Saturday 9th March, 2024
Hi
Weeds...we all have them !!
What's the definition of a weed? Well really I guess, anything that is growing where it's not wanted. That description includes desirable plants that are growing happily in the wrong spot. It's the nature of life to reproduce and of course, plants are very good at it. They have evolved some pretty sophisticated means of sharing it all around, whether it be via wind, bird, insect or animal.
I was doing some weed spraying the other morning and noticed that all the summer grasses and weeds are starting to tip over in response to the season changing. They get that look about them, like the summer grasses, they start to yellow and withdraw. Willow weed also starts to yellow and the tops start to droop... they still have a way to go, but they probably have already set their seed which will lie dormant until next summer.
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Soon there will be a new batch of weeds, the ones that seem to revel in the flush of Autumn. These include ink weed (I had to google its Latin name of Phytolacca octandra) and the solanums such as black and woolly night shades. I noticed that these seem to grow in areas where we have used chip style mulch but I have to say they didn't seem fussy about where they grow. These do also tend to be seasonal and some will disappear with the frosts as most solanums are frost sensitive. Though having just said that, as the winters get milder such disappearances may or may not happen in future years.
I was surprised about the large number of woolly nightshade seedlings I saw and I did wonder what the vector was that spread these. I assume it's the birds eating the berries. I have also noticed that in general, there is an increase in our environment of woolly night shade and I guess our more tropical seasons have encouraged its growth and spread.
Then the other day I observed that the council were cutting out, and pasting chemical on the weeds along Wairere drive that had self seeded there over the past few years. The range of species or plants is quite significant including gorse, flowering cherries, silver birches, blackberry, privet and the list goes on. These are only weeds because they are not wanted here in this position and have self-seeded beside the road, causing a nuisance to the landscape.
Weed management is a constant for all of us and often quite desirable plants become weeds because they seed where they are not wanted. I have kahikatea seedlings everywhere all of the time and of course I don't want a giant tree in my everyday garden. Then I have privet and various solanums, to name just a few species, growing in and amongst our kahikatea stands and they are all weeds there in that situation.
Weed control is all about timing: being consistently regular with spraying, cutting and pasting, mulching and preventing seeding so that you don't keep adding to the seed bank. In the case of the kahikatea stand, we are planting densely to exclude light so that over time it all get easier (since few weeds can grow in complete shade). Even in your garden, if you plant to form a dense canopy, then light is excluded which reduces the need for weeding. Hence mass planting of plants such as
liriopes or
winter roses (helleborus) makes for lower maintenance gardens.
Hedges that are foliated to the ground allow the growth of fewer weeds and so on.
Planning to update your orchard
It's a good time now to plant, if the trees are the available. One of my
prune plums had developed silver leaf disease and so it had to go. Just for the record, the most distinctive symptom of silver leaf is a silvering of the leaves like the top of the leaf has separated from the layers underneath. It's caused by a fungal infection spread by spores that are carried by wind and then germinate when there is plenty of moisture or rain. The spores enter trees via wounds, where the plant's protective bark cannot keep them out. Many things can cause wounds, including rubbing, breakages, insects, animals and us; particularly us doing pruning! So don't prune in the damp or wet but rather do it on a fine and hot day.
I don't know how it got silver leaf as we are mindful of pruning in the right weather conditions, guess it's just impossible to always control or prevent such interactions between living things. Luckily we had another
Stanley prune and so out it went and in with another. Then I had a
nectarine that wasn't performing, and I'm not overly patient, so that went too.
I now have space to plant another nectarine and so I am planning on putting in a
Snow queen as I remember these from my childhood on the farm. I have room to put in several more trees, and with the replacement prune already in place, I will have enough
plums, so I'm thinking a
peach. Perhaps a
Golden Queen or
Golden Haze and maybe a
Black boy.
I do love the concept of producing my own food and being self sufficient and fruit tastes so good when it is picked from the tree. If you plant enough varieties, then there is almost fruit all year around. As all the pip and stone fruit slowly come to the end of their fruiting time the
feijoas will kick in and these are pretty easy to grow. Then it will be the time of citrus over the winter months. Nothing like a good orange direct from the tree, though make sure you have a navel as well as a Valencia as we are still picking the Valencia's like Harwood late.
We still have a good range of fruit trees for Autumn planting and this includes all
Apples,
Pears,
Plums,
Peaches,
Figs and
more. The
citrus and
feijoa range is second to none and fab plants too. If we don't have exactly what you are after in stock, then do put them on your wait list as the winter season is looming. In the meantime, prepare the position by removing the grass layer and digging over with some good compost so that it's ready and waiting.
Easter weekend hours, so there is no confusion
Good Friday we will be closed, but that's the only day.
Saturday, Sunday and Monday we will be open our usual hours of 8.30am to 5.00 pm.
Dispatch will close a day early on the week before, because it's a short delivery week.
The weekend after Easter, there's a treat for all you who love arts & crafts. The Gordonton Art & Design Trail will be held on Saturday 6 & Sunday 7 of April, 10am to 4 pm. Artists and craftspeople will be opening their studios around Gordonton for the weekend, and you are all invited. Artists will include our very own Anthony Skinner. This is a free event and trail maps will be available from the nursery and various other venues around Gordonton. So come along and see what all these clever people have created and perhaps buy a little something while you're there.
What did we do last night? Lol shell beans!!! Well there is a first for everything but this year in the vege garden I grew beans for drying which included Cannellini and Borlotti cultivars. My training has never been in vege gardening and so it's all been a bit of trial and error. We decided that they had dried enough to harvest, hence the shelling. Make sure you have a glass of wine on hand whilst doing such a task. A friend gave me some runner bean seed a few years back and they are the best and so I always save seed for the following year now. This year I have quite a bit of seed and apparently, according to google, you could dry any bean seed and so we are about to try.
It's the gardening season and so make the most of this beautiful growing weather that we have.
Have a great weekend
Cheers from Lloyd, Tony and the Wairere team
