End-of-winter sale – Native plants half-price tomorrow on Glenfield Rd

Tomorrow, Sunday 1st September, we will be selling our remaining large Kawakawa and Carex flagellifera at half-price: $5 for the 12-15cm pots and $4 for the 10cm pots, at our native plant stand on Glenfield Rd opposite the petrol station….while stocks last.

Kawakawa fruit are a big drawcard for kereru. Male and female trees are needed for fruiting, and you can’t tell which is which until they flower at about 4 years of age, so plant half a dozen. They grow in sun or shade but do best in part shade, and need moist soil in summer. The kawakawa left of centre and on the right below are growing wild among Carex and other natives.

Carex flagellifera self-seed and multiply by division, filling a space to hold the soil and crowd out weeds . They are tolerant of dry or wet soil, in full sun or part shade. These have multiplied in a gap between harakeke on Glenfield Rd, and karamu are growing wild with them:

Plant stand open Sunday 4th August

As usual, from about 10am at Gahnia Grove on Glenfield Rd opposite the petrol station.

About 20 large Carex flagellifera left, still at $8 each, with plenty of small ones now at $5 each. Only a few of the Carex lambertiana left, all small, at $5, and only 36 small kawakawa left till the next lot grow a bit more.

Kawakawa and other small trees are $3 each or 4 for $10.

ripening and unripe kawakawa overhanging Carex outside dining room window
kereru in kawakawa

Large Carex flagellifera for $8 at our Glenfield Rd Plant Stand

The North Shore Wilds native plant stand will be open tomorrow Sunday, opposite the petrol station on Glenfield Rd, from about 10am. Our larger plants need to be well rooted in damp ground before summer drought (unless they will be watered), so the largest Carex flagellifera have been reduced from $10-12 to $8.

Carex have long hair-like roots that penetrate and stabilize clay soils. Grown close together, in full sun or shade, they form dense hardy tufts that can be occasionally walked on, preventing soil compaction and erosion in wet weather.

Their seeds are the natural habitat for tiny… and harmless… native Carex beetles, which I have seen only a few times. I was amazed that this species had survived the 20 years since I sourced and planted these in my own garden.

Like most of our other plants, these are grown from seed ecosourced from the Kaipatiki area.

The photo shows three species of wild Kaipatiki-native Carex allowed to grow as they will, spreading to cover previously bare clay under a planted kawakawa and a wild nikau, in an 80cm wide strip of soil outside a dining room window that gives a great view of kereru feeding in the kawakawa in summer. (We still have small kawakawa trees for $3 each or 4 for $10.)

Our spaces are shrinking, but we can still have wild beauty !

Free container-grown plants for planting in Autumn

We have re-activated our little cottage nursery that supplied Council restoration projects and home gardens from about 2004-2006. Hundreds of native seeds fall and grow, even in our own little garden and gravel driveway, so we have been potting them up in recycled pots with roughly-composted wood chip mulch so our garden restoration clients can have free plants for planting season (or earlier if they have a loose soil and are prepared to water them…but Autumn is much easier!)

We are now offering 10-20 plants (depending on size), in a limited range of species – this year we concentrated on kawakawa, karamu, nikau and Carex – free with every 10 hours of gardening or habitat restoration, while stocks last.

We will look after the plants till autumn.

Here’s what they look like at present:

North Shore Wilds nursery plants, November 2023
NSW nursery plants November 23

Kawakawa fruit are beginning to ripen

Following the development of the kawakawa fruit observed in earlier posts, I noticed a few ripe fruit on the tree outside this dining room window.

ripening and unripe kawakawa seen through open dining room window

In summer kereru clamber in the taller branches of the tree, alone, in pairs, and one year with a chick, all within a metre of this window.

Fortunately for the kereru, who are far too trusting for their own good, a dog keeps the garden cat-free, and the dog can’t reach this part of the garden.

A low branch outside the window has ripening and unripe fruit overhanging purei (Carex lambertiana)

Above: a fully ripe kawakawa fruit, found half-eaten on the ground, discloses the many seeds within the orange flesh of a single fruit

The wood of the kawakawa is soft, easily pruned to keep this paved path clear.

Wild native sedges and grasses and moss are allowed to cover the earth under the tree, and the smaller plants are allowed to spread to fill the gaps between paving tiles, keeping out most of the dandelions, creeping buttercup and other weeds.

The native kawakawa looper makes holes in the kawakawa leaves.

These holes are said to correspond to the leaves with the strongest medicinal value, perhaps because of substances produced in those leaves in response to the caterpillars eating the leaves.

Another explanation is that the caterpillars know which leaves are the best to eat.

Either way, this 2 square metres of clay is cool and refreshing to look out on through hot summers, hosts a lot of wildlife, lets morning light play on the windows all year round, and, with fallen leaves and twigs mulching the ground naturally, requires almost no attention to stay beautiful and weed-free.

Cool summer evening gardening

One evening last week, putting out the compost turned into an after-dinner garden wander – a weed to pull out here, a “volunteer” tomato seedling to pop in there – and I realized this is how it will be for the rest of the summer, just like every other year; the cool stillness of evening and gentle sounds of roosting birds keeps me outside till dusk.

For this shade-loving gardener, it has already become too hot for work in the afternoons except under or among big trees.

It occurred to me that there may be people who would like an evening garden ecology assessment, learning session or even their weeding done, when they are home and can collaborate or advise.

For morning or evening garden restoration services, or forest restoration anytime, contact us.

Free native plants for your garden’s wild spaces

In the 5 months we have been working with some of our gardening clients, they have learned to recognise and make use of the wild native trees, shrubs and grasses that spontaneously grow all over the North Shore, from the soil’s seedbank from former forest and wetland, or from seed and spores brought by birds or wind.

In this time, even small areas of mown lawn, or gardens containing only the common non-native ornamental species, have produced a few tanekaha, rewarewa and kahikatea seedlings, lots of baby Cabbage trees (Cordyline australis), five-finger (Pseudopanax), Karamu (Coprosma robusta) and mapou, (often referred to as Pittosporum, though it is actually Myrsine australis), and numerous native grasses, sedges and creeping ground covers.

tanekaha seedling hidden among Clivia


Wild tanekaha seedling hidden among Clivia in a small garden of ornamental shrubs

Of course, those who are lucky enough to have a patch of native bush in or beside their garden, and some undisturbed areas of ground, have seen all kinds of forest species emerge and thrive, including native vines, ferns and orchids, and the less common “forest giants” like tanekaha, kahikatea, rewarewa and kauri.

wild karamu seedlings found among ivy and other weeds in a large weedy garden, a small area of which is now being restored to dense wild native vegetation

wild karamu seedlings on bermbank
wild rewarewa seedling among cut ivy under Norfolk pine

wild rewarewa seedling discovered while weeding under a Norfolk pine, now protected with some cut ivy and uprooted weeds

For new clients, or as a “stand-alone” service, we provide a 1.5 hour assessment of your garden’s potential for visual transformation and the recreation of diverse native pant communities, solely through plant identification, soil protection and chemical-free weed control.

Contact us or learn more about how we do it here.

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Michelle’s Bank-top Bush – Pigeonwood seedlings among the weeds

Our client Michelle has a large front garden on a slope above a quiet road. Around the edges of this garden there are several large exotic trees, and numerous smaller native trees.

Michelle in her garden – transformation begun

When we started working on this garden transformation, the fences on all three sides were overhung by ivy, which had climbed the fences and the smaller native trees on the other side of the fences, and about 10 metres up a large Norfolk pine. There was also some honeysuckle growing through and under the fence, with some remaining beyond our reach on the steeply sloping roadside berm.

Michelle loves walking in the local bush, and dreamed of enjoying some of that ambience in her own large garden. Once she learned it was possible, she became keen to create a shady little bush-walk by converting the lawn and weedy borders of an unused part of her own large garden to a mostly-wild native plant community, solely by weeding, protecting the weeded ground from trampling and desiccation, and nurturing the wild native seedlings that would arise.

lawn behind woodshed, with juvenile wild karamu in foreground

We set about cutting and uprooting as much as possible of the ivy,

oxalis and grass weeds uprooted and/or suppressed with pulled weeds and cut ivy from the fenceline

and cut, uprooted or suppressed the major weeds around the edges.

Weeds turning into rich soil, with a pile of cut ivy foreground left, drying until it can be spread as mulch
A wild mapou juvenile against the fence, mapou seedlings in the foregroundh, and (lower left) a remnant of a large clump of Agapanthus being successively suppressed then uprooted

Hundreds of tree privet seedlings in the borders were easily uprooted while the ground was wet during winter, and larger ones, along with other tree weeds, were suppressed with a versatile pruning technique that leads to the weed-tree’s death over a year or two.

foreground – a newly uprooted Agapanthus (left) and 4 or 5 wild mapou seedlings (centre foreground -yellowish leaves and reddish stems)

at the base of a large Norfolk pine and a young totara, (left) a wild Macadamia seedling being suppressed by pruning, and helping to suppress other weeds, including ivy and Agapanthus which were later uprooted easily

Many native tree seedlings had already arisen wild among the weeds, and were released over a month or so to provide the basis of the new bush garden. As is usually the case, karamu was the commonest wild native,

one of the many wild karamu seedlings found hidden by the invasive and very dominant Blue corn-lily (Aristea ecklonii – suppressed, top left and foreground – later easily uprooted)

but as the hand weeding proceeded over the next few months we also discovered many wild mapou and houpara seedlings, and several rewarewa.

Today we were thrilled to find two wild seedlings of pigeonwood (porokaiwhiri, Hedycarea arborea).

We have seldom seen pigeonwood outside of forest reserves. These seedlings have appeared in Michelle’s garden under a large Norfolk pine and young totara, with many species of trees and shrubs nearby, including those that attract birds that feed on berries.

There are no pigeonwood in this or neighbouring gardens, so a bird has fed on pigeonwood somewhere else, then come to Michelle’s garden to eat; perhaps the berries of native karamu, mapou or houpara (five-finger), or the exotic (and invasive) cotoneaster, ginger or Mexican fan or bangalow palms.

These two pigeonwood seedlings germinated among ground-covering weeds including Aristea ecklonii (Blue Corn lily), oxalis, ground-runners of ivy, kikuyu and Veldt grass. Fortunately we had suppressed most of these weeds a few months ago, leaving all the loose weed material as a thick mulch to rot those that did not uproot easily.

left of centre – the two tallest wild karamu seedlings under the totara and Norfolk pine, with cut ivy piled against the fence

Today we were able to uproot most of the remainder of the weeds, and used the newly pulled weeds to mulch a little more of the lawn’s weedy edge. The soil after weeding is a lovely loose loam, full of composted weeds and lawn clippings, making a seed-bed that will support many more seedlings.

However, the soil surface is drying out fast now the prolonged rainy period is over, so we placed handfuls of weed-material around each of the native seedlings, and shaded small seedlings and bare soil (potential seedbeds) with the woody ivy branches which had been cut and piled over the last few months.

The leaves still hanging from the cut ivy branches provide a scattered partial shade, and the woody branches will keep their shape well into summer, providing a “tent-frame” over which other plant materials can be hung once the ivy leaves fall from their branches.

a karamu seedling found wild elsewhere in the garden has been transplanted here in the rich, friable soil formed from decomposing grass clippings and weeds, and now partially shaded by some cut ivy

Not all seedlings survive, especially outside of the shade and protection of a compatible plant community. We hope to update you on the fate of these two pigeonwood seedlings in a future post.

Wikipedia has this to say about pigeonwood:

Hedycarya arborea, commonly known as pigeonwoodporokaiwhiri, and poporokaiwhiri[1] is an endemic tree of New Zealand. Found on both the North and South islands of the country, the tree grows to a height of 15 metres. The leaves are oval shaped with shallow serrations. Ripe fruits turn red and the plant received its common name back when it was assumed that the New Zealand wood pigeon particularly favoured them, based on observations of the birds eating the fruit. It has since been discovered that the New Zealand wood pigeon does not prefer these berries, and tends to eat them as a ‘famine food’ when better fare is not available”.

Availability for new clients

Chemical-free weed control for two of our major garden restorations has now been completed and those projects now only need monthly maintenance. This means we will have 8-10 hours a week free for an intensive start to one or two new garden restoration projects where some rapid transformation is needed in addition to the longer term transition to a low-maintenance outdoor environment.

Learn more about our garden services, what to expect, and how we do it.

Below: the narrow space between house and fence (1.5m including a paving block path, out of view in the foreground) has been transformed from kikuyu, bare clay and weed trees to native shrubs and trees that need only annual pruning to maintain access along the path directly beneath the windows, from where the residents can watch kereru, tui and songthrushes eating kawakawa fruit in summer.

Foreground left is a nikau, about 10 years old and a metre high. Each year for the next 20 years, one of its 2 or 3 new leaves a year will grow towards the house, obstructing the path, but in this seldom-used area it can be pushed aside, or if necessary tied back or even cut off.

Much later, it will present only a single trunk, and each year two or three of the leaves, canopying the path and surrounding garden from above, will fall to the ground and be carried down the back to add to the natural environment (and invertebrate habitat) under larger trees.

There’s nothing more splendid to watch from your kitchen table than a kereru feasting on nikau fruit an arm’s length away, but if the big leaves are not for you you could skip the nikau and just have karamu, kawakawa and smaller shrubs and groundcovers, such as the sedges (Carex lambertiana) shown here. A couple of seedlings planted here have multiplied themselves by both seed and division, and will continue to spread until they cover the ground without further intervention.

More about Kawakawa – male flowers fully mature now!

This male kawakawa tree on the forest edge now has fully mature flowers, some with the pollen being shed as a white dust, coating leaves … and hands:

Meanwhile, in our garden the male flowers don’t have much pollen dust yet.

If you look really closely at the flowers on the female trees you can see the little receptacles that will receive the pollen from the male trees.

kawakawa unripe fruit

The black dots that form on the female flowers will eventually become seeds once the fruits are ripe in Spring or Summer.

In late Spring the kereru will start visiting daily to check out the fruit for ripeness

starting the season by eating the orange ends of partially ripe ones