leslie.  Good luck with all the changes you are planning.

Marianne
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Maggi Young on December 03, 2012, 11:33:59 PM
I agree that the new house looks very nice and the garden is in neat condition yet ripe for development to your needs.  I bet February arrives at superfast speed!
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 04, 2012, 12:46:10 AM
Thankyou so much everyone, for your interest and support.

Tim I hadn't thought of a sand bed but that idea is a good one which I'll look at further. The to-be-a-rockgarden above is the smaller of the two and maybe would be the place to start. In any case, sand, compost and other stuff will have to be brought in to make some height and while I had been thinking crevice garden, am not sure of my own abilities in this direction, so we'll see.

As to what - trees, perennials of course but alpines and irises in quantity and anything else that takes my fancy including a rather large collection of smallish bulbs. I'll have a place for a native rock garden too.

More about the house and garden in our next exciting episode. ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Leon on December 04, 2012, 02:29:58 AM
December 4th 2012

Blog 661

... decided we had to move from our 2 acres. They were too much for us, part of what our Govt refers to as “the rapidly aging population” as if to blame us for living longer than pensionable age.  ...

The key word may be 'rapidly'.  My wife and I are on 10 acres and I keep thinking its time to downsize.  It is taking some time for the wife to come around to my way of thinking.  But then...  I do the mowing and gardening.  Crazy thing is, seems we add another gardening area every year or so. 
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 04, 2012, 03:10:24 AM
Well gardening is an addiction of course, happily one which does only good to one's mental and physical health. Oh.. I forgot the bad back and dodgy knees. But no, it was using a vacuum cleaner that gave me those. :D When the decision has to be made Leon, there are certainly some regrets but then you can look forward to the next phase of a joyful and fulfilling life. I wish you well, whenever that has to be.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: fermi de Sousa on December 04, 2012, 08:07:13 AM
Well done, Lesley!
Maybe you can take us for a "drive by" after the NZAGS Study Weekend!
I look forward to further instalments of the new blog ;D
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Arum on December 04, 2012, 08:46:04 AM
Lesley
I can see you creating a wonderful garden here for your superb collection of plants. Wow two rock gardens - how exciting  - all the very best wishes - Edna
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: David Nicholson on December 04, 2012, 09:04:53 AM
Great stuff Lesley, house looks lovely. I'll pop round and give you a hand with the garden ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 04, 2012, 09:09:01 AM
Thank you Edna. You'll be a welcome visitor on your trips to Invercargill. As another Forumist says "the kettle is always on" or it won't take more than a few minutes anyway.

I'm sure that will be possible Fermi. Our sellers are very helpful and co-operative and have offered us space for storage in the meantime as moving everything on a single day, the 22nd Feb, wouldn't be possible, so there will be numerous trips down the road in the interim with boxes of books and the like, then with trays of plants, troughs and so on.

22nd Feb will be the 2nd anniversary of the second major 'quake in Chch, the day on which so many lives were lost. While it will be an exciting (and exhausting) day for Roger and me, I hope we remember to take time to think of those others whose lives were so cruelly shattered.

Any day you like David. Maureen and I will enjoy a scone or two as we watch you. ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: arillady on December 04, 2012, 09:23:08 AM
Looks like a lovely new home Lesley. all the best with the move.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: gote on December 04, 2012, 10:38:14 AM
You are a wise woman Lesley and I sincerely hope you will be happy.
I should probably follow your example but the land on which I garden was bought by my great great grandfather in 1867 and the house was built by my grandfather 1918. It is difficult to let go. (But I have got rid of two of the old cars - only six more to go).
Again
Good luckt o you both.
Göte 
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Darren on December 04, 2012, 10:45:28 AM
Very best wishes to  you Lesley and we look forward to seeing how your new garden develops!

Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: ian mcenery on December 04, 2012, 10:45:52 AM
Good luck Lesley it looks just great. I can just see you with G and T in hand

Ian
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: angie on December 04, 2012, 11:44:24 AM
Well done, Lesley!
Maybe you can take us for a "drive by" after the NZAGS Study Weekend!
I look forward to further instalments of the new blog ;D
cheers
fermi

Lucky you. Maybe in the future we could have a SRGC outing, as they say distance is no object when its worth seeing something you enjoy. Also I have always wanted to gaze up to the stars in warmth.
Lesley it's so exciting for you and I am glad that you are sharing your future with us.

Angie  :)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: ranunculus on December 04, 2012, 11:52:11 AM
... And great good luck from the Bookeroo ... too.

I hope you are preparing that gorgeous little Ranunculus semiverticillatus for the move with some tender touches and quiet reassurance?

All the very best Lesley and Roger - with both the move and your long-term gardening and health issues.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lvandelft on December 04, 2012, 06:41:22 PM
Looks like a lovely place for gardening in the middle of the fields, Lesley. I think you will improve the garden soon with many lovely plants.
The making of new gardens is something which let you think very positive and you forget to think about health and other problems.
I expect in the future there will be less lawn mowing in this garden. The place where now are the Armeria is really inviting for a rock garden, difficult to wait a few months and not start immediately :)
I wish you much luck and pleasure in your new place!
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Martinr on December 04, 2012, 06:50:20 PM
Looking forward to episode 2. I may have missed it but what size is the new plot?
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: maggiepie on December 04, 2012, 08:09:21 PM
Lesley, am so pleased you started your blog, can't wait for the next installment.
Your new house looks beaut as do the gardens.
Hope your move goes smoothly.

Can understand your frustration and disappointment at being gazumped with the first property but hopefully this will turn out even better.
Wishing you the best of luck with it all.

Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: frits.kp on December 04, 2012, 08:20:33 PM
what a brilliant read. we are selling our house, I am now worried! Your house in the pic looks lovely
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 04, 2012, 08:42:08 PM
Again, thanks everyone. I'm enjoying the writing but every day that slips past without my doing something outside toward the move, really is frightening me now. There is so much to do.

frits.kp, house selling and then buying is a traumatic thing at the best of times so I do wish you every possible success in your sale and finding a replacement when you're ready. I hope it all goes well for you. Ours would have been much easier if I hadn't wanted to take so many plants and re-establish a run down nursery. Most people decide to sell and get on with it. I've been planning it for many months before we actually took the fateful step.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 04, 2012, 08:52:12 PM
Cliff, I really hoped you'd forgotten about the R. semiverticillatus because I have to tell you, that it has died. It became very overgrown last summer then died down but has not come through again this year. From germination in, as I remember, 1992, it never flowered even once so though I feel bad about it, it wasn't a spectacular part of the garden's display.The over grown syndrome applies everywhere and is really the main reason for the move - we just can't cope with it all. I didn't want to tell you and I know you'll never speak to me again, but I hope in time we can be friends again. :'( :'( :'(
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Maggi Young on December 04, 2012, 08:59:22 PM
I don't think the Bookeroo will hold it against  you , Lesley.  I suspect he'll weep for a moment or two and then be relived that  he no longer has to envy you having the plant! He's got a very sensible streak in there somewhere, I'm sure.

I can't remember how long we struggled on with a non-flowering Ranunculus semiverticillatus - it was quite a few years, though not as many as yours. Sweet little knotty growth each year, getting gently bigger, but never a flower and then, one year, no re-appearance - just the sort of torture we are all daft enough to put ourselves through!
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: ranunculus on December 04, 2012, 09:10:10 PM
Let the mourning begin ...

As Maggi has kindly noted; "He's got a very sensible streak in there somewhere, I'm sure." ( ... and without a concluding question mark, quite surprisingly) - I send sympathy, understanding, condolences and the hope that seed will find it's way to you once again in the future.
 :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(  :-*
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 04, 2012, 09:51:27 PM
Blog 661 – 5th December 2012

A quick word of apology. I mentioned in the last entry that I would leave home for work at 4.15am. Of course I meant 5.15 as I start at 6am. I’ll get up at about 4.30 as I like to shower, cook and eat porridge and have a tickle of Marley’s (the dog’s) tummy before I leave.

The house is certainly very comfortable and we are looking forward to occupying it. It is old – for New Zealand – built in 1900 and for this reason we have had quite a job of proving to our bank, from whom we need a small loan for just 3 months, that we can insure it. Insurance of all kinds has gone through the roof since the Christchurch earthquake. For this year’s renewal, our house and contents policies have increased by a massive 64% and for a new policy, as we will have here, it is even higher. This of course is better than for many Christchurch people who have been unable to insure at all, an appalling situation for home builders or repairers. However, at last we have been able to prove rewiring, re-plumbing, re-lining have been done within the last 20 years and that re-piling and re-roofing as our insurance company wanted, are not necessary, though the roof will need painting in the reasonably near future.

The little verandah which you will come and share with us Angie, will seat maybe 4 people in comfort and already we are calling it the G and T deck as it will be warm in the evenings. At the other side of the house is a larger decked area for coffee and croissants and light lunches. Maybe we could seat up to a dozen here. The kitchen is smaller than I’m used to so will have to be kept really tidy and I’ll have a good walk-in pantry. Then there is a dining-living room with a good view of the side garden and from this a larger lounge (I hate that word so let’s call it a sitting room), which has French doors opening onto the G and T deck. A wide hall from these three rooms has three bedrooms off it and the front door as well as a single bathroom at the other end but we also will have a self-contained flat with kitchen-living room and a large bedroom and bathroom/loo. So we can have people to stay in two bedrooms and I’ll be really annoyed if Forumists are in New Zealand and don’t take advantage of that.

The flat can also be used as a work room (Seeds!)

Then there is garaging for 3 vehicles and a 4th except that that part will be my potting shed and the nursery will be in several small areas at the back of the property, fitted in among the various small buildings and providing for sunny and shady places. I’ll have a shade house built and what was my original quarantine house years ago will be rebuilt as a propagating house. Maybe I’ll be allowed a small alpine house, if I’m very, very good.

There is a good and very well kept vegetable garden and with great generosity, the sellers are replanting it as they use the potatoes, beans etc, which are ready now. We asked Ian why he was planting main and late crop potatoes and sowing more carrots as they wouldn’t be ready in time for him and Shirley, his wife. “You’ll need something to eat when you get here” he said, “and with winter coming on I’ll make sure there are young cabbages, caulis and leeks growing on for later.” A tiny glasshouse completes this area, which also has rhubarb and berry bushes. I buy a lot of our vegetables at the market but fresh as those are, our own supply straight from the garden will be even better.

In spite of there being 3385 square metres in total, there is not a huge amount of lawn and some of what there is will (or my intention is that it will) become a series of small lawn patches, one totally of gentians, one with snowdrops, one with crocuses and Eranthis and one with Cyclamen coum in different shades. They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions so time will prove the worth of my present aims but the material is here for these things to happen. It will be up to me to make them come to pass.

Downsides? Yes, a few but nothing we can’t live with. The main trunk rail line goes right past the front (south eastern) boundary but there are so few trains nowadays that so far, on the 5 times we have visited, we’ve not seen or heard one and in any case a thick band of trees is between the boundary and the garden, but we do have to drive across the line to enter our place. However, the visibility is excellent in both directions. There is more noise from the road traffic but one gets used to that. We have done, previously (anyone who has been on this stretch of what I termed our version of the M1, would roar with laughter at the very little traffic it carries in comparison, just a single lane in each direction).

The other thing we have noticed is that though the garden is full of bird life, we haven’t seen or heard a native wood pigeon, tui, bellbird, wax-eye, fantail or shining cuckoo, all of which we have at present, in abundance. The shining cuckoo population has exploded this year, with a least a dozen birds in our garden at present. We’ll plant especially to attract these birds and Roger has always put out drip feeders with sugar and water, very popular with native birds so when we get some of those hanging in the trees and around the house, we hope to have the native birds come to visit then stay.

We’ll also introduce a few – maybe 4 or 5 – hens for eggs of course and because they are useful for manure and to keep control of small garden pests. They’re nice to have pecking around one’s feet as one weeds too. Roger will make a contraption called a Chookateria, a self-service feeder, which can be eaten from, at will. The chooks will be free range of course, just going into their little perching house when they wish, for the night.

As you see there are many hostas, ferns and other cool-loving plants all very lush which suggests some parts are quite damp. The entrance way will change a lot and the lawn there is probably the most lawn in a single piece there is. The red doors are garage and my potting shed which opens at the other end as well.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Brian Ellis on December 05, 2012, 09:23:00 AM
We asked Ian why he was planting main and late crop potatoes and sowing more carrots as they wouldn’t be ready in time for him and Shirley, his wife. “You’ll need something to eat when you get here” he said, “and with winter coming on I’ll make sure there are young cabbages, caulis and leeks growing on for later.”

What a lovely gesture, this all bodes well Lesley, the house sounds delightful and it seems a shame that Ian and Shirley can't just move next door and be lovely neighbours!

Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: annew on December 05, 2012, 10:21:53 AM
It sounds and looks like heaven Lesley, an ideal canvas for you to work with. I hope you have a great time producing your masterpiece!
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: zvone on December 08, 2012, 08:45:00 AM
Hi Lesley!

Garden is "mirror" creator garden and your garden is wonderful.

Still forward successfully!

Best Regards!  zvone
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 10, 2012, 01:40:43 AM
Blog 661 - December 10th 2012

Those who may follow this Blog will be relieved to know I don’t plan a daily entry. Apart from anything else I haven’t the time. But I do hope to add something relevant perhaps twice a week. I’m lifting, potting and listing everything I plan to move and I’m reminded of a much loved Canterbury alpine gardener whose wife accused him of making so many lists of his plants that he didn’t have time actually to grow them! This wasn’t correct of course and the late Charlie Challenger grew superbly, a huge range of alpine and other plants including a comprehensive collection of the genus Crocus among many other choice bulbs and herbaceous items.

Let’s go back a little.

Roger and I moved to this present address on American Independence Day, July 4th 1997. The 2 acres we bought were largely a paddock, unruly but with new plantings by the previous owner of Eucalyptus nitens, Pinus radiata and Leyland cypress. When we arrived all these trees were approximately 80cms in height. Now, the eucalypts are over 20 metres and the conifers are about 15 metres. (Trigonometry was never one of my brighter school subjects.) Over the intervening years they have provided good shelter to the east, south and west and since the land in front of us drops away, they haven’t blocked the north view of mountain, plain and the town of Mosgiel where we do most of our shopping, banking, post office things, doctor, et al. We haven’t removed trees except the occasional pine where a savage gale has taken it either in total or the top out of it and these have provided enough firewood for our winter needs.

Gum trees, however, it must be said, are filthy things. In their Australian bush context (I am always thrilled by E. regnans and others in the Dandenong Range when I visit Aussie friends) they are magnificent and utterly “right” in the landscape but as garden plants the taller species are messy with shedding bark, year-round leaf fall (the leaves don’t rot down or disintegrate) and roots which reach upward for any drop of water, so that the ground around the garden and nursery has become an obstacle course of thigh-thick roots lying along or just under the surface. These create a considerable danger to the unwary and even to Roger and me who know about them. I keep a 6 cubic metre pile of potting mix under one of these trees, handy to my potting shed but within a month of its dumping there, the new, fine gum roots have travelled upwards to infest the potting mix and are themselves up to a metre above the base of the tree at ground level. The root system in general is shallow and bowl-shaped, without a stabilising taproot so that in very high winds and especially after prolonged heavy rain, the trees rock about in the wet ground and sometimes fall over altogether. This did happen once here, flattening my tunnel house, which has never been fully efficient since, even after major rebuilding and repair.

We planned to fell a couple of pines and take their trunks with us for initial firewood but the one condition our buyers wanted, was that we were not to take down any of the present trees. Maybe they plan to start a firewood business as they’ve shown no sign of wanting a garden as such and are happy for us to take any or every plant we want.

When we arrived I wanted to garden right away but it just didn’t happen. Plants remained in pots and boxes, gardens weren’t made and nothing much happened at all except that gradually over years I lost many plants, some quite irreplaceable. Ideally I would have hired a couple of men, with machinery, to move soil about and make the gardens I so desperately wanted and needed but we had no spare money and that didn’t happen. No matter how good – or bad – my design, there were no means to put it into practice and in retrospect, I have to admit that our purchase of the present property was a bad decision, Roger’s back being a problem even back then and my own body rapidly becoming acquainted with significant to severe arthritis. So while I did get the nursery up and running, the garden as such, really didn’t happen to any extent.

The bad back, the arthritis and some other health issues are still with us of course but we have hopes and indeed a determination that the new place will be easier to contend with since it is already an established and well-maintained garden and while there will be changes to both design and plantings, there will be a little money to play with so I have a great expectation that my plants will be happy, healthy and rewarding as we get them into the ground again, or in many cases for the first time. Perhaps I should say that Roger is not by nature a gardener so the main garden will fall to my care and that suits me fine. He is however, happy to work in the vegetable garden so we look forward to a close working relationship and perhaps to the repair of what has frequently been a difficult personal one, of late.

A few pictures to finish today’s Blog. These are of the trays and trays of plants ready to move, the tunnel house, now badly overgrown by gum trees so that little light penetrates and the new owners will need to remove at least some of these trees if the tunnel is to be useful to them. As well a couple of pictures to show what happens when neglected for a period and things get out-of-control. The Rh. lepidostylum is ripe for cuttings at present, yet another job urgently needing to be done and I have seedlings and young plants of the iris so will leave that one in situ. This plant varies in stature. Although all "dwarf" compared with many, some I have are just a few cms high when in bloom, while others are up to 30cms.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Brian Ellis on December 10, 2012, 09:09:13 AM
Well done Lesley, you are certainly making an impression on the jobs to be done.  Will you have a new tunnel in the next garden?
When we first went to Kit Grey-Wilson's new garden he told us of the four (I think) removal vans they had (for the plants) and one for the house!  When we saw the garden it was looking well established and has certainly filled out since.  He removes every drop of soil from the potted plants before planting them out and maintains they 'take off' far more quickly - and they certainly looked happy.
BTW did you see picture's of Otto's Fauser's garden in John Grimshaw's Blog?
http://johngrimshawsgardendiary.blogspot.co.uk/ (http://johngrimshawsgardendiary.blogspot.co.uk/)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 10, 2012, 09:05:39 PM
Thanks Brian, I'm lucky the weather is holding for the moment. The spring and summer have been miserable this year but hopefully will settle soon. Anyway, if it rains I just have to go on.

We'll do a new tunnel but smaller. The present one is 12 x 4 metres so maybe 6 or 8 x 3m. I'll still go for the knitted cloth rather than plastic sheeting as it lets rain through. I'll not make the mistake of having it under trees which block the rain. Of course when it was erected the trees were only a metre high. I've lost more seedlings to drought in the tunnel than from any other cause because I thought the rain was keeping them moist when in fact it wasn't getting through at all on the southern side where the trees are thickest overhead.

Our sellers again are generous and letting us take stuff down to store in the meantime, in the flat so now the sale is unconditional, we'll start that soon. They are still looking for somewhere and oddly, want to go to the small town of Waikouaiti where our previous choice is. But if they haven't finalised a purchase before our completion date they plan to store their stuff and live in their large caravan for a time. We can help them out with storage room too, once we've moved.

We'll do a lot of our move with two cars and trailers and have a moving lorry only for the bigger furniture and the heavier garden stuff like troughs and Bill, my sandstone statue who will at last have a home suitable to his character. A friend thinks he looks like one of the Italian Renaissance poets but he's always been Bill, to me.

Being a lover of snowdrops without being totally obsessed ( ;D) I haven't followed John Grimshaw's blog but will go there today. I heard from Fermi that JG was taken with Otto's place. Well, aren't we all? I love to go there.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 12, 2012, 10:55:18 PM
Blog 661 – December 13th 2012

Most Forumists will know I am totally addicted to seeds. I love their diversity of size, shape and colour as I love their potential for new life. As a woman who has had a small nursery off and on for about 50 years, seeds have figured large in all my horticultural activities and as I get older, the wish to sow and grow them and to try something new, seems not to diminish even slightly.

But this has now presented me with something of a quandary.

This year I made the brave, and previously unheard of, decision to refrain from ordering seed from the various seed exchanges but still, commercial lists tempt me and Forumists too have been very generous in sharing with me, their better species.

Yesterday I counted up my seed pots There are some 200 sown with no germination so far, about 300 with germination but the occupants too small to handle and another 200 with the seedlings needing quite urgent potting up or planting out. Many of these are bulb seedlings which are outgrowing their space and need bigger homes or to grow on in pots for sale next and the following year. Others are so crowded that they won’t grow until released from the close confines of their neighbours. The quandary? Do I start this potting exercise now, soon before a major house/garden/nursery move and have each pot transmute into an average of 25 pots, making so much more to move – and care for in the meantime – or do I leave them for another three months until the move is complete and even then, likely be unable to pot immediately as so much else, especially house, will need to be sorted and made liveable?

With so much else to sort and pack up, it seems the potting will have to wait except in the most urgent cases. Some, with only a very few youngsters in each, I can do in odd half hours and they won’t present too big a challenge to move but others, of popular species, will make several traysworth each and would mean extra trips down the road to their new home.

The ungerminated things are reasonably safe so long as the grit on top doesn’t get too dislodged during the move. The bulbous species are mostly dying off now so can safely be left for a while at least but the herbaceous things do need to be sorted soon. Some I can put into larger pots, simply tipping the whole contents onto my hand then settling with extra compost and a little fertilizer into the larger container so they can spread their roots and tops a little.

In the meantime of course, seed harvest goes on. I’ve always used margarine pots and the small plastic tubs in which one buys salads and similar products at the supermarket, to house the handfuls of seed I bring inside every day. They work well and there are so many available but they do take room and I am looking forward to the extra space of our detached flat, to lay out seeds ready to clean then packet. Some need a sheet of newspaper to assist drying and these can be laid on the floor – Roger has to be persuaded of this of course – while shelving and a wide bench already in place will take many small containers of seed.

Every year I bring in some seed and forget immediately to label them so that inevitably, since I can’t send them to an exchange, I have pots with a question mark on the label. Seeds of Narcissus seem particularly prone to this fate. This year I’ll sow the few I know and want and mass sow the extras in large trays, leaving them to grow on to flowering. Such plants even without proper labelling, make sought-after bulbs at local shows, salestables etc and often yield very fine material.

Pictures to follow. The three Rheums are growing well, RR emodi, alexandrae and nobile all potting size but I have decided to leave the R. nobile until they have died down and hopefully re-grow next spring as of the dozen seedlings I potted last year in the autumn, only one has come back to grow on, and that slowly. (Now I have a closer look at them, the nobile looks extraordinarily like alexandrae at this stage and I’m wondering if there is a mis-name in there.) R. tataricum has not yet germinated. Maybe in the autumn.

Many of the seeds are in concrete troughs, originally sold as calf drinking troughs and my mother and I bought a dozen each for 26/- a piece at the time. Nowadays they are all mine and they go where I go. Others are in the tunnel and others still are already laid out in trays for transport. These are mostly the dying off bulblets.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: fermi de Sousa on December 13, 2012, 02:34:40 AM
Blog 661 – December 13th 2012
Every year I bring in some seed and forget immediately to label them so that inevitably, since I can’t send them to an exchange, I have pots with a question mark on the label. Seeds of Narcissus seem particularly prone to this fate.

I know the feeling!
I now carry old envelopes in my pockets (even my work slacks!) and have a pencil to hastily write what the seed is and when and where it was collected.
It's surprising how things that look so distinctive that you couldn't possibly confuse it with anything else becomes just another unlabelled item a few weeks down the track!
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 13, 2012, 08:05:02 PM
That's especially true Fermi when there are at least a dozen different but indistinguishable Narcissus varieties or species. ???

I always find it hard to leave the subject of seeds and have a special reason for being grateful there are no gum trees at 661. The concrete troughs above are very near the south shelter trees and as well as shedding leaves and bark, the gums are profligate with their seed. It is fine and wind born and in fact visually, very like that of Rhododendron. I have to remove every day at least 20 or 30 gum seedlings mainly from the seed pots but also from every other part of the garden and the recently potted plants to move. If not taken out while tiny, the seedlings soon grow to the extend that removing them takes most of the pot contents as well. They will grow to well over a metre in a first season. I'll be interested to see how long it takes before there are no further gum trees germinating in my seed pots, after we move. I've sown seed of Eucalyptus ficifolia, of which there are 3 beautiful colour forms growing near me, an apricot, a scarlet and a deep crimson but not one of those very desirable seeds has germinated! Their seed pods (gum nuts - makes a nice spoonerism that,) are much larger than those of E. nitens and take 3 years to ripen.

Two seeds I'm happy with at present are Rhodothamnus chamaecistus, now close to 3 years old!!! (I think I'll have to tweeze some moss away from around it to let it breath and perhaps be potted up into something else) and Ourisia macrophylla, a native species which is never offered anywhere locally and seed is rarely available. This was from SRGC in 2010. Nothing germinated for a year then 1, but a few more this October.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 29, 2012, 10:50:41 PM
Blog 661 – December 29th 2012

There has been no time recently for blogging. Preparations for Christmas were interspersed with the continuing task of plant packing and sorting house things – why do we accumulate so much unnecessary “stuff” as we go along? – and getting some things at least, ready to transport as the sellers of our new home have generously given permission for us to take things south and store them in the attached flat, thus eventually making the final shift for the larger things as well as the plants which will have to be moved on the last day or two. I can’t ask “please will you water these as I bring them down” so transporting the many trays and pots will be for the last couple of days before the final move. So far we have taken boxes of books, pottery and porcelain and some larger things like lamps and a couple of pieces of old Lalique left to me by an aunt. Tomorrow I plan to empty the linen cupboard but what am I to do with the mountains of double damask table cloths and napkins which my late mother insisted should be a part of my wedding trousseau? We don’t use such things nowadays, thank heaven, with their need for hot water washing and starching, as well as careful ironing.

In the meantime, watering continues and I’m in serious trouble today because though I turned off the hose end last night, I omitted to turn off at the tap and a split developed in the hose I’d been using and this morning, our tank is empty. Being between Christmas and New Year, and a Saturday, I’ve not been able to find one of the several water carriers who deliver regularly to the country folk around, who is willing to break into his holiday. Roger has taken a couple of 20 litre containers down to his niece in Mosgiel and we’ll have to wait until Monday for a shower.

With the daily watering, there is also daily seed collection, seemingly something every day at present and some good things have set seed this year that haven’t in the past. I’m delighted to have 8 maturing pods on Iris barbatula, just one or two previously and Rigidella orthantha, illustrated below is also setting pods. I’ve done my best to cross pollinate the two seedlings of Primula wollastonii but both are thrum-eyed so maybe nothing will come of that. I used a fine paintbrush, trimmed down to just a very few hairs and poked it right into the throat but I suspect most of what looked like pollen was in fact, the white farina. I’ve also crossed the P. wollastonii with P. flaccida to see what happens, if anything.

I’ve been potting as many of the smaller rhododendrons as will fit into large pots (30 – 40 cms) and as they’ve been very dry and are now being thoroughly watered, the new lease of life they are having is amazing to see. Rhododendron keiskii ssp. cordifolia has bushed up and turned deep red because though in summer mode – usually it goes red/black in winter – it’s in full sun for now and that is colouring the foliage but it’s not affected by the sun and heat because of the extra water. I have always found that plants generally and especially those which prefer cool conditions, are much better able to stand boiling than they are baking, i.e. they can cope with heat and sun if their compost is moist (they may wilt) much better than if it is dry (they will go crisp and die). Primulas especially are a case in point but it applies to many plants including all rhododendrons.

R. ‘Pipit,’ almost gone with just a couple of small twigs with green leaves at their tips, I hoped might show some new sign of life. It has! New clusters of greenery are bursting through the pot surface near the centre of the plant and soon I can trim back all the other top growth for a new, rejuvenated plant. It is a plant which makes underground stolons and fortunately I have two of these potted up months ago and looking well and healthy but it was a close thing with the much larger main specimen.

Tropaeolum ciliatum, plaguey thing that it is, is showing to good effect on a netting fence. There’s not a hope of getting rid if it much as I’d like to. It’s every bit as rampant as T. speciosum but not nearly as showy and thrives in a hot, dry position which the red species does not. I’m aware though that a couple of Forumists would like the seed so if it is ready before we leave, I’ll collect it. If not, I shan’t be sorry to leave it behind. However, when we were at 661 on Thursday, I noticed T. speciosum flowering way up high in some ancient camellias. I know some will think I’m mad to want this lovely thing but I’m thrilled to have it – or will be – as I’ve never been able to establish it here.

Just had a phone call from one of the water firms. They’ve taken pity and will be here in half an hour with 10,000 litres. Very pleased about this but not the price of $300 which includes a $50 holiday callout fee!

The photos this time are of R. keiskii ssp. cordifolia with its summer colour and Polygonatum graminifolium, another which has leapt into life again with potting and consistent watering, following a close call with death. Then the Tropaeolum and Rigidella orthantha, grown from seed donated by Stewart Preston to the Otago Alpine Garden Group. This is its first flowering so a great thrill. Stewart grows wonderful things, wonderfully well.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Leon on December 30, 2012, 04:18:03 AM
Lesley, Delightful blog entry.   

I am so glad you were able to get water delivered.  Living without a supply of water is very difficult, even for a few days. 
Leon
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 30, 2012, 09:53:47 AM
You're right Leon, water is so vital to everything horticultural - everything else too of course - and we tend to take it for granted until it runs out. Here we have only rain water and occasionally have to buy in extra. In the new place we'll have 2 units from the District Council, i.e. 2000 litres per day! if we want it, with the ability to store what we don't need and there is also a rain-off-the-roof arrangement into a huge concrete tank as well so we should be well supplied. Actually I need to check on that 2000 litres. A unit was 1000 litres in our last garden but that could have changed in the meantime with water being seen nowadays as more of a resource to be conserved than one for unlimited and frequently profligate use. Must remember to ask some questions tomorrow.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 31, 2012, 04:31:45 AM
Blog 661 – December 31st 2012

In the last episode I mentioned how the foliage of a small rhododendron, usually green in mid summer, has become red while exposed to quite hot sun for an extended period. (At last we are having “normal” summer temperatures, in the 24 – 32 deg C range, in spite of what our TV weather people say Dunedin has had; 18C if we’re lucky! Of course we here are a little inland which makes a difference.)

Why I refer to this, is because on our latest trip south I became acquainted with 2 dahlias whose names I don’t know yet, but both were NZ-raised by Dr Keith Hammet, an Auckland breeder of many plants. The two have respectively, bright but slightly burnt orange and gold flowers, single and quite large but they are especially good because their foliage is close to black. I had seen these advertised but they seemed to me to be stubby and inelegant plants so until now I have ignored them. In Shirley’s/my garden, they have reached a metre in height and are truly glorious plants which I’ll be very happy to go on with. And why this is relevant to the rhododendron reference is because another plant of the gold form is in a shadier place and the foliage has much green in it, the lesson being that exposed to as much sun as possible, the finer the foliage colour becomes. I have 4 plants (I’m sure I had five last season but can’t find the fifth now) of the old dahlia ‘Bishop of Llandaff’ With its single scarlet flowers and equally good, dark foliage, it will make a happy companion for the other two. It grows very tall, 1.5 metres under good conditions and the thought of it always attracted me since reading of it originally in one of Vita Sackville-West’s Observer articles. So when, in 1981 I had the chance to import it from the UK I took advantage and it’s likely (though can’t be proved) that whatever stock of this magnificent variety is in New Zealand, is from that original importation as I found it easy to propagate from cuttings, the young plants developing tubers in their second season. Shirley’s plants are in full bloom now but my Bishops are just starting to bud so it may prove to be a later-blooming variety, or maybe planting out of their pots will encourage earlier flowers to coincide with the others.

An almighty downpour yesterday, a real cloudburst and while I generally quite enjoy a good bout of thunder and lightening, the latter came so fast upon the former that the storm must have been directly overhead. Did I say something about “normal” summer? Every window I went to, I was “flashed” with lightening in my eyes so I stayed in the central hallway and packed books until it was over, about an hour after which it settled to regular rain, though there had been nothing in the forecast to suggest either event for coastal Otago. Roger and Marley who were out walking, came home drenched and pouring with water and poor Marley a nervous, shivering wreck. He’s not fond of rain at the best of times and the t and l sent him almost totally over the edge of sanity. He’s had to be chivvied carefully back to some semblance of calm but every time I sit down he tucks himself between my feet and shuffles backwards as far as the chair will let him, for added protection. The back door which opens outwards, was blocked when they arrived home by a high pile of large hailstones.

This is the last Blog episode for 2012. I wish all readers a happy, healthy New Year in 2013 and I hope you will enjoy reading about my new garden and how it progresses. The very fact of having a report to make should keep me up to scratch with the work to be done each day. 

Just the one picture this time. I have none of 'Bishop of Llandaff' and for some reason my camera didn't work properly for the orangey plant this afternoon so here is the yellow form but as with often happens with my camera, the yellow is not well shown.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Brian Ellis on December 31, 2012, 09:55:06 AM
Roger and Marley who were out walking, came home drenched and pouring with water and poor Marley a nervous, shivering wreck. He’s not fond of rain at the best of times and the t and l sent him almost totally over the edge of sanity. He’s had to be chivvied carefully back to some semblance of calm but every time I sit down he tucks himself between my feet and shuffles backwards as far as the chair will let him, for added protection.

Poor old Marley, I hope he's feeling a little more himself.  Not the best of things to happen to him.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: ashley on December 31, 2012, 01:19:55 PM
A very Happy New Year to you and Roger too Lesley.  I look forward to reading about your new garden. 
Your rheum seedlings look great.  Most of mine collapsed suddenly in mid-autumn, perhaps with a fungal infection, so it remains to be seen whether they return next spring.  Fortunately I kept a few seeds over to try again.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 31, 2012, 08:14:28 PM
Brian, poor old Marley - and we think he's about 12 now, not sure as previous owners were his second family and like Cain before him, he had been treated badly by the first - recovered from the storm only to be deeply distressed last night by fireworks across the road. Roger had gone into town (taken by Marley and me) to have a final visit with his two step daughters, who are moving to Australia but when we went in again to collect him Marley wouldn't come out of the house. I carried him down the steps but he wouldn't get in the car and bolted back inside. So I shut him in my bedroom, furthest away from the noise and when R and I arrived home an hour later he had burrowed deep as possible under the duvet and had his poor head under his paws. He spent the whole night in or on my bed which is very unusual, not permitted in fact but I couldn't throw him out under the circumstances. He's much better this morning but will need a quiet day to start the new year.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on December 31, 2012, 08:36:56 PM
Thank you Ashley, and I hope the New Year is a good one too, for you and your family. I think each time that this one will be better than the last but in the finish, overall, they're all much of a muchness. Good parts, bad parts, some things funny, some tragic, some homely, some world shattering. One way or another we come through.

I thought for a short while that the R. nobile seedlings were looking exactly like those of alexandrae but they have changed a little, or rather the latter have, having the typical very smooth and unlined surface. I've still not potted any and feel I'll really have to within days as they're growing so quickly.

I had a wonderfully quiet NY eve, at home alone with Marley, listening to a couple of Mikhail Pletnev's discs from Carnegie Hall. I really adore the Busoni transcription of Bach's Chaconne from the second violin partita and kept going back to it. Today from 8am to 8pm, our dedicated classical station has "Settling the Score" which in effect is a listeners' request programme, but not for any particular person. From November we can nominate 3 favourite pieces and on the day, those with the most votes are played though the day, 65 today but many just a movement is played, which can be a bit frustrating. Still, nice stuff to pack linen and china to. ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on January 11, 2013, 04:27:09 AM
Blog 661 – January 11th 2013

Where does the time go and why does it go so quickly? Quite frightening really when I look at what is still to be done. We are in packing-up-the-house mode with a vengeance and making trips south daily in Roger’s case and every couple of days for me. This means I have less time to do the garden/nursery stuff which is urgent from my point of view. The weather is not helpful, either teaming with rain or very hot, drying winds gusting to 140kms an hour and really difficult to work in. I tell myself I’ll work outside in the day and pack house in the evening but I am so tired now that this morning I foolishly went back to bed after a shower and didn’t wake up until mid-day!

Many of the plants I have ready to travel are suffering from the winds so I’ve relocated some into the tunnel where they are sheltered and moist but in just a couple of days are starting to become drawn so I have to find a happy medium between too much sun and wind and too much shaded moisture. Not an easy equation to work out

 At 661 Roger has sprayed with Roundup, a grass area where my nursery will be, or the sales part of it anyway. This is visible as driveway from the main road and if necessary, can be kept separate from the garden proper. I hope people will want to look at the garden though. Roger has taken down his large tubs with Black Krim tomatoes and the wigwam stakes supporting them. These had to be detached for transport but re-erected easily enough. Today he also took down a trailer-load of semi-rotted pea straw and tomorrow after the market I’ll dig some of this into what will be my herb garden, then plant fennel, (the bronze form), lovage, tarragon, sage, thyme, oregano and two artichoke plants. The smaller herbs, parsley, chives, sweet marjoram et al will come later once we’ve moved.

In my nursery area there is a magnolia called ‘Ian’s Red’ and Ian Taylor, our seller, is sad not to be able to take it with him. Justly so as I see on the Internet it is a NZ hybrid between Magnolia soulangeana ‘Burgundy’ and .M. ‘Vulcan.’ The images suggest it is almost double, a big, richly coloured flower which is said to hold its colour well and is hardy. I count myself very lucky to have this. There is evidence on the small tree, (less than 2 metres so far) that it has already flowered freely.

Another beautiful smallish tree in flower now at 661 is Hoheria glabrata, our native mountain lacebark with creamy flowers in good bunches. It looks as if it should be fragrant but doesn’t seem to be. I took my camera yesterday to photograph this but had “no memory card” come up when I turned it on. I’ll try again tomorrow. I also found what I think is a variegated leaved, white flowered form of the native climbing rata, Metrosideros carminea. This must be a rarity. Yellow ratas are not unheard of in the wild but I’ve not come across this little white before. There were masses of flowers on it so presumably it’s hardy enough for south Otago.

In the meantime I have also sorted the plants I want to take to Lincoln University in Canterbury, for the NZAGS Study Weekend, due to start just 3 weeks today. There are some jolly good things including some crocuses and narcissus and Fritillaria recurva, just a couple of these. I’ll never have enough to list so the Study Weekend and shows and the like are the ideal opportunities to offer such species in tiny quantities. Most are not in bloom so I have photographs to help. Photos to follow this episode when I get them sorted.

Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on January 16, 2013, 11:35:06 PM
Blog 661 – January 17th 2013

Trips south are almost a daily thing now and a great deal of small, loose and generally un-needed stuff has been taken down the road. The flat’s back/bed room is filled almost to capacity and books have found a temporary home in the front or living room/kitchen. My new kitchen is quite small so a large collection of cookbooks and magazine series such as the Cordon Bleu course will probably live permanently in the flat. Cookbooks, as garden/plant books have always proved irresistible to me!

Not surprisingly, a few cracks in the perfection are showing up. Two are pictured below, one, a patch about a metre square, of Sisyrinchium graminifolium about to burst into flower. This is near the front door and seems to be used as a ground cover. I’m hugely tempted to pull it now before the flowers are too obvious, let alone the seed but while the Taylors have been so helpful in many ways, there’s a limit to what I feel comfortable with.

Another fly in the ointment, so to speak and also below, is a goodly quantity in the lawn in one area, of the viciously creeping Pratia pedunculata. Nothing insidious about this little Australian native, it gallops along at a great rate to colonise. It’s only because Ian has the lawn trimmed to within an inch of its lift that it’s not a real problem so far. I can imagine easily that we may have to use Roundup a couple or three times and then re-sow the grass.

I’m having second thoughts about the large garden in front of the house and turning it into a rock garden. Because of its position, I’m thinking something strictly formal would be appropriate and pencil and graph paper are at my chair side each evening. I also have my sandstone statue (Bill) and a sandstone carved tub to place appropriately so a formal front bed could be the right place for these. The area is about 19 metres by 9 metres and egg-shaped for some reason (an egg on its side) but I want to change this and make it square or rectangular and perhaps with the longer side of a rectangle towards the house. Not sure yet. The smaller rose bed will certainly go to rock garden and there are numerous other smaller areas which can do likewise.

I mentioned last episode, a small tree which I thought was Hoheria glabrata. It is indeed and very pretty, nicely shaped and the flowers are lovely. A bumble bee was installed in one bloom apparently in a world of his own as stroking him with my finger didn’t move him at all. I thought he was dead until he was accidentally knocked off whereupon he fell to the ground but then recovered to fly away.

The possible variegated, white flowered rata though, must be something else. I’ve found another, much larger to about 1.5 metres and a metre across. I don’t know it and perhaps someone would name it for me please. Again, a picture below along with our native Brachyglottis (syn Senecio) greyii. It would be hard to fit more blooms onto this big specimen.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on January 16, 2013, 11:41:52 PM
And
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Brian Ellis on January 17, 2013, 10:51:29 AM
Another fly in the ointment, so to speak and also below, is a goodly quantity in the lawn in one area, of the viciously creeping Pratia pedunculata. Nothing insidious about this little Australian native, it gallops along at a great rate to colonise. I can imagine easily that we may have to use Roundup a couple or three times and then re-sow the grass.

The problem is not confined to the South, we have it in the lawn too, I had hoped there would be a less drastic way to get rid of it :-\
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Maggi Young on January 17, 2013, 12:15:43 PM
The problem is not confined to the South, we have it in the lawn too, I had hoped there would be a less drastic way to get rid of it :-\
With minus 13 degrees in your area at the moment, Brian, you may find the problem solved, eh?
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: annew on January 17, 2013, 12:42:21 PM
It might be Myrtus communis 'Variegata'. It's very nice anyway.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Brian Ellis on January 17, 2013, 03:13:02 PM
With minus 13 degrees in your area at the moment, Brian, you may find the problem solved, eh?

I didn't think of that Maggi, too worried about the other white stuff ;)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on January 17, 2013, 08:11:04 PM
Thank you Anne, you are probably right. It is very nice indeed and will go well in little posies in bedrooms (my sister is coming to stay the day after we move! She thought we were moving on 22nd of this month, not next). I did wonder about Myrtus luma but then decided not. Lophomyrtus has similar flowers but the leaves were the wrong shape. So many plants I've not grown before, are proving to be a salutary lesson for me. :)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: zvone on January 17, 2013, 09:56:45 PM
Wau!  Beautiful!

Best Regards!  zvone
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on January 27, 2013, 08:38:45 PM
Blog 661 – January 27th 2013

It has been a week and a half – or so it seems. Starting much as usual with digging, potting, Roger finally making a move to clean out and sort the contents of his shed and both of us packing from kitchen cupboards and washing them down inside, in the evenings, by Tuesday, we were able to borrow Roger’s brother’s tip truck and arrange for his mate John McC and John’s son Tyler – both large lads – to come up from Invercargill for a day or two and once they arrived, it was all hands to the task of dislodging troughs, loading limestone slabs which I’d always intended as paving but which were never used, concrete and limestone blocks, my sandstone tub and statue (a memorial to my late mother, bought at an auction of imported stoneware, the day after she died) onto the truck and taking them south to 661. This was accomplished in 9 separate trips so that by now there is a large collection of the above in the area which will be my nursery.  I didn’t previously imagine how many cups of tea could be consumed by so small a group of workmen but will believe any number now. We are all exhausted!

There are six limestone troughs, all emptied and their contents of bulbs and perennial alpines potted into quite large pots. This gave me the opportunity to collect up a few things like Crocus minimus Bavella Form, Fritillaria recurva and some others, for taking to the Study Weekend (starting just next Friday, 1st Feb) at Lincoln University. One trough had never been planted but is well weathered, about 20 years old as they all are. A seventh, and the biggest, had split corner to corner when we left our previous garden in 1997 and was at that time repaired with a heavy wire around it, strained and tightened into place. We decided, with reluctance on my part, that it would have to be abandoned as its major occupant, a metre-wide Erinacea anthyllis had rooted into the ground and on top, covered almost the whole surface of the trough, a prickly mass impossible to handle even with leather gloves. Two hypertufa troughs are also abandoned simply because of their size. They would take heavy lifting equipment and the quality of the hypertufa wasn’t up to that, let alone the cost. My second huge plant of the erinacea is in one of these so both those plants are gone from my sight but I have some small plants as well as having tweezered off  a quantity of ripe seed just a week ago. The limestone troughs were sitting on top of the ground in my nursery so were quite easy to move once emptied and were then shoved up a board ramp onto the truck.

The six Hokonui troughs, made by Peter Salmond of Hokonui Alpines and my Christmas present to me, a couple of years ago, were a different proposition, being larger, heavier and well lodged into the garden on a slope, in effect built into their positions with rock and soil. As well, I insisted on their retaining their contents which included among other things, Daphne petraea ‘Persabee’ (bought at the last Study Weekend and about 18cms across now) and a number of equally precious things for which I feared if they were to be lifted at this (at last) very hot part of summer. (Mosgiel registered 37degC on Wednesday, not that the TV weather or anyone else acknowledged the fact in a public way and the day temps have been in the low 30s all this week.) In the event, five could be moved as they were but the largest had to be emptied. It was just too heavy. This one of course had the daphne and also my best Gentiana depressa, Salix x Boydii et al. Urgent break for potting!

Then there were numerous hypertufa troughs of my own making in 1993. I had decided that I needed to take maybe thirty but in fact eighteen were selected as still sufficiently undamaged by intervening time and weather and these have gone south. One contains a corm of Cyclamen cilicium, a dark coloured form which is at least twenty five years old and flowers for at least four months every year but has never set a seed. It was a present from my friend the late Bob Barnett of Timaru and Bob said it was collected in Iran. The trough is relatively small, contains only the Cyclamen whose leaves and flowers cover the whole trough each year. I suspect that if the trough were to break, the corm would be found to be rectangular in shape.

From the remaining hypertufas, maybe forty or so, I have still to lift some plants and bulbs and will have to dig right to the bottom to retrieve Tropaeolum polyphyllum and T. incisum. One trough has a broken end so was to be abandoned and is so, except that the Iris ruthenica ‘Nana’ growing nearby has died in the garden but has sent its thin rhizomes over the break in the trough wall and established there, very well and vigorously. Another iris thought to be lost but found again in fortuitous circumstances.

End of part one.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on January 27, 2013, 08:48:33 PM
I should have mentioned that Roger is the one with the facial fur.

The picture of Bill and Tyler had to be taken into the sun so is very poor. Tyler, though just 14 and back to school after the weekend, is massively strong and had three helpings of every meal offered to him. His size already is worrying.

Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on January 27, 2013, 09:11:12 PM
Part two – January 28th 2013

There followed and are already in place at 661, 17 concrete troughs of average size, originally calf drinking troughs bought in the 60s by my mother and me. They have come with me every move I’ve made (6 if I remember rightly) since they were purchased and when Mother died in 1989, hers were added to mine. In recent years these have contained 90mm and 100mm seed pots over gravel for excellent drainage and they’ll be used for the same purpose at 661.

One of the main plants to be moved and quite irreplaceable so far as age and size are concerned, is a specimen of Cryptomeria japonica ‘Tensan,’ some 25 years old or more, I think, originally bought from the “Alouette” nursery of Jim and Jean LeComte, near Ashburton. They introduced to NZ alpine gardeners many fine plants over the years, Jim importing regularly from the 70s until his death some time in the late 80s or 90s. I haven’t been able on the Internet to find a date and in fact very little at all except about Jim’s work with the genus Aciphylla.

The cryptomeria is the sole occupant of a large trough, square on top but taller than wide. From the covering cushion I originally hoped for, it has grown further to overlap the sides and is beginning to grow downward toward the ground with new growths reaching 5cms in length. Bright green now in summer, the winter colour is a fine reddish bronze. It is intensely prickly to touch. I knew it would be a job to move it because after sitting for more than 15 years in the same spot (I had intended to turn it annually but that never happened) the central root had, not surprisingly gone through the drainage hole and was very well embedded in the ground. Roger had to spade through the root to separate it from the ground underneath and the root was measured at 3 cms in diameter. Of course the spade didn’t do a very neat job and sharp secateurs were used to clean up and tidy the root, after the trough was tipped and on a sack barrow ready for removal. (See pictures below.) I have taken 50 cuttings and tomorrow will courier some more down to Louise Salmond in hope we can get some young plants going. Louise already has a few plants of her own and I have rooted cuttings previously so I’m hopeful. I’m less optimistic that the whole plant will survive the massacre of its main root but I have to try. Ideally I’d soak the whole thing in water for a day but can’t manage that. When I water it, usually the water simply runs off and down the sides of the trough, only prolonged light rain really penetrating through the ball to the compost and through to the root system. I could leave the hose on it all night on a very light, slight drip but I’ve already had one disaster with the watering and hose system recently so won’t take that risk again. I can just hope that it’s so well at home in its hypertufa home that the severe root damage will be absorbed and I’ll be forgiven. In the meantime I’ll have to put into a large pot a very wide Microcachrys tetragona, whose trough broke badly in the shifting. The roots fill the whole trough and will need severe root pruning. Whether it will cope I don’t know but if the worst happens, I have some young ones from cuttings almost two years old now.

From among its roots I also need to retrieve various crocuses; C sieberi ‘Bowles’ White,’ C. veluchensis and C. cvijicii. It is from this last that I’ve had hybrid seed with C. veluchensis, some of the seedlings being beautifully bronzed or orangey with magenta tips to the petals.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Maggi Young on January 27, 2013, 09:52:46 PM
Quoting, for fair use:  E.J. Godley, Research Associate, Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research, PO Box 69, Lincoln , from this document  http://www.nzbotanicalsociety.org.nz/newsletter/NZBotSoc-1997-47.pdf (http://www.nzbotanicalsociety.org.nz/newsletter/NZBotSoc-1997-47.pdf)


Biographical Notes (25): James Ronald Le Comte (1927 - 1987)
Jim Le Comte was born at Little Akaloa, Banks Peninsula, on 10 July, 1927, and attended Addington Primary
School and Christchurch West High School. He then worked as a farmhand in North Canterbury at Cust
and on the Mt. Pember Station, where he became familiar with the Puketeraki Range, and was a keen
deer-stalker. While visiting friends in Dannevirke he met Jean Luscombe and they were married there in
1953 (1,2,3).
After living at Sherwood (north of Ashburton) and then Methven, the Le Comtes bought five acres between
Winchmore and Lauriston in 1957, where Jim continued to work on fencing and farm buildings. In 1962,
he became interested in alpine plants and their cultivation. Some of these he had seen in the garden of
Mrs Cotterill of Mount Hutt. She lent him books and he bought some plants from her. Those of Gentiana
sino-ornata he multiplied in the paddock (2). His first advertisement in the "New Zealand Gardener"
appeared in August, 1966, and announced: "Glorious Blue Gentiana. Sino-ornata. Beautiful vivid blue
trumpets in late summer and autumn. Ideal for front border and rock garden. Hardy. Vigorous plants, 4
for 10/-, 10 for 20/-. Cash with order. Alouette Nurseries, 2 RD, Ashburton". Plants were also supplied to
Woolworths as well as packets of resting "buds", (2).
From these beginnings evolved the mail-order business of "James R. and Jean A. Le Comte, Specialists
in Choice Alpine Plants, Dwarf Rhodos, Conifers and Miniature Shrubs". Their first catalogue appeared
about 1972 (2). Gordon Collier (4) recalled: "The name Alouette has become synonymous with quality,
excellence, and rarity. Their twice-yearly catalogues have offered a quite extraordinary range of choice
plant material over the years, much of it extremely rare even by world standards. The arrival at our house
of parcels from Alouette has always been a red-letter day. The plants invariably arrived in immaculate
condition and were unpacked in a state of excitement. Alouette was never open to the public. Jim and
Jean were fully extended maintaining their extensive garden and propagating and potting their nursery
stock. Thus it was a rare honour and special treat to get inside the garden gate and see the full extent of
their horticultural treasure trove."
On 18 December, 1966, Jim took Ian Tweedy (a fellow member of the Canterbury Alpine Garden Society),
Lucy Moore and Jean Clarke (Botany Division, DSIR) to the Puketeraki Range (Mt. Pember) where they
collected some 40 species of sub-alpine and alpine plants. Ian described this trip in the Canterbury Alpine
Garden Society's Bulletin and Jim arranged its re-publication in the American Rock Garden Society Bulletin
of January, 1970. On 8 December, 1968, Jim and Ian returned to the same area but were forced off the
mountain by a violent westerly storm. Jim's interest in this particular area and one of the reasons for these
visits was that he had memories from when he worked there (and before he became interested in gardening
and botany) of seeing an alpine plant with bright blue flowers. He never found it (3).
In June, 1970, according to the Ashburton Guardian, (5) "Mr Le Comte called a meeting of people interested
in furthering their knowledge of New Zealand and exotic alpine plants. The result was the formation of the
Ashburton Alpine Garden Society which now [1987] has a restricted membership of 50." Jim's major
interest among the native alpines was in the genus Aciphylla (Apiaceae), the spear-grasses, and by
mid-1972 he had searched for them on the Puketeraki and Old Man Range, the Hunter Mountains and was
growing them in his garden and propagating them from cuttings. As well as being in touch with Dr Lucy
Moore and Mr Ian Tweedy, he was consulting Dr David Given and Dr John Hair of Botany Division, DSIR,
and Mr Lawrie Metcalfe (Christchurch Botanic Gardens) (6). Then, on 27 July, 1972, he wrote as follows
to Dr J.W. Dawson of the Botany Department, Victoria University, Wellington, who had been studying
Aciphylla for some years.
"Dear Dr Dawson,
I have been advised to write to you by Dr David Given who gave me your address.
I am very interested in the genus Aciphylla and intend doing a lot of work on the subject this next summer
and the next. Meantime I am trying to acquaint myself with some of the lesser known species and would
be most appreciative of copies of reprints of any papers you have put out on the genus. I intend to
photograph, record and collect from as many stations as possible and all will be available to yourself and
Botany Div., Lincoln.
Hoping that you can help.
Yours faithfully
James R. Le Comte"
Thus began a correspondence spanning 14 years during which Jim wrote at least 96 letters to John
Dawson, mainly about Aciphylla and distributed as follows: 1972 (4); 1973 (14); 1974 (13); 1975 (16); 1976
(8); 1977 (13); 1978 (16); 1979 (4); 1980 (4); 1981 (2); 1982 (0); 1983 (1); 1984 (0; 1985 (1). The originals
of these letters have been generously presented by Dr Dawson to the library, Landcare Research, Lincoln,
and copies returned to him. They contain graphic descriptions of Jim's expeditions into the mountains
and useful comments on variation and species status based on observations in the field and comparative
plantings in the Alouette nursery.
To reach remote peaks Jim needed helicopters, and this problem was resolved during an encounter in
March, 1974, which he described to John Dawson as follows: "Two days later we hired a chopper to take
us to Mount Stevenson which is an outlying peak of the Paparoas but about the same height. Reason was
that this area was closer to Reefton (only about 11/2 days hike) than the main range, just in case they
couldn't get back to get us. On the top at 6am with the prospect of 12 hours of botanising but 2 hours or
so later it was raining heavily and we had to pitch our tent and climb into our bags (we were cold and wet)
and just wait. It didn't clear and we expected to spend the night there as it was very foggy etc. But at the
appointed time we were really thrilled to hear the beat of the chopper blades and I still can't work out how
he found us, or how he got us down to Reefton, but we had a hot meal that night that we had not thought
we'd be having, and a long session in the hostelry until 1am." Thus began Jim's friendship with Alpine
Enterprises, whose pilot (Phil Meltzer) and shooter/co-owner (Ivan Wilson) became his good companions,
interested in his work and always ready to move him about in the mountains while they shot or captured
deer in their allotted block.
The following itinerary of Jim's movements is compiled from his letters to Dr Dawson, his articles in the
American Rock Garden Society Bulletin (7), and information from Dr Dawson.
1973 Jan. with an American friend, Paul Palomino: Mt. Cook (Hugh Wilson), Fiordland (Hector Mts; Borland
Pass), then Woodside Gorge (Kekerengu), Blackbirch Ra., Mt. Augustus, Mt. Alexander (helicopter),
Craigieburn Ra. Feb. (late) with Greg Hooker: Old Man Ra., Fiordland: Hector Mts; Jane Peak, Eyre
Mts(lan Spence); Mt. Burns, Hunter Mts. May with family: Takaka, Lake Sylvester.
1974 Jan.(late) with J.W. Dawson: Dansey's Pass, Kyeburn, Mt. St. Bathans, Old Man Ra.; Feb. (early)
with American friends and Jean: Arthur's Pass, Otira Valley, Mt. Hutt. Mar. (early) with Greg Hooker:
Wairau Valley (Mt. Fishtail, Richmond Ra.), Reefton (helicopter to Mt. Stevenson). May with friend:
Fiordland (Borland Pass Rd; Hummock Peak, Eyre Mts.) Dec. with Greg Hooker: Mt. Richmond
(Richmond Ra.), Mt. Ajax, near Lake Sumner (helicopter).
1975 Jan. 3 with American friends Dick and Herb Redfield: Kirkliston Ra., South Canterbury. Feb. with
Ian Tweedy: Mt. Hutt (3). Feb. (mid) 2 days with Alpine Enterprises: Nardoo Mts., between Glenroy
and Matakitaki Rivers. Mar. 22 Mt. Potts. Oct. talked to the Canterbury Botanical Society ("Some
notes on the genus Aciphylla")
1976 New Year holidays Banks Peninsula. Feb. (mid), 3 days with Alpine Enterprises: Mt. Mueller, Mt.
Cann, head of Glenroy River. Mar. - April with J W Dawson: Pisa Ra. Hakatarameas, Richmond Ra.,
Grampians, Old Man Ra., Nevis Valley, Coronet Peak, Eyre Mts., Mt. Hutt. June 30-Aug. 15, USA and
British Columbia, where he gave an invited talk to the Fifth International Rock Garden Conference at
Seattle on "American Plants in Cultivation in New Zealand" and spoke to the Northwest Ornamental
Horticultural Society (Seattle), and other groups, on New Zealand plants.
1977 May with family: Te Anau. Nov. visit from Hugh Wilson and Colin Webb.
1978 Jan. 11 with Alpine Enterprises: Rocky Tor (Lyell Ra.). Feb 2 - 6 with Alpine Enterprises: The
Haystack (Matori Ra.), Mt. Newton (Newton Ra.) Rocky Tor (Lyell Ra.), Glasgow Ra. Mar. (early) with
J W Dawson: Mavora Lakes, Eglinton-Milford, Hector Mts, Treble Cone (Harris Mts.), Crown Ra. In
this year Dawson and Le Comte published a progress report in Tuatara on their work on Aciphylla.
This commentary marks an important advance on the previous monograph by W R B Oliver (TRSNZ
84, 1956) and includes a division of the New Zealand mainland plants into large and small species with
6 groups in the latter.
1979 Jan. 4 "Have not been into the mountains and looks like I'll be too busy to do so until Feb. Feb with
Alpine Enterprises: brief trip to Brunner Ra. May - June two months in the USA including one month
in the eastern states and attending a conference in Vancouver and judging Rhododendrons at the
Portland (Oregon) Show. In this year Dawson described Aciphylla lecomtei choosing type specimens
from material collected by him and Le Comte on the Hector Mts. in March, 1978; and Le Comte
described his rediscovery of Aciphylla trifoliolata on Rocky Tor (Lyell Mts.) in 1978, the first gathering
since its discovery in 1906 (NZJB 17, 1979).
1980 April 20 "apart from having no spare time, the weather has been so lousy this summer that I did not
get into the mountains at all and lost quite a few of my garden grown specimens too."
1981 March 13 "just couldn't get away this season." Mar. 20 - May 22 in UK and Europe where he spoke
to the Alpines '81 Conference at Nottingham on New Zealand alpine plants and visited Switzerland and
Austria, before spending 6 days as a guest of the Czechoslovakia Alpine Garden Society. In this year
Le Comte and Webb showed that Aciphylla townsonii was based on a juvenile or sheltered habitat form
of A. hookeri. This resulted from Jim's field work on Mt. Stevenson (1974), Lyell and Glasgow Ranges
(1978) and the Brunner Ra. (1979) as well as garden observations.
1982 No information.
1983 March 4 with Alpine Enterprises: "had a quick trip to Reefton recently and had 21/2 hours on a spur
that connects the Victoria Ra. with the Brunner Ra."
1984 In this year Jim had a massive heart attack with no chance of recovery. He spent his last 3 years on
medication with frequent spells in hospitals (2).
1985 July 11 "Always too busy to get away to the Mts but must make the effort because I really want to
pick up where I left off".
Jim Le Comte died at Princess Margaret Hospital, Christchurch, on 11 September, 1987, at age 60, after
a short illness. His wife, Jean, continued to run the nursery until 1991 when she chose to sell it and retire
to Ashburton.
I met Jim Le Comte only once, and then briefly. Characteristics often mentioned are his forthright
approach, enthusiasm and energy. He once wrote to John Dawson: "When I travel to the mountains I like
to move fast from place to place - sometimes at night so as not to waste the days". His talent for descriptive
writing is shown in his excellent series "In search of Aciphylla" which also gives interesting information
about other alpines, particularly celmisia.
Gordon Collier remembered that "an evening with Jim was one to be savoured; plant talk a-plenty, books
and slides, and more slides until the early hours of the morning. On such occasions Jim revealed his warm
nature and the full extent of his horticultural knowledge. He was a real enthusiast. As well as being one
of the most accomplished nurserymen in the country, Jim Le Comte was an authority on New Zealand
alpine plants and in particular the genus Aciphylla. Aciphylla lecomtei perpetuates this interest and his
memory. Jim was also a keen philatelist, and above all a family man. He will be greatly missed by all his
customers and by all who knew him. His passing leaves a tremendous gap in gardening ranks" (4). And
- we could add - in the ranks of botanists as well.


Acknowledgments
I am particularly indebted to Mrs Jean Le Comte (Ashburton) and Dr J.W. Dawson (Victoria University,
Wellington) for help with this note, as well as to Mr Ian Tweedy (Christchurch), and Mr Charlie Challenger
(Banks Peninsula).
References
(1) Death Certificate; (2) Jean Le Comte pers. comm.; (3) Ian Tweedy pers. comm.; (4) Gordon Collier:
Jim Le Comte N Z Gardener Nov. 1987; (with portrait of Jim and Jean in the garden at Alouette, 1984);
(5) Anon. Obituary - James Ronald Le Comte. Ashburton Guardian 5 October, 1987; (6) Letter to J.W.
Dawson; (7) James R. Le Comte: In search of Aciphylla American Rock Garden Society Bull. 1973; ditto
1974 ARGS Bull. 1974; ditto 1974-75 ARGS Bull. 1975; ditto 1975-76 ARGS Bull. 1976; ditto 1977-78 ARGS
Bull. 1978.
by:
E.J. Godley, Research Associate, Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research, PO Box 69, Lincoln
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Brian Ellis on January 27, 2013, 10:20:49 PM
Quote
some of the seedlings being beautifully bronzed or orangey with magenta tips to the petals.
Very pretty they are too, hope things don't take umbrage and grow well at 661
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Tim Ingram on January 27, 2013, 11:44:58 PM
Lesley - highly impressive to see all these operations. I would have thought the cryptomeria would be OK. I once moved a Picea pungens 'Globosa', foolishly planted on an alpine bed; it ended up with hardly any roots at all but grew away when replanted - extraordinarily tough plants. I would be sad about the Erinacea; I can't think there are many people in the UK with such a specimen - I have one only a foot or less across and only just starting to flower and it is so remarkable when it does.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on January 28, 2013, 12:50:22 AM
Firstly, thanks Maggi for your own research and the biographical notes re Jim LeComte. He was one of the speakers at "Alpines 81" in Nottingham and had great slides then. He had just two or three open days at the nursery each year and was otherwise closed to visitors so on those very few days we rock gardeners from the whole South Island journeyed to Alouette near Ashburton, more or less central east coast, and bought up large. The plants were on benches in a very large shade house and Jim sat behind the till  and chatted and served, and handed out orders already made up. I used to joke with him that he was like an old shopkeeper guarding his money supply, and we may as well be in a supermarket at a checkout. He'd just laugh.

I'm hopeful Brian that crocuses and all my bulbs will be happy. Certainly daffodils, tulips and bluebells are flourishing down there.

Tim I think my first erinacea took about 10 years to start flowering, in that split trough - well it wasn't split then - and the other took about 6 or 7 years. It's nearly as large now so I hope the young ones will grow quickly. I have done it from cuttings (painfully) but prefer seedlings. I collected about 50 seeds this year mainly because noticing they were ready one evening when I was watering, left them until next morning only to find most had opened even earlier than I was up and out, and had shed their seeds. Most pods have just one in, but occasionally two.

I find it hard to photograph well, the bright lilac flowers never showing well on my camera, usually dull and greyish/lavender, nothing like so good as in the flesh, so to speak. This is a pic from 2006. I'll try another now, even though the flowers are long gone, but to show the size.

As you see, the new picture is of a plant covered in gum leaves and with both long grass and blackberry beginning to encroach. There is also an Asarina procumbens emerging from the centre of the plant. The trough is 1.2 metres in length and the plant reaches both ends and way over the sides.

Maybe I shouldn't be so sad to leave both behind except that the new owners are not gardeners and plan to start fresh, getting rid of whatever is left here. I don't know what their plans are but truck loads of tree trunks have been arriving for a fortnight so I suspect a firewood business or something of the kind.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Brian Ellis on January 28, 2013, 09:27:43 AM
I'm hopeful Brian that crocuses and all my bulbs will be happy. Certainly daffodils, tulips and bluebells are flourishing down there.

Glad to hear that about bulbs, Lesley, but I was expressing my hopes that no permanent damage had been done with the chopped off roots on the Cryptomeria japonica ‘Tensan’  and anything else which had a root trim.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on January 28, 2013, 09:44:14 AM
Oh, right, I misread you Brian. In general I'm an advocate of root pruning, even severe root pruning and will often chop off up to two thirds of the roots of a plant lifted for relocating. As a system I don't think it's ever failed me but of course those have been fibrous roots in general, not the woody ones of the cryptomeria. Daphne arbuscula had a tough time of it too. I used to propagate that successfully in a little heated frame with a cable through it but haven't had that available in recent years. I should be able to set it up again though at 661.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Brian Ellis on January 28, 2013, 10:48:15 AM
Oh, right, I misread you Brian.
No Lesley, my fault, I didn't proof read my post before I pressed the button, Like us all I tend to type what's running through my head and occasionally (often!) I trip up between the brain and the computer ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: peter hood on January 28, 2013, 04:39:43 PM
By happy coincidence, there is a picture and brief description of Jim Le Comte in John Richard's latest blog on the AGS website. (January 24th - Northumberland Alpine Gardeners Diairy).You will also have to put up with a picture of the Learned Professor and a vegetable sheep, but never mind. I'm sure someone cleverer than me could post a link.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Maggi Young on January 28, 2013, 05:47:54 PM
By happy coincidence, there is a picture and brief description of Jim Le Comte in John Richard's latest blog on the AGS website. (January 24th - Northumberland Alpine Gardeners Diairy).You will also have to put up with a picture of the Learned Professor and a vegetable sheep, but never mind. I'm sure someone cleverer than me could post a link.

Well done, Peter - I knew I'd seen something recently but could not remember what or where !
 It's here :
http://www.alpinegardensociety.net/diaries/Northumberland/+January+/455/ (http://www.alpinegardensociety.net/diaries/Northumberland/+January+/455/)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on January 28, 2013, 08:07:44 PM
Well that IS a co-incidence! Thanks Peter and Maggi. John is right. Jim was rude, outspoken and foul-mouthed but I couldn't say that, could I? However I guess I can agree with John. (I had the privilege of going on one of his Greek AGS trips, in 1993, with Peter Sheasby and about 10 others including the Greek/American Nic Nicou, a beautiful and kindly man, retired GP.) Jim hated pretension and was intolerant of fools with silly questions though was happy to help anyone with a genuine wish to learn. He was also very generous to those whom he saw loved the plants and I had many plants never paid for, but tucked into the corner of an order when I collected it.

Having said that, it has always been the belief among rock gardeners here, that it was Jean who was the skillled propagator and who knew the alpines best, except perhaps the natives, but remained always quietly in the background, a shy lady, while Jim was the salesman and showman of the pair.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on January 28, 2013, 08:15:08 PM
On the subject of pretension, Roger and I have discussed whether we should give our new home a name. It has none at present and though it's not a huge house, it has a certain graciousness about it which calls for some recognition. My nursery is "Gala Plants" recalling both Roger's and my Scottish forebears who all came from the general area of the Scottish Borders and especially from around Galashiels. So maybe Gala House it will be. :) Of course the area our new place is situated in, is called Clarendon but perhaps Clarendon House would be carrying pretension WAY beyond acceptable limits. ;D ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: annew on January 29, 2013, 01:07:26 PM
 ;D ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: David Nicholson on January 29, 2013, 01:32:44 PM
On the subject of pretension, Roger and I have discussed whether we should give our new home a name. It has none at present and though it's not a huge house, it has a certain graciousness about it which calls for some recognition. My nursery is "Gala Plants" recalling both Roger's and my Scottish forebears who all came from the general area of the Scottish Borders and especially from around Galashiels. So maybe Gala House it will be. :) Of course the area our new place is situated in, is called Clarendon but perhaps Clarendon House would be carrying pretension WAY beyond acceptable limits. ;D ;D

Reiver's Cottage?
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on January 29, 2013, 07:43:25 PM
Who are you calling a reiver?

Though my Ma said her Dad's boast always was "We aye took our meat out 'o England." :o
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: David Nicholson on January 29, 2013, 08:01:13 PM
 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on February 17, 2013, 07:58:10 PM
Just to assure those kindly interested people that I haven't run out of steam so far as this Blog is concerned. It's still ongoing but so much has happened lately and the time running out so fast that I haven't had time to sit down and write lately. I'll get back to it soon and hopefully another episode before the move on Friday next. We thought we had to move on Saturday then found it had to be Friday (day of sale completion) and leave by 4pm according to the law or penalties apply. Roger has at last conceded we need a furniture removal van and I am taking plants south now by car and trailer. My son and a mate from the market will finish the nursery stuff on Friday.

While I should have been clearing out the linen cupboard last night, I watched NZ beat England in the first of a one day cricket series. A good game which could have easily gone either way.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on February 17, 2013, 08:00:34 PM
Of course my mind having now completely collapsed, substituted Clarendon for Clarence in the post above. So the latter wouldn't be pretentious at all - or not in THAT way. ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Michael J Campbell on February 27, 2013, 10:32:48 AM
Anyone hear from Lesley lately, did the house move work out ok.?
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Maggi Young on February 27, 2013, 11:22:06 AM
Anyone hear from Lesley lately, did the house move work out ok.?
I haven't heard from her Michael. I expect she is  up to her ears in chaos. Just hope she is coping physically- with her health problems of late the stress and effort is bound to be wearing on her.

If moving house is recognised as one of the most stressful things people do, then moving house with all those plants must be even worse!
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on March 03, 2013, 10:45:17 PM
Well thanks so much for your concern Michael and a few personal emails as well which tell me I'm not totally forgotten.

The move did indeed take place successfully, on Feb 22nd and we have been blessed with excellent weather during and since which has made the sorting and unpacking easier. Colder today and some welcome rain predicted.

It all took one large furniture removal van- furniture only, one trip. One large covered van, 3 tonnes maybe - we didn't need a heavy traffic licence for it - 2 trips with stacked trays of dormant bulb pots, troughs and assorted other trays, nursery equipment etc and Roger's brother's tip truck with sleepers, lathes and other vital man stuff, Roger's station wagon and trailer with smaller similar stuff and Marley, 2 trips and my small car and trailer with remaining plant trays and last minute house stuff, two trips. Of course Roger and I had been moving household effects into the flat for the last 6 weeks and I was able to take plants down over just the final week so two or three trips each day that week. Just as well it was a 45 min trip and not several hours away!

As well as the furniture men, one of my vendors from the market came and he and my son alternately drove the covered van, and my daughter and Roger's niece stayed behind to clean out the house. It wasn't too bad as I'd been picking at the cleaning for weeks but there were curtains to be rehung after cleaning, and cobwebs from behind big furniture items. You know my signature at the side of the page "...housework whenever." So a lot of people involved. And not a harsh word or angry comment from anyone about anything, the whole day, quite an achievement I think.

Then my sister from Tauranga arrived next day! I hadn't seen her for a few years so she was very welcome and had thoughtfully brought an airbed with her. She was on the last leg of a month-long holiday driving to see friends in the South Island. There wasn't a lot she could do to help but it was great to have her there and yarn in the evenings about our few various remaining relatives, all of whom she'd called on and stayed with. Not many of us left now.

I've been plant sorting in the daytime and house organising in the evenings ever since, as has Roger with his stuff. Fortunately we both have large sheds to accomodate our various interests. R is only keeping one extra car, an old VW beetle which his cousin is to collect and deliver here, from our previous neighbour's paddock, when he is ready.

I would have been here on the Forum throughout except that until yesterday we had no Internet as Telecom don't do Broadband in this country area. We have a new provider who sorted it all on his Sunday off, yesterday, (with small dog) as he lives just a couple of kms up the road. Roger hadn't been in touch with the new company all that time, leaving it until Friday last and me spitting mad almost. We are without TV for the same reason, but hope to have that sorted later today as well. It will hurry up the digital changeover which we must make before the end of April when we lose analogue altogether. I may have to change my email address or pay a large monthly amount to Telecom for the pleasure of keeping the same one. I'll decide that shortly I suppose.

We used to have a lot of frogs where we were, little Australian whistling tree frogs, milky cocoa colour. I never saw one in a tree and never heard one whistle but they were delightful little creatures. However I hadn't seen one for perhaps a couple of years. The day before we moved I saw a small one hop from under a tray and into a tray of iris pots. I didn't think about him again until yesterday when I moved the irises, there he was. So I hope he will manage to find a mate or at least another friendly frog in this distant place.

You are right Maggi, it has all been extremely stressful but at least now the pressure is off to hurry with everything. It's great to have as much water as I need and already I've planted a few things around the 'Ian's Red' magnolia which is in its own bed in the middle of the nursery part, a cover mostly, of Cyclamen coum tubers, just starting to come through now, and will add some clumps of snowdrops, autumn flowering crocuses and perhaps a few summer lilies so there's something all year round. I've put "falling-over-the-edge"  type plants around the four sides of the built up bed, two on each side to disguise the rather ugly wooden edging; a gaultheria, Asteranthera ovata in the coolest part, Mark's little cotoneaster, a very low and dwarf bergenia which closely adheres to anything it touches, the Australian conifer Microcachrys tetragona, an ajuga called 'Rainbow, Epigaea repens and Linnaea borealis americana.

So that's plenty talk for now. Time to get out again and get on with the work, which I'm enjoying very much, having had everything in abeyance for so long.




Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Maggi Young on March 03, 2013, 11:08:56 PM
Great to have you "plugged in " again Lesley. It is good to hear that the move has gone well and that your sister managed her visit too.  A really busy time for you but so exciting to contemplate the new garden.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: annew on March 04, 2013, 11:13:36 AM
And let us have some photos as you can. Best wishes for a great future in your new home/garden
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: angie on March 04, 2013, 04:02:57 PM
Exciting times Lesley, good to hear that you are settling in. Would be nice once you have time to see the layout of your new garden.

Angie  :)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Luc Gilgemyn on March 04, 2013, 04:40:07 PM
So glad things worked oud fine Lesley !
Have fun replanting !  8)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on March 05, 2013, 04:15:31 AM
Thanks very much everyone. I find I am resenting the time I have to spend on market work when I'd much rather be working with the plants.

So far it's a matter of sorting - into separate generalmostly, and putting all the bulb pots in the warmer parts of the nursery area as with no rain for quite a long time, herbaceous things, potted rhodos and the like are drying out very quickly. Then I can select what I want to put where I want it. There are a lot of things to get rid of first, such as beds of petunias and I've come to the conclusion that though there are dozens of roses, they're all rather nasty. Lurid colours, and not attractive habits. Some very old plants have been let make huge trunks with maybe just a single living stem emerging and a few scrawny flowers on top. I really dislike the roses which are brilliant, hard orange and the whites with red edgings so I think they'll just about all go. I have 3 to plant, all old but I seem to remember something about rose sickness and not to plant new ones where others have come out so I need to research that.

Once the bedding stuff has gone I'll dig those parts over and simply plant out primulas, gentians, dianthus and many more things, to get them into the ground and growing, then decide where they're to go later, probably after the winter.

Anyway, it's good to be handling plants again and most things have coped with the shift very well. One sad loss is the single seedling of Anarthrophyllum desideratum but it was already a little yellowed beforehand, having spent too long in the tunnel and becoming rather drawn. I'm hoping there may be another seedling ot two in the winter or spring.

Yes, photos, when I get around to it. ::)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Brian Ellis on March 05, 2013, 09:05:19 AM
Don't overdo it Lesley, but it does sound as though you are enjoying the challenge.  I had to smile at the thought of all those roses going, and it reminded me of this which also made me laugh:

http://www.classicroses.co.uk/products/shopproducts/peter-beales-rose-replant-box/ (http://www.classicroses.co.uk/products/shopproducts/peter-beales-rose-replant-box/)

It's basically a wine box (you may of course have one or two lying about the place).  Simon (the manager at Peter Beales Roses) recommends sinking a box like this into the ground, filling with fresh soil and planting the rose -he suggests with mychorrhizal fungi.  By the time the rose is established the roots will be escaping through the rotted cardboard and all will be well!
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Maggi Young on March 05, 2013, 11:21:57 AM
Chateau lafite comes in boxes?  :o ::) ??? ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on March 05, 2013, 07:46:29 PM
Alas, Chateau Lafite doesn't come at all. Not to here anyway :'(
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Maggi Young on March 05, 2013, 07:51:50 PM
Alas, Chateau Lafite doesn't come at all. Not to here anyway :'(
Look on the bright side, Lesley- if it did you'd likely never get any work done!!
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Otto Fauser on March 05, 2013, 11:09:11 PM
Dear Lesley , good to hear you are settling in , shifting houses and gardens is one of the dramatic experiences in life . It made it easier as you had so many friends and relatives to help you. I share your dislike of most of the modern roses ( species and oldfashioned ones are nice ) ,so when you showed us your new property in February with the large rosegarden in the middle of the lawn , I personally would get rid of it and just have lawn and nothing else -less is more .

'Chateau Lafite ' is available here ,but it is out of my reach too ,otherwise I would send you a bottle for your birthday on the 11th.

     Is your Gentiana depressa setting seed ? it was a wonderful sight in flower when we visited .
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on March 06, 2013, 04:18:21 AM
No Otto, I'm afraid not. I had hopes as always but then the fatness just faded away and nothing was in the little capsules. Not surprising really as I had a polystyrene tray upended over the trough most of the time to keep the sun off while we were still living in Sproull Drive but the trough was at 661. It became a bit etoliated and pale but has perked up a lot since we moved. I really need another clone to cross-pollinate, though I did get that single pod about 6 or 8 years ago and every seed, over 100, germinated. But then I lost all but one when I potted them and even that one died on me after about a year. I'm surprised the main one has lasted so long really. It's easy from spring cuttings but that doesn't help you of course. So sorry.

I'll phone you on Saturday, probably in the afternoon or evening as I'll be away to work at 3.15am (your time!)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on April 14, 2013, 06:41:11 AM
So long since an episode of this sometimes Blog, and even now, I can't get a clear run, having written the tent below on Friday. Now it's Sunday so Roger's birthday is over, we had our dinner out but disappointingly, no Bluff oysters, in the middle of their season and at best, the restaurant was, to my mind, mediocre. It was Ombrello's, for the locals' benefit and previously we've enjoyed meals there but the staff has changed so many times and young, inexperienced people provided very ordinary food and service. Oh well, such is life.

So, another Blog below and then a few pictures.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on April 14, 2013, 07:02:52 AM
Blog 661 – 12th April 3013

I am a very bad blogger! I must be as I see that it is well over a month since I last made an entry. No real excuses, just so much has happened and I’ve been very busy indeed, in the time. Today is Roger’s birthday and perhaps that has inspired me or more likely it is that today is very cold, bitter in fact, and I am putting off going to do the new planting I’ve been promising myself for a couple of weeks.

Firstly, I have now retired from my Farmers’ Market job, or rather, I’ll do so finally on April 20th so just the two Saturdays to go. I decided that as I’m now 70, and am going away for about a month and will need more surgery later in the year (maybe as soon as I come home, depending how it all goes) with a 6-8 week recuperation time afterwards, it was not only sensible but fair to my employer that I should back away and let someone younger take it on. The nature of the job is to change too, with a lot more meetings and office stuff involved, two jobs in fact, combined into one and while the pay would have been good, I want more time at home, not less, so when back from the northern hemisphere I’ll be able to concentrate fully on garden and nursery (though it will be winter of course).

I’ve decided that it will be most productive to work on one piece of garden at a time, get it how I want it then go onto the next, rather than doing little bits here and there and maybe not really achieving anything much so the first bit and probably the easiest is the left side of the path from the drive up to the house. I started by digging out all the petunias and found not much else there except 5 really horrible roses which have such big, clumpy stocks at the base that no amount of digging would move them. I’ve cut them right off at ground level and sprayed the stumps with Roundup a couple of times, having been told that roses hate the stuff. I really hope so. The three climbers up poles have been treated the same way. Looking at all the roses in the garden, it seems to me they’ve been pruned in such a way as to produce more and more thin and weak growth with a few measly flowers near the top but bending over because there’s no quality to the stems. So over a while, the whole lot will go and a very few will be replaced, though I have ordered for the winter, 2 Rosa moyesii ‘Geranium.’

Next I dug over the ground then limed it and added some sulphate of potash as well and then added 2 cubic metres of a mixture of rotted oat husks and farmyard compost, bought from a Mosgiel garden centre. This sounds too rich for the bearded irises I’m about to put in but with the lime I’m hoping it will work out and the husks and compost are really well matured. There’s little manure in the compost and it’s old and crumbly so altogether should add some “oomph” to what is very thin and powdery soil. The soil right over the whole garden is well below the lawn levels so needs a lot of building up.

This section will have two philadelphus, (P. pubescens I think, grown from Kristl Walek’s seed, as I find I have somehow left behind my two potted plants of P. ‘Belle Etoile,’ my most favourite with fantastic scent, and I forgot to do cuttings of P. coronarius, though I still have the gold form of it). Oh gosh, just looked in Hillier and find pubescens grows to 4-5 metres or more. Too big for this garden and it will have to go in one of the borders in front of trees. Easy solution, I’ve phoned Blue Mountain Nurseries and 2 ‘Belle Etoile’ will arrive on Monday.

There is a rose-type framework up the path and where three have been cut back and hopefully killed, I’ll put the 3 old roses I bought recently; ‘Mme Alfred Carriere,’ Alberice Barbier’ and ‘Gloire de Dijon,’ but planting them on the other sides of the posts in hope of their not resenting the recent occupation of the ousted 3. There is netting over the tops joining the posts on either side of the path. I’ve realised that of the hundreds or maybe thousands of plants in this garden, there is not a single label. Not one on a plant or nearby in the soil. I tend to label almost obsessively, an outcome of having a nursery I suppose.

Then there will be a selection of about a dozen tall bearded irises, all currently potted and so wanting to be released, along with some intermediates, especially table irises which are similar except with slimmer stems, a little shorter and smaller flowers nicely in proportion. There will be a few standard dwarfs as well around the edges but not so many as to be a border. Some perennials will be Eryngium ‘Picos Blue,’ Crambe maritima, Origanum tournefortii, heterifolius ‘True Blue,’ Papaver orientale ‘Patty’s Plum,’ a number of named auriculas, mainly blues and purples, Lathyrus nervosus and L laxiflorus, the chocolate cosmos, Cosmos atrosanguineus, assorted Pulsatilla vulgaris colours, various named dianthus and so on. Generally, lists are boring except to those making them.

Of course there will be many bulbs too and they will include Iris reticulata forms, some Dutch irises I’ve just bought, Galtonia candicans and its double form ‘Moonbeam.’ Maybe crocus patches and many of these are starting to flower now after a long, quite hot summer. I may put some of June Keeley’s nerines in here as well since it’s in full sun. So many choices! (Talking of bulbs, minutes ago I had a quick call in from Dave and Leitha Adams who have been delivering daffodil bulbs down the South Island, ordered from them at the daff show in Dunedin, September. I only ordered a couple of miniatures but Dave included as an extra, an as yet unregistered South Australian variety, ‘Foundling’ x cyclamineus. It’s a “chubby little thing” says Dave, about 12cms in height. That will be interesting to see in the spring.

The bed has its own watering system as most do, with a central hose from a tap and thin tubes coming from it and which water in fine sprays when the tap is turned on. At present it’s lying on the lawn but I’ll reset it when the main planting is done. The tap has a rather nice top, a small bird, and under this tap I’ll put Ajuga ‘Arctic Fox, a heavily variegated form, dark green and creamy-white. I like it a lot and was able to replace it at the February Study Weekend from a Nelson grower. My first plant was one of soooooo many which succumbed to the overly dry conditions of our late garden. Now I’ll be able to let the tap drip a little if it gets too dry.

The nursery? Well it’s still in a state of being sorted. I have separated out the plants which could be sellable if the occasion arises but most trays – still about 200 of them – are waiting for placement and many plants are to be propagated. I have masses of seeds to sow and many yet to clean and packet for other people/places, and it’s a bit late now for cuttings. We had a good frost yesterday morning and the masses of dahlias around the place were frosted. Almost all of these are, I think seedlings, single yellows by the hundreds and they will go but everywhere I look there are more dahlia seedling coming up. I’ll keep the black-foliaged yellow and terra-cotta plants and I have 4 plants of ‘Bishop of Llandaff. There’s a quite nice coral-coloured semi-double but other than this little selection – no thanks.

Many pots of seedlings are ready or past ready for potting and they too will have to wait until the spring. I’ve found in the past that seedlings which can’t make new roots and grow on before the cold weather, tend to die if potted late in the autumn. We’ve had a glorious late summer really but now the weather has changed and it’s fairly typical autumn, winter not so far off. Besides I haven’t the time now before leaving for the Czech Republic. So it will be a very busy spring and next summer for me, surgery permitting. Ideally, I’d have this when I get home and have the winter to recuperate in and not waste the warmer spring weather. Time will tell. My own doc wanted me to go into hospital a month ago but I said “no” as I wouldn’t have been able to travel for quite a time.

We’re going into the city tonight for dinner, it being Roger’s 67th, and we hope there are Bluff oysters on the menu. We are lucky to have a $100 voucher to spend, a gift from the agent who sold this house to us. This seems to be a usual thing nowadays. The agent who sold our Sproull Drive house presented us with a large parcel of luxuriously soft and fluffy, very thick bathroom towels.

So, time now for a quick lunch then out to plant.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on April 14, 2013, 07:18:46 AM
Some pictures now. Not the most exciting with almost nothing in flower and growth dying back rapidly.

The first is a corm of Cyclamen cilicium,16 cms across!. I tried to move its hypertufa trough to transport but it was well wedged and broke into pieces. The corm was rescued happily and is now in a large pot. It's my best C. cilicium, collected, I was told, in Iran and is a deeper colour than most, though the picture doesn't show it, and flowers for at least 4 months but has never set seed.

The rose shows the typical growth on all the roses here, weak stems, few flowers with a hang-dog appearance. This is a standard and is soon for the chop.

The little bird tap head which I like. All other garden ornamentation was taken for which I'm grateful. The usual selection of trite texts and concrete children holding their aprons as birdbaths and the like.

What will be my sales area. It is surrounded by a pear-shaped driveway of gravel, the top of the pear where our garages/shed are and the lower (stem) end, a gate beyond which is the railway line, about 5 metres from the gate itself. We keep this shut all the time as Marley went for a wander out across the line and onto the road from where a young couple brought him back, a large truck having swerved to avoid him. My mind freezes when I think of the possible carnage he could have caused. Not the M1, the road is, all the same the main road from one end of the country to the other and carries huge amounts of traffic, especially the heavy (60 tonne) trucks which have largely replaced rail freight.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on April 14, 2013, 12:04:39 PM
Where I know them, I'm retaining June Keeley's "unofficial" names for her Nerine hybrids. But many had no names. These two are 'Sunbeam' and 'Startrek.'
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: annew on April 15, 2013, 07:54:12 PM
Lesley,
I'm exhausted just reading about all the work you have to do, but then 'work' is not the right word when it's something as exciting as your new garden. Wish I was going to the Czech Rep to meet you. Have a great time!
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: angie on April 15, 2013, 09:07:23 PM
Anne I am the same, How does she manage it. I find it takes me ages just to do a short note.

Lesley thats really a lovely flower (Nerine Startrek ). Looking forward to see you soon, not long now.

Angie  :)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on April 16, 2013, 02:25:23 AM
Thanks Anne and Angie. I have little trouble writing about it all; getting it done is another matter though. Angie, I could bring a couple of smallish bulbs of 'Startrek' for you. They just like a sunny place and good drainage. All these hybrids from June Keeley clump up quickly.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: fermi de Sousa on April 16, 2013, 02:54:57 PM
Hi Lesley,
we'll look forward to seeing all the changes when we next visit - has the team from the NZAGS Study weekend recovered enough to consider running another one? ;D
"Sunbeam" looks a bit like one we have called 'Ariel' which is an old hybrid ( I got mine about 20 years ago) - when it flowers here I'll post a pic. Posted at reply 27 here: http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=10311.15 (http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=10311.15)
See you in the Czech Republic!
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: angie on April 16, 2013, 09:05:21 PM
Hi Lesley

That's really generous of you. It is a really nice flower.

I was saying to my husband today I wonder how much money I should take for my trip and he replied well you wont need any money to purchase plants, it's not like you can take much back. Little does he know that I will be able to get loads of plants home.
I am really getting excited about meeting you. I hope I wont disturb you with my midnight snacks.

Angie  :)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: sippa on April 17, 2013, 12:08:38 AM


I look forward to meet all of you.  We were there at the last Conference, and it was a lot of fun.  Bevare of the American plant buyers.  Just kidding  :)

Marianne
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on April 17, 2013, 12:28:55 AM
Angie, just keep those midnight snacks well away from me please ;D I can probably put in a couple of other colours as well. The slim offsets will flower in about 3 years I imagine. They make big clumps quickly.

Fermi, these nerine hybs of the  late June Keeley in Timaru, are bred from smaller species and vars so most are quite short, slim and with flowers in proportion, though I admit that 'Sunbeam' and 'Startrek' are two of the taller ones. I seem to have lost one she called 'Chanticleer,' a very early deep blood red and seemingly dusted with gold. It was my favourite but if I still have it, it hasn't flowered for several years. I have about 50 pots here at present, most flowering but being very slow about it this year. She also had a selection of what she called "art colours," smoky salmons and pinks and soft corals etc. All in the eye of the beholder of course. It's the relative smallness that attracts me.

There's to be a bit in the local rag (Otago Daily Times) tomorrow about the market and the fact it is now 10 years old, also a short bit about me, my role as manager there and the fact I'm now retiring. The photo they're using is one I think Tim took, in Aus, a couple of years ago. It was better than the ones taken by the ODT at the market.

I'll try to do another blog episode before 25th, the day I leave, but it will be much shorter and hurried probably. Still masses to do and I'm determined to leave the house spotless because Roger's niece plans to come down to see how he's coping and will clean the house from top to bottom even if she sees a dead moth anywhere. I wish she'd mind her own business.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: David Nicholson on April 17, 2013, 10:03:19 AM
I'll try to do another blog episode before 25th, the day I leave, but it will be much shorter and hurried probably. Still masses to do and I'm determined to leave the house spotless because Roger's niece plans to come down to see how he's coping and will clean the house from top to bottom even if she sees a dead moth anywhere. I wish she'd mind her own business.

Now that's another difference between men and women. I'd leave it in a right mess and give her something to do ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: ranunculus on April 17, 2013, 10:37:56 AM
 
Now that's another difference between men and women. I'd leave it in a right mess and give her something to do ;D

 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on April 17, 2013, 11:16:01 PM
I normally would too David but she has this superior attitude about how her own place is perfect while she believes I'm used to living in a tip.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Maggi Young on April 17, 2013, 11:27:25 PM
Send her here, Lesley- I'll show her a tip.  If she wants to clean it up while we're away that's fine by me!
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: angie on April 18, 2013, 08:32:40 AM
Now that's another difference between men and women. I'd leave it in a right mess and give her something to do ;D

David I see you have you think of your wife's needs before yours  :-X I am already thinking about all the jobs I have to do before I go. I don't think my husband is aware that we have a washing machine or an iron.

Lesley don't worry I am greedy when it comes to my sweets  ;D

Angie  :)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: ranunculus on April 18, 2013, 09:12:31 AM
I don't think my husband is aware that we have a washing machine or an iron.
Angie  :)

A what or a what???  ??? ::)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on April 24, 2013, 11:30:25 AM
I'm sorry, I did want to do another bit before leaving home but things have rushed by too fast and there simply isn't time. Enough to say I have left my market job finally, with a great "do" to see me off (120 people there, all vendors and their staff and Trustees) with numerous bottles and other gifts piled upon me, a lovely feeling to know I have been appreciated. The bunch of flowers gracing my sitting room will be for Roger to enjoy while it lasts and the purse given to me - a "whipround' of vendors, I was told, contains so much it is truly embarrassing to accept it. Lovely - and generous - people, every one.

Leaving home tomorrow. Prague, here I come! ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Brian Ellis on April 24, 2013, 02:55:39 PM
How nice to realise how much you have been appreciated Lesley.  Have a great time in Prague.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: angie on April 24, 2013, 07:57:57 PM

Leaving home tomorrow. Prague, here I come! ;D

Take care Lesley and see you soon.

Angie  :)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: ashley on April 24, 2013, 09:02:36 PM
I hope you have a great trip Lesley, and start 'retirement' as you mean to go on ;D
Best wishes too to everyone else heading to Prague. 
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on July 13, 2013, 01:54:02 AM
Blog 661 – 15th July 2013

Since I started this diary back in December 2012, and intending at that time to keep up a more or less weekly commentary, my propensity for extreme laziness has overtaken me and instead of using the current cold and frequently wet weather to write, I’ve discovered the delights – and convenience – of an E-reader which goes with me wherever I go.

My last entry here was just before I left NZ for the Czech Republic (almost 3 months ago) and the wonderful Conference the Czechs, in collaboration with the Scots, and then the excellent tour to follow, arranged for those of us who were fortunate enough to attend.

In the meantime, our weather has changed from a mild autumn to one of the coldest winters I remember. I don’t think it’s just that our new garden is in a colder place though that may be part of it. When I looked out this morning it seemed there was a snow fall but it was just a really heavy frost and although we had a banked up fire overnight in the dining room, the temperature in there was just 4.5 degC! Not being at my previous market job I could have gone back to bed but went to work instead to get the fire going and was soon able to welcome the rising sun through our large dining room window. We had a vegetable soup last night and I reheated the remains and had hot soup for breakfast instead of my usual bran flakes.

The only flowers out here at present from the garden itself, are numerous undistinguished  hellebores and a winter-flowering cherry. The hellebores have seeded about over years and form a ground cover of many square metres under the trees, in pinks, reddish shades and whites. I hope someone will tell me the cherry’s name. I picked the only few twigs I could reach and put them in a blue jug with some hellebore flowers but the hellebores are not, it seems, good cut flowers and within an hour had drooped right down to the table top. Does anyone know a tip for keeping the blooms upright and so usable as cut flowers? The cherry has a lot of dead stuff on it and will probably need removal altogether, perhaps replaced with something else. Oh yes, I’ve discovered another flower in bloom under the trees, one I DON’T want, the celandine, with 3cm flowers shining beautifully in the sun but whose foliage is spreading through the ground at an amazing rate. Like some other weedy species it has been used as total ground cover and it will be a major job to control and then remove it.

I’ve bought a few roses (a moment of mental aberration overcoming me) and two witch hazels, Hamamelis mollis ‘Pallida’ and H. x Intermedia ‘Arnold Promise,’ for planting near the house, along with a new cornus, a local variety called ‘Greenvale’ which seems to be a seedling of Cornus nuttallii crossed with – perhaps – ‘Eddie’s White Wonder.’ I’ve not seen it in bloom yet but those who have say the “flowers” (bracts) are large, palest jade green and ghostly. These are followed by red strawberry-like fruit. The foliage is hanging on late but has turned to a very deep red. I’ve also been able to replace my precious ‘Paul’s Scarlet’ crataegus’ and 2 claret ashes, one of my favourite trees. So there will be plenty planting to do as soon as I can get places ready and the ground thaws a little.

Of the plants I brought with me to 661, mostly there are crocuses, new ones almost daily, snowdrops (the doubles are coming out first, especially ‘Dionysus’ and ‘Lady Beatrix Stanley’) while Galanthus reginae-olgae is still hanging on. The form I have is not a very early one anyway. Just about all the others I have are in bud and won’t be too long. Counting up, I’m surprised to find I have about 20 different snowdrops. Cyclamen coum in different forms is beginning to colour the bed under Magnolia ‘Ian’s Red’ and though I intended to plant ONLY the cyclamen there, I couldn’t resist planting small groups of Iris reticulata ‘Harmony’ as well. These are not quite in bud but won’t be long and the first flower is out today in a pot of I. r. ‘Pauline.’ What these all tell me is that spring really will come and maybe won’t be far off, the crocuses particularly for me always bridging that period between winter and spring so that the former is never really horrid.

Tauranga’s Bill Dijk sent me a parcel of irises a couple of weeks ago and though they were a swap for a few I’d sent him, he sent many more. Of these, Iris unguicularis ‘Starker’s Pink’ and ‘Purple Trinity’ are both in bud. The latter is a NZ hybrid, from, I think, Marion Ball, a NZ breeder of lovely irises. The flower of ‘Purple Trinity is a rich, very deep purple and with red in the throat, very distinct from any other form of the species. The plant is shorter, more compact than others.

So – many wonderful things to come in the near future. I’m still placing and replanting troughs and a few Porophyllum saxifrages are already in bud. Then yesterday I bought from a cheapie chain store, a couple of small greenhouses, just 3 metres x 2 metres x 1.9 metres high, doors at each end and little side windows which have roll up covers over netting. The canopies are a plastic stuff and the whole things, once fully erected will need pegging down against our sometimes savage winds but they’ll give me some shelter and protection for newly potted seedlings until something more permanent is arranged. It’s crazy to be thinking of potting seedlings so early but I have so many to do that I really MUST get on with it. Still many seeds to sow and more expected any day from the Trillium Group and NZIS. I wonder, at what age does one decide not to bother with seeds any more? Whatever it is, I haven’t reached it yet, nor have come anywhere near!

We have 3 chooks. They were all supposed to be hens but one, Boris has turned out to be a rooster, The others are Tatiana and Tamara (Tat and Tam). They are Barnvelders, a Dutch breed I think and very attractive with mainly almost black plumage but irridescent green and with beautiful tan mottling on their chests. NO EGGS YET which is making Roger mutter about chicken casserole but hopefully they'll start in the spring. For now they are quite good company around the garden and not doing much damage so far. They seem to be eating a great number of seeds and assorted wildlife from the grass as well as enjoying a wheat breakfast, as here, on the driveway.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Brian Ellis on July 13, 2013, 12:41:06 PM
From the internet Lesley:

Add about an inch of boiling water to a jug, then place the stem ends in the water for around 1 minute. This will force out the air from the stems and allow better uptake of water. Take them out of the hot water, then re-cut the stem ends and put them into water up to their necks or immerse them completely overnight before arranging. A more foolproof method for Hellebores is to wait until they have formed (or are beginning to form) seed pods. At this stage they will condition very well and last a long time.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: David Nicholson on July 13, 2013, 08:05:58 PM
I admire your energy Lesley, I'm wilting fast.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Maggi Young on July 13, 2013, 09:17:44 PM
From the internet Lesley:

Add about an inch of boiling water to a jug, then place the stem ends in the water for around 1 minute. This will force out the air from the stems and allow better uptake of water. Take them out of the hot water, then re-cut the stem ends and put them into water up to their necks or immerse them completely overnight before arranging. A more foolproof method for Hellebores is to wait until they have formed (or are beginning to form) seed pods. At this stage they will condition very well and last a long time.

I take the stamens off cut hellebores and prick the stems right through with a pin,about one inch down from the back of each flower.
Sounds more than a tad shamanistic, I suppose, but it seems to work quite well. I was told the stem stabbing trick for Tulips a long time ago and it always seems to keep them well.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: angie on July 14, 2013, 12:33:35 AM
I admire your energy Lesley, I'm wilting fast.

You will be David with the heat that you are getting down there  ;D

Lesley.  You say I wonder, at what age does one decide not to bother with seeds any more? Whatever it is, I haven’t reached it yet, nor have come anywhere near! Good on you just because we are all getting a bit older doesn't mean that we can't keep doing what we wish to. Just wish I could get better with seeds.

Angie  :)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Arum on July 14, 2013, 08:20:12 AM
"Still many seeds to sow and more expected any day from the Trillium Group and NZIS. I wonder, at what age does one decide not to bother with seeds any more? Whatever it is, I haven’t reached it yet, nor have come anywhere near!"

I had often thought along these lines myself Lesley. I have had several Icons during my life who I admired tremendously for their knowledge of plants & propagation. Agnes Sutherland, Ethel Doyle, Alistair Blee, Stewart Preston to mention a few  - I am sure you will also remember these plant's people. They all at some stage said to me "Do not stop growing from seed Edna - do continue - as it keeps life so interesting." Maybe not these exact words but along these lines. Personally I think it one of the most exciting things a plant loving person can do - always something to drool over whatever the weather or the mood. My shade house is chocker with seed pots at various stages of germination. It has seen me through good times & bad. Even during the times of the Christchurch earthquake my seed pots & seedlings continued to give me pleasure and stability though the ground was constantly heaving & times were very scary. Something to check on each day maybe & to watch over - nurture one might say. I did at times almost feel guilty as many people were suffering so & amongst all the chaos I could still feel pleasure over a tiddly little seedling that had just germinated.
Keep up the good work I will be down to check out your new "Patch of Paradise" one of these days. Stewart Preston was speaking at a NZAG Soc. monthly meeting I attended many years ago - his subject was "My Patch of Paradise ". I was spellbound taking in all he spoke about & he repeated these words over & over saying everyone could create this for themselves. It did impress me so much - I have most surely carried out his advise. We must leave our home for alternative accommodation for at least 6 weeks while earthquake repairs are carried out, I cannot imagine not being able to duck out to my seed house for my early morning inspection, I am sure I will have to visit daily.
Regards Edna

Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Maggi Young on July 14, 2013, 12:22:44 PM
I think your words will resonate with many folks Edna - it is comforting in times of trouble of whatever sort to be able to concentrate on something "outside" our daily grind to give us another focus and some hope.

Good luck with your earthquake repairs - and we all hope you will never have to go through that again.

As for when do we stop sowing seed- well, I advocate the  policy of our mentor, Harold Esslemont -  never!   He was still sowing fritillaria seed at nearly ninety - sounds good to me!
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: fermi de Sousa on July 14, 2013, 12:25:59 PM
Blog 661 – 15th July 2013

Still many seeds to sow and more expected any day from the Trillium Group and NZIS. I wonder, at what age does one decide not to bother with seeds any more? Whatever it is, I haven’t reached it yet, nor have come anywhere near!

Hmmm, still Bastille Day over here, Lesley ;D
Our mutual friend Stephen Ryan tells us about Barney Hutton, a friend of his on Mt Macedon, who was still planting peony seeds in his nineties! His friends and family are the beneficiaries of his enterprises.
cheers
fermi
 
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on July 15, 2013, 12:22:44 AM
Firstly, thanks for the tips for keeping hellebores in water. I was wondering if the ones here are worth the effort but although nothing out of the way, they are still attractive and valuable at this coldest time of year. I like to have something in the house if possible so I'll try your Internet method Brian and also yours Maggi. Sticking with pins does sound a little like casting some nasty spell on someone so certain people about here better keep out of the way while I do it.

I fully agree about the need to sow seed for as long as possible. Apart from the thrill of seeing germination, I do believe that plants grown from seed where possible, are stronger, healthier and longer-lived than those from cuttings or other methods. No doubt a selection of packets will be available for whoever buries me, to sow on my grave.  :)

Edna, I do feel for you. It's so easy for the rest of us to say"thank goodness THAT'S all over now and people can get back to "normal" life." But we forget that thousands of Chch people are still not able to live in their own homes yet or may have to move altogether but the process is taking so very long. It seems outrageous that many homes are still not under repair or even properly assessed, and then some surveyor comes along and says thousands of houses have been assessed incorrectly in order to save the Earthquake Commission having to pay out so much. It's almost unbelievable. I can only hope your own repairs go smoothly and successfully and you can get rehoused again as soon as possible. Do call in here whenever you are nearby please. If I have a couple of hours notice there can be warm scones as well as tea and coffee. :)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Gerry Webster on July 15, 2013, 09:15:42 PM
As for when do we stop sowing seed- well, I advocate the  policy of our mentor, Harold Esslemont -  never!   He was still sowing fritillaria seed at nearly ninety - sounds good to me!

Reminds me of Pierre Monteux who, at the age of 85, was appointed conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. He demanded, & received, a 25 year contract.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on July 16, 2013, 12:39:53 AM
I know his name Gerry but little about him. I don't think I've any recording with him as Conductor. How long of his contract did he fill? :)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on July 16, 2013, 01:06:07 AM
While in the shower this morning I had a brainwave. I was washing my hair so maybe the cobwebs, bits of twig and assorted wildlife were washed out and my brain could work again! I have been wondering how to build up the triangular garden which I want to make into a rock garden, maybe even a crevice garden though having seen the Czech gardens I don't know if I'll dare try to emulate those. At present the area is bare earth and even slightly below the level of the surrounding lawn and there just isn't the money to bring in the quantities needed to build up and make a rock garden from scratch, but we have areas of native grasses, not sure which but so boring that I want them gone. They have been used to fill spaces with no regard to how dull and ugly they are. I believe I could keep takehe (Porphyrio hochstetteri) or kiwi among them with no-one any the wiser and there are hundreds, interplanted in some places with dahlia seedlings for some reason.

Anyway, it occurred to me that if I were to dig the grasses and lay them up-side-down on the to-be-a-rock-garden area, I could build it up and shape it with the grass clumps and then when it was the right height and shape, add a much smaller quantity of soil/grit and whatever else I wanted to include in the compost, on top, then add the rocks to suit.

I expect the grasses would shrink and slump as they rotted down so some waiting will be needed but even if it happens over quite a period, it won't really matter as more gravel/grit can be applied to keep a satisfactory height and shape. I can pretend it's a moving scree.

This will solve two problems; how to build up the area and how to dispose of the grasses. I may need to Roundup the edges if the grasses start to sprout out the lower parts. I dug a few this morning and it was quite easy as the ground is so wet at present.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Tim Ingram on July 16, 2013, 07:09:29 AM
My first thought was - 'a moving scree', what a novel and intriguing idea! My second though - what's wrong with a compost heap? Mind you Bob and Rannveig Wallis grew incredible bulbs in a bulb frame filled with old televisions and goodness else what that they wanted to find a place to get rid of (look back at one of their articles in the Bulletin). I think the grasses may build up the area initially but very rapidly the effect will be lost as they break down and you will probably end up having to spend as much on gravel and grit as you would have done to get the effect you wanted in the first place! On the other hand, what's wrong with a subterranean compost heap?
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Gerry Webster on July 16, 2013, 10:30:18 AM
I know his name Gerry but little about him. I don't think I've any recording with him as Conductor. How long of his contract did he fill? :)
He died at the age of 89. His final recordings (of Debussy & Ravel) with the LSO are very fine. The Wikipaedia entry is informative.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Luc Gilgemyn on July 16, 2013, 11:29:01 AM

Anyway, it occurred to me that if I were to dig the grasses and lay them up-side-down on the to-be-a-rock-garden area, I could build it up and shape it with the grass clumps and then when it was the right height and shape, add a much smaller quantity of soil/grit and whatever else I wanted to include in the compost, on top, then add the rocks to suit.

I expect the grasses would shinik and slump as they rotted down so some waiting will be needed but even if it happens over quite a period, it won't really matter as more gravel/grit can be applied to keep a satisfactory height and shape. I can pretend it's a moving scree.

This will solve two problems; how to build up the area and how to dispose of the grasses. I may need to Roundup the edges if the grasses start to sprout out the lower parts. I dug a few this morning and it was quite easy as the ground is so wet at present.

That's exactly the strategy I used when building my small tufa mound a couple of years ago.  The grass clumps turned upside down worked a treat ! (even without being treated with Roundup) !
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on July 16, 2013, 12:04:50 PM
Thanks for that note Gerry (ha ha! I'll be joining the ranks of David N and Cliff B if I'm not careful. :D) I'll try to find those recordings.

Tim I was thinking of the screes in our own east coast mountains which do indeed, move. They move to such an extent that the roots of some plants such as Ranunculus haastii or the scree Leptinellas can be found growing at a higher altitude than the plants themselves. The roots are well dug in but the surfaces of the plants move along as rock shifts with rain and snow action. These plants tend to have very rubbery, almost elastic root systems. However, I don't really see that for my "scree" just that plants may have to grow up through grit and gravel as more and more material is added to keep up the height of the structure. It will depend on what rock I can use and how much I can get hold of. There's a little here but I['ll need a lot more.

I did think maybe a sand bed would be possible but today I started to dig a line of Armeria maritima which had been used along one side and with all the rain we have had over recent weeks, they were sitting in a bog. I think sand would not be suitable for this area, or not a whole bed of it, maybe just incorporated into parts which are not too low lying, or they would be like quicksand. In fact even in the soil, my gumboots were sinking to my ankles.

I unearthed literally hundreds of grass grubs in the digging process, to the benefit of Boris, Tat and Tam, who has laid her first egg this morning. Maybe there are more somewhere about because Roger hadn't been shutting them in at night and from very early morn they've been out and about. Now they'll have to be shut in until the nestbox has an offering.

So far as the TV sets are concerned, I hadn't thought of those but we do have a couple of ancient ones for disposal and also a couple of old PC monitiors so maybe they can be put to good use as landfill in this new garden. What's good enough for Bob and Rannveig.......

Not so sure about a compost heap as this area will, I hope, house the more precious and scree-like inhabitants that are available to me, things such as Kabschia saxes, Physoplexis, Gent depressa etc and many more. So I want a gritty, humusy soil that isn't too rich.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: ranunculus on July 16, 2013, 01:06:31 PM
Quote: Thanks for that note Gerry (ha ha! I'll be joining the ranks of David N and Cliff B if I'm not careful. )

With the connoisseurs, eh Lesley?

I remember Pierre Monteux when he gigged with The Damned, The Best Beloved and The Little Squeezy Pimples ... he was COOL!!!
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: David Nicholson on July 16, 2013, 06:42:56 PM
Doesn't he have an annual Jazz festival as well? ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: ranunculus on July 16, 2013, 07:31:30 PM
Doesn't he have an annual Jazz festival as well? ;D

No, I've never heard of the Pierre Jazz festival, David ... though I did see the FABULOUS Richard Hawley in Sheffield last week and Lesley would have LOVED him!!!!

Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Gerry Webster on July 17, 2013, 08:45:02 PM
Thanks for that note Gerry ......... I'll try to find those recordings.
Lesley - Try the Australian Eloquence label; they have republished many of the classic 60s recordings & are relatively inexpensive:

http://www.buywell.com/cgi-bin/buywellic2/eloqoverview.html (http://www.buywell.com/cgi-bin/buywellic2/eloqoverview.html)
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on July 18, 2013, 12:02:25 AM
Thank you Gerry, I'll try it now. And also for a return to sanity in the posts. Not sure how I'll cope with the buttercup man actually in the house. :D

I was thrilled yesterday to find a dozen or so small tufts of Eranthis hiemalis arranged round a rotting and ancient tree trunk. They'll need to be rescued as that's where the little polytunnels will go when we've chopped out the trunk. There is also a single small clump, the only one I've found so far of Galanthus nivalis. Then there's a mass of the bulb below. I thought to start with it could be  large-flowered Dutch crocuses but the foliage is staying small and tight and the partially exposed bulbs are wrong, not corms at all. Maybe a Scilla or something? And does anyone know what my winter flowering cherry is please?
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: fermi de Sousa on July 18, 2013, 03:41:39 AM
...there's a mass of the bulb below. I thought to start with it could be  large-flowered Dutch crocuses but the foliage is staying small and tight and the partially exposed bulbs are wrong, not corms at all. Maybe a Scilla or something?
Maybe Muscari or Ornithogalum?
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: arilnut on July 18, 2013, 04:38:28 AM
Hi Lesley.  I'm afraid that bulb may be the weedy ornithogalum that's called
wild onion around here, also called Star of Bethlehem.  Impossible to get rid of.

John B
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on July 18, 2013, 05:52:34 AM
Thanks John, or perhaps not. Fermi in Australia has already suggested it may be an Ornithogalum or Muscari and I'm pretty sure it's not the latter. So far as I can tell it's just in the one place, with the Eranthis but winning the battle there. I'll try Roundup on it or, having lifted the Eranthis and the small clump of snowdrops, might drop half a ton of salt onto it. Round about there are various other clumps of bulby things and I'm terrified some may be bluebells, magnificent in an English woodland but a major menace in a New Zealand garden.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: fermi de Sousa on July 20, 2013, 05:01:24 AM
As they say I the classics "give it a chance", Lesley!
If it's only in one place then it probably isn't too weedy - unless the previous owners were particularly vigilant against it spreading. Some of the ornithogalums can be quite floriferous when it's quiet amongst the other bulbs.
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: annew on July 20, 2013, 05:18:20 PM
Very satisfying to see in your third pic that the bulbs do actually grow upside down down under!! ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Michael J Campbell on July 20, 2013, 05:47:34 PM
Anne, you have an eye like a travelling rat.  ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: ashley on July 20, 2013, 07:43:30 PM
Is that a Shannon seanfhocail (saying) Michael? ;) ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on July 22, 2013, 06:29:30 AM
Fermi there are various patches of this little bulb around the garden though except in this one particular place, round an ancient and very large tree trunk, all seem to be in contained patches, i.e. not actually spreading about.

You're right Anne, they ARE just about growing up-side-down, so thickly that they're pushing each other up and out. There are various other things in patches too. I though for a lovely moment they could be chionodoxas but now don't think so. Maybe some kind of scilla or hyacinth. Not a single crocus anywhere but a billion daffodils, nothing low though, nor any iris nor cyclamen. Doubt if there will be erythroniums either.

I mentioned Cornus 'Greenvale' before. I'm told now that it is C. kousa x capitata, and that my prunus is probably P. autumnalis.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on January 06, 2014, 10:41:57 PM
I can't believe it is 6 months since I last did a Blog entry! I was sure there had been a few in the last half of 2013. Apparently not! I hope to do better now with more but perhaps shorter entries.

Blog 661 – 6th January 2014

I have resolved to do better with my Blog this year and try for an entry each week. That was the original intention but it quickly became a much more occasional thing and gradually the continuity was lost. Laziness? Other things getting in the way? Some illness? All of those but I hope I can put aside the first, prioritise with the second and overcome the third.

My little nursery is beginning to take shape and Roger is building setting out beds for me, three of which are now filled with plants for sale – a fourth has my own plants, all of which are to find homes in the garden – from ready now to newly potted seedlings and rooted cuttings, most of which will be ready by the autumn but some, especially quite a good selection of irises, not for a full year and even more if I’m to stick with my principle of seeing everything in flower before I offer it for sale. From my own is fine as I know the plants but plants from other sources are notorious for bad naming at worst or sometimes just the inevitable variation within a species or hybrid swarm. I and all of us have been stung with wrongly named plants from nurseries and I don’t wish to inflict this on others.

Several more beds are yet to be built for plants which take more sun and they are now becoming urgent as this wet but warm summer is producing jungle-like growth in everything from new seedlings to established plants in the garden and inevitably, the weed population which flourishes mightily.

Other resolutions for the New Year include a determination to look at every new Galanthus thread on the Forum. For the last couple I have deleted New Topics about snowdrops as they appeared, based on the fact we don’t have/can’t get any of the myriad forms which appear so frequently. But as I’ve cleaned up bulb pots this early summer, I find I have about 20 different ‘drops so maybe there will be some hybridising and variation as they are planted out and begin to establish into good clumps. I had a little seed on a few including the large-flowered Galanthus elwesii ‘Emerald Hughes’ and a kindly Forumist sent seed to me of yellow forms (i.e. yellow markings and ovaries). All of these were sown as fresh as possible but still they seem to take at least 6 months to germinate here.

I was thrilled to have a single pod of nine seeds on Iris winogradowii and have sown these around the single bulb I now have of the mother plant. Over a few hot dry summers this species along with its hybrids ‘Katharine Hodgkin’ and ‘Sheila Ann Germaney’ had disappeared from its raised bed habitat in my previous garden so I was happy to get a new one of the damp-loving winogradowii from my favourite (other) nursery Hokonui Alpines and of the last, complete with rice grain bulblets, from another iris addict. She had remembered from many months ago that I had lost mine. Both are planted in a bed with primulas, hepaticas, small irises such as II. gracilipes and cristata and some small rhododendrons et al.

Yet again this morning I have missed the open flower on Geleazine azurea. I saw it just a little open at 7am and when I went back with camera at 11ish, it had opened and was already collapsing. It was the fourth bloom. One came and went then two at once and now this one, probably the last. However, overnight two branches have appeared on the tall flower stem so there will be more. I may have to bed out with it and take breakfast as well. Alternatively I could bring the pot onto the back porch and keep a closer eye on it. The colour of this iris-relative is the most gorgeous, intense blue, not quite Tecophilaea-like just slightly purplish but pure and clean. There are pretty markings inside too but I’ve not yet seen those properly.

One resolution broken already. I intended to keep text to a page or less but here I go, well into a second. So no more until next week. Some new pictures perhaps tomorrow or when the rain clears. Yet again it is pouring heavily down on us and is cold as well.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Brian Ellis on January 07, 2014, 09:10:31 AM

Other resolutions for the New Year include a determination to look at every new Galanthus thread on the Forum.

Now Lesley, is this wise?  You know what we are like and it may be catching :D ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: annew on January 08, 2014, 06:32:09 PM
Yet again it is pouring heavily down on us and is cold as well.

Sounds more like Yorkshire in January!
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: zvone on January 21, 2014, 08:38:36 PM
Beautiful Lesley!

Thank's!

Best Regards!   zvone
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on January 21, 2014, 10:08:24 PM
Thank you Zvone, I hope you enjoy these notes. Of course they are very much MY experiences and often that's quite boring to those who aren't involved but sometimes something useful may be learnt.

Already I'm behind with the Blog. I'll try later today but I have set most of the day aside to watch a one day cricket match between India and New Zealand. We're on a little high at present having beaten the West Indies comprehensively in a Test series, a One Day International series and a short series of Twenty/20 matches, as well as beating India, the world Champs, in the first of 5 ODIs. I shan't try to explain the different forms of the game to those who are not cricket fans, so long as no-one tries to explain American football to me. ;D
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: zvone on January 22, 2014, 07:41:37 PM
Thank you Lesley!
 
Thanks for blog. Many beautiful and useful things are written down. Thank you. Your blog is The best for the lover Gardens.
 
Still forward successfully!

Best Regards!  zvone
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: zvone on May 04, 2014, 10:49:59 PM
Hi Lesley!

Where are You?

Best Regards!  zvone
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on May 04, 2014, 11:38:19 PM
Thanks for your note and interest Zvone. I can't believe where the time is going and all my Blog intentions have collapsed in recent weeks (months) as other things crowd in. I'll do what I can as soon as I can and in the meantime, I apologise abjectly.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Tim Ingram on May 06, 2014, 06:52:04 AM
Lesley - the little plant of Hypericum kelleri that you so kindly sent me is just beginning to grow away on our new 'Mediterranean bed' and I will show some pictures as plants on this come into flower. Kind regards from Kent too.
Title: Re: Blog 661 - Starting a New Garden Life
Post by: Lesley Cox on May 07, 2014, 10:01:28 PM
I'm so pleased about that Tim. Mine is looking a bit shabby at present but we've had so much rain lately, another 30mm overnight and the whole place is awash today. Surprisingly, Asperula suberosa and Veronica bombycina in the same trough, are looking amazingly well with new growth.

My gorgeous Magnolia 'Ian's Red' was hit by a southerly gale in the summer time and had the top 2 metres snapped off. It's been trimmed to tidy it and though looking a bit stubby at present, will recover I think after a couple of years. There are some buds for this coming spring anyway. The ground underneath is covered with different forms of Cyclamen coum, the first almost out, and Iris ret. 'Harmony' among them, is well up already so should flower mid winter.
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