A very productive place

WHAT is a garden? A place to grow pretty  flowers and display plant treasures? A pleasing retreat from our workaday world? A rewarding outlet for creative inclinations or somewhere to grow food?

It’s all these things, of course, but with fashion and other forces focus changes. Right now the garden’s productive role is paramount, especially in our back gardens, with veggies thriving where there were lawns.

Fruit trees have replaced 1970s silver birches. And why not? We still get the shade, nobody gets upset when we prune them and generally they stay a manageable size – and provide the joys of picking your own crops.

To help you choose which fruit to grow, Andrew Steens and Gillian Vine have plenty of tips and pointers (page 16).

Like fruit, bulbs and their ilk (tubers, corms and rhizomes) are tangible evidence of a garden’s productivity. Some like onions and potatoes, we eat; others we grow for their floral charms.

Autumn is the time many of these go on sale. Lesley Ingham talks to a skilled pair of bulb specialists who share some useful advice (page 12).

In this issue, we also bring you the official programme of the Waitakere Artists Studio Weekend as a centre pullout – good reason to visit Auckland on March 27 – 28. This arts trail is a wonderful chance to meet local artists in their studios (many in garden settings), learn creative processes and buy artwork.

See you at Ellerslie International Flower Show in Christchurch.

Susie Longdell,

Editor.

From the Publisher

Are you in the 285 club?

THIS 285th issue of Weekend Gardener is a milestone for us.

It is the 200th issue of Weekend Gardener we have published – along with 12 editions of Gardener’s Quarterly.

Weekend Gardener was first published in 1998 but was closed down before we relaunched in 2001.

Now in its 13th year, Weekend Gardener has record high readership and subscribers in a dozen countries.

With issues every fortnight, Weekend Gardener is New Zealand’s most frequently published gardening magazine and with Gardener’s Quarterly is on sale 28 times a year.

The most delightful aspect of putting together the magazine each fortnight is the readers – Weekend Gardener readers are a legend – and we have got to know many very well.

We love you all, including those who call in the middle of the night, those who have threatened to sue us before they discovered their missing magazine was being stolen and the ones who are miffed because we are not weekly.

The most common reason for cancelling a subscription is when we get a sad note that we have lost a deceased elderly reader. However we even received a homemade Christmas card one year from ‘a collector’ who said she was taking her Weekend Gardeners with her.

Many readers have been with us all our tenure and some have collected every Weekend Gardener published – all 285 copies. If you are one with ‘a full house’ – 285 – let us know (no more than 50 words) and you could win one of many celebratory prizes we have.

Email robwg@xtra.co.nz or write to the editor.

Good luck.

Rob Lahood

Publisher

New Year’s Resolutions

DO YOU make New Year resolutions?

I gave up years ago but if I had managed to keep just half of them, I would be superfit, a model mum… and so on.

It’s funny but I never made resolutions about my garden though this year have come close because one aim in 2010 is to organise life so there’s more time for gardening.

When it’s too hot to garden, we can plan, read and be inspired about gardening.

This issue, we’ve plenty of inspiration from gardeners like the people behind the new garden at historic Mataia Homestead beside Kaipara Harbour (page 10); Lois Croon who gardens on Chatham Island (page 16); and Rob Somerfield (page 26) our homegrown, world-class rose breeder.

Sue Linn suggests great ways to use stepping stones (page 20) and for those who like to potter about, Mark Rayner (page 30) has some mailbox options. Our new writer Andrew Steens (page 14) identifies disease-resistant vegetable varieties to help us garden sustainably and without sprays.

And if you’re at the beach, see if you can track down and sample a snippet of another 
vegetable – the coastal -native known as samphire. Gillian Vine has tips (page 25) for growing it.

For those of you in Auckland, there’s no better inspiration that a wander down Eden Garden’s shady paths (see our centerfold liftout).

Wishing you a wonderful New Year with lots of time for gardening.

Feed ‘em and leave ‘em

LET’S be honest, I never was that good at pampering plants.

In not so distant days when a chewed cabbage or spotty rose leaf was a major gardening crime, 
I sometimes felt guilty about my plant ‘abuse’ but simply hated using sprays.

Now I can argue that was forward thinking!

Feed ‘em and leave ‘em is Georgina Campbell’s new tough love way to grow roses (see page 12) – and the results show it’s working. Tough love is surely the best way to grow veggies too. After all, half the appeal of growing your own is having produce never sprayed with the synthetic chemicals that market gardeners resort to using.

Plant pests, however, seem to have an unfair advantage sometimes so Andrew Maloy looks at what organic remedies are available when you want to give the beggars a blast (page 16) and if you want to brew your own, Marilyn Wightman has some options (page 18).

In this holiday issue, we show how to grow avocados in small spaces, how to build your own stone garden wall, and other DIY projects. When it’s time to put your feet up, try our giant Christmas garden crossword.

Seasons greetings from the Weekend Gardener team. Catch you on January 11.

Susie Longdell,

Editor.

Pass the Pyjama Test

DOES it pass the pyjama test, I asked when house-hunting the other day. Can you get up in the morning, wander outside in your nightwear unseen by passersby?

We all know how a quick pyjama-clad trip turns into an hour or more when we spot a gardening job to do – like watering. And soil moisture levels are well down on average for this time of year in many regions.

We can opt for drought-resistant ornamentals but veggies need a regular water. Hardly surprising, when potatoes are 80% water by weight and lettuces more than 95%!

This issue, to help with watering tasks this summer Andrew Maloy assesses different irrigation options, page 16.

Pamela McGeorge visits well-known garden photographer Gil Hanly in her Auckland city garden, page 12. Also in this issue, find out about chia, a new ‘superfood’ to grow and about a green leafy veggie that lasts for years; and meet the 2009 Rose of the Year winner’s breeder.

Our centre pullout is a special finance supplement. Gardeners, we are told, make good investors. And that’s the theme of this supplement provided by New Zealand Investor magazine, a leading provider of independent information about all forms of investment.

Good gardening – December’s long days (and light early mornings) are perfect for it.

Susie Longdell,

Editor.

Unique gifts for gardens

THIS week it’s a month to Christmas – time to think about gifts! Our DIY expert Mark Rayner has some inexpensive garden gift ideas that you can make for gardeners and non-gardeners alike (see page 16).

Plants are a gift option that suit all sorts of occasions. I know of a gardener who given some plants during a charity fund-raising event has decided to propagate more from them which she will, in turn, gift back next year. Plants really are unique gifts for the way they can grow.

In this issue we also feature an Otago couple’s garden on a near-impossible site (page 12) and introduce a German gardener and gardening author who fell in love with New Zealand and bought a garden business in Kerikeri. See page 19 and Palmco’s centrefold palm guide.

We also have features on growing gingers, my favourite spice (page 16) and dwarf beans (page 27). And because timing can be as important as time itself when growing food, Gillian Vine writes about vegetable oysters, something different to grow now for winter (page 26).

Meanwhile, we have all summer ahead of us to enjoy our gardens and gardening.

Susie Longdell,

Editor.

Gardening together is such fun

I LOVE the way community food gardens are flourishing  around the country. Gardening offers solitary time-out when we need it and at other times, rewarding friendship and a chance to share skills.

For Hawke’s Bay permaculturist Janet Luke, sharing her enthusiasm for sustainable edible gardening has seen two friends join her in an exciting new venture (see page 12). Sue Linn visits Janet at her eco-friendly Havelock North garden, talks with her about kitchen gardening and gets a host of tips.

Gardening fellowship doesn’t just work for growing food – the other day I visited a delightful Port Waikato public garden, the work of willing volunteers who meet weekly to create a show very much enjoyed by holiday makers. If you know of other great community gardens, write to us about them – and send a photo.

That Port Waikato garden is large and the setting superb so there is little need for Mark Rayner’s ‘space expanding’ hints featuring in this issue. For those short on space or wanting a special effect in their garden, he provides a few tricks, applying trompe l’oeil (page 22). The roses in that seaside garden and everywhere are lovely now which makes rosarian Hayden Fould’s climbing roses recommendations and hints (page 16), timely.

It’s such a wonderful time of the year to be a gardener.