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Thursday 12th November, 2020
Hi
Night time RAIDERS Grrrr...
A comment I have been hearing a lot lately... "My leaves are being striped from our tree and with the tree being new, and not very large, it's having quite an effect!"
I walked past my two year old Tilia trees (European Lime trees), down the right of way, this morning and could see that all of the top leaves were quite skeletal looking thanks to either grass grub or bronze beetle. It reminded me to write about this. These pesky blighters must fly in swarms at night, have a munch and then fly on to the next plant.
This is a tricky problem and I'm not sure what one can do about it. I know that you can spray with a pesticide, like Success, for chewing insects but what good will it do? For your plants probably not a lot, although somewhere down the line, somebody's trees may escape the hoard. It is especially difficult if you live in the country as they just escape, out of the ground from all the surrounding paddocks, each night. If I remember correctly, the hatching time will finish and if we keep getting this delicious rain, hopefully the trees will just grow new leaves. The issue is with small or new season trees, if all the leaves get stripped then the plant can't photosynthesize, perhaps it may be worth putting a barrier around the tree like Micronet cloth. Once the trees get larger of course then they can afford to lose a few leaves to these night time raiders.
It's not only the deciduous trees that get munched either, these winged pests also make holes in the new leaves on Camellias, citrus and other evergreens which is quite annoying as these leaves have to last the whole year, or at least until the next flush, and can look quite unsightly... anyway, if you were curious, now you know.
Rare acquisitions
Fuchsia excorticata is the name for our very own native tree fuchsia. It's not very often that we have these and I do love this plant and it's a must have to include in my garden... but note to self that the possums love them.
Our native fuchsia is the largest growing fuchsia in the world becoming quite a cool, medium sized, tree that loses its leaves in the winter. The flowers are typical of fuchsia, but delightfully simple, and are followed by a largish berry that was eaten by both Maori and early European settlers. If you love the bark of trees, like I do, then you will know this tree has beautiful papery bark that peels in strips from the trunk.
Like all Fuchsia this beauty likes dappled light or semi shade and good rich and moist soil. I am going to plant some of these in the shade gardens up by the office which I'm hoping will remain a less frequented place by our hungry possum pests.
Carpodetus serratus Putaputaweta or marble leaf, we do have from time to time. Carpodetus serratus is a native, evergreen tree with small round, mottled leaves with a toothy margin, and young twigs that grow zig-zag style. Fragrant white panicle flowers from now to March and later black chewy berries will adorn the tree. Endemic to New Zealand with a very NZ common name of Putaputaweta which means many weta emerge - referring of course to the nocturnal Orthoptera (wetas) that live in holes in the trunk of this tree.
I'm thinking that I want to include some of these in my native planting around the new staff carpark along with our native tea tree Letpto. scoparium. I like the plain, simple, white flowering one in a planting with flaxes and a few other special bits.
Lemon Verbena is an oldie but a goodie and popular for its lemon scent and fragrant leaves which is wonderful for lemon fragrant tea... just pick some of its leaves add boiling water and infuse, for at least 5 mins, and voila, fresh tea in a cup. This shrub grows to around two metres and likes to be in the sun. I often think a good planting place is where you can brush past it during the daytime, maybe even rub a couple of leaves together to be enveloped in it's delicious fragrance.
It's a yellow themed rose post today
I have been looking at the Somerfield rose Night Light and it is gorgeous. I just love its soft lemon yellow shades and form of the bud, thought it was a goodie to share here. Then I got immersed in taking pics to share here, themed of all the good yellows that were in flower today.
Otago university was next in my line of sight in the nursery and one thing lead to another, as it does, and I found there were many good yellows all in flower.
St Marys Rose was next down the alphabetical rows of the roses and then I backtracked to the G's with Graham Thomas, Gold Reef and F with Friesia with its delightful fragrance.
Elina is a classic Hybrid tea with very soft lemon yellow perfect buds and the last of the bush roses today was City of Lights which is new to me.
Over to the climbers and Kaiteri Gold was also blooming away looking bright and colourful on this overcast morning (perfect for some good snaps) all glistening with the rain from yesterday still.
Come on out and see the roses for yourself there is a heap of colour happening and no matter how good, photo's give only a single moment in time view of them. Below are some other yellows soon to bloom.
Garden Greens
I spent last night making my usual lasagne for Saturday lunch and was looking for a salad dish to go with it... a quick browse through one of my old Dish magazines I spied this recipe for Garden greens. Being Asparagus season and 'nearly' Zucchini, I thought it would make a great complimentary green.
Dish suggests using the recipe as a guide and include or add your own seasonal veges.. In this case...
Asparagus with ends snapped off, Zucchini ribbons, snow peas, frozen peas and broad beans, too easy but basically blanch, individually, all of the veges in salted, boiling water then refresh in cold water and dry on a clean tea towel. Toss together and then add the basil dressing and lightly toss with your hands to coat the veges.
Basil Dressing
1 packed cup of basil leaves, plus extra to serve, 2 cloves garlic, 1 tblespn white wine vinegar, 1 tspn honey, 1/2 cup olive oil, sea salt and ground pepper. All ingredients into a food processor and blend until smooth and bright green. Pour as desired.
That rain yesterday was just amazing, I think that we got something like 16mm of a steady drizzling rain all day. I can't believe my luck, just the day before I had applied fertiliser to all the paddock and had that rain wash it all in... perfect timing if I do say so. I look at my vege garden and I can see all my lettuce and silverbeet growing at a rate of knots, so much so that I have had to take of the cloches that protect them from the beaks of birds and that baby rabbit that I had accidently trapped in the garden area. Sounds too much like Mr McGregors Garden!!!
The longest day doesn't appear to be that far away anymore and I am starting to hear the occasional mention of tasks that need to get done 'before Christmas' and believe it or not I have even had a customer come in and say they had completed this years Christmas shopping (unheard of) and it was not even November... not that I do the traditional Christmas shopping myself as mine is all about the meal I will provide for my family and friends and the surroundings to enjoy it in, that is the gift, so I like to have all the gardens up to scratch for the day and a wickedly good menu to enjoy.
I have to say that rain is making me enthused to keep planting, though I may keep it to areas that we can water, but we are keeping on with changes in our garden... on the gardening front, don't be too keen to get the hedges and the like clipped as they haven't finished expanding yet, rather wait until just before Christmas when the growth has hardened off. Keep gardening and enjoy relaxing with good friends, good food and a good tipple or two in your garden creations.
have a great weekend, maybe see you here :) (Cathie tells me that's a smile)
Cheers Lloyd, Tony and the Wairere team.
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2020 Newsletters...
Fabulous Febuary (21st February, 2020)
Watering Woes (28th February, 2020)
Orchard or Orchard (6th March, 2020)
Autumn sale time (13th March, 2020)
New Season's Camellias (20th March, 2020)
Vege Plants (27th March, 2020)
Something to try (4th April, 2020)
Lockdown dinner for my bubble (12th April, 2020)
Feijoas in abundance 1 (18th April, 2020)
Alert level 3 (25th April, 2020)
Drive through (9th May, 2020)
New Rules (15th May, 2020)
Impending roses (29th May, 2020)
Impending roses (29th May, 2020)
winter programme (6th June, 2020)
almost done (20th June, 2020)
Pruning Tech (3rd July, 2020)
In the Clouds (10th July, 2020)
Crystal ball and mags (24th July, 2020)
Chicken curry (14th August, 2020)
Big is Best (21st August, 2020)
Mouse tail plants coming (28th August, 2020)
Fluff n pretties (4th September, 2020)
Hybrid Clematis take 2 (18th September, 2020)
Those dry Places (25th September, 2020)
Water gardens (2nd October, 2020)
Balloon over Wairere (10th October, 2020)
Chilly Thursday 15/10 (16th October, 2020)
Spring has sprung (23rd October, 2020)
Kumara time (31st October, 2020)
..... Awesome Rain
A pink selection of roses (16th November, 2020)
Hibiscus (22nd November, 2020)
Unexpected fruit (28th November, 2020)
Its time (5th December, 2020)
Hostas Again (12th December, 2020)
Its a wrap (19th December, 2020)
Wairere Nursery
826 Gordonton Road, R D 1, Hamilton 3281 Ph: (07) 824 3430 Email: