Death 'n' Turf

Good morning! I hope that you have been having a good week. I am writing this on Friday, the weather forecast for Wellington has moved to “will rain lots and lots very soon” and I have to lay some turf, which no longer sounds particularly fun! The thing with roll out turf is that it has to be laid within 24hrs of receipt- so I ordered it on Tuesday, thinking it wouldn’t be sent until next week. Well I got a call on Thursday telling me it would arrive today, so everything has been moved around to make this happen. Regardless of the weather, the moment that turf arrives in Wellington, we are rolling it out. I am very grateful it is a small job!

Another thing I learnt was that laying turf in small amounts is actually pretty cheap- this patch of lawn is 3m2, and at $19.90 per square metre it would cost the client the same as grass seed. You just have to call the landscape supply place nearest you and ask them to tack your tiny order onto a bigger one. When you order turf in larger amounts, the cost stacks up a lot faster. So that’s a good fact for you to keep in your back pocket (if you have a tiny patch of lawn).

What I'm obsessing over this week

The past few years have started to fall into a pattern where we get very little/light rain, long dry spells and then intense explosions of water. We have a few hedges and areas which are on the way down, or at the bottom of a hill, which previously we would have considered ‘free draining,’ but the plants which prefer a dryer soil (and will happily tolerate rain when it comes) are now trying to tolerate a hills worth of water running over them on its way to the water table. A lot have died- Raphiolepsis is one, a viburnum hedge is another, and both would usually be tolerant enough of all of the rain.

I have to work out what to plant in these areas, because I am unfortunately not able to change the shape of the hill, or alter the path of the water substantially. One area is quite rocky and tree filled, so I have suggested we plant flax and rengarenga in any spare empty gaps, as they will help the water to drain, and keep some of the rain from landing straight on the soil- essentially slowing the process down a bit.

I don’t want to plant griselinia or corokia, two plants that would usually be a great choice for these areas, as both are prone to phytophthora (root rot). Phytophthora is a result of water sitting up against roots with no drainage for too long, and I have seen it a lot in clay soils where the watering is inconsistent/in huge bursts…

What are our choices? In areas that are free draining, we have this new issue where the soil can take on a lot of water- there’s a lot of gaps in the soil for water to drain through. So where we thought the soil was free draining, we are discovering a hard pan of clay or rock underneath, and when it rains heavily the entire garden beds fills with water. You might see this if you have a pot which has a water reservoir in the bottom (or no hole at all) which is outside in the rain- suddenly your plant is swimming in water.

The whole hill ends up draining through this bed. The Viburnum is crispy! The weeds, however, seem fine… grrr

I can’t plant things which really like a lot of water, because the rest of the time these beds are quite dry, and we would be committing to an insane amount of watering (where usually I prefer little to none).

I have heard good things about planting things like cabbage trees in these areas, as if the tree can find a way further down into the soil, the water can just follow the roots and drain out of the soil much faster. If the tree roots are hitting rock, however, we have the same issue.

I have decided to roll with what I know- extremely tolerant plants, which in this location are camellias and coprosmas for now, with a sprinkling of oioi grasses and flax. Pohutukawa would be a great option, but their roots seek out drains to destroy, and any area which has an issue with drainage usually already has some sort of pipe running through. Ngaio seems to survive well in Wellington but I have never seen it hedged- maybe something to try!

For smaller areas, succulents will tolerate most things if they get full sun. I am having great results with plectranthus of all types. Many grasses are well designed for areas like this. I don’t have a great choice of ball type shrubs yet, but am watching all of the conifers and putaputaweta with interest…

Watch this space!

What staff learnt about this week

Our weekly focus was What Weeding Means to Us. Weeding is a catch all for ‘tidy this area,’ so we talked a lot about things we do to make sure the area actually looks tidy.

Highlights: I didn’t know how careful some of my staff are, which is such a nice feeling. We talked about removing dead leaves off hedges to avoid disease, dead heading and removing dead things, standing back and evaluating the whole garden bed.

Lowlights: Sometimes it feels like if you miss one spot, the whole bed looks quite messy still, and some mulches look messier as they break down. These are things working against us which we can’t do a lot about, unfortunately!

Some garden tasks for this week

This is the time to do one last hurried pass around any pruning you need to do, but don’t touch your hedges yet unless you have to. I have failed to prune my grape yet, and I need to feed my citrus (again again) as they are looking pretty yellow.

The ground is so soft, so if you have a nice dry spell run out and do some weeding. Some areas will be rock hard by Summer.

I am also (as above) evaluating where water collects, and wondering if there is a better place to divert it..

Have a great week, everyone!