Autumn favourites

We have had a good Autumn, with a spell of fine sunny weather and little wind - so far! Certainly makes a change from the dull damp summer! The autumn colour this year has been good but not outstanding with some reliable trees that always put on a show doing it again this year. I have included images of the Carya ovata which is always one of the best yellows in the garden, the tree has great form as well, one of my favourites. Also the Acer palmatum coreanum which is always one of the best reds in the garden. Walking round the garden I suddenly smelt a wonderful fragrance on the air and tracked it back to a late flowering Magnolia niligarica, great to have something with so much fragrance at this time of year. The tree is only just over 2m high at this stage so it will be stunning when it gets bigger!

Well, its been a while however thought I had better get back on the bike and add a bit to the blog. We have had the dullest, coolest and dampest summer I can remember. The plants have loved it, reinvigorating themselves after 3 or 4 years of spring summer and autumn droughts. Some of the older trees near the house, acers, walnuts, magnolias and the koelreuteria have really struggled and this season has been a bit of a respite from the previous dry years, hopefully they will have restored a bit of root! Around the garden the plants are looking lush and in good health however even this year we have strangely still lost a number of plants, some of them quite old, we think as a cummulative effect of the preceeding droughts sometimes compounded by an injury allowing in disease. As my father always says regarding animals " a lot of metabolic diseaes are just a flash name for starvation!" and so I think it is with plants, if they are getting enough nutrients from the soil which an adequate rainfull allows they are usually robust enough to fight off most infections. The last few years have weekened the health of a number of plants and even with a kind summer like this we have still lost a few plants across a wide range of genus.
At this time of the year we are doing our pruning, lifting branches that are inhibiting the growth of other plants, letting in light for lower growing plants to flower. It is always a good idea to do the prunning while there are still leaves on the trees so that it makes it possible to assess how much to take off as if done without leaves it is easy to not take enough.

Morepork please!

Well it has been a while since I last blogged, however we have had a very busy November with lots of functions, mainly groups for lunches, morning and afternoon teas combined with garden and house tours. Along with trying to keep up with the growth in the garden it has been fairly full on! The growth in the garden has slowed considerably now as after the lovely start to spring with plenty of moisture things over the past month have been very dry with only 16 mm of rain recorded in November and virtually nothing this month. In the garden this spring the flowering has been very good with those plants that flowered, however a few plants didn't really flower at all e.g. the big leafed rhodys. The garden is on the way over as far as flowering goes however as always there is something in the garden flowering, at the moment all the Cardiocrinum lilies are out, deutzias, some roses and rhodys amongst other things. The Moreporks (native owl) are also starting to be more active and the picture above was taken just outside our kitchen window. They love the large puriri moths. We are having a family Christmas here and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and all the best for 2011.

Rhododendron time

Things have been fairly busy and the garden is full out. The bluebells are still out but just past their peak. A profusion of colour and scent throughout the garden The loderi Rhodos are really doing their thing now. One of Mike's ( Phyll's dad) Rhododendron hybrids has been spectacular this year nuttallii x lindeyi ( lower photo)of which there are several groups around the garden. To my mind they have everything going for them, great form, beautiful large flowers and flower trusses, fantastic scent, stunning new growth colour and amazing bark - what more could you ask for! We also have a number of Michelia doltsopa x figo ( top photo) bred by Os Blumharbt in the garden which at the moment are providing amazing scent. We have had a wedding in the garden last week, the bride and groom got married on the long wooden footbridge, the day was perfect! We are also busy with group garden tours, lunches and morning and afternoon teas. The grass is growing and there is dead heading of the rhodys to be done so plenty to do!

Heaven scent

We managed to get through the last couple of weeks of very high winds virtually unscathed, touch wood! At times it wasn't great to watch with the big pines, cupressus and abies really getting a sway on, luckily nothing came down thanks to the marvels of mother natures engineering! Having said that the wind has spoilt the late magnolis although one of the best plants in the garden is still a glorious sight, the Michelia doltsopas, see photo. We have several through the garden, the oldest planted in 1951, one of the earliest in New Zealand and several large ones around the edge of the side lawn. Not only are they a glorious sight but they also have an amazing thick honeyed scent, which when the air is still fills the whole area, mmmmmm! We have also been spoilt by having three kaka with us since May, today they were in the Magnolia Iolanthe on the edge of the side lawn where they were laying waste to the new flower buds! see photo. The bluebells are out and making a great show down the nut walk and off from the side lawn. Amongst the Rhodos and magnolias flowering there are also late cherries, puyas and our daffys are still out, a glorious time of the year. We have also just started to get some leaf burst on the oaks so the greens are also great at this time of the year. The grass is growing so I am busy mowing and weed eating as well as burning the remaining pruning piles. I We are also getting an abandoned angus calf from my parents so have been fencing off an area for it and the pet lambs!

Magnificent Magnolias

I really enjoy this time of the year as we have virtually all the Magnolias out also a lot of the early rhododendrons,especially the reds such as Cornubia, Camelias, Prunus and the large Michelia doltsopas. As some of the Magnolias are quite large they make a spectacular sight as without the leaves on the deciduous trees you can see right through the garden to all of these large flowering trees. Heaps of bird action with tuis especially in flocks in the flowering cherries, sometimes over 20 in one tree. Lately we have had 3 Kakas flying around the garden, screeching and making allsorts of other sounds. Today room 2 from Tikokino school was here filming part of a movie set in the mid to late 1800s with a plot about saving native birds from extinction and the kaka was mentioned in the script and the cool thing was we could actually film it and record its song in the film!

Things are warming up a bit and quite a few more things are out now with a lot of bird action, particularly Tui's in the early prunus. We have to keep an eye out for drunk Tui's as they can over indulge on the early Rhododendrons and the nectar can be toxic to them. If got in time the Tui can be brought round by putting it in a cage with some water while it dries out! We had an inch and a half of rain last week and all the bulbs shot up and we now have quite a few daffy's out. Another tree flowering now is the Corylopsis, beautiful yelow flowers which really stand out at this time of the year, a great tree for any garden. Camelias still glorious and the Daphne bholua also still going. Early mags also out. This time of the year brings young rabbits about so Max our labrador is very busy excavating in search of a snack, some of his holes are a bit of a hazard so I am continuosly having to go round with a shovel and fill them back in! With the help of Phyll's mum I have managed to get all the roses prunned. As well as weed eating (knocking back a bit of rank grass here and there) I am splitting firewood as I had a couple of oaks blow over earlier in the year so just getting to them now. The garden feels as if it is ready to burst into spring!