Poly poly polyanthus!

Polyanthus bundles on the outside tables at The Good Earth (one of our local coffee shops)

Polyanthus in bloom in my garden, finally!

Polyanthus at The Good Earth

It’s hard to find something that can match the long flowering period of Polyanthus, they reward you with months of bright cheerful blooms. Ideally, polyanthus enjoy a moist, well drained garden soil that has had plenty of compost, mulch and organic material dug in. 

Polyanthus are perennials and they do respond well to being divided. If you look at a plant which you may have bought as some time ago, you may notice that there are now multiple small plants and no large one. If you lift the small plants and give them space to grow, they will reward you with renewed vigour and flowering. 

The primula family comprises a number of hardy perennials including Primula veris, the cowslip, and P. vulgaris, the primrose. The polyanthus is a hybrid of these two, with characteristic whorls of primrose flowers in a huge variety of colours, carried on strong stems above a rosette of oval leaves.

The polyanthus I planted in May have just begun to flower, which hopefully lasts until last spring.

Bumblebee Box

I think bumblebees are some of the loveliest creatures. They are so clumsy and everytime I hear one buzz by it makes me smile. So when I saw instructions in NZ Gardener Magazine on how to make my very own bumblebee house I was quick to show them to my personal builder. He created a wonderful masterpiece in my fav colour lavender and gave it to me as a birthday present. This weekend I put some pine needles inside for insulation and popped it beside the Pieris japonica (Japanese andromeda) they frequent so hopefully in September I can lure an emerging queen bumblebee to this humble abode.

Japanese Andromeda

Plant of the Week: Billy Button

Craspedia Globosa 

Known as the "Billy Button," or "Billy Ball", Craspedia is a perennial wildflower of New Zealand, Australia and Tasmania. Very long flowering period Dec to frost, the 2.5cm globes last and last and they are very easy to grow. 

Billy Buttons as seen in the commonwealth games bouquet.

Pruning at Blueskin

This weekend in Dunedin we were warned there would be snow on the hills which would be enough to keep most people in bed early in the morning, yet I fought the cold air and made my way out to Blueskin nursery to learn a thing or two about pruning.

Blueskin nursery is 20 minutes north of Dunedin and has won a number of awards as an outstanding gardening centre. It is owned by Mark and Clare Brown and has been in operation for 21 years. I arrived and it was brisk but sunny and I sat down on one of the chairs put out in front of an array of fruiting plants. The session was hosted by Mark Brown and he began by introducing the group to gooseberrys. I was very tempted into buying one of these plants as I have never eaten a gooseberry but the bank balance said "No!" so I might put it to the back of my mind just now.  He used the gooseberry to demonstrate how to create a standard. 

To create a standard you select a strong centrally upright leader and remove all other stems. This leader should be trained up a stake to a desired height while removing side shoots after each growing season, you can do this by actually digging your thumb nail into the stem and removing the whole bud. Once the leader has grown to the desired height the top bud should be removed (to promote bushy growth) and the strongest three to five side buds left to create the plant.

Standard Gooseberry

He then went on to demonstrate how to prune berry bushes. He started out with a blackberry demonstrating that the best way to prune was to cut the old wood out at the base of the plant ensuring that the middle of the plant gets lots of light and ventilation. Blackberrys fruit on the wood from the year before however in the case of red currants the fruit is found on wood from two years ago and hence is harder to keep track of. A little handy hint he gave us to help with this was to cut the wood as you collect the fruit that way you are only removing the old wood that has fruited. 

He then moved on to apples showing us how to train them into a espalier. This first requires that you create a training system up whether it be wires or a wall. The leader is trained upright to the first wire and then the top bud cut to promote two sideways growing shoots. Once these side shoots are long enough they can be trained along the wire ensuring that the tip of each shoot is the highest point of the plant otherwise growth will begin in the middle of these shoots. A shoot will also begin to form where the first cut was made and this should be trained up to the next wire and the process continued.

Espalier Apple

This was particular helpful as I have 3 apple/crabapple trees on my section that have been roughly trained into a espalier shape although have been somewhat neglected for a while now. After the session I took to them for almost an hour trying to correct their unruly shape, I even had the hacksaw out. I may regret this at the end of this season as there is not much wood left for apples to grow on yet,  I am sure this hardwork will payoff in the coming years and I will finally be able to make something of my apples which so far have gone to waste.

Last on Marks list was to tell us about grapes. He told us about the old wives tale that says to bury a sheep underneath a freshly planted vine (for all these years I had thought it was a cat, a nasty Blakie story perhaps?). He told us that grapevines put out very deep roots and hence by making a hole that could fit a sheep you were ensuring that the roots had somewhere to go. Once again the theory behind grape growing was to train the vine to a certain height and then to prune you cut to a bud on the main part of the plant. He told us that grapes don't like wet feet but the do wonderfully in Otago provided they are planted in a spot with lots of sun. If you are having problem with fruit drop he said it was usually due to early frost that had weaken the developing fruit in the early stages.

The most important things I pulled from this session was the harder you prune the more you are going to force the plant to create new growth. Also that you should prune to ensure that the plant gets enough light and by pruning to the bases of branches rather than just taking the tops of branches you will get a much healthier and compact tree. Whether or not my apples are a success I don't know but I certainly will be attending more session like this one at Blueskin nursery.

Field of Flowers

If you have a spare paddock or two you could create your very own living Monet!

That is exactly what a couple in Somerset have created. Brian and Denise Herrick have taken 57 different species of annual flowering plants and painted a scene they call a field of dreams.

The seed mixture was designed to produce a sequence of brightly-coloured flowers through July and August (Northern Hemisphere). Among the earliest blooms were daisies, including the white Cape daisy and the delicate clusters of the Swan River daisy. These were followed by the blue-and-white Morning Glory, blue larkspur and poppies, including the California poppy.

Flower Power

In 1922, Canadian scientists isolated insulin for the first time. Since then scientists have genetically engineered several organisms that over produce human insulin. However insulin is still expensive and with the demands of insulin only going up due to the increase in diabetes around the world a cheaper option is long overdue. The answer may have been found in plants.

Scientists at the University of Calgary have genetically engineered the human gene for insulin into the common plant safflower. Once the gene is turned on within the flower, the flower begins producing insulin faster than traditional methods that utilize pigs, cows, yeast, or bacteria.

This is the first instance of a plant producing the insulin, and it does so prolifically, to the tune of roughly 1kg of insulin per acre of flowers. At that rate, 40 square kilometres of safflower could produce enough insulin for the world's entire diabetic population.

Stings, wings and hairy things - Bee by Rose-Lynn Fisher

Do bees really have knees? According to artist Rose-Lynn Fisher's new book BEE, they do. Using a scanning electron microscope, Fisher has taken 60 photographs of bee anatomy – at magnifications of up to 5000 times and I have just received my copy of the book! I have been waiting for 2 months for it to be delivered from the States as a birthday present from my brothers and it was well worth the wait the pictures are glorious. Pictures are below with quotes from the book. 

Sting in the tail 650x 

"The sting is actually a modified version of an ovipositor, the queen bee's organ for laying eggs. A honeybee will sting only in self-defence or in defence of the hive. When a bee stings a person or other mammal, the barbs of the sting become anchored in flesh, and as the bee tries to free herself she dies."  

Drone's wing 10x 

"The drone's sole purpose in life is to mate with the queen. Once he has accomplished this, he dies. Because mating takes place in flight, the drone has evolved powerful wings to pursue the queen. They can even fly backwards. All bees have two pairs of wings, which they beat at up to 230 times a second. The heat generated by the wing beating evaporates water from the nectar in the honeycomb and thickens it into honey. It's also what produces the bees' buzz."  

Elliptical dome of bee eye 190x 

"This is the eye of a honeybee. It's hairy, unlike the eyes of most of the 20,000 species of bee that exist on the planet today. The eye is composed of thousands of hexagonal lenses, which capture light at different angles and detect movement. Each lens is sensitive to ultraviolet light, which can reveal markings on flowers that are invisible to humans but inform the bees where to land in order to find nectar."  

Antenna pollen 1100× 

"A foraging honeybee gets dusted with pollen as she travels from flower to flower. This is a photo of pollen trapped in the hair on the bee's antenna. Bees use their antennae to smell, taste, hear and detect changes in temperature, vibration, wind and humidity. Set into sockets on the head, the antennae pivot freely."