Ruud Kleinpaste: Favourites are everywhere

Seeing as Jack’s in the US (and we are home in NZ) it might be nice to just grab a few plants, structures, and colours that belong in our hearts and minds.

If I remember well, America has some stunning trees, shrubs, and plants that knock the eyeballs out of your head. What I remember well are the dogwoods, known here by their Genus name of Cornus.  

This is a brilliant tree from Athens (Georgia):  

 

Just so you know: we can grow these here too – flowering in spring and often deep autumn colours too. Easy in full sun and part shade with fertile, well-drained soils  

Julie would also go with “white” and “America”.  

Some years ago, she took some cuttings from an ancient plant that grew around a very ancient building, here in the Halswell Quarry – that building is now history, but the cuttings are not!  

The Philadelphus (also known as a Mock Orange) hails from the American New World, is easy to grow and known for its magnificent, sweet scent.  

Juuls grows it on a fence – you can also grow it as a shrub or even a wobbly hedge.  

It loves sunlight and well-drained soil with plenty of organic matter. Don’t let it dry out too much – water every now and then but don’t make it too wet.  

Mulch is useful, as is some general fertiliser every now and then plus some potash before it flowers in spring. Take cuttings in Autumn… Easy!  

I am a fan of spectacular colours.  

And you simply can’t get past dense blues. A Meconopsis was “born” in South-East Asia and there are many, many species. Unfortunately, they have quite a few negative ‘habits’. 

They are tricky to grow and often short-lived. Very difficult to successfully sow as seeds (sow them in late summer) and are very sensitive when you want to split them up by diversion to plant them in early spring.  

Part shade, and no full sun, and a nice mulch of rotten manure or compost – it feels like spoilt brat.  

Despite all this, it’s a plant known as “Blue Poppy” and belongs to the Papaver Family  

We’ve managed a couple of successes, and it makes me go down the garden when they flower.  

This is what I call “Spectacular”. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks, they'd.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Be nine minutes to eleven new ere Jactaime on News Talks,
they'd be Rude Climb passes our man in the garden, Kilda,
Rude cureda Jack.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Are you all right there in the USA.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I'm doing very well, thank you. I've had the pleasure
and privilege of traveling around quite a bit this week
and to some quite different climates and environments. And it's
that time of year where on the East Coast at
the very least, the leaves are turning and it is
just amazing, like in Washington, DC right now. Honestly, it
is just it is ridiculous. Like if you take a

(00:44):
no filter photo you chuck it on Instagram, you know
that people are just never going to believe that it's real.
The leaves are so beautiful, those like golden and red
hues that you only see a little bit. It's like
everywhere as the main street of Arrowtown, you know what
I mean?

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Yeah, exactly, And that is exactly the point. There's so
many good spots in America that I find really cool
to use as an example of what we can plant. Ourselves.
You know, I know it's not native, but there you are.
It's good ideas. Yeah, here talking about planting. I'm at
the moment here in Cromwell or at Bannegburn, and we're
planting with the Mokihi trust, literally a brand new if

(01:22):
you like, habitat for all sorts of pollinators and creatures
like that. And it's so many kids, and it is
lovely to see them actually being interested in restoring au troa.
That's another so gardening man is on at the moment.
It's brilliant. So let's talk. Let's talk about the stuff
in the US. I decided to link with you and

(01:46):
see if you've seen any dog woods.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
I don't know if I would recognize one, to be
perfectly honest.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Dogwood Maybe not a dogwood. It's a tree that is
very common in the States. And when they are in
the springtime, they are beautiful with the flowers, it's just
unbelievably beautiful. But in autumn they have out of these
wonderful autumn colors. So this is the thing. If I
go to the stage, you know, when I was in

(02:14):
America or went to headquarters in Silver Spring, not far
down the road from where you are. I would see
dogwoods everywhere, and we end the end planted them in
our gardens in New Zealand, Julie and I, and that
was the exactly yeah, why not. You can have those
right here as well. So if you see something that
you really enjoy, get an eye naturalist photograph, identify it

(02:36):
and make it note of what it is, and you
can use it in your own gardens.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Because they have like the kind of white flowers or
the kind of pinky red flowers, right the different.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Exactly, Yeah, that's right. So that's one of the examples
that I got literally or important if you like, as
an idea from the US. And I know you've got
the same eye because you started off with that. A's
so called. Now Julie's favorite is another American thing. It's
called Philadelphus. I think it comes from Philadelphia, but it's
another story. And Philadelphis is another one over those things

(03:12):
that is absolutely gorgeous. Right now in our hero at
the back of the fence, she wax it onto a
fence and I would put it into as sort of
an rather unruly hatch configuration. But again, you can get
them here at the garden centers too. And it is
one of those wonderful things.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Gorgeous, So it's kind of a it's kind of a climber, right, it's.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
It exactly, but as an unruly fence or what do
you call it, As an unruly vamp, you get it
as an as as something that stands down, stands out
with its color Stet's really what I was going to say.
And then for me so far, we talked a lot

(03:57):
about white and orange and all that, but I'm also
a color fan of blue. So there's a mechanopsis that
I'm into. Mechanopsis is like an if you like an
a plant that comes up. It's really hard to grow,
by the way, but it's got this unbelievable blue and
I've asked nobody to put it on the website actually

(04:17):
because it's gorgeous, but it has a couple of negative things.
Very tricky to grow. It's very difficult to sow as
a seed. I've had some success, but not that often,
and it's very sensitive and you split them up as well,
and you do that in the early spring, you know,
which is a bit lade now, but this is the point.
You could put it in shade in it no falls

(04:39):
and you have wonderful manners at the base of it
and everything will be honky doory. Great.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Yeah. The blue is so I mean, it's incredible. It's
so intense but violent blue difficult to grow. Is probably
not going to do well well at our place, but
it is. It is a really really deep and kind
of intense blue. It almost looks like a like a
fungi kind of blue or something.

Speaker 3 (05:01):
Don't you think exactly exactly, And it's shown as the
blue pop Yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah yeah yeah right, well that makes sense once you
see it. Yeah, okay, well, look we'll put that photo
on the on the website so people can go and
have a little bit of a look as well. Thank
you so much, Rude. Enjoy your time and beautiful Central Otago.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Won't you yep, blunting everywhere. Thank you and you have
a great time off.

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Well though, Thank you sir.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
That is real.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
Climb past in the garden for us on News Talks.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
EDB for more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen
live to News Talks he'd be from nine am Saturday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.