Saturday 10th July, 2021
Hi
Hort speak
It's that Hort. lingo that can often be a tad confusing and I know that on our website we use the abbreviations of HW (High worked) and LW (Low worked) to distinguish between different looks of the same plant. It was just the other day that I was chatting to a client and 'high worked' rolled off the tongue without even thinking... LOL I know what I mean.
So lets look at an example; flowering Cherries are a goodie as these can come as 1.2m, 1.5m or 1.8m high worked and the same cultivar can even be in stock as low worked. So they are, in other terms, like standard roses and are grafted up a stem at those heights of 1.2 or 1.5 or 1.8 meters. If you get a 1.2m then the tree will form with a short trunk and this may be desirable in a garden setting when you want the branches from low. On the other hand you may want to mow around the tree, as it's a lawn specimen, so then a 1.5m or 1.8m HW may be more suitable so you can scoot on your ride on around and underneath. Avenue trees or driveway lining would suit the 1.8m HW for clearance height for walking or driving under.
It's worth remembering that the designated trunk does not get any taller and the same tree will perform the same way no matter what height it is grafted. Most flowering cherries, in a foreseeable future, will end up being approx 5m x 5m from graft height.
Just to touch on the low worked, these are grafted close to ground level and it's up to you to train the trunk to the height that you desire. We have an avenue of Awanui trees in the garden centre which originated as low worked trees. I purposely planted low worked so that we could crown lift, this means removal of the lower branches, aka limb them up, higher than 1.8m so that customers with trollies could walk under them easily and to be able to plant around and underneath them. They are now at about 2.5m before branching starts.
If you are getting the idea that we have started potting the
flowering cherries then you are right on the money!
What do you do with an abundance of home grown fennel
I grew an abundance of fennel this year and it's all looking perfect for harvest and eating right now... Problem is I don't overly know what to do with this Aniseedy tasting vege... so the other night I made something up. I often roast a pork piece with fennel, ginger beer and pears which is very nice. It was a recipe from the magazine Dish ages ago so took a cue from this for the other nights dinner as pork seems to go well with the fennel.
I pan fried off some pork steaks, or cutlets, until they were just cooked and set aside to cool.
Using a couple of fennel bulbs and stalk I sliced the bulb up in to 2 to 5ml slice including the stalky bit. Diced an onion, crushed some garlic and also some sliced carrots to give colour. The idea was to use more fennel than not.
Saute the onion, garlic, carrots and fennel until they are looking a little cooked.. Add salt and pepper to taste, then add some bought vegetable stock and simmered until all was soft.. I sliced up the pork and added to the vegetables, rinsed out of the pan that the pork was cooked in which gave extra colour and flavour. Thickened slightly with cornflour and voila... an easy dinner serve with rice and a fav green.
I also googled roasting fennel and this was pretty easy and tasty too, just use the bulbs though as we found the stems to be tough. Slice the bulbs into like quarters and lay in a roasting dish of sorts. roll in olive oil, add salt and pepper and roast until tender, top with grated parmesan and finish off when starting to brown and serve with dinner.. Tonys parents brought fish for dinner and so the roasted fennel was a great accompaniment
One last weekend with the Waikato Rose Society
Hopefully everyone who has attended the pruning and rose information events, held here over the past few weeks, have gained some knowledge to help them with their journey with roses. We have two sessions left, both this weekend, so if you are still planning on attending one of these demonstrations then now's the time. For details visit our facebook events page.
10 July 1pm or
11 July 11am see you here.
New season trees and roses
All the new seasons trees and roses get dug out of the ground and sent to us as bare root plants and so they all need potting and root pruning so that they fit into the bags. If you purchase a new seasons tree, or rose for that matter, just know that the soil is going to fall away from the roots... also know that they may have started to regenerate new white feeder root and you really need to treat these gently and not break them if possible. At this time of year take care and cut the bag from the tree, use the mix that falls away in your planting hole as its full of good nutrients. In the case of trees the new plant will need staking, as it hasn't grown a root mass and you need to hold it securely in the ground. If not staked then wind buffering can break the new feeder roots and the tree may not take.
I don't recommend compost at this time of year unless you have very sandy soils as compost can hold excess moisture in these wet months and rot the new developing roots. Plants are living things and care needs to be taken to ensure success.
I have to go out and pot trees as it has been a big week of deliveries but will finish with the thought that it takes us weeks to get through the potting. We may still only have part orders in for some and we are still waiting on other suppliers to complete your order. Also one of our major rose suppliers has been somewhat slow with delivery. This is beyond our control and we anxiously wait for them to get them to us.
Logistically, for any nursery, potting the numbers we do is a huge exercise, just getting them down for sale with backorders put aside is a massive job.. at this point trees are all over the place but the important step is to get them all into bags. Notifying clients of complete orders and finally get the whole nursery into logical order by genus and then alphabetically... please bear with us at this time of year as it's an extremely busy time for the team, we will notify you as soon as we can about your backorders.
It's been wet and I haven't seen the creek so full for ages, its so cool to see all the Kaiks, out the back, with their feet in some water. Hopefully the school holiday weather is kind so you can enjoy the outdoors with the family and not have to be inside the whole time.
Let the school holidays begin have a great weekend.
Cheers from Lloyd, Tony and the Wairere team...
