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Friday 14th August, 2020

Lockdown... is it to be or not to be... that is the question!
Hi

It's been a full on couple of weeks since I last wrote... just had to slip in some time away and quite well timed if I do say so... who knows what 5.30 pm tonight is going to bring.
We haven't had a chance to get in the garden yet to do all our pruning... I keep looking at my orchard thinking that I must get to them and get the job done. I bring this up now as it isn't too far away that the spring blossom of plums, peaches, nectarines etc will soon be out in bloom. Note to myself, and to you all, to get this done now or as soon as possible and if possible a dry day is a must. Normally the garden section of our team would be right in there to get this task done but they have been so busy helping the garden centre and dispatch teams get up to date with the current flood of orders. Literally there can be all of them picking the plants from the shop floor at once.
We haven't even done our rose pruning but maybe next week and the hydrangeas out on the side of the road are just screaming to be cut back so if you are getting the picture that the gardens have been missing out, you are so right.
Rhopalostylis sapida... far simpler to say Nikau
Nikau is by far the easiest choice of name to pronounce compared to this beauty's botanical name... in fact I often struggle to remember the correct spelling, so to find this one in our system I tend to just opt for it's common name of Nikau. Just for the record palms, esp Nikaus, would have to be up there on my list of favourite plants. Their trunks you just want to touch and run your hand up over those growth rings... That shuttle cock form of the leaves is pretty cool and I guess that's why they make for such great street trees once they get to a height that people can walk under them... I have recently been on a roadie and passed through New Plymouth and the town's streets looked pretty neat with all the Nikaus... check out the pic of the Nikaus in Queen street Auckland... stunning!!!  It's that structure and form that does it for me. 
Now, Nikaus I don't know so intimately (most of my hort training has been in trees, roses and perennials) but I can say that they belong to the family Arecaceae and that they are also monocots as opposed to dicots which most trees and perennials are. Corn is a good example of a monocot, also lilies and palms.. so there you go!


Wikipedia suggests that these genus have been around for more than a few years, as they were probably eaten by Triceratops back in the day, and I have to say that when they flower and set seed ... well the whole bit looks quite prehistoric compared to many plants and oh so fascinating. Those flowers that just appear out from under that classic bowl at the base of the fronds.
Nikaus, well most palms, are quite slow initially and also a bit frost tender, esp while small, so most that I have planted in the display garden have been under cover but I do have some out in the open that are coming on admirably.
Now there are more than one species of my adored Nikau and the mainland form is called sapida and I am of the opinion that this one has that shuttlecock form with the more upright leaves. On checking out mine, growing under the Kahikateas, well the form is more arching and the leaf blade wider and so perhaps I planted some of the Chatham Island form... but then it could be that they are in just a more shaded position.
Good news is that Ange has just brought in a lovely grade of the mainland form sapida $39.99
Magnolias ...a journey down the dark path
I make no secret of the fact  that I really love the white Magnolias but while away on a recent road trip I spied a beautiful magnolia in a design studio garden and it tempted me to head down the dark path of dark red magnolias. I was lucky enough to be able to ask it's name. The flowers were just huge and of a deep magenta pink/red and it was one out of the Jury stable called Felix Jury. 
Black Tulip is another Jury Magnolia and, as it's name suggests, is one of the darker shades almost a black burgundy red and has got that quite special tulip shaped form.
Burgundy Star is another very stunning dark burgundy red magnolia and this one is quite different in form from Black tulip, having that pretty cool, star shaped flowers almost like the cup and saucer style of some of the other cultivars.
A new one to us this year is called Deryk. I spied this in flower at the Trade show and it was just delightful. An unusually dark hybrid showing clearly, influence from Genie the parent. It is a rich glowing velvet red and in some lights the colour becomes almost brick red. This variety sets flowers on all the tips, meaning it will tend to be slower growing.
I've got to mention Vulcan as it would not be possible to list dark magnolias without mentioning this one... such lovely form and a pretty overall burgundy shade and I believe it is also one of the first to flower. 
Check out the website for all the different colours and sizes available now.
Daphne are looking and smelling amazing in the garden centre the fragrance is everywhere. We have both pink and white forms available in 1 and 2 year old plants.  Daphne like a bit of moisture in the soil so put them some where with filtered light and lots of humus rich soil so they don't fully dry out and if you can have them somewhere you can smell their divine fragrance as you sit and relax, all the better.
Tui Cherries 
I know that there are conversations happening out there around these flowering cherries but I can help but be charmed by the Tui romping around in my campanulata form of Felix Jury. It's in full flower now and just looks stunning.
Superba is pretty in pink and I guess there is an established form of this just before you go over the bridge to Paeroa... It just looks amazing every year!
Prunus puddum is another species that has pretty soft pink flowers that attract the Tui which will be just as delightful as any of these early flowering cherries.

Chicken curry by Kit Perera
It was table of eight the other week and something to do with chicken was our brief... and as usual I left it to the last minute... I quite often go to previous copies of the magazine dish which I do like to browse through...  when I have nothing to do LOL. 
I quite like the dish that we take to be easy to present  ... like warm or heat through and serve, well presented on a plate... to that end I found a chicken curry in issue 67 of dish from August/September 2016 by Kit Perera, using curry leaves and I have never cooked with these before. Off to the local Asian supermarket to get these and some lemon grass (frozen at this time of the year). Basically I find that if I make the sauce or the base, one can add the chicken (or you could perhaps use fish) and cook through, serve with rice and a green and voila!!!  Actually I made this sauce again because I had a supply of curry leaves still left and added flaked smoked fish and al dente pumpkin and kumara cubes.
1.5 kg chicken pieces ( I used chicken thighs ), 3 tablespoons olive oil, 4 cardamon pods bruised,3 dried chillies,8 -10 curry leaves, 2 onions finely chopped, 2 cm piece fresh ginger peeled and grated,4 cloves garlic finely chopped, 1 tsp ground tumeric, 2 tsp ground paprika,  1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp ground coriander, 1/2 tsp ground fennel, 250 mls coconut milk ( I used a full can) 1 stem lemon grass bruised, 1 cinnamon stick, 1 tsp salt.
Heat the oil, on medium heat, in a heavy based saucepan and add the cardamon pods, chillies, curry leaves cinnamon stick and fry for a couple of minutes. Add the garlic and saute until soft, then add the garlic and ginger, cook a further 2 minutes. Next add all the dry spices  and mix well. At this point add the halved chicken thighs. Mix well again and then add the coconut milk and lemon grass. Cover and cook over a low heat for 40 to 50 minute depending on the meat you have chosen.

Housekeeping stuff
We have been kept extremely busy with courier orders over that past couple of weeks and believe we are about a week behind in being able to dispatch our courier orders as we can't collate and physically box fast enough to keep up. We have had 4 of the teams boxing, which is double the usual... Measures are being taken to rectify this but I'm mentioning it and asking for your patience in this regard, we are also getting an unprecedented amount of email and phone enquiries which is wonderful support from you all but also stretching the team.
Hold for pick up orders ... These are orders that have been put aside for collection and we are usually happy to hold for up to ten days or so to give you time for collection but these don't seem to be moving. If you have an order to collect come pick it up so that we can get the space back. 
It was just Monday gone that I was on the phone chatting to my IT guy suggesting that we look more closely at how we could get more of the team working from home... during lock down we managed to scramble together some of the admin working from home via remote desktop, which can be very tedious if you don't have high speed internet. This was ok for something that happened quite quickly... I had been thinking that this may not be the last of all of this and perhaps we could get more of the guys online at home, maybe even get better with our website, online shopping and even just answering emails and questions. I have to get my head around the techie stuff the IT guy's talk about though... like what the heck is a VPN? It would seem I am on the right track with all this but I think that I may have been a bit slow in getting  organised, as we await this afternoons out come... will we become a drive through again, head home to work or get to continue as we currently are? YEP that crystal ball sure would be handy right now.
Whatever the news today, take care of each other, your family and find peace and tranquillity in your garden.
Have a great weekend 
Cheers Lloyd, Tony and the Wairere team

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Wairere Nursery
826 Gordonton Road, R D 1, Hamilton 3281 Ph: (07) 824 3430 Email: