Keep a tiger in your garden
Tiger, tiger burning bright
Purple-spotted flaming orange tiger lilies are spectacular in midsummer. The freckled, speckled blooms have burned bright in gardens for many centuries. Among the oldest of domesticated plants, tiger lilies – along with the Madonna lily, Lilium candidum – wehave been essential garden favourites from medieval times.
The tiger lily Lilium tigrinum was introduced to Europe by William Kerr in 1804 after he saw it grown as an edible crop in China, where the starch-rich bulbs were steamed before eating. The flowers, too, were useful, containing essential oils used in perfumery.
Tiger lilies are extraordinarily easy to grow from the purple jet bulblets that nestle in the axils of the leaves. These unfussy plants thrive in sun or shade provided drainage is reasonable and there is some organic matter present.
Several varieties were introduced early to New Zealand, including the double Lilium tigrinum ‘‘Flore Pleno’’. ‘‘Splendens’’ was a superior hybrid, still thriving in many gardens today. There is also a yellow form.
Prune plums down to size
In general, winter pruning creates shape and structure, while summer pruning is a way to limit vigour and reduce the size of fruit trees.
So if your Japanese plums have finished fruiting, give them a chop back now. It will help keep them to an easily pickable size, and removing inward-growing branches will stop them becoming tangled and thicket-like (but don’t get rid of all the new-season growth or you’ll lose next year’s crop).
European plums (such as damsons and greengages) will just be fruiting now and they aren’t such rampant growers, so don’t prune them until winter comes.
Not sure which sort of plum tree you have? Japanese plums are large, vigorous growers (great shelter trees), very productive, fruit early in the season (from Christmas time onwards) and are usually clingstones.
European plums are generally smaller, ripen in late summer and need winter chill to set fruit properly. These include plums like the gages, yellow eggs, damsons and prunes.
Homegrown bananas
Despite our mainly temperate climate, in frost-free pockets of the country, tropical and subtropical fruit trees can thrive. Areas of Northland, Auckland, Coromandel, Bay of Plenty and Golden Bay have microclimates that will allow frosttender fruiting plants to flourish. These heat lovers generally need warm, humid conditions, so plant trees in the very warmest spot possible, or in a glass house. Tropicals need a long hot summer (and a very mild winter) for the fruit to ripen sufficiently, and for the trees themselves to survive.
Bananas (Musa spp) are probably the most well known and most widely grown of tropical fruits. Banana plants are easy to grow in the right conditions – warm and mainly frost free.
It is important to choose a fruiting variety as several ornamental types exist, which produce inedible, seed-filled fruit – they make stunning tropical garden specimens though. The fruit ripen from August to November.
There are a number of varieties available, and it’s important to choose the right one for the climate. The lady finger varieties are easier than the cavendish types, which need a longer, hotter season to ripen the fruit.
Lady finger varieties include ‘‘Australian Lady Finger’’, ‘‘Hamoa’’ and ‘‘Misi Luki’’. The cavendish types are ‘‘Dwarf Cavendish’’ and ‘‘Goldfinger’’, which both grow to just 1.5-2m tall so are better for hothouses.
– compiled by Barbara Smith