Countdown to Festival

All articles below have been written for the Taranaki Daily News by Abbie Jury. Check them out for information that will be of interest as we countdown to festival 2009!

First Published October Oct 30

This morning, spare a thought for all the garden openers around the district who will be sharing the same apprehension. It always feels a little like being a child again all dressed up on your birthday, but wondering if anybody is actually going to turn up to your party. Hopefully locals will get out in good numbers. This afternoon will see close to 200 people, mostly from points south, steaming their way into town on Kiwi Tours train excursion.
idthIt is your last chance to experience the steam train on its day trip to Hawera tomorrow. You are leaving it rather late, but you can phone Kiwi Tours on 0800 868 754 to see if there are any seats left. I understand that the trip includes a rather special afternoon tea at Inglewood on the way home.

Maggie Barry is speaking in Hawera tonight. I have only once heard her speak in person (as opposed to the small screen) and she was exceptionally interesting: articulate, experienced, witty and opinionated. If you have the chance to go, don't hesitate. There will be door sales at the Hawera Community Theatre on Albion Street or you can contact the iSite in Hawera or the Taft office in New Plymouth for more details. Included in the ticket price is a home cooked supper not to be sniffed at in rural-dominated areas where people still take pride in quality home baking and wine (just the one modest and appropriate glass).

Around the coast at Warea, Maria van der Poel is opening for the first time as a garden in development. She says she would not normally do anything so bold as to let other people view her garden, but she has been overwhelmed by the support and encouragement from other garden openers, friends and especially husband Hugo. She is now quietly confident and really looking forward to meeting lots of lovely people.

Seasoned garden opener Mary Vinnicombe speaks for us all when she pleads with the weather gods to look kindly upon us for the next 10 days (some of us start to feel personally responsible for the weather this week). Mary and Barry have a small but beautifully formed town garden that shows what can be done to create surprise and a sense of discovery on a simple section through intensive planting and good design. They even have a vegetable garden and Mary reports that last week, the scores were about even with Mother and Father Blackbird, unlike the three weeks previously. During that time, the blackbirds were clear winners, with seedlings buried or scattered and mulch decorating the vegetable garden path every day. She lost count of the number of times she swept up and fumed at the number of plants that needed to be replaced. However, this past week has been much quieter. Maybe the babies have grown up at last. Now she is hoping Ma and Pa do not decide to start a second brood.

then Toko, Jan Worthington has counted down her last tasks naming the rhodos and getting rid of the moss on the cobblestones and crazy paving. The aquilegias and Soloman Seal are nearly a metre high, so lush has the growth been, despite the cold winter and a few late frosts. Jan is now wondering if even the roses may be going to open some buds an event common in warmer coastal gardens but not expected in the cooler hinterland.
thIn Waitara, Alathea Armstrong is feeling that all the time she spent out in gumboots and raincoat has come to fruition right on cue and there really was no need for her earlier anxiety. Alathea grows many old-fashioned flowers (sweet williams and the like) and her garden is full of fragrance and bloom.

At Tikorangi, we are a little rueful that the astounding nuttallii rhododendrons, which don't normally open until the week after festival, are not going to last much beyond the next few days. We are having some fun with Steuart Welch's sculpture now in place. There is one that emulates a road sign, saying: Don't even think of parking here and signed NYPD. Should I ever commission a piece, I may consider one that commemorates the best road sign I have ever seen. It was on a motorway in England and we flashed past too fast to photograph it, but I wrote down the wording because it was a clear indication that whoever prepares English road signs believes that the average IQ there is at least 15 points higher than the rest of the world. ``Adverse camber,'' it read. Mind you, it was equaled by ``Leave two chevrons.''
Abbie Jury

First Published October 23

Those who are wondering what is happening at the Landscape Design project this year may be in for a surprise. Previous installations have included the French domestic garden in the wasteland that is now the Huatoki Plaza, Xanthe White's seaside installation plus Morrie car, and the most memorable whale bones and garden by Kim Jarrett. This year, there is not a real plant in sight and it is a creation that is not weather dependent. Indeed, it is to be housed in Centre City and this is possible because it is, apparently and allegedly, a virtual experience where the Taranaki landscape, the festival gardens and the four seasons intermingle. Precisely what this means eludes me, but it is of the electronic whizzy-bang persuasion and all will be revealed on Festival Eve next Thursday.

At Havenview in Kent Road, Maree Rowe is thoroughly sick of the wet weather and wishes she could put her rain gear away. As panic builds, she is not alone in that wish. Maree's mother has been helping her out for a day or two a week, particularly with the weeding. Experienced gardeners know that the biggest crime for open gardens is to have visible weeds. Maree is quite proud of how her own building skills are improving there is nothing like being self-taught as she creates new garden furniture. The lakes that are not yet lakes are awaiting the shade cloth that is to be erected before they are filled and there is still metal to go down on the drive. None of it would be a problem if we just had a few fine days in succession.

Down in South Taranaki, Jenny Oakley is also feeling the pressure, even after years of opening. However, she has a well-oiled team around her. Although she never takes it for granted, her parents, sister and friends and last son at home all rally round to help keep the show going and to maintain the standards Jenny and husband Guy take pride in. Jenny confers high praise on her mother when she comments on her ability to stake the foxgloves and aquilegias with neither stake nor tie being visible. While the lead-up to festival is hard graft and the 10-day event's long days are exhausting, the rewards are immense. Jenny loves the visitors and many have become good friends as they visit each year. It is the experience with the visitors that makes it all worthwhile. One of the strengths of our Taranaki festival has long been that our garden openers front up to the visitors and personally host them. This doesn't always happen at some of the other garden festivals around the country, where visiting can be an anonymous and impersonal experience at times.

Around on Patiki Road near Opunake, Sheryl Campbell is a first-time opener for festival, although she opened for the Fringe last year. She is not so anxious yet that she has given up on her Monday tennis games to spend additional time in the garden, but she is a bit fed up with cleaning up after the recent winds, which she says seem to batter them from every direction. She is hoping her rhododendrons, which are opening now, will still have plenty of bloom left for the first weekend of festival at least. By the time they pass over, the roses should be filling the garden with colour.

At Tikorangi, we are looking forward to the installation of the sculpture exhibition here this week, although a little apprehensive as to how heavy the larger pieces may be. Our house driveway is not wide enough to accommodate larger vehicles or lifting gear and our own tractor is only a baby. It may all prove to be a bit of a mission. Those interested in having a sneak peak at the sculptors work can go to his website www.steuartwelch.co.nz (note the spelling of Steuart).

First Published October 16

At Ngamamaku, just the other side of Oakura, Tony Barnes and John Sole have been re-edging and regravelling some of their bush tracks. This can be a daunting task, as the tracks are pretty steep in places, with lots of steps. Wheelbarrows of shingle are both heavy and awkward, especially when the shingle has to be carried the final distance in a bucket. Tony comments that it is definitely not good for creaky old backs and hips, but they are pleased with the finished result. The tracks hadn't been done for about a decade and over the years, rain and feet had worn most of the surface away. Cutting up and dragging out trees that the recent wind blew down doesn't do much for the mossy lawns, either, which are horribly wet and muddy after all the recent heavy rain. The lawns and paths were wide enough for a ride-on mower and tractor when the garden was first planted. Now, everything has to be removed by hand to the front paddock, where it gets mulched. The big mulcher costs $350 to hire for the weekend, but the resulting 15 cubic metres of mulch is worth the effort, even if it has to be left six months to decompose. At Tikorangi, we bought our own mulcher second-hand through TradeMe and we wouldn't be without it. Unlike Tony and John, we tow the mulcher to the debris and chip it all straight back on to the gardens as instant mulch, without the composting step. Don't make the mistake of buying a small, hobby mulcher if you have a bigger garden. Big gardens need correspondingly big mulchers.

Most gardeners are bemoaning the weather. In Waitara, Alathea Armstrong works full time, so measures her time in weekends and evenings. She is worrying about how she will manage if the upcoming weekend is wet, cold and miserable, too. The riot of flowers and scent she achieves in her half-acre informal cottage garden looks like a natural process of self-seeding, but is actually one of the more labour-intensive forms of gardening. Effortful artlessness, really.

Potter and gardener Joyce Young is back in festival where she belongs, having been one of the stalwarts from the start. Joyce used to have a larger garden in Oakura, but she has now retired to a smaller property right in town, on Frank Wilson Terrace. After a break of only a year, she has been accepted as a garden in development, so admission is free. Joyce is well known for her ceramic birds, but she is also keen on her vegetables as well as creating her own new, compact town garden.

Around the coast near Opunake, at Glen Artan, Catherine Ardern is a first-time opener for festival, although she has opened for charity before. At the moment she is doing a weeding round and the intensive final work (most gardeners who open will be on hands and knees doing the close-up work this week) and she was relieved that the winds last week brought down plenty of leaf but caused no real damage. As the wife of King Country MP Shane Ardern, the fact that the Arderns can open their garden to the public is a ringing endorsement of life in New Zealand. There can't be many countries where such a thing could happen and not even be seen as unusual.

Near Inglewood, Sharyn King reports that all the major work is done to prepare her garden and now it is getting the timing right for the final manicuring round. She says there have been sufficient frosts in winter to kill off many of the bugs and while the flowering appears to be about 10 days ahead of schedule, she is delighted. Usually she finds that her garden peaks towards the end and just after festival week, but this year she thinks it may be spot on for maximum wow. She is very pleased with how it is looking at this stage with just two weeks until the start of festival.

First Published October 9

Even locals are unlikely to know about the traditional Japanese tea house and garden on Dorset Road. Festival organisers are delighted that this highly unusual attraction will be open for the two weekends of festival. The owner, Masashi Iwata, comes from our sister city, Mishima, and this private tea house garden is his expression of crosscultural friendship. Mr Iwata is flying out from Japan, accompanied by his daughter, Machiko, and a tea ceremony masterntsG, Mr Takei, nte for the period of festival. This is a rare opportunity to visit and there is not even an admission charge. However, it is limited to the weekends.

We have worked out here that the flowering season is about two weeks ahead of usual, which is a good reason why it is unwise to target your garden towards peak blooming for one week of the year. At La Rosaleda in New Plymouth, Coleen Peri is pretty sure her rhododendrons will be finished, but the trade-off is that all her roses should be blooming. As her roses number around 230 (compared to her 30 rhododendrons), she doesn't mind the change of focus. It is the later-flowering maddeniis and nuttalliis that will see us with a rhododendron display here at Tikorangi. These normally open after festival has finished but may be spot-on this year.

Around the coast near Puniho, Chris Goodin is battling on alone in the garden this week. Husband Steak is fortunately alive and well in Samoa, though it was no doubt disconcerting for Chris to have him on the phone regaling her with details of the earthquake only to start describing the tsunami as it happened before his eyes. Presumably he was standing on a hill at the time. But Chris is delighted with her progress on an area of the garden she calls Ivy Lane (ask her, when you visit, why it could equally be called Chris's Ivy Folly), now filled with hostas and clivias she is feeding with Bioboost. The sparrows have been adding greatly to her stress. Their population has apparently recovered well after being decimated a few seasons ago by suspected salmonella, but they have failed to endear themselves by stripping the flower buds from the wisterias. The later-flowering white wisteria, which drapes across the front of the house, usually escapes the sparrows' notice, but Chris returned from a trip to World of Wearable Arts to find the ground below carpeted in flower buds. She is now wondering whether the salmonella could make a return visit.

Near Cardiff, Betty Brunton of Mountside Garden has a distinctly cooler climate, which has its advantages. She can grow peonies and as her plants already have a mass of flower buds the size of marbles, she is hoping for blooms for festival. She has a pergola festooned in wisteria and presumably the sparrows were so busy partying in the Goodin garden that they failed to notice Betty's splendid specimens, which are promising a marvelous display right on cue for festival week. She comments also what a wonderful performer dichroa versicolour is, with its splendid deep indigo blue flowers 12 months of the year. It is hardy to both cold and wind for her and makes an excellent background shrub. Gardeners can thank Glyn Church from Woodleigh Nursery for introducing this evergreen hydrangea relative to us.

In Patea, Rudi Milesi has the southern outpost garden – the first or last port of call for those who drive from points south and east. This week, he says his blossom trees have carpeted the garden in pink and white, just like a wedding. But as soon as the petals start to turn to brown sludge, he is out with his rake and broom, gathering them up for compost. He has also been freshening up the paintwork on this and that, with a touch here and there, but his rhododendrons have been worrying him. He loves the rhodos but they are not easy on his sandy soils and he has to work to keep them looking healthy and attractive.

With festival now a mere three weeks away, pressure is mounting to get gardens groomed and up to standard.

First Published September 25

The Ghost from the Coast is faithfully promising to plant out all the plants he has purchased that are hanging around. He comments that some refer to this as the torture chamber. There were some rueful nods of agreement here and there will be other gardeners who can identify with this problem. While some gardeners proudly proclaim that they will only buy plants if they know where they will plant them in their garden, those who really love plants can always be tempted into buying something special. And often the delight of acquiring a treasure is sufficient and the plant can then languish for extended periods of time before being found a special spot in the garden.

The Ghost also counsels taking before and after photos in the garden. The advent of the digital camera has made this type of photography a great deal more manageable. At the RHS garden Wisley, we were told the staff photograph the herbaceous borders throughout the season so they can identify areas that need attention at the appropriate time. Organised gardeners will be catching on to this technique.

At Havenview Vegetable Garden on Kent Road, Maree Rowe is trying to stay on top of the weeds to save work later. She is already having groups around her garden mostly permaculture and organic gardening students. There is nothing like groups of visitors to keep you up to the mark with gardening techniques and garden maintenance. It is full steam ahead for Maree on preparing the garden beds and planting out seedlings.

At Thorveton, Mary Vinnicombe has been coping with the highs and lows of gardening. She observes wryly that sometimes it is not until deciduous plants start moving into fresh growth that it becomes clear that all is not well. She knew her prized Magnolia Lanarth was not in a happy state (and may in fact be terminally ill, causing her some anxiety about whether visitors may be faced with a skeleton) but the fact that the borer won the battle with her clematis montana Freida caught her by surprise and she is now contemplating a naked trellis. On the brighter side, the warm spring weather has done wonders for growth and the flowering trilliums and fritilarias are a current delight. Mary also reports that her cooperative husband has given the symbolic garden shed a repaint and freshen-up.

Out at Toko, Jan Worthington of Gordon Dale Gardens is thoroughly fed up with the late frosts that have been hammering her early flowering plants. However, the fine days have been a splendid incentive to get out and give her two ponds their annual clean-up. When she knew that certain plants had an invasive root system, such as her miniature toi toi and an ornamental reed, she planted them in pots buried in the ground. This keeps them contained. But nothing is containing her very decorative but strong-growing elegia capensis, which she feels may need more drastic treatment next year to confine it (hint: dig and divide the elegia in February). With irises, hostas, cannas and libertia, her ponds give Jan a great deal of pleasure.

It is five weeks to festival. Do not delay on ringing Kiwi Tours on 755-1525 if you fancy a jaunt by steam train southwards to see the Hawera gardens. Stuart Erb has an action-packed day planned. While locals are down in Hawera, five coaches will be ferrying the out-of-towners previously delivered to New Plymouth by the train around northern gardens.

First Published September 18

At Kiwi Tours, Judy Erb has needed a hairdresser's assistance to return her locks to their usual dark colour. She and husband Stuart have had a long involvement with festival, but this year they upped the stakes considerably with a steam train tootling from Paekakariki to New Plymouth and back. With an initial sum of $50,000 needed just to secure the train, they are relieved to have sold all but the last 24 tickets of the total 200 available. Now they are keen to fill the train for its day trip to Hawera on the first Saturday of festival. While the out-of-towners are out and about looking at gardens, locals have the chance to travel by steam train for a fun day out. In an action-packed trip, an excursion to Hawera will take in no fewer than nine festival gardens, with the bonus of a Devonshire tea plus extras at the historic Inglewood Railway Station on the way home. Phone Kiwi Tours at 755-1525 for more information.

Out at Auroa, Marie Mills has been limbing up a cedrus (which is a type of conifer, lest you are too embarrassed to ask) and trying out placing a range of plants to see what will look good in the space beneath. She plans to move the unhappy rhododendron already there before any rhododendron enthusiasts visit. Underplanting established trees is a whole new ball game in New Zealand, where we tend to favour gardens that are forever juvenile. And when husband Rodney has a few moments to spare from the cowshed, there is a repair job waiting that needs two people: the water feature in her shade house is gently collapsing and needs some work to retain and level it.

At Ngamamaku in Oakura, John Sole and Tony Barnes are delighting in the effect of lifting their canopy of established trees and thinning aged shrubs, so regaining views and vistas below and a sense of space. The reclaimed openness has made them realise how short a time it takes for intensively planted gardens to get overcrowded and overgrown. In mature gardens, that sense of space is regained by emphasising height and maturity by layering, opening view shafts and creating a sense of flow. Tony says they have a way to go yet, but they are inspired by the progress made so far.

In the Fernery at Pukekura Park, Donna Christiansen and her staff are working on ideas for targeting rhododendrons during festival week. Unlike most participants, they are faced with the need to keep the fernery peaking for 52 weeks of the year and the standard maintained here is so high that it is likely locals don't realise how good it is. It takes planning and really specific skills to keep this type of shade and glasshouse at peak standard. Locals and visitors can be confident during festival week that the Fernery staff will rise to the occasion and ensure maximum display. They are using both subtropical vireyas and hardy hybrid rhododendrons to meet this aim, plus a range of other flowering plants.

At Paradiso vegetable garden, Denise Wood is glorying in the flowering happening already. She reports that it looks quite pretty even though harvest is still some way off. Her hanging baskets are coming along nicely and her ornamental ladybirds, butterflies and doves are already in place.

Festival newbie Coleen Peri is now wondering if she should be more worried about the upcoming event. In fact, despite the knowledge that she has a vast amount of buxus trimming to do and a vege patch to attend to, she feels as if she is in bit of hiatus and things are generally under control. She is getting the Grunt (local pig manure) down as feed and mulch and is finding it exciting to see her hostas appearing. Her earlier sense of panic has gone.

It is, however, only six weeks to festival. Others may be starting to feel the stress.

First Published September 4 2009

Festival garden openers are delighted to see two of their number named Taranaki Gardeners of the Year by the New Zealand Gardener magazine. Geoff and May Kenyon are senior members of the garden-opening brigade and their experience and commitment is beyond doubt. It may not be so widely known that their daughter Ann is joint owner of Big Jims Garden Centre and used to open her own garden in the early days of festival. Clearly a love of plants and gardening runs in the family.

Out at Makahu, long-term garden opener Jim Hopkirk is bemoaning the fact that his garden is full and he has little or no space for new plants. Jim is a long-time supporter of festival, in earlier days ably supported by his late wife, Molly. He comments that he used to get bigger visitor numbers when his good friends and renowned gardeners Russ and Biddy Barrett opened at Tututawa, but he still gets a great deal of pleasure from welcoming the visitors who make the trek out to the Taranaki hinterland. Inland areas such as Makahu have temperatures which are noticeably cooler in winter and this helps rhododendrons to flourish. Fortunately, it is warming up when festival starts at the end of October, so visitors can enjoy the results without having to cope with the process.

A little nearer Stratford, Maureen Ostler is another long-time participant who always donates her garden entry money to Stratford Lions. Maureen has been out fertilising and pruning and filling the gaps in the house borders with annuals. Her garden is mature and she has had to relocate a few roses that had found themselves in growing shade. Roses do best in full sun.

In the south, Margaret Putt's days are kept busy with her twin loves of gardening and golf. She has finished manuring all her lawns. Her helpful son has extended a boundary fenceline to accommodate a new area where Margaret is placing some large boulders to create a coastal look, linking her garden to the wider environment. In between working part time and running junior girls' golf for both her local area of Manaia and for the wider community of Taranaki, Margaret's next task is to get down on her hands and knees and work her way around the whole garden, dealing to the close-up detail.

Also in the south, Jenny Oakley is delighted with how well her hanging baskets are growing. She planted them up about a month ago in preparation for festival, but the recent drying winds have seen her having to up the ante on the watering stakes. Wind is terribly drying and the last thing you want are hanging baskets that dry out. The plants will flower hastily and bolt to seed if stressed. Jenny was horrified when she went out in the dark recently to cut a cabbage, only to find them crawling in snails. She is rushing in with snail bait for her hostas. It is a short journey from the cabbages to the prized young hosta shoots.

The Ghost from the Coast (that is, the anonymous garden opener formerly known as G---) suggests that a rain gauge makes a splendid gift to a gardener. Married as I am to a man who missed a potential career as a meteorologist, I can endorse that idea. One year the children and I bought him half a dozen maximum-minimum thermometers and he was genuinely delighted. As useful gifts that are a source of endless fascinating information to Serious Gardeners, these rank alongside a rain gauge.

At Tikorangi, we open our garden earlier than most to enable people to come see the magnolias in full flower. Last Saturday, a young couple from Wellington turned up, wanting to go around the garden. They took such a long time that I was keeping an eye on their parked car and wondering if I should go and check that they were not lost. When they finally reappeared, it transpired that the magnificent magnolias may have been entrancing, but they were really only the background for a romantic proposal of marriage. The blushing young woman showed me the solitaire diamond ring her partner had delighted her with. I was completely charmed, especially when she showed me the ring with pride. The fact that it was somewhat too large for her finger made it all the more touching. The magic of love does not diminish.

First Published 28 August 2009

Up at Pukeiti, curator Andrew Brooker is planning fun with bird boxes for the children who are part of the Explorers Club. Early in October, the participants will be making and decorating their own bird boxes, which will then be on display through the Covered Walkway during the festival period. Visitors may choose to vote for their favourite.

In town on Heta Road, Mary Vinnicomb has finished mulching and is now potting up little plants of the prized Chatham Island forget-me-not (our indigenous form is decidedly classier than the weedy import). She is also being vigilant on weeds, especially the one she calls ``spit-in-your-eye-cress'' (also called bitter cress). She comments that this must be one of the fastest-reproducing weeds in the temperate world. The time between the appearance of its first two leaves and the explosion of its first seed case can be as little as one week if conditions are favourable. Weeds can be very sneaky, hiding themselves in look-alike hosts.

At Sentry Hill Honey, George Jonson has put a great deal of thought into getting his award-winning vegetable garden into tip-top condition for festival. This is easier said than done because the real growth spurt doesn't happen until later in November and December, so good planning and good soil preparation are needed (along with a bit of luck and hopefully some warm weather) to get a show garden together so early in the season. Experience and knowledge help in this, along with the wonderful friable volcanic soils we have in Taranaki. Be grateful that we do not all have heavy clay.

At Te Popo, Lorri and Bruce Ellis have been bitten by the vegetable gardening bug, too. They have always grown a certain amount of home produce, but in a heavily wooded garden, they have struggled to find good space in all-day sun. Now the old vegetable garden area has been turned over to the ground-hungry spreaders (the zucchinis, pumpkins, raspberries and potatoes) while pride of place, in full sun in raised beds on the lawn out from the kitchen and dining area, is the new vegetable and herb garden. It is no longer to be hidden out of sight.

In South Taranaki, Jacq Dwyer has been transferring the dried-out maize from the crust on the maize pit to her compost bin. It is not good for cows, but will be splendid for feeding the garden in a couple of months. She finds that sprinkling lime on top hastens the breaking-down process.

Maree Rowe at Havenview on Kent Road has been taking advantage of the fine weather to tidy up sheds and buildings with a lick of paint. Are there no limits to her energy?

While festival, at the end of October, has rhododendrons as the bride and roses as the bridesmaid, it is the many magnificent magnolias that are the drawcard for a social get-together of festival garden openers this Sunday. Garden openers past and present will know that as pressure mounts to get one's own garden up to opening standard, getting out and looking at other people's gardens takes a back seat. But the magnolias have all been and gone by festival time, whereas they are peaking right now, so they are a good reason for the garden openers to get together over afternoon tea at Tikorangi.

First Published 21 August 2009

While the Johansens are known for an ornamental spring garden surrounding their Fleetwood Cottage in New Plymouth, which dates to 1870, rather more than edible gardening, it was her potatoes that caused a mystery for Jenny last week. She had bought a 2kg bag of seed potatoes a month ago and put them in a flat box on a shelf in the shed to sprout Leg 1(called chitting the taties). When she remembered them this week, she went to check their progress and to her great consternation, at least 10 of the aforementioned potatoes had disappeared. So puzzled was she that she weighed the remaining ones to find that there is only 1kg left. The survivors have been rehoused in a more secure set-up (although Jenny did not specify whether this was under lock and key or in a vermin-proof cage), but the mystery of the missing spuds remains.

Near Stratford, June Lees found a new use for her blower vac in whooshing out all the fallen gleditsia leaves and debris from the carpet of liriope below and was delighted at what a splendid job it did. She'd trimmed the liriope earlier and is pleased with the fresh growth that is showing. While greatly motivated by the recent warmer Leg 2spring weather, June is mindful that where she lives, she can be plagued by late frosts right through to October and it pays not to get too carried away.

At Rosedale, Andrew and Yvonne Brunton draw the line at trimming the tall hedges that define their garden, although they take pride in doing all other tasks themselves. So the hedgetrimmer contractors have been and gone for the season. Andrew is waging war on the build-up of moss and lichen on pavers and garden edges and is hoping that the spray-and-walk-away method will work, because it is a great deal easier than the more traditional scraping technique he has used. Their shadehouse is home to their large epiphyllum collection (it is a bit too frosty outdoors in Lepperton to grow these tender exotics), but Yvonne has also designated a separate corner of Leg 3the shadehouse as a temporary home for her hanging baskets, which she will bring out later. The protection of a shadehouse lifts temperatures by a couple of degrees and this is enough to encourage early growth.

Maree Rowe is working on her nuttery at Haven View vegetable garden. She has planted four varieties of hazelnuts and with the price of nuts in shops, she is already anticipating her own harvests. Ye olde English tradition is to coppice hazels to provide natural supports for plants in the garden coppicing being taking off the long whippy growths as a regular harvest. Maree comments that she finds being in festival is a great incentive to get all the unfinished jobs done in the garden and to take on more tasks that she might normally keep on the back burner.

Out at Oakura, Tony Barnes has been doing his round picking up ponga fronds. New Zealanders tend to take tree ferns for granted and, indeed, treat them like weeds at times, but overseas visitors are simply astounded by the casual ease with which many of us grow these natives. At Ngamamaku, the ponga grow in a bush setting around the mountain stream. However, as Tony points out, the fronds do not decompose easily, so can't be composted and don't go through the mulcher. Once a month or so, he has to do a collection round and put them on the burning heap. Tony and John Sole's ponga grove may look entirely natural, but in a garden setting, even natural needs a little intervention and management at times.
Abbie Jury

First Published August 14 2009

First time openers, Dianne and Stefan Campbell own Ratanui on Carrington Road, which many locals will recall in various other stages of its life. However, it has now returned to being a family home. It is not the grand old trees, a number of which date back to 1880, which are adding stress to Dianne’s life. No, it is the dreaded buxus blight, a nasty fungal affliction which turns the foliage brown and when the foliage on your box hedging turns brown, it is, alas, dying. Dianne not yet ready to give up on her buxus, though she comments that there are times she wished she had heeded this writer’s advice, cut her losses and ripped them out. At this stage she is persevering with sprays of copper, cutting out dead patches and practising really good hygiene. This involves keeping hedgeclippers and secateurs scrupulously clean (to avoid spreading the fungus spores) and getting any build up of dead leaves and litter blown out from the hedges. Expect to hear more about buxus blight soon, but in the meantime Dianne vows never to buy another box hedging plant.

Coleen Peri also has buxus hedges in town and gives the following advice: “I sprayed them a few months ago when I first spotted the dreaded buxus blight, with liquid copper (seems to be more effective than the powder), mixed with Rainguard. Did the trick. I keep doing this whenever I see any sign of it. Luckily it seems to come on gradually (often in wet and humid weather), so it is good if you get it in the early stages. It pays when trimming buxus to get rid of as many of the clippings as you can from throughout the plant as apparently this can contribute to the spread, and prior to spraying for blight get rid of as much of the infected loose leaf litter as possible, either with a good frisk or with a strong hose through the plants, and then rake up.” If you have a blower vac, you may like to use that on your box hedging to blow out the debris.

Coleen has also been getting to grips with clematis pruning. After googling for guidelines, she sought out clematis expert Per Sorensen of Yaku Nursery and came to the conclusion that pruning clematis is not an exact science and these plants are nowhere near as fussy as she had thought. She has tried pruning the clematis runners to various lengths, leaving a few long, so that there will be early flowers at various heights.

Up on Heta Road, Mary Vinnicomb enjoyed the fine weather last weekend. She had been worrying that she was doing more embroidery than gardening but in her immaculate, compact city garden, a good couple of days are all she needs to feel back on track. Prune, feed and mulch is her current mantra.

In South Taranaki, Jenny Oakley is out feeding everything of any significance with a mix of blood and bone and Bioboost. While working her way through the garden doing the feeding round, she pays particular attention to over vigorous and greedy perennials (some of us might refer to them as invasive), thinning and culling the worst culprits. Some of the salvias she values for late summer colour but they are so greedy she makes sure they are not in a position to compete with the roses.

Out at Toko, Jan Worthington has been tackling her heucheras. She is amused to recall being told by an assistant at a garden centre in New Plymouth that heuchera may not grow in her cold winter conditions. All this goes to show is that you can’t believe all you are told because heucheras do better in cooler areas and Jan’s have thrived. She comments that these are plants that like to be lifted and split every two years. She uses the garden fork to lift them, shakes off the soil, removes dead leaves and cuts the clump up for replanting. Heucheras are one group of plants that has seen a whole range of new colours come on the market in recent years and they are a wonderful clumping perennial if you can grow in conditions where they thrive – as at Gordon Dale Gardens.

First Published August 7 2009

At the appropriately named Nikau Grove in New Plymouth, Elsie Lind has been digging seedlings to sell during festival. The world's southern-most palm, our beautiful native nikau, can be touchy about being moved, but Elsie has come to grips with it and has few failures. She tries not to disturb the root system by making sure she digs wide enough and, of course, deep enough to avoid hitting the bulbous taproot. If there is any damage to the bulbous part, even the slightest of nicks, the nikau definitely will not survive. She has nikau gently seeding down all through the property now and leaves those in the bush area, where nature is left to support itself. However, the garden itself yields up enough surplus palms for her to pot up for garden visitors who want a special memento.

Also in New Plymouth, festival newcomer Linda Crowe was terribly impressed by the precision shown by engineer husband Richard in underplanting her wedding cake tree (Cornus controversa variegata) with black mondo grass. Not a natural gardener, he heeded her request for symmetrical spacings and brought oilfield well spacing concepts into play with a five-spot pattern executed with total precision. However, Linda reports he can slumber peacefully through strong winds as she lies awake worrying about damage to her garden and wondering what wit ever decided to call their road Shelter Grove.

Dedicated vegetable gardener George Jonson, of Sentry Hill Honey, opened his Carrington Street garden for the first time last year and was run off his feet by the 1500 visitors who poured in to see his productive garden. This year he describes himself as being blessed with assistance from a bubbly 11-year-old named Tracey, who is keen to learn all about gardening. George comments that when you see gardening through the eyes of a novice, it reawakens enthusiasm and he finds Tracey's delight rewarding and refreshing. Young Tracey must be pretty special - there aren't many 11-year-olds who can prick out seedlings, don't mind getting their hands dirty and can be trusted to carry out tasks independently. There is clearly a keen gardener in the making there.

Southwards in Hawera, Jennifer Horner at Pukerata has been pruning shelter belts and trees in the paddocks to maintain the views from the garden and to keep a sense of structure extending into the wider landscape. She is enjoying the signs of spring and will be starting a fertilising round next.

Up at Pukeiti, Andrew Brooker's team has been tending to tracks, both graveled paths and the rather soggy grass walks. The new season is just starting with the big-leafed rhododendrons coming into flower.

And at Havenview on Kent Road, Maree Rowe has been washing the leaves of a lemon tree with baking soda and water in an attempt to beat scale and sooty mould. Being organic, there is a limited range of acceptable treatments, but she has also thinned the interior of the tree to open it up to more air movement and light. Prevention is always better than a cure.

There will be a number of other gardeners who can relate to Lorri Ellis's description of her "tip-toe" beds. In her large garden at Te Popo, Lorri has designated areas that are solely hers. She knows which beds have emerging bulbs, deciduous perennials with fresh shoots just below the surface and precious seedlings that are not weeds, all hidden beneath leaf mulch. She prefers to negotiate her way carefully through these beds and shuns any offers of help from others, whom she fears may have larger and possibly less careful boots. - Abbie Jury

First Published 31 July 2009

In Waitara, Margaret Goble gardens in an area that has one of the warmest climates in the region, so she has been shocked by the number of frosts this winter. She says that last Friday, she decided she did not need to go outside and cover her vireya rhododendrons because there was a wind blowing. She was disconcerted to get up on Saturday morning and see visible frost on her lawns. Determined not to be caught out twice, she covered tender material on Saturday evening. Despite a colder than usual winter, Margaret reports that her window boxes are looking better than ever and her hanging baskets are all planted up and gently growing. For those not in the know, Margaret does some pretty spectacular hanging baskets.

Jenny Oakley has perhaps the best frost story. Part of her small nursery area doesn't get winter sun and in the recent run of frosts, she and her friend Janene were attempting to divide plants up. Alas, the potting mix in some containers was frozen solid and remained that way for several days. Fortunately, hardy plants such as corydalis and aquilegias can survive such treatment, although any softer plants are now mush. There is a possibility Jenny may have future as a garden and plant adviser in Greenland or to the Inuit people.

Jacq Dwyer in Kakaramea is one of the few who has formally declared the completion of the annual rose pruning round, but she advises that should any more calm, cold evenings hint at frost, she will be out spraying Vapourguard over tender new shoots. Jacq has a fair battle with possums to the extent that she will be shortly be erecting a low electric fence around her roses to protect their new growth - how impressively dedicated is that? She has been planting up rugosa roses, which are not only high health, but immune to possum attack, she adds. That hint may be useful to some readers who struggle with the ravages of the unwelcome import from Australia, though it also comes with the warning that as the percentage of rugosas has increased, the attentions of the pesky possums have become increasingly focused on the few remaining hybrid teas.

Jan Worthington of Gordon Dale Gardens out at Toko has also finished pruning her roses. With over 100 of them, she is deeply appreciative of the support role played by her husband, who obligingly carts away all the prunings to the farm burning heap. Don't even think about trying to compost rose prunings.

First time openers Vance and Kathryn Hooper at Brixton are giving their climbing roses on the windbreak fence their first prune in three years. Vance describes this process as cutting out big hunks and tying back the fresh young canes with vine clips as used in kiwifruit orchards. These clip onto the top wire and the middle wire to give a formal espalier effect.
And finally, the charming mental image of Maree Rowe of Havenview who described herself as feeling like a chipmunk at this time of the year. She was referring to gathering all sorts of materials for the compost heap and points out that this is an abundant time of year, between tidying the garden and winter storm debris.

First Published 24 July 2009

Paradiso is a vegetable garden that first opened for the festival last year, tapping into the huge interest in growing produce at home. Denise Wood shows that it is possible to make even the tiniest of city gardens productive and, along the way, she derives a great deal of personal joy and satisfaction. Denise is also a strong advocate for getting the soils right by adding plenty of compost, sheep manure, blood and bone and Bounty (a proprietary fertiliser made by Watkins). In such a pocket- handkerchief garden, part of opening to the public means packing it to the gunnels and having no empty or dull corners. Denise is already preparing in the background, holding plants in pots for planting out later, preparing hanging baskets and other bright potted colour, and cleaning up quirky ornamental features, so that her personal patch is more than just a working vegetable garden.

At Te Rata Garden in Kakaramea, Michelle Dwyer has taken a leaf out of traditional English gardening practice and used her winter prunings to weave supports for the broad bean crop in the vegetable garden. We recently saw nutteries in many English gardens where witchhazel is harvested (called coppicing) on an ongoing basis to provide garden supports, but Michelle has used her Boston ivy runners instead. The beauty of using such material as garden support instead of plastic or metal is that it blends into the background and looks entirely appropriate and natural. And what is more, it will biodegrade and return carbon to the soil in due course, whereas plastic just becomes brittle and faded. Grapevine or kiwifruit prunings can be used to similar effect.

Around the coast, first-time opener Chris Goodin is still worrying. The Goodins have not long returned from an overseas trip to find sodden soils and a big mess left behind after the digger came in and flattened a piece of lawn. With their location on a lahar near Rahotu, the Goodins have interesting issues with some large (extremely large, in fact) chunks of volcanic rock throughout the garden and in their lawns. Many of the rocks are so massive, they just have to work around them and treat them as the natural feature they are.

Glyn Church at Oakura is one of the country's foremost plantsmen and a veteran of the Rhododendron Festival. He reminds people that the golden rule (though not an absolute one) is to prune most shrubs immediately after flowering, as this gives them a full 11 months to make new flowering wood and set buds. So it is now time to cut back the luculias, which Glyn says were fabulous in his garden this winter, as well as being time to trim and shape autumn flowering sasanqua camellias. Having given that golden rule, there are exceptions, of course, and two are hydrangeas and penstemons, both of which Glyn is pruning now.

First-time festival entrant Coleen Peri is determined to do her utmost to get her garden to peak in the 10 days of festival at the beginning of November. To this end, she has been pruning her 200 roses a little earlier than usual in the hope that they will reward her with maximum flower power at just the right time. She has also been out lifting and dividing plants, particularly nepeta (which many readers will know by its common name of catmint) because she needed an additional 50 or so for underplanting a new bed of standard roses.

Spare a thought also for Coleen who tells a tale of near woe: "I must also mention that while up in Auckland recently (took my nearly 3-year-old to Cirque de Soleil) the horrific winds that were experienced here managed to lop the head off one of my 1.8m standard Crepescule roses. I have four of these acting as punctuation marks at both entrances of a pathway. First port of call was Wairere Nursery in Hamilton (where I purchased them originally), who proceeded to advise that they no longer had any more and believed that they may be very hard to come by nowadays. I should add that these were the first things to be planted in this area and the whole colour scheme was built around them. By this stage, I was feeling quite depressed and wondering if it was all worth it. Second call to Matthews Nursery, however, proved more fruitful and fortuitously, they had some available and, even better still, had an order going to Girlz Garden Centre the very next day. Better still, it was on special and only cost me a mere $49.70. So anyway - alls well that ends well with that one, (although I dread to think what Mother Nature is going to throw at me next between now and Oct 30!)."

First Published 17 July 2009

At Havenview vegetable garden near Egmont Village, Maree Rowe is pouring on the mulch. Being certified organic, she cannot put cow manure or hay directly on to the garden. It must go through the full composting process first. Many gardeners may be slightly envious to know that her husband apparently has a digger (myself, I would prefer a bobcat, but would not decline a resident digger on occasion), but Maree could have done without the wet winter weather as her newly leveled area is resembling a homeland for pukeko rather than the planned vegetable garden extension. But she is taking cuttings of natives and herbs and is sowing seed so that she has plenty to move straight into the garden.

Out at Te Popo near Stratford, Lorri and Bruce Ellis probably have Festival's most expansive private garden. Theirs is woodland gardening on a fairly grand scale and Lorri has learned from experience that the spring and summer garden is only as good as the winter cut-back. She is referring largely to the underplantings of perennials and while the winter cut-back and clean-up takes a full two months, she does not follow a one-size-fits-all philosophy. She is concerned about leaving food for the birds and because they are in a particularly cold position in winter, she does not like to cut back the hydrangeas and penstemons until temperatures start to rise again in late winter or early spring. So she and Bruce do several sweeps through the garden. They are just finishing cutting back the white Japanese anemones, plume poppies (macklea cordata), sedums, the yellow flag irises and the schizostylis. Being woodland, Te Popo has a large number of trees and this being New Zealand, it was a matter of course that it was over-planted in its early days. This year they took out a large Banksia integrifolia and a twisted willow. Both needed to be dropped limb by limb because of lack of sufficient clear space to drop the trees in their entirety. The arborists also limbed up two massive Montezumae pines to make space for a nearby prized abies. Limbing up is taking off the lower branches to lift the canopy.

The official launch of the Rhododendron Festival and the release of the programme a fortnight ago are public reminders to all garden openers that October will arrive, possibly sooner than some of us expect. There is much to be done in the garden.

First Published 3 July 2009

While it is not always easy to get motivated to head out into the garden in mid-winter, the hardy souls who open their gardens during festival at the end of October are not hiding in the warm indoors. There is too much to be done and all around the province, gardeners are out with secateurs, loppers, nippers and shears. Pruning is taking place with a vengeance, particularly roses.

Manaia's Jenny Oakley has many roses in her garden with a heavy focus on climbers and old-fashioned shrub roses. She likes to tie down the long canes on her shrub roses. When the cane is bent over, it encourages all the growth points along the stem to put out flowers. It takes more time to prune and clean up the roses, but the increase in flowers makes it worthwhile. Jenny advises using the balls of flexible stockinette tie available in most garden centres rather than synthetic baling twine or string, which can ring-bark the branches. The stockinette tie comes in rather odd colours, but these fade out reasonably quickly. If you have a choice, remember the adage that black is the colour you are least likely to notice in the garden.

Around the coast in Oakura at Ngamamaku, Tony Barnes and John Sole are also pruning roses and like to have them all finished by the end of July. They are layering on the compost, Bioboost, blood and bone and sheep manure to the garden beds. Done now, Tony advises that it gives about three months for the natural fertilisers to biodegrade and release soluble nutrients for the plants to take them up in the flush of spring growth.

When he wants a break from the roses, Tony is replacing some of the steps in the nikau walk by their stream that have become hazardous over time. The pruning and thinning of trees to allow light into the understorey is a also never-ending task in winter.

More or less next door, Glyn and Gail Church are always busy cleaning up after winter storms. Glyn and Gail have gathered an extensive collection of woody trees and plants from around the world and as the plants mature, so does the potential for storm debris. With their national collection of hydrangeas, winter pruning is also a time-consuming task. Glyn also reports he is grubbing out thrip-prone rhododendrons and steadily replacing them with healthier maddenii types.

In their small city garden, Mary and Barry Vinnicomb grow selected climbing roses tied to their boundary fences and trellis. Tying in the long canes on vigorous climbers such as Madame Leonie and Crepuscule is a two-person-plus-ladder operation, but at least these two cultivars are pretty bomb proof and do not require any spraying to keep them looking healthy.

The Vinnicombs have a small, intensively planted garden including a vegetable area. While Mary plants garlic in winter, most of the vege garden is rested in anticipation of heavy summer cropping. In July, she likes to buy in sheep manure, which is sold through Fairfields Garden Centre as a fundraiser for Huiakama School. This is layered reasonably thickly on top of the bare soil, which she limed earlier in the season with dolomite. A sprinkle of blood and bone and a good layer of mulch completes her recipe for fertile and friable soil ready for early spring planting. The mulch suppresses any weed seeds that come in with the sheep manure. Being both organised and experienced, Mary will leave a strip unfertilised for carrots.

Also in town, Elsie Lind notes that in winter, the hedgehogs are hibernating, so she likes to take a more active role in dealing to slugs, which do not worry about going to sleep for winter.

Out at Kakaramea, Jacq Dwyer lifts her dwarf flaxes and divides them in winter. She finds this much easier to do when the ground is wet and soft. She also does her own buxus cuttings, having found how easy they are to take. She takes a good-sized woody cutting, snips back the leafy top, dips the cutting in rooting hormone and then sticks it straight into the ground where she wants it to be. If you want a quick hedge, you can put in large cuttings close together, but you should always wear disposable gloves (available at the supermarket) when you are handling rooting hormone as well as garden sprays.

Besides her roses, early July is the time Jenny Oakley tends to the hanging baskets for which she is renowned. These are planted with annuals and for a good result, they need planning to peak at just the right time. She uses pansies (her all time favourite is Light Blue Joker), lobelia, alyssum, cineraria Silverdust, pyrethrum, parsley Triple Curled and more. Once planted, the baskets are hung in position but still given regular attention. On cold nights, frost cloth protects the tender young plants. Nesting birds tend to try pull out the strands of coconut fibre lining at this time of the year, when their nesting instinct is strong. Jenny has found that if she ties black cotton around the chains just above the level of the basket, this stops the birds from landing on the edge and discourages their scavenging ways. The cotton is black because that renders it pretty well invisible to the human eye.

Gardeners know that spring is just around the corner and that is when the pressure on open gardens really winds up.

First published 5 June 2009

The 10 days of festival at the end of October are the busiest garden-visiting time of the year in Taranaki. Experienced openers work well in advance to prepare their gardens. With many years of festival history now, there is a great deal of individual experience in preparing a garden to peak at that particular time.

In Manaia, Jenny Oakley is currently cleaning up her hostas. This involves removing all the old growth and feeding with a mix of Bioboost and blood and bone. She then sprinkles crushed eggshells on top of the crown to deter early snails and to remind her where the hostas are in the garden beds, now that they have died off and retreated below ground. Jenny's xeronemas (also known as poor knights lilies) are a real feature every year, as they can be relied to flower right on cue. However, with Manaia winters being a little cooler than the Poor Knights Islands, these plants need TLC at this time of year. Frost cloth is essential and Jenny attaches this to the plants with clothes pegs to prevent it from being dislodged by the breezes Manaia can still get well into the night. She much prefers not having to get up at 3am on cold and frosty nights to check on the welfare of her xeronemas.

Along Ngawhini Road in Hawera, Jennifer Horner is trying to beat the full onset of winter and to have the weeding and mulching all up to date, along with some rearranging. Most gardeners indulge in perpetual rearranging.

Farther south in Kakaramea, Jacq Dwyer is delighted to have been accepted as a fully fledged garden entry in the Taranaki Rhodendron & Garden Festival this year, after two years as a garden in development. She has been planting several new rugosa roses, which she had ordered earlier. She likes to follow the tradition of burying a piece of frozen meat in the hole first, adding a layer of soil and then the rose. The meat acts as fertiliser and gives a boost to fresh growth while it breaks down relatively slowly over winter. Some gardeners use this as a constructive means of getting rid of possum carcasses. Jacq is also cutting back all her Japanese anemones to give her spring daffodils space and light to bloom.

Heading around the coast to Rahotu, first-time garden opener Christine Goodin has husband Steak out on the end of a chainsaw. Christine bemoans the fact that when they were first planting her garden, she did not realise the importance of keeping plants to a good shape from the start. It would have been much easier to keep trees to a single trunk and to stop aberrant, unbalanced side growths when the plants were young and small rather than now, when they are well established and of some size.

In Oakura, Tony Barnes and John Sole are putting the finishing touches to a new garden. There is nothing Tony likes more than establishing a new garden from scratch and the need to remove an old swimming pool gave him a blank canvas. Fortunately for them, the swimming pool in this case was a Para pool, so was considerably easier to remove than a concrete inground affair. But filling the hole in the ground, installing a series of ponds to provide a habitat for the displaced frogs and realising a vision of a sunny rockery has been a reasonably major task. They were relieved to get the 50 cubic metres of soil needed to fill the hole and recontour the area into place before the rains came. Tony is also working on getting all the lawns and gardens lightly limed and fertilised as soon as possible.

In Waitara, which arguably enjoys the best climate in the province, it is all go on rose pruning in Margaret Goble's garden. This is a massive task in a garden renowned for its stunning display of roses and these days, Margaret has assistance to carry it out.

Meanwhile, Stuart Erb of Kiwi Tours is using the romance of the steam train to lure Wellingtonians to see Taranaki gardens. However, it is not just the train and gardens that will star for participants. On-board entertainment will be provided by none other than Astar herself, she of TV One's Good Morning programme.

It may only be June, but all around the province, there is serious preparation under way for the end of October.