LAUNCH OF 2SDAY
TUESDAY!
| This
month we're launching an exciting new
promotion 2SDAY
TUESDAY!
Make Tuesday your gardening
day. Shop with a friend and enjoy a
coffee on us!!
- Two seedling punnets for $5.00 -
no limit
- Two dollars off all plants normally
under $20.00
- Two x 10% = 20% off all other plants
- Two complimentary coffees at Marsden
Village Cafe with combined purchases
over $100.00
So come in and visit us with a friend
for a bouquet of benefits! |
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GARDENING
CALENDAR - MARCH
This is the first of our monthly gardening
calendars. Our March issue covers the kitchen
garden, ornamentals, your lawn and containers.
Click
here for the full calendar >>
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DAHLIAS IN
FASHION!
I grew up next door to Sissy and Des, a lovely
retired couple, but Des had an all
-consuming
passion (unfortunate as I thought then) for
show dahlias. He had at least an acre all
regimented and staked with the sole purpose
of breeding and growing exhibition blooms
of gigantic proportions and colours.
And a gigantic earwig problem to go with
them. They had a modest house bulging with
trophies (also of dubious taste) from the
said dahlias. This history has somewhat coloured
my opinion of the genus but I am now being
swayed by some of the varieties available
for our gardens today.
Named
after Andreas Dahl, a Swedish botanist and
pupil of Linnaeus they were originally (and
still is in the US) pronounced dah-le-a and
not day-le-a as we say it. They are nearly
all hybrids from species not now seen in gardens.
“Ball-shaped Dahlias” are rated
number 8 in the top ten “Non-Yew Plants”
in that wonderfully snobbish book Yew &
Non-Yew-Gardening for Horticultural Climbers.
These are not what our eminent leading plant
breeder, Dr Keith Hammett, has released to
the market over the last few years.
He has given us the ‘Mystic’
series characterised by their stunning dark,
almost black foliage and single non-fussy
flowers. They are an ideal choice for easy
care low maintenance containers or as a medium
sized accent plant in the garden. My favorites
are the brick red Mystic Desire and orange
‘Fifteen Love’.
There are also pink, yellow and apricot varieties
and all these hot colours are perfect in the
late summer/autumn garden. They die down in
winter but their fabulous foliage emerges
freshly again the next spring. Compact and
clumping, they like a sunny 
position
with rich moist soil so dig in plenty of compost
and feed with a slow release fertiliser seasonally.
We also have the tree dahlia, Dahlia imperialis
‘Timothy Hammett’ grown by Horrobin
and Hodge (Sarah is raving about it). This
fairly new cultivar will flower (single pink)
throughout summer and autumn. It is slightly
smaller then the species but still grows to
about 1.5m every season. It will die down
in the winter and needs a position with moist
but well drained soil. It will not tolerate
soils prone to waterlogging.
As you tidy up the spent summer perennials
make a spot for these now fashionable and
terribly "Yew" dahlias.
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FEEDING YOUR
MONARCHS
At this time of the year we
are desperately trying to keep up with the
demand for swan plants as monarch butterfly
caterpillars demolish the plants in people’s
gardens.
It is commonly thought that pumpkin can be
fed as a substitute for milkweed (swan plants)
but this is only so in the very last stages
of the caterpillar’s life. However,
if they are fed on pumpkin when small, the
caterpillers will not develop properly.
We still have a supply of swan plants available
at $4.95. It would be a good idea to plant
a group of these, and keep them free of caterpillars,
to winter over so there will be sufficient
food next year.
Take a look at this very interesting web
site about
the monarch butterfly >>
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PEST OF THE
MONTH- CATERPILLERS
At the same time as we are rescuing monarch
caterpillars, we are dishing out Derris
Dust and Success Naturalyte
to kill the voracious white butterfly caterpillars
feeding on your brassicas and the green looper
caterpillars making holes in a wide range
vegetable and flowering plants.
Click here for more information on caterpillar
pests and solutions >>
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GARDEN SCULPTURE
When in Auckland recently I happened upon
a lovely gallery in Newmarket – Morgan
St Gallery and was really taken by the sculpture
by Chris Moore and others.
Original, beautifully made, one off objects
can be sought out and purchased very affordably,
to give years of enjoyment and even be handed
down in the family.
Original, beautifully made, one off objects
can be sought out and purchased very affordably,
to give years of enjoyment and even be handed
down in the family. Stone, copper, bronze,
timber, ceramic, glass, steel - there are
so many materials.
Louise Reid and Hilary Smythe of the Morgan
Street Gallery have a very good range of excellent
NZ sculptur.........they have both had considerable
experience in the gardening industry and so
have a particular passion for art that can
be placed in gardens.
Hilary, from an art dealer background but
with 25 years professional landscape experience,
has always encouraged her clients to use sculpture,
"it can provide an instant focal point,
(especially if properly lit at night), while
the garden grows around it. I once commissioned
a work for a client, she loved it, and when
she died I found she had left it to me in
her will!”
Louise, having worked with plants sales,
remarks how a sculpture can be enhanced with
simple planting to give a very low maintainance
area with great impact. As these two ladies
have built some of the best garden exhibits
at the Ellerslie Flower Shows in the past,
repeatedly winning several of the top awards,
they have an eye for wonderful work. Visit
their website www.morganstgallery.co.nz.
