Author: Ned McDowell

 

The Spider or Ribbon plant is one of the best and most decorative performers amongst my indoor plant collection. It’s sassy, it’s sexy and I love it to bits. Why? It’s tough, it’s resilient, and has been around since forever, which aptly speaks for its hardiness and its ease of care. And as I often declare, you can never enough of them. I have more than two dozen plants hanging outside and another dozen or so in single pots which live on high shelves both inside and outside.

My love affair for the spider plant began many years ago. A few months after I purchased my present house and garden, I discovered a single specimen living quite merrily under my long staircase which leads up to my first floor verandah. Basically, the area was a dumping ground for old, shattered pots, broken bricks and discarded unusable large ugly rocks. Out of sight, out of mind. The soil was non-existent and rarely if ever received any sun, rain or moisture. It had survived total neglect outside through hot summer days and freezing winter temperatures. It was a miracle it had ever survived. It was a true lesson and full testament to its toughness and longevity no matter what conditions. I promptly potted it up and from this first neglected specimen my collection began.

 

History
Chlorophytum comosun is a member of the Liliaceae family.it comes from South Africa and was first introduced as an indoor plant in the mid nineteenth century to Europe and America. The Latin name Chlorophytum means green leaves which originally it had. The variety now universally grown is C. comosun ‘Variegatum’, that has a prominent white stripe down the entire long length of its leaves, thus one of its common names the ribbon plant. There are newer cultivars, one with wider and fatter leaves, another with tightly twisted, curled leaves, and a smaller miniature leaved variety.

Description
During the active growing season, the spider plant throws out long cream stems, 30cm to 60cm in length, adorned with small six petalled white flowers, called spiderettes, which collectively resemble a mass of starry constellations. These in turn are succeeded by plantlets with miniature versions of the parent plant appearing either singly or in groups. These plantlets weigh down the stems as they develop, rapidly producing roots, which in nature would grow into the soil around the parent.

Design
Their unique long striped white and green ribbon leaves and their accompanying spiderettes which grow, descend and hang heavy around the parent plant, make them the ideal candidate for hanging baskets. This added height gives you the perfect opportunity to fully admire their decorative magical majesty. En masse, say 5 or more all in a row, or even staggered, the effect is superbly beautiful and so simply easy to achieve. In addition, their ribbon shaped leaves can create stunning foliage contrasts, through colour, shape, size and texture with other hardy indoor plants such as Ficus, Monsteras and Aspidistras. The list is truly endless and is only limited by your own imagination and savviness as a decorator.

Cultivation
Like many of the hardiest plants they can survive practically anything. They are very tolerant of drought and neglect and will not die if you occasionally forget them. In fact, some say, dryness may actually encourage them to produce more stems, flowers and plantlets. They are very tolerant of dark places but given good light they respond exponentially in their performance. Ideally you should keep the soil mostly moist during the spring and summer, watering 2 to 3 times a week but only once a fortnight in winter. Feeding with a soluble indoor plant fertiliser once a fortnight is strongly recommended. You can clean the leaves by spraying them all over with tepid water from a mist sprayer. They grow well in water and convert easily to hydroculture. In extreme cold weather with heavy frosts, the leaves may indeed melt but in spring the foliage quickly bounce back to their former glory.

 

Hanging baskets are notorious for the soil to quickly dry out. So what basket is the best? I don’t especially like plastic hanging pots, for they look a bit ordinary, even ugly. However, they are better suited for holding water and also possess an attached saucer, which provides an extra reservoir of moisture. I much prefer the baskets with a metal framework lined with coco fibre, looking far more natural and aesthetically pleasing. Alas they are not in the least bit practical. In short time, the fibre shrinks and deteriorates, and they cannot hold the necessary water. Thus, to solve this problem I always line them with plastic, with enough holes to guarantee good drainage.

Propagation
As the plantlets grow larger leaves and aerial roots, they can be planted beside the parent plant and after about 6 weeks the stem can be cut away. I rarely if ever follow this method. I just cut the descending stem of the plantlet and directly plant it in soil or water. You can also propagate by root division, but I find it a rather messy affair and the plant takes some time to recover.

Happy gardening and have fun,
Regards Ned McDowell.

Yes, it is that time of the year, the beginning of the tomato growing season and a whole lot of stupid crazy takes possession of the general populace.

The weather warms, the sun kisses the cheeks of the face and the scent of spring hangs fresh in the air. The biting frosts seem to have abated, farewelled and forgotten, with scant thought of their future certain return.
And thus, the great gamble begins. To compete, even cheat the might of mother nature. It is the ultimate game of chance, a continuous throw of the dice, a repeated spin of the weather wheel. It is when the merry waltz of early spring’s optimism, is so very darkly partnered with the dangerous dance to dodge the deadly bullets of late frosts. Yes, it’s a real game of Russian roulette.

Thankfully today, we have access to 7-day weather forecasts, updated twice a day, so the odds of success are greatly enhanced. Local wisdom advises that you should wait until the Melbourne Cup has run to plant out your seedlings.
However, if you don’t begin a good 4 to 6 weeks earlier you will be impatiently awaiting your first crop until way, way after Christmas celebrations have come and gone. Tomatoes need a good three to four months of hot weather to produce flowers, then fruit and ripen successfully. If you have a heated greenhouse, you can certainly start earlier. But for me, it’s to prepare the soil early, wait with great and singular patience, then buy the plant and put it in the ground, no fuss, little work, just easy as. If a frost is predicted, which will be certain but rare, I wrap it with a few layers of frost cloth.

For me late September to early October is when my tomato growing season begins in earnest and my own fine gamble commences. In both pots and in the ground. Any earlier the plants will sit, stubbornly stationary and just simply sulk. For the days are not hot or long enough and the soil is still too cold.

I grow only the cherry and grape varieties. This is because they mature and crop a good 4 to 6 weeks earlier than larger varieties, their fruit rarely split and most importantly they are immune to the wrath and scourge of fruit fly. There is one great exception, the large Black Russian. In addition, I only ever plant advanced large single plants, and again you are ahead in their time of growth by another 3 good weeks or so.

Being a one-person household, plus a voracious feeding, ‘Big Daddy’ possum and an alcoholic cat from next door called just ‘Cat’, as companions, I believe 3 plants should be just about enough. Throughout the season, other than the daily tossed salads, I will need tomatoes for the hearty breakfasts, the sandwiches, the stir fries, the soups, the sauces, the dips, the Thai jams and relishes, the chutneys and the obligatory gifts to others. And then so mightily important, are the cocktails of chilled vodka splashed over the before prepared and frozen, boulder sized ice cubes of the combined and blended Black Russian tomatoes and Bloody Mary ingredients. On a hot summer’s day, it is my drink of decadence, and I know I very well deserve it. Yep, maybe 10 or even a dozen plants would be better.

My goal and yours is to harvest a good 10 kilos of tomatoes per plant and the first harvest to coincide with Christmas celebrations.

Soil preparation
To begin we need to look at the most effective fertilisers for growing tomato plants. It is essential they have high NPK ratios for they are the greediest of plants for food and nutrients. I use Sudden Impact, a reputable rose fertiliser which has an NPK of 10:4:6. This great concentration of nutrients is why it is so expensive to buy. In comparison are the animal manures which most gardeners use to fertilise their tomato plants.
Chicken fertilisers have a NPK 3.5: 1: 1.5. horse manures a NPK 1:02:03 and cow manures 2:1:2, so both should be used only as soil conditioners. Thus, for the best fertilisers to use I will let you do the maths.

This is my recipe for the optimum soil preparation for each single plant. Soil prep in pots and raised garden beds are the same, except the compost is replaced with potting mix for pots and ½ potting mix and ½ compost for raised garden beds.
• 2 hand full of charcoal
• 5 hand full of Seamungus
• 1 ½ hand full of rose fertiliser
• ½ bag or more of the best quality compost,
• ½ handful of lime
• ¼ handful of potash

Charcoal – This is a trick I learnt from Peter Cundall, the iconic former host/presenter on Gardening Australia. The charcoal stores the tea tonic of combined water, fish and seaweed and when in summer the growing roots of the tomatoes reach the charcoal an explosion of growth will be certain to follow.

Seamungus – I would literally sell my soul before not using this product. It is a commercial pelletised fish and seaweed product which promotes a profusion of invaluable white root growth of more than 50%, which thus means the plant can take in more food and water. It is not a fertiliser per say, but a tonic, so unlike fertilisers you can never apply too much. It also greatly enhances the quality and texture of the soil, acting like water crystals in conserving water and invites greater microbe and worm populations with their consequent highly beneficial activity in further improving the condition of the soil. In essence it creates healthier plants with greater resistance to disease, heat and water stress. It’s a total bingo product for every gardener.

Lime helps in preventing future splitting of their skins and blossom end rot of the fruit. Potash is essential for flower and fruit production. It promotes water absorption through the roots and helps break down the sugars so they can be taken up by the plant as food. It also creates greater immunity to pests and diseases.

Planting
• I plant each tomato one and a half metres apart, to accommodate a full season of growth.
• In a large bucket of water toss in about 3 full handfuls of Seamungus and stir well for a day, to create the tea.
• Place 3 handfuls of charcoal into the tea and let it steep for a few days until it has absorbed most of the tonic liquid.
• Dig a hole as generous in width and depth as possible.
• Throw the charcoal into the bottom of the hole and dig in loosely. Any extra tea of Seamungus can be used for watering in after planting.
• Combine in a large bucket a small portion of the excavated soil with the compost, fertiliser, lime, and another handful of Seamungus. Your own soil will have a portion of the worm eggs and microbes you need to create a healthy soil.
• Very importantly you should cut off the lower leaves and branches and the bury the stem in the soil by about half its overall height. This will create new roots along the buried stem, thus strengthening both the stem and the plant.
• Backfill with the prepared planting mix.
• Ensure the seedling is planted in a surrounding large and wide and at least 10cm high moat of compost, so deep watering is possible throughout the coming season.
• Like icing a cake, top with the last handful of Seamungus and a final sprinkling of potash for good measure. Water deeply and mulch with sugar cane.

Staking and Pruning
There is an abundance of advice about pruning your tomatoes for greater cropping. Prune this leader, layer that lateral, cut here and cut there, do this and do that with each truss. I find it all too confusing and challenging and I am too time poor or even downright just too lazy to bother with it.
So, bugger all that. As the plant grows, I just hammer in another stake about 50cm away and tie each new fattening long stem with grafting tape, which is elastic and forgiving enough not to damage and cut into the expanding growing stems. Then I just let it all happily continue to scramble and climb at its own leisure. As the growing season continues, each plant at it grows upwards and outwards, receives at least 3 to 6 stakes. The increased foliage also acts like an umbrella or canopy to protect the fruit from the harsh summer sun.

Watering
For a successful crop this is probably the most vital and mandatory task of them all. At the height of summer tomatoes are the thirstiest of feeders. Deep and regular watering is essential for their growth and health. Intermittent and shallow watering leads to poor growth, the size of the fruit, the splitting of their skins and the loss of the fruit’s juiciness and flavour. This is why the regular maintenance of the high moat of soil surrounding the tomato is so important.
Always water at their base of the plant. If you water the plant from overhead too often, the foliage will succumb to the disease perils of mildew and blight.

Companion planting
Regarding companion planting, tomatoes are said to grow well with basil, parsley, all alliums, asparagus, and nasturtiums, and it is often stated marigolds will deter aphids and fruit fly.

Further fertilisers and tonics
When the tomatoes produce their first truss of fruit, I apply further applications of Seamungus followed by the same recipe of fertilisers mentioned when first preparing the soil, but at half strength. At this time, you can also dress them with a liquid potash fertiliser weekly, to encourage further flowering and fruiting.

Happy gardening, good luck and have fun. I hope you have a bumper crop by Christmas.
Regards Ned McDowell

The floribunda rose Scentimental – you either love it or you hate it. I suppose it all depends on your individual tastes. Many years ago, a lady customer once asked me, her question I immediately realised was a thinly veiled criticism of my tastes, “and you probably like the rose Scentimental?” Raised to be a gentleman, I didn’t immediately bite back and yell f*ck off, so I replied with as much enthusiasm and good manners as I could muster, “Yes it is a great rose, I love it, and I could not live without it.” To this day I still do, and this grand rose is the most complimented rose by far by visitors to my garden.

The rose is big, it’s bold, it’s brassy and for me it’s very, very sexy. Each and every bloom is splendid in their own uniqueness, no two are ever the same. The petals are beautifully striped, with the background a rich blend of deep burgundy and crimson pink, and the beautifully stripes and swirls are a clear white, their number and width varying from flower to flower. They have a strong spicy scent, not overly so, but still strong enough to justify its name. They are excellent as a cut flower, their foliage is a rich green and is practically immune to blackspot. Their greatest and most unforgettable feature is that for a rose they just ‘don’t shut up’ flowering.

Scentimental was very deservedly the first striped rose to win the AARS award in 1997 and remains a leader in the new generation of striped roses. It was raised by a Tom Carruth, in the USA in 1997, its parentage a cross between Playboy and Peppermint Twist.

I have 5 specimens in my own garden. I only prune them every second year, not due to my indifference, neglect or laziness, but because they just don’t need them. Each year they remain bushy, from their base to their top, and are forever clothed in a grand profusion of stunning scented flowers. Their heights are all a good 2 metres.

If I had the room I would plant a long hedge of it, say 10 to 16 plants in number, about a metre apart. In front of it, I would plant a second rose hedge, a combination of David Austin’s Munstead Wood, a deep crimson, and Clair Austin, a pure white, both low in height and habit, and both blessed with the perfumes of perfection. The two would also provide a great colour complement to the taller Scentimental hedge behind. At their feet I imagine I would plant of long froth of catmint and white Californian poppies. I believe it would all look pretty super and groovy. Maybe in the future a client may be brave enough to plant this simple design. We shall see and only hope.

Happy gardening and have fun,
Regards Ned McDowell

 

I’m often asked what is my favourite plant? Easily crowning the top of my list are the annual/perennial, prolifically self-seeding Californian poppies. Why? It’s because this poppy is what I call, the “it just does not, ever, ever shut up flowering” plant.
Their fantastic asset is the longevity and easy freedom of their effervescent froth of flowers. The delicate, silky textured, transparently thin petals come in the colour varieties of hot yellows, a rich range of oranges, the softest of pastels and cream and white. A sunny position is mandatory.

Even at night their flowers are still superb. The petal’s colours remain true when snapping tight shut at dusk to create a perfectly folded, whorled spiked shape, reminiscent of a grand field of mini tulips. And then, when the morning light arrives, they again unfurl their petals and produce yet another full day of stunning beauty and glamour.
The foliage itself is highly attractive with its feathery grey green leaves. They provide essential leaf contrast with their neighbouring plants, a vital ingredient in any good garden design. In winter they look marvelous with the morning frosts hanging heavy on the leaves.

Yes, many may call it an incorrigible weed, old fashioned, garish in colour, as common as dishwater. Well pity them. If it is indeed a weed it is a weed you have to have, which I will encourage forever and a day.

 

The poppies botanical name, Eschscholzia, must top the list for the most unpronounceable name of any plant, and after many years I forever still misspell it. Its name is all due to a certain Johann Friedrich Eschscholz, a zoologist, who was a member of an expedition that sailed to the Pacific coast of North America, way back in 1816, and it was his name that was used to identify this genus of poppy.

This genus belongs to the poppy family Papaveraceae. They are native to the California regions, found in semi-arid, prairies and pasturelands. and is the official flower emblem of the state. Thus, its common name is the Californian poppy.
The varieties available commercially in small pots include ‘Milky Way’ a cream colour, ‘Purple Gleam’ a dusty pale pink, and my total favourite, ‘Red Chief’ a vibrant red orange. There are also many great varieties available if planted from seed available in store or online.

The poppy is the first jump out of the winter doldrums and will continue to shine so stunningly until late autumn. A long succession of heavy winter frosts may subdue the proliferation of flowers somewhat and there is a week or two in the height of summer, when the plants seem exhausted and divert their energy to scattering their seeds magically far and wide, but so very quickly, they bounce back into their top flowering mode.

Cultivation
The Californian poppy is renowned for succeeding splendidly with little to no attention or care, growing in the most impoverished of soils, and in my own experience, even in heavy clay. However repeated applications of tonics and fertilisers, and frequent watering will result in even better well-rewarded greater blooming spectaculars. They adore the sun, for if they are planted in shade their flowers are reluctant to open.
Poppies just abhor a life in pots. Even from their infancy they are difficult to keep looking healthy when on offer in a nursery. This is because, like all poppies, they possess a single tap root and much prefer the open soil of the garden bed.
You will find that the flowers make the bees mighty happy. For me, the only drawback of the poppy, which is only minor, is that the ever-busy buzzing bees continually cross pollinate the flowers, and the newer self-seeding plants’ flowers, may well revert back to a single mid-orange or a canary yellow colour. But they are still beautiful in their richness of colour. The exception are the cream/white varieties which stay true to their colour, even at times transforming into the purest of clear whites. Simply heaven.

 

Design
Californian poppies are the ideal plants for cottage gardens, prairie landscapes, really any garden design, no matter how simple. They are perfect in my potager, great companions with the large rich purpled leaved cabbages, and with the other merrily proliferating self-seeding rich ruby ribbed silverbeets, parsley, spring onions, leeks, Tuscan kale and rocket.
You can throw them in with salvias and penstemons, seaside daisies, gauras, echinops and eryngiums and are perfect with the blue flowering convolvulus groundcover. Basically they can sex up any of the most dullest of surrounds.
They are a great friends and accompaniments with roses, masking and disguising their lower bare trunks and stems. In addition, they are the great answer for covering and camouflaging the unsightly withering leaves of spent bulbs such as tulips and daffodils.

Californian poppies are truly a must win plant for every garden. This is because of their magical beauty of both their flowers and foliage, the longevity of flowering period, their great bee attracting properties, their ease of care and their phenomenal self-seeding proliferation.
For me it the most valuable of plants, which my garden and myself could not live without. Long live the California poppy.

Happy gardening and have fun,
Regards Ned McDowell.

 

 

I adore opium poppies, Papaver Somniferum. My first ever seeds originally came from a great country garden in Moree, South Muckie Buckie owned by Caroline Humphries. Every year I am totally bonkers in my obsessive pursuit to discover new, rare, and scarce seeds. My own personal holy grail are the seeds of the elusive and stunning double white flowering opium poppy.
Known as the poppy of sleep, yes, they can indeed make opium. However, it is completely beyond me how. Secretly, I must confess, I have tried, only for the whole process to be a complete failure.

But the same cannot be said of the annual visit of the dastardly night-time opium thieves, for they certainly do know how. In the dead of darkness when all is quiet and still, they cut and harvest the plump green pods. Thankfully they do leave some to self-seed, I suppose to guarantee another future crop for themselves in a year’s time. At first, I thought birds were the nasty culprits, but with no stoned avians happily relaxing and lying around flat on their backs, that theory was immediately thrown out.

The opium poppy can grow to a good 1.5 metres, the flowers can be as big as an outstretched hand, with petals like the most finely spun silk, so tissue thin they seem transparent. They come in a myriad of colours, hues and shades.
For me the leadup to their flowering creates this great fevered sense of expectation. For a good three months I have watched and tended both their growth in height and the swelling of their flowering pods, awaiting that magic day when all their treasured beauty will open and be finally revealed. Yes, you want to peel the pods open, just that little weenie bit, to divine a hint of their coming colouring, but that’s cheating, and with growing poppies impatience is not rewarded.

 

And then as in a miracle, the poppies flowering season finally begins. Every morning, with the rooster’s crow, heralding a fresh new day, I leap out of bed and gaily skip down to discover each successive newly emerged flower.
Will they be a pale shell pink or a vivid hot one, a magical magenta, a tantalising tangerine, a rich blood red, or even a combination of them all? Will the flower petals be a single, a double, even a peony shape. Or most fantastic of all, have the bees last year magically cross pollinated a particular poppy to create a new and original flower. One can only dream, and as everybody knows, dreams can indeed come true, if you try hard enough.

The cultivation of opium poppies is dead easy. The optimum time to sow seeds are from mid-autumn through to late winter, the earlier the better. The bed must provide good winter and spring sun. Combine and mix the seeds with a little bit of compost, potting-mix or sand, really whatever you have on hand, and cast it over bare soil. Hopefully the soil has already been prepped with composts, seaweed/fish tonics and fertilisers, for this will guarantee a bonza crop. If not, don’t despair, throw the seeds anyway for they will still perform well enough even with the poorest of soils.

Growing them in pots is generally not advisable because they possess a single long tap root which can be handicapped by the pot’s contained size. Myself, I have had poor results in growing them in pots and have given up the idea completely.
If at present you do not yet have any seeds of the opium poppy, beg, steal, or borrow. Try every method available to you, call in favours, even pleading down on your knees. Ask anyone or everyone, your garden friends, members of local garden clubs or even online for some freebies and begin to build up your own collections.

 

I am told the cultivation of opium poppies are illegal in Australia. However, unless you are growing them over a few hectares or every inch of your own garden, the police will never arrest you, and charge you with any major drug trafficking offences. There would have to be a massive national crackdown of the many thousands of suburban gardeners who grow them, all bundled instantly into newly overpopulated and overwhelmed jail and prison systems. And that ain’t never going to happen. Never ever.
For as we all know, we are only growing them to create a more beautiful world for all to share and enjoy, and the opium poppy seeds we harvest are strictly used only for culinary pursuits, that is, for the toppings of breads, biscuits or cakes.

So, stand up strong to such restrictive and antiquated laws. Be a little rebel, adopt an ethos of bloody buggering bullocks to big brother. Sow the opium poppy seeds of as many as you can, even if they are relegated to the back garden, hidden to others, but thankfully not to yourself, where their joy and stunning beauty can be fully appreciated each and every spring.

Please check out my other blogs of the Scarlet Red Flowering Flanders Poppy and the must have Californian Poppy.

Happy gardening and have fun,
Regards Ned McDowell.

 

You cannot kill an Aspidistra. This indoor plant is the greatest of survivors, simply indestructible. I have had a very long love affair with this noble plant. They are the easiest and bestest of friends. They require little attention and are forever forgiving of forgetfulness and neglect. Their longevity is astounding. I always state that the plant is guaranteed to outlive you. The aspidistras common name is aptly called the cast iron plant. There is no other indoor plant that I recommend more highly.
If in fact you do achieve the impossible and murder one, please, I impeach you, give up immediately, and never buy another living plant again. Plastic plants or floral wallpaper are your only future options.

Very often I am asked by customers what is an indoor plant which will survive with little care and little light and the extremes of cold. Straight up I recommend the aspidistra. I declare that this plant can be thrown into a dark cold cupboard, shut tight the door, travel to Europe for 3 months, and upon your return, open the cupboard door, and the aspidistra will still be stubbornly alive. Yes, it will look mighty sad, its leaves collapsed and withered. Yet with a basic level of attention and care, it will be quickly revived and resurrected as the best and most decorative of all indoor plants.

The Aspidistra is blessed with highly decorative shiny, dark green leathery leaves 50cm long, 10 to 20cm wide. The luxuriant leaves rise from a creeping rhizomatous root stock lying half buried in the potting mix. There is also a variegated form, highly sought after, with white- or cream-coloured stripes of varying widths running the lengths of the leaves. If you are mighty lucky you may be privileged to see one of their very rare flowers arising from the surface of the soil. There is another variety with small minute speckles on the leaves, but I find it downright ugly, for it looks like it is riddled with scale.

The Aspidistra originates from the Himalayas, China and Japan. In the past few years there has been a lot of modern hybridising of the plant, in Japan especially. The accompanying photos are testament to this. To date, few of them are presently available in Australia.

A bit of Imagination may be needed when initially purchasing your very first specimen. Firstly, I admit the young plants of aspidistras are not sexy. They can be casually overlooked when surrounded with other more tantalisingly coloured, shaped and textured exotic indoor plants on offer in a nursery. Aspidistras don’t scream I love you and take me home. Secondly, they are always only available in 200mm pots, displaying only 2 to 3 leaves and are marginally expensive. But don’t let that you put you off, look to the future and the rewards will be great, for you will never lose one single plant.

Cultivation
If I remember, and that is not often, when I water them, I rotate my many plants from poor levels of light to rich levels of light, and vice versus, in order to maintain their overall health and performance.
Positioning – optimal is a well-lit position, but will survive in the darkest of indoor areas, and if cultivated outside in the elements they will tolerate harsh frost and full sun.
Watering – every week in summer, in winter once every month, when I remember.
Fertilising – liquid fertiliser once a fortnight in summer. Again, when I remember.
Cleaning – sponge the leaves with water to remove dust, never with leaf shine or soap. Spray once a week with water. But I never remember for they don’t really need it.

Propagation
In spring I gently divide roots in half and repot in good quality potting mix, preferably suited for indoor plants.
Today my own collection of aspidistras numbers well into the high thirties. Each spring, when I remember, I split and divide every plant, instantly doubling their numbers. The majority are used as great gifts for birthdays and Christmas presents and most especially as housewarming presents.

To my friends and family, I have casually declared, partially in jest, earnestly in truth, that I want the cut leaves of my many potted aspidistras to dress and adorn the top of my coffin. There will easily be more than enough. Then for a further layer, toss some strands of homegrown ivy and a generous layer of my David Austin roses and wallah, it will be just so perfect. With this great monetary saving, I can only imagine the extra money available to the mourners for bubbly. It should be great celebration. Now for the music. ‘See you later alligator’? I will get back to you on this one.

Happy gardening and have fun, both inside and outside the house,
Regards Ned McDowell

 

It is the dead of winter and the great debate of ‘when’ to prune and ‘how hard’ to prune roses arrives. This conundrum always creates robust, controversial and even divided discussions. There are a zillion bits of advice on offer and many gardeners are faced with the confusing and perplexing dilemma of which one to adopt and follow. To the inexperienced it can all be very intimidating.
Every winter I prune a lot of roses. In my own garden I have about 60 roses to prune and in my heyday about another thousand or so every year in other local gardens. So over the decades I have had the happy opportunity to learn and gain valuable experience and experiment with differing techniques and timings of rose pruning.

Now we come to what I call the 11th Commandment of rose pruning. Most rose growers have their own respective opinions/rules coupled with a long set practiced regime and will rarely if ever deviate from them. It is as if these rules have become immortalised, forever etched in stone, sacrosanct, a universal law, never to be broken. The
11th Commandants’ hypothesis all hangs upon the possibility/probability of the late occurrence of harsh severe frosts in early even to late spring which will certainly kill or severely retard new growth and thus the near impossibility to ever recover. Thus it is a true gamble with the unpredictability of mother nature.

For many the date to prune in cold climates is postponed until August, in warmer/hotter climates sometime in July. Somehow this blanket date has been adopted across most districts, regardless of climate, topography and elevation. Roses ae the hardiest of all plants and I know I may well be sticking my head right out, but in all my forty years I have never, fingers crossed, witnessed badly frosted new rose growth which has not then recovered. In addition, if you do delay pruning, you may well not have a spring display of roses until way into late October or November.
For myself, when it is ripe and perfect to winter prune roses? It is the day when you have the time, the winter weather is reasonable, the council green bin is empty, and most importantly you are just totally fed up with a whole lot of rose ugly, with their straggly, wild and whiplashing barbed branches and the impossibility to weed and fertilise around them. Invariably it is in the mid to late July. This early pruning also ensures a great display of roses commencing from early to mid-October regardless of any late visits by Mr. Jack Frost.

There are a few basic reasons for pruning rose bushes: to keep them vigorous, to maintain their shape and to grow more and better flowers. When pruning roses, it is near impossible make any major mistakes. Thankfully they are very forgiving, tough and resilient bushes. The fundamentals of pruning are relatively easy and straight forward. All done in 4 steps.
1. Cut and clean out all the congested inside branches to create an open vase shape, to allow optimum light and air circulation within. This minimises the susceptibility to disease such as black spot and powdery mildew.
2. Prune out all the old, damaged, diseased or dead wood to transfer the rose’s energy to improving the health and growth of fresh new flowering branches.
3. The remaining new growth should be pruned back to an outward eye bud, cutting no more than ½ cm above the growth bud creating an angle so that it slopes slightly back and away from the bud, to allow moisture to drain away.
4. At the end of the day, I revisit each of the roses armed with a generous glass of red as a reward to myself for a job done well, and to also correct any mistakes in pruning. This is especially useful for when you initially begin you are always quite tentative in pruning well. See the tale of the grand lady.
5. When the plant is pruned and bare of foliage, many also spray with lime sulphur to combat black spot and scale. I never do it, largely because I am just downright too lazy. Also, my roses seldom have any diseases because of my repeated, throughout the entire year, the applications of very generous thick carpeting of Seamungus, a pelletised tonic of seaweed and fish, for creating and ensuring optimum plant and soil health. For example, the scourge of scale only invades when a plant is under stress.
In my experience you can never be brave and confident enough when pruning roses. It might seem a whole lot of silly, but it greatly helps if from the outset, for you to determine your own personal relationship with your roses. Yes, they are your partners in your garden design, even friends, but who actually is in control and in charge. Who is the real boss, the true top dog, the master of all, the monarch who reigns supreme? You are and never ever forget it. So, walk up right up to them, with the strength of your best of convictions, armoured with a steely determination, stand astride your rose, as if you truly own it and cut, saw and snip away.

I once worked for a rather grand lady, whom, before beginning her day of rose pruning, would fortify herself with a very generous glass of mulled wine. She also carried deep in her pocket a hip flask, of I can only suppose was more of the same. She explained that in her later years it was an aid to battling the cold and assisted her with the vital energy necessary to commence and endure a long day of labour. Very sadly, she never offered me or shared a single drop. Maybe she considered myself too young or did not want to encourage me to form any future bad habits. In hindsight, really a bit of a useless gesture.
Then arrives the 12th Commandment, ‘thou shalt never prune roses back below or above a certain height?’ This could be either a third, a half, by two thirds or even three quarters. And in my experience, this is where the vast majority of gardener’s completely fail big time. In general folks are dead dumb scared of pruning back hard, only pruning their bushes about 40 to 50% if even that.

I always cut back bush roses by at least three quarters. As the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland screams, ‘off with their heads’. Well, I say off with everything, smack them back mighty hard, right down to your knees. Yes, no rose bush after being pruned should stand no higher than the bottom of your own knees, even lower if possible. This is a prime example of you have got to be cruel to be kind.
You see I don’t want rose bushes resembling lollipops, skyscrapers or a long series of Eiffel Towers. I don’t want to see old and ugly gnarled bare branches bereft of any new growth. What I seek is new healthy branch growth right from the bottom of the shrub, and thus subsequent flowers beginning from way low down on the bush. Remember roses have had most of a year of full growth, taking into account summer pruning and dead heading throughout the season.

Which leads us to the 13th Commandment ‘thou shalt never have a closed mind to new rose pruning methods’. As mentioned at the outset there are countless differing opinions on when to and how to prune roses. There is no one single approach. There is always room to learn more. Always respect other opinions, be open to new ideas, mine is the sum of many. No one is ever completely right and maybe this is what cultivating roses makes it all so much fun. I can only hope this blog will invite others to contribute their own wisdom and experiences with rose pruning.

Happy gardening and have fun,
Regards Ned McDowell.

 

I love and adore pokers and so should every gardener. A poker filled garden is a mighty happy one. Few plants if any, can surpass the superb sculptural sword like foliage and statuesque tall stems of flowers rising a good two metres in height, with their illuminating flower torches of the richest and most vivid of colours. If you seek that sense bit of the real bling of the tropical and exotic, pokers are the ideal candidate.

Regrettably in recent years they have lost their previous widely planted popularity. Many turn their noses up at them, regarding them as a throwback to old time grannie gardens, common, course, too untidy, too brash and gaudy in colour, even downright ugly. Well, they are a whole lot of silly folks, who need to get out more.

I vividly remember in my more youthful years, a rich memory, never forgotten. We travelled slowly by car, along an unsealed long and winding country property road. It was fantastically flanked on both sides with hundreds even thousands of mature pokers ablaze in the brightest, most vivid and electric orange beacons of flowering pokers. The plantings seemed to continue endlessly for many kilometers. I was very glad of our slow pace for I was totally in awe of the massed spectacle and it gave me the invaluable time to fully appreciate it all. When we finally arrived at the country homestead, I was one very happy fellow.

Whoever had the idea to plant such a brave and adventurous long and extended stunning floral spectacle should be very well thanked and congratulated, and indeed their name never forgotten.

History

The genus was named after the German Johann Hieronymus Kniphof a professor of medicine and botany, (1704 – 1765). They originated in warm and tropical areas of Central and Southern Africa, Ethiopia and Madagascar.

The botanical name Knipholia is at first reading practically unpronounceable. People are so uncertain in how to pronounce it, that is most probably why the common name red hot pokers are so universally known by. To correctly pronounce its botanical name, try this; the ‘k’ is silent, the ‘i’ becomes an ‘e’ as in knee, the second ‘I’ also becomes an ‘e’ and then it should be a melodic ‘nee-foe-lee-ah. However, I may well be a little touched for I never seem to remember this correct pronunciation even after 40 years of planting them.

Varieties

Today the majority of pokers grown are modern hybrids sporting a much wider range of colours, from the usual orange and red, to the newer green, lime, yellow and cream flowers. The newer hybrid trends are for more diminutive plants in both foliage and flower stems, but call me a traditionalist, I much prefer the original taller varieties for their greater visual impact. My eternal favourite is ‘Winter Cheer’ which does not ever shut up flowering from winter through to the near middle of spring.

Cultivation

Pokers are essentially warm climate plants and are one of the great survivors. They are impervious to the longest of droughts and the hardest of winter frosts. They will grow in practically any soil, revel in positions that other plants will not, though a reasonably well drained soil is preferred. They adore a position in full sun, the more the better, but with too much shade they are reluctant to flower. Like other drought tolerant plants, they will survive well enough without water, but consistent rain or home watering will increase its proliferation and performance exponentially. If you have the blessing of a wet summer, then their glory will be even more stellar.

A simple hard haircut to a height of 0.5 to 1metre once a year is all it needs. Before the pruning back, add generous layers of Seamungus and Rooster Booster around its base and leaved circumference area, water in well, and then the fallen pruned back leaves will act as mulch for the coming year.

Design

A more modern successful design planting is located at my local university gym. The position of the building is cut deep into a huge hill, creating to the north a large and expansive sharply sloped garden bed, about 10 metres in width and 3 metres in depth. It is populated by only three plants planted en masse, pokers, white agapanthus and the grevillea groundcover Bronze Rambler. In its simplicity and visual beauty it is just stunning.

Propagation

Propagation is most successfully achieved by root division, preferably in spring, either by the young side growths or splitting apart the whole plant. An established mature plant has a massive root system, so good luck with that.

My research suggests pokers can hybridise quite readily. It is quite difficult to recreate new and true plants from the seeds of parent stock.  If sown from seed the plants will flower in the second year. At times they can self-sow, though not often.

Pokers should be a mandatory planting in all gardens. If you possess a small garden and are limited in space, thankfully a single planting of pokers will still bring you and your garden great happiness.

Happy gardening and have fun,

Regards Ned McDowell.