You never quite know how a day is going to go...

You never know what's going to happen in a day and Anthony ( our garden designer) arrived at our office only to find the french doors all open and the other french doors forced but not open. A quick glance around showed that an old safe that I had sitting there and the till had disappeared. I have to say it was really heavy and must have taken some effort to carry They must have thought that they were onto a winner with the safe but it was there as a 'Gonna do job' which was to tie it to the wall and use and was quite empty and even the till had hardly any cash in it. Hadn't even sorted out how to get the safe open again. It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall when they finally cracked open the safe and discovered nothing within.... or maybe not...

Its all about Awanui and its right now

If you are out and about, it's Awanui, a flowering cherry that is strutting it stuff this week and the ones down the middle of the garden centre, are they ever looking awesome at the moment. Awanui has masses of single flowers in the prettiest shade of pink and in a kind of, well, layered effect. I have limbed up the ones in the garden centre quite high so that we can get trolleys and people to walk underneath.  I see that the double pink Accolade is just starting to bud up and then we will see the others like Shimidsu Sakura and Mt Fuji come into their own. Click here for the rest of the cherrys

Once spring gets warmed up the growth in a short space of time is just phenomenal. I hope that no one got caught with their pants down with that frost that we had the other morn. Luckily it was well forecast and we were out there in the dark of the night putting out the frost cloth, though obviously not late enough to catch any burglars. I reckon that it was almost the whitest frost that we have had but it was gone very quickly when the sun came up.

Become an Irisian

Chris who is our fount of all knowledge, also happens to be an Irisarian,  you ask, what?  but I just happen to know  that she has a bit of a soft spot for Irises and I thought that she would be the best one to write about these gorgeous flowers that have designed runways for  bees. I of course  couldn't wait to share her story on all the bearded ladys called Iris. This week we have the PC Irises of which are we ourselves are quite often not but we do have the beards.

No beards and very P.C.

        
 
If you haven't come across these delightful little members of the Iris family before then allow me to introduce you: - Pacific Coast Irises* - (affectionately known as P.C.s amongst the Iris fraternity) are hybrids made up from the 11 species that form the Iris Group known as Californicae. P.C.s originate from the western coast of North America where they grow naturally on the edges of forests. This tells you immediately that their preferred position in the garden is one that provides dappled light or protection from afternoon sun. It is also indicates that these Irises prefer soil that is humus rich and slightly on the acid side, quite the opposite to their bearded cousins.
 
Pacific Coast Irises have narrow deep green leaves between 20 and 50cm long that emerge from little rhizomes to form a low leafy clump. The beautiful, delicate blooms appear on slender stems in early spring - usually around September just before Bearded Irises. P.C.s flower for 1 to 2 months and there is a broad colour palette to choose from. Though the flowers do not have a "beard" they often have a splash of colour on the falls called a "signal" to let the bees know that this is their designated landing strip. How clever is that?
 
These Irises require very little maintenance and are reasonably drought tolerant in summer. They adapt well to container growing, I have grown a sentimental favourite P.C. in the same container for several years with great success. P.C.s will hybridize freely with each other and the resultant seedlings will pop up in the soil around them - usually after autumn rains. Pacific Coast Irises can be divided but this must only be done in autumn when they put on new growth above and below ground. Your clue to it being the right time is when there are new white fleshy roots being formed so do a little tickle up before you do a big dig up!
 
I must confess that these sweet little Irises are my favourite members of the Iris family. I would not be without them in the garden. Until recently they have not been commercially available in large numbers but thanks to the efforts of dedicated Irisarians we are now starting to see them for sale in discerning garden centres, which means of course, that they are now available from Wairere.
 
*AKA Pacificas, Californians. I have to note here that the plants that we have here at the nursery are mixed seedlings and the range is like pictured above.

Bearded Irises,

          

I could resist putting these up again as we had a whole lot more come in this week, check out the Iris page now as Kate the newbie here has done a heap of work updating this page. Click here for Irises.

Downy Mildew

These brief cold showers are no good for men and the roses lol,  I notice that all of a sudden we have had a bit of downy mildew about and I even had a client in the other day who had some on their new roses. Bravo is the spray to use and if you suspect downy then do a couple of really close sprays but most importantly spray before it rains and then again after the rains. Always try and pick up the fallen leaves and dispose of in the rubbish. I sprayed Thurs here in prep for this rain coming and will spray again as soon as we get a dry window.

New in this week

Hybrid Clematis. These would just have to be the queens of climbing plants with huge saucer sized clematis flowers. They look stunning growing in with other plants like your favourite roses which they use as support. They say to plant them deeper than they are in the bag and probably the only plant that I would suggest to do this. Its not a bad idea to add some friendly soil fungus as well.

Delphiniums. Not just any Delps but from top performing plants bred right here in NZ. These are great plants already to just chuck into the ground  I just adore these and so do the slugs and they should be coming up and out of the ground about now so make sure you have slug bait about. Tall majestic spires in Whites, Blues and Pinks

Daisies. I sure that everyone know these and what good value they are. The federation ones are good bushy fillers that flower their heads off all, Spring, Summer and Autumn. Give them a good chop back to keep them bushy but never too harshly into the hard wood. Then there are the other kinds like the Arctotis and the Gazanias with Daisy like flower

Lavender The rabbit eared kind and these just never seem to stop flowering. Just love all the sun they can get and make sure that the spot isn't wet either. Now I have to quickly add here that the English kind of Lavenders are still yet to be available

 

Asparagus  These are the biggest crowns that Ihave seen.. Grow your own spears of this delicious spring vegetable and nows the time to be getting in new crowns. Set aside a dedicated piece of the garde for these and compost well to get the most and fattest spears your can. The bed will only provide better as the years go past.

Spuds are back.  Plant now for Christmas and again for a main crop, Swift and Rocket are a couple of quick maturing types, Jersey bennes are an all time fav and so are cliffs kidney. There is nothing like a home grown freshly dug potato.. Sprout them now and dont forget to feed them with proper potato fertilser.

Gosh another weekend is here and I'm back to a late Friday email newsletter despite all my good intentions. I'm sure that the Americas cup is top in most minds and its the school hols looming again with another term done and dusted. Have a great weekend!!!

Cheers

Make it a Wairere weekend where even GNOMES know that gardening's not a drag